Two Little Girls in Blue by Mary Higgins Clark

been the Huntington Hartford Museum. Beside him stood a shabby cart, covered with plastic and filled with old clothes and newspapers, providing him some protection from a potential observer. Like a score of other agents in the vicinity, his cell phone had been programmed to pick up the call that Franklin Bailey would receive from the Pied Piper. Now he watched Bailey begin to drag the luggagecart across the street. Even from a distance, Sommers could see that Bailey was straining with the weight of the suitcases and was quickly becoming soaked from the now-heavy rain.
    With narrowed eyes, Sommers scanned the circumference of Columbus Circle. Was the kidnapper and his gang somewhere in the crowd of people scurrying under umbrellas to their destinations? Or was it a single person who would send Bailey on a wild-goose chase all over New York in his attempt to identify and shake off anyone following him?
    As Bailey moved out of sight, Sommers got up slowly, pushed his shopping cart to the corner, and waited for the light. He knew cameras hooked up at the Time Warner building and in the rotunda were filming every inch of the scene.
    He crossed Fifty-eighth Street and turned left. There a junior agent, also dressed in the shabby garb of the homeless, took over his cart. Sommers got into one of the waiting FBI cars, and two minutes later, changed into a Burberry raincoat and matching hat, was dropped off at the Holiday Inn on Fifty-seventh Street, half a block from Ninth Avenue.
    *   *   *
    â€œBert, this is the Pied Piper. State your location.”
    â€œI’m parked at Fifty-fifth Street between Eighth and Ninth. I’m in front of a hydrant. I can’t stay long. I warn you. According to Bailey, this place is swarming with the FBI.”
    â€œI would expect no less of them. I want you to driveto Tenth Avenue, then turn east on Fifty-sixth Street. Pull over to the curb as soon as you can and wait for further instructions.”
    *   *   *
    A moment later, Clint’s cell phone rang. He was parked on West Sixty-first Street in the car he had stolen. He was given the same instructions by the Pied Piper.
    *   *   *
    Franklin Bailey waited on the northwest corner of Ninth Avenue and Fifty-seventh Street. By now he was soaked to the skin and out of breath from pulling the heavy suitcases. Even the certainty that his every step had been tracked by FBI agents did nothing to relieve the stress of the cat-and-mouse game he was playing with the kidnappers. When the cell phone rang again, his hand shook so much that he dropped it. Praying that it was still functioning, he snapped it open and said, “I’m here.”
    â€œI can see that. You are now to walk to Fifty-ninth Street and Tenth Avenue. Go into the Duane Reade store on the northwest corner. Purchase a cell phone with prepaid hours and a box of trash bags. I will call you in ten minutes.”
    *   *   *
    He’s going to make him get rid of our phone, Agent Sommers thought as he stood in the driveway of the Holiday Inn and listened to the call. If he’s able to observe Bailey’s every move, he may be in one of those apartment buildings around here. He watched as a taxi pulled up across the street and a couple got out. Heknew that a dozen agents were driving cabs with other agents in the backseat. The plan was to drop the supposed passengers off near where Bailey was waiting so that if he were told to hail a cab it would not seem unusual that one became immediately available. But now the Pied Piper was trying to make sure that anyone following Bailey would become obvious.
    Four more blocks in this rain, dragging those suitcases, Sommers worried as he watched Bailey turn north, following the Pied Piper’s instructions. I just hope he doesn’t collapse before he gets to hand over the money.
    A car with Taxi and Limousine Commission license plates pulled up at the curb.