She replied, "Better be. Pull over at the curb."

A moment later I said, "I'm here. What now?"

"Now you strip and throw yer clothes out the window. Shoes, everything."

"Look, I'm wearing a really expensive suit, and"

"You ain't naked in one minute, yer very nice suit's gonna be confetti."

Before she could punch off I said, "Wait!"

"What?"

"Is there a pressure switch under the driver's seat?"

"Yeah."

"Then . . . how"

"Figure it out, Drummond." After a moment, she added, "'Course you ain't been all that bright so far. So if I hear a big boom and see a bunch of yer guts flyin' through the air, I'll know you f.u.c.ked up," She laughed and punched off.

I ordinarily like a woman with a hearty sense of humor. I definitely didn't like her. I wondered for a moment if she was the one who did June Lacy.

Anyway, the tie and shirt came off almost effortlessly. Then, one at a time, I brought my feet up to the dash and, one shoe and one sock at a time, dispensed with my footwear without a hitch. Obviously, the pants posed the really tricky challenge, and had I not practiced this drill a few times as a teenager in the backseat of Papa Drummond's '71 Buick, Mama Drummond wouldn't have to worry about a Christmas gift for me anymore. But trust me, it's a very different pressure, wriggling out of your trousers to get laid and trying to keep your a.s.s connected to your torso. I was down to my undershorts and I decided, as a matter of pride, practicality, and modesty, that this was it. No mas.

I dialed Jennie, who answered, "What are you doing? Clothes are flying out of that van."

"How do you Hey, are you still covering me?"

"I'm . . . yes."

"But Rita said"

"Rita lied."

"Get rid of the escorts."

"I can't. I'm sorry"

"Yes . . . you canmy a.s.s is on the line here."

For a moment she did not respond, Eventually, she said, "Sean, you're driving around our capital in a large explosive device. Did you really believe we were going to eliminate all coverage?"

"I'm sorry. Didn't you say I should trust you?"

I think she put her hand over the phone, because I dimly overheard her speaking with somebody in the background. Then she said, "We did not predict this. The White House and the D.C. police are going nuts on us right now. I've lost some authority and a lot of flexibility here. Understand?"

I didn't really want to hear this. I had become a lobotomized p.a.w.n in a game being played between Jennie and Barnes, and now even the federal government was in the act. Everyone had a piece of me but me.

I drew a few deep breaths and tried to get myself under control. I said, "Incidentally, the woman on the phone has to be nearby She said that if I blow up, pieces of Sean Drummond would splatter her windshield."

"An interesting way to put it."

"Tell me about it."

"She's two blocks over. Heading south, like you."

"Why didn't you tell me?"

"You didn't ask."

"Is she under observation, too?"

"Don't be such an optimist. Your last call, she stayed on too long. But it was a moving signal. We only got her basic proximity."

"All right. What next?"

"This phase is a head game. They want to isolate you from us, geographically and psychologically. They're trying to exert their control and trying to throw us off balance." To rea.s.sure me that this wasn't a one-way street, I guess, Jennie added, "We're gaming it as we go along. Expect them to try a switch of some sort."

I thought about it a moment. I said, "Who's the optimist now?"

"What's that mean?"

"Maybe they'll order me to drive to the White House and then blow me up."

"I. . . We're alert to that possibility"

"I see."

"We just ordered all federal facilities to put into effect their barrier plans. You won't get through."

"I'll be sure to pa.s.s that along."

"Do just that. They need to know it's not an option."

What she diplomatically failed to mention, I was sure, was the Feds also had a more proactive plan in place. If I moved within two blocks of the White House, a SWAT sharpshooter would put ten slugs through the driver of this van. "Jennie?"

"What?"

"Whose side are you on?"

"Don't even ask that"

"Sorry I'm . . . Well, my day's not really going all that well."

"I've had better days, too. Remember, you may feel alone, but you're not."

"Oh . . . you've got sticks of TNT under your a.s.s, too?"

She ignored that and said, "Listen, somebody's trying to reach me and Barnes may be trying to reach you." She hung up.

So I sat for a moment in my undershorts, feeling stupid, humiliated, and vulnerable. I tried to think through my options. It was a brief moment. I had none.

The phone rang, and I said, "Drummond."

"Hey, a.s.shole, you're not completely naked," the woman informed me.

"Give me a break. I'm down to my underpants."

"Get rid of 'em."

"No."

'Wo? Hey, don't f.u.c.k with me, pal."

"Up yours."

"I'll push this little b.u.t.ton."

"Lady, I'm tired, I'm frustrated, and I'm in a really foul mood. If you want to spread me and fifty million bucks across thirty blocks over a pair of undershorts, do it. I'm going out in my underpants."

I closed my eyes, held my breath, and waited to be turned into pasta paste. You have to draw the line somewhere.

Eventually, she said, "Feisty, aren't you?"

"Just p.i.s.sed."

"Uh-huh. Well, this one's no-s.h.i.t nonnegotiable. Open the glove box." So I did. She said, "Take out the phone and throw yers out the window. We don't want no trackin' devices, do we?"

I reached into the glove box, withdrew the cell phone, and tossed mine out the window. The new cell phone rang. She said, "Don't even think of callin' the Feds again. I'll know, and it'll be your last call. Now drive to Rosslyn, through Georgetown, and I'll call you. Try anything stupid, they'll be sc.r.a.pin' you off the sides of buildings." She punched off.

I put the car in gear, began to pull outthen slammed on the brakes. What the . . . how had she known I was in my underpants? I looked carefully at the cars around me and carefully at the pedestrians on the sidewalk. Though I saw no one looking back at me, there had to be a spotter.

Then it hit me. I began a visual inspection of the cab and the rear of the van. Well I'll beclipped to the shade visor on the pa.s.senger side was a miniature camera, directed at me, broadcasting my every move. Somewhere else, I was sure, would be a microphone. Obviously, they had seen and probably heard everything.

I looked dead into the camera, lifted up my left hand, and stuck up my middle finger.

Fortunately, there was no big boom, however, the phone rang again. It was her, and she said, "That reminds me, Drummond. Git rid of that watch, too."

s.h.i.t.

But rush hour was getting into full swing, and without my helpful blue light it took me twenty minutes to get to Georgetown, and another ten to crawl down the length of heavily congested M Street and go left onto Key Bridge.

As I stared ahead at the gla.s.s towers of Rosslyn, it struck me, and I'm sure it also struck Jennie and Rita, that moving me out of the District was another shrewd move. Our whole two hours of preparation had been spent coordinating and rehearsing with the D.C. Police Department. An inst.i.tution accustomed to being bossed around by the Feds. An inst.i.tution that exerted monolithic control over everything inside the District's boundaries. The Virginia side of the river was bureaucratic chaos. The police departments were balkanized by county, and coordination between the Bureau and the corresponding local departments would be a hopeless mess.

As Rita Sanchez had said, I knew it to be true that most bad guys aren't particularly clever. In fact, most are annoyingly stupid. I had spent part of my career defending them, and I was frequently astounded, often appalled, and occasionally overwhelmed by the monumentally idiotic things they did. The plea bargain was contrived on the very premise that most criminals are just too mortally ignorant to even waste a trial over.

Regardless of what had shaped or perverted Jason Barnes's character, he was different. As far as we knew, he came to the arts of larceny and murder a stone-cold virgin. Yet he had come so far, so fast. His were crimes of pa.s.sion, yet exhibited none of the telltale rashness, disorder, or carelessness that nearly always define that criminal breed. He had made none of the usual beginner's mistakes, or even a mistake one might expect from a hardened veteran. Up against the very best American law enforcement had to offerthe best coppers the world had to offerhe was running circles around them.

Unbelievable.

I wondered what Jason had up his sleeve for his next move. I couldn't even guess. But ifas Jennie was convinceda man's past is the chronicle to his future, it was going to be something else.

I was about to find out.

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT.

Halfway across Key Bridge, she called and said, "Go straight to Seven Corners."

"And you go straight to h.e.l.l." a.s.suming she was observing me on Candid Camera, for good measure, I gave her another bird.

"Yeah? Well, who's the one drivin' 'round in his undershorts with a bomb under his a.s.s?"

Good point. "Hey, I've got an idea, lady. Give yourself up. I'm a lawyermaybe I'll keep your a.s.s from frying in an electric chair."

"Shut up, or you'll get to h.e.l.l first." She sounded really indignant, and hung up. Obviously, I needed to be careful here. The electric chair is sort of a hot-b.u.t.ton topic with criminals. Also, women can be really touchy, and you never know when it's that time of the month.

With that s.e.xist thought in mind, I smiled into the camera, hoping she'd see I was a good sport.

Anyway, I knew how to get to Seven Corners, was aware it was both a location and a shopping center, and I even knew how it got its name. It was in the county of Fairfax, a mile or so south of Falls Church, perched at the strategic junction of seven major arteries. It was a perfect example of what happens when urban planning boards are idiotsa congested maze of shopping malls, small roads, and substantial highways, surrounded by densely built-up suburbs with myriad side streets.

There were so many roads, large and small, leading into and out of Seven Corners it would take an entire field army to block them all off. In short, the perfect place for a shuffle, and somehow, I was sure, this was the decisive ground and the decisive moment.

So off I sped, straight through the steel-and-concrete corridors of Rosslyn, to the Route 50 exit, and then toward Seven Corners. I considered calling Jennie to forewarn her, and even more quickly concluded it would be both stupid and superfluous. With all the people watching, listening, and electronically tracking me, I felt like I was on one of those TV reality shows, this one called How to Saveor Not Your Own a.s.s.

After another twenty minutes, I ended up at a stoplight, and to my right were two large strip malls, and ahead, off to my left, the lower parking lot for the Seven Corners Shopping Center, a two-level extravaganza, long and rectangular, half a million square feet of the best the capitalist world had to offer, where you could scratch virtually any materialistic itch and gratify any spending impulse. I love America.

In addition to all else, there had to be a tracking device in the van, because she called and said, "Now, straight to the intersection of Route 50 and Route 7, hang a left, and go to the upper parkin' lot of the shopping center. Keep the phone to yer ear."

, I could hear the tension in her voice, and my heart began to race. The upper parking lot was around the other side of the shopping center, a mere few yards from the crossroads of four major highways running east, west, north, and south, the most options for egress. Clearly we had a major problem. Barnes had thought this through with frightening cleverness.

I hoped Jennie and Rita knew I was here, and I hoped they recognized what an ideal spot this was.

I wheeled into the north end of the upper parking lot, a long and narrow patch of black tarmac, approximately sixty yards in depth by about three hundred yards in length. She said, "Pull to the curb right next to the shoppin' center."

So I did.

"Now, keep going . . . little further . . . little morenow, stop."

It struck me that we had a big problem here. The parking s.p.a.ces in the lot were filled with the usual mix of cars, SUVs, and minivans, and more cars were circling around and waiting for a s.p.a.ce to open. Sated shoppers were coming out of the shopping center, toting bags of loot and dragging their kiddies, even as large numbers of hungry shoppers were crossing the lot and heading inside. Also, while the shopping center was as large as most malls, it wasn't enclosedand thus wasn't labeled a mail-but instead had open walkways under overhangs where throngs of shoppers strolled and noodled.

If this thing went south, a lot of innocent people could get caught in the crossfire. If Jason's friend got nervous and ignited the little device wired to this van, we would have a major disaster, mostly moms and kiddies who would never know what hit them, not to mention moi.