Gone (Michael Bennett)

scale the driveway gate like squirrels.
    Parker ignored me. I’d only said it to tease her. This was an illegal, unauthorized black-bag job if there ever was one.
    One I thoroughly approved of, actually. Following the letter of the law when Perrine was out there wiping out families and cops would be like obeying the traffic laws while driving a dying relative to the emergency room. In a word, stupid.
    We needed information, the faster the better. We needed to be on Scanlon, on his phone, neck deep in his life, before he had the slightest inkling of what was what. My eyes were locked firmly on the prize, namely, a world without Manuel Perrine. I’d cut more corners than a miter saw to take out the son of a bitch who was still out there on the loose, trying to kill my family.
    It was actually only five minutes from when the FBI Watergate plumber guys hopped the fence until it slowly started opening. The older agent opened the door formally, like a butler, as we came up the drive.
    “Where’s Fido?” Parker asked.
    “Out like a light. After we picked the lock and tossed him a treat, he got real sleepy all of a sudden. Funny, huh?”

CHAPTER 51
     
    PARKER HANDED ME SOME gloves and night-vision goggles from a bag of goodies she had brought with her, and we proceeded to toss the house. We were careful not to disturb anything. Not just because we didn’t want Scanlon to know, but because there were guns everywhere. A Taurus .380 in the bathroom cabinet, a .45 M1911 under the sink in the kitchen. A locked-and-loaded, fully automatic MAC-10 was taped to the underside of the night table in the master bedroom.
    “Mr. Scanlon seems like a fairly cautious individual,” I whispered as I showed it to Agent Parker.
    The treasure trove we found was in the closet of a bedroom that Scanlon used for an office.
    On top of a case of printer paper, we found a dozen boxes of portable disposable cell phones. Half of them were empty.
    The phones were the unregistered kind that narcotics dealers liked to use and throw away. What got our blood pumping was that the boxes with the missing phones still had the serial numbers on them. Our techs could contact the company, and we could put a trace out on every single one of them. If Scanlon had one in his pocket, we could find him, even if it was off.
    “Please let this work,” Parker said as she snapped picture after picture of the boxes.
    We spotted some guy crossing the street toward the house just as we were about to go out.
    “Is it Scanlon?” Parker asked.
    I quickly checked the passport photograph we had. The guy coming toward the gate looked young and was too dark and thin to resemble the blond, bearlike Scanlon.
    We fished out our Glocks as the guy punched a code into the keypad beside the gate. It was evident that the guy was in his early twenties as he came through the buzzing gate and up the driveway. He was wearing white iPod earbuds.
    “Whoever this guy is, he doesn’t seem to have a care in the world,” I whispered.
    We stepped back as the guy keyed open the door.
    As he closed the door behind him, I put my Glock to his brain stem. He bolted forward like he’d been Tasered and head-butted the door. A hiss of N-word-laced rap drivel cut the silence as I pulled out his earbuds for him.
    “Don’t move,” I said.
    “What is this? Who the hell are you?” the young man said.
    “Who the hell are we?” I shot back, full of attitude. “Who the hell are you?”
    “I’m Donny Pearson, from up the street. Tommy just called and said he’d be out of town for a few days and asked if I’d feed Christobel, man.”
    Parker took out his wallet and nodded. I showed the guy my badge and holstered the gun.
    “I got nothing to do with anything illegal. I swear to God!” Pearson said.
    “Just listen to me, Mr. Pearson,” I said. “Did he call you on your cell or your house phone?”
    “My cell,” he said, taking out his iPhone.
    Parker took it and quickly compared the phone number Scanlon had phoned in on with the ones we’d found in the closet. Then she gave me a palm-stinging high five.
    “Bingo was his name-o,” she said.

CHAPTER 52
     
    WE WERE HOMING IN on Perrine now. We could feel it.
    On the way back to the hotel, I drove while Emily disseminated the intel to just about every card in the multi-jurisdictional Rolodex. The LAPD phone people got a call, as did the FBI, CIA, NSA, and even Gray Fox, the army Special Ops communication specialists.
    Back in my hotel