Gone (Michael Bennett)

agents were born-and-bred Angelenos and were especially helpful on logistics. Bonding over some Chinese takeout, we pored over street and Google maps of Neves’s place in Reseda, trying to work out the angles, where best to place our vehicles for surveillance.
    With our players picked out and our surveillance plan finalized, we geared up with night-vision and video cameras around two a.m. We’d only made it as far as the Olympic Station’s garage when Emily’s phone rang.
    “OK,” she said into it, then slammed the door of the G-car she’d just opened.
    “That was the LA SAIC John Downey,” she said as she pointed toward the elevator. “We need to go back up. Apparently something from Perrine just came in upstairs.”
    Rushing back up into the third-floor office space, I thought I was going to see the big smart screen pulled down again, with a crowd of agents and cops standing around it. There were a lot of cops standing around, but this time, the screen was still up and everyone seemed to be looking at me.
    “In here, Mike,” Downey said, waving to me from the door of the space’s only private office. There were three techs in there with him, two of them tapping rapidly on laptops.
    “What is this?” I said.
    “It’s Perrine. The maniac’s just contacted the LAPD website. He says he wants a sit-down, to communicate with you face-to-face on Skype.”
    “Talk to me?” I said, squinting. “But I’m supposed to be in hiding. How does he even know I’m here in LA?”
    Downey shrugged.
    “I don’t know. All I know is that it’s an encrypted signal and we have NSA trying to trace it.”
    I have to admit, I got spooked then. Though I’d been at a few crime scenes, I’d kept a pretty low profile. Were the rumors right? Did Perrine really have a source in the task force? And what did it mean?
    I passed a hand through my hair.
    “I don’t know,” I said. “I’m not sure about this.”
    “I wouldn’t even ask you, Mike, but he has a hostage. He says he’s going to kill him in another five minutes if we don’t get you.”
    “Of course he does,” I said. “OK. I guess.”
    Downey took me over to the desk and sat me in front of a computer monitor. I took a deep breath when I saw the minimized Skype tab. I still didn’t like this. I had a sick feeling that there was something seriously wrong. Something we’d overlooked.
    A tech hit a button, and then Perrine was there. He was sitting in a beanbag chair next to a small, wide-eyed Mexican man who had tape over his wrists and ankles and mouth.
    There was some kind of metal wall behind them. They were in a van, I realized. Perrine lifted a tennis ball and bounced it off the floor and wall of the van beside the camera and then caught it again.
    When the hostage looked up, I saw his Roman collar. He was a priest! Perrine was holding a young priest hostage!
    “Detective!” Perrine bellowed as he glanced at the screen. “Detective, there you are, at long last. I was wondering if you’d ever show up. You’re looking tired. Having trouble sleeping, are we? Seriously, how have you been? How are the kids?”
    I wanted to tell the arrogant scumbag to go screw himself, but I couldn’t stop looking at the priest. The terror and pleading in his eyes. He was slight, in his early thirties. My heart went out to him. I needed to save this man’s life.
    “I’m here, Manuel,” I said. “So you can let that poor man go now, OK?”
    “Let him go? Good idea, Detective,” Perrine said, standing.
    The drug lord stepped offscreen. There was a sliding sound as the metal wall behind the priest moved sideways to reveal a blurring guardrail, the shoulder of a road, passing trees.
    “No!” I yelled as Perrine, coming back into the frame, reared up his heel and booted the priest in the chest.
    The man flew backward immediately out the van door, into the darkness. Without a cry. Without a sound. The man was just gone.

CHAPTER 82
     
    DEAR GOD, I THOUGHT , feeling dizzy in the cramped, suddenly too-hot office. Dear God.
    I watched as Perrine slid the door shut with a bang. He dusted off his hands as he plopped himself back down in the beanbag chair. He lifted the tennis ball and bounced it off the floor and wall of the van again.
    “Now, where were we?” he said, catching the ball. “Oh, yes. Your kids. How is the law-enforcement version of the Duggar familia? ”
    “You bastard,” I said.
    “Mike, Mike. Please,” Perrine said. “Do not mourn. That