Mind Prey

Lester said.
    “He plays computer games—he won’t throw out a piece of technology like a new flip phone,” Lucas said.
    The FBI tech, an older man with a silvery crewcut and striped clip-on tie, said, “The big question is, how do we hold him on the phone, if he answers it?”
    “We’re working on it,” Lucas said, leaning forward in his chair. “We talked to one of the local rock-radio stations—the general manager is a friend of mine, and the only people who’d know about this would be him, one DJ, and an engineer. We’re gonna have the DJ call, with a contest they’ve been running. It’s a real contest, real prizes, and it’ll really go out over the air. The only difference being that we’ll feed them the phone number. If he doesn’t answer the first time, we’ll try again in a few hours. If he answers—whenever he answers—we’ll have the DJ ready to go. The typical air time, for one of these contest things, is only about a minute or a little more. We’re working out credible ways to stretch it.”
    “Unless we’re lucky, we’ll need at least two or three minutes to get a really good fix,” the tech said. “You gotta hold him on there.”
    “He’s a gamer—we’re gonna appeal to his vanity,” Lucas said. “He’ll stay on long enough to deal with the question. And when he answers, if he’s right, the DJ’s gonna say, ‘Hang on while I do an intro to the next song.’ Then he’ll do it—take his time, maybe do a little ad—and then come back for a mailing address.”
    “We’ll never get an address,” Lester said. He grinned. “But wouldn’t that be something?”
    Lucas shook his head. “He’d just give us some bullshit. But if we can hold him on that long, we ought to get the fix.”
    “When you say, ‘Really good fix,’ what does that mean?” Lester asked the tech. Dumbo frowned. The conversation seemed to be flowing around him. “A half-mile, a block, six inches, what?”
    “If we could risk riding the signal in, we could get it right down to the house,” the tech said. “As it is, we’ll be able to put you on the right block.”
    “Why not go closer?” Dumbo asked.
    “Because if he’s really nuts, he might slit their throats and run for it,” the tech said, turning to his boss. “He’d hear the choppers coming when they were six blocks away.”
    Lucas said, “You get us to the block, we’ll have him out of there in an hour, guaranteed.”
    “If you can get us the air time, we’ll put you on the block,” the tech said.
    On the way out of the building, Lester said, “Do you believe them?”
    Lucas nodded. “Yeah. This is what the feebs are good at—technology. If he answers the phone, and we can keep him on, they’ll track him.”
    “Dumbo was right about one thing—it’s getting long,” Lester said. He glanced at his watch as if to check the date. “The asshole won’t keep them much more than four or five days at the outside. The pressure’ll get to him.”
    “How about the full-court-press idea?” Lucas asked.
    “Anderson’s trying to set it up, but it’ll be tomorrow before we’re ready. It’s a goddamned administrative nightmare. Even then…I don’t know. There are too many people involved. Somebody will fuck it up.”
    “It’s a shot,” Lucas said. “What about that guy Black and Sherrill were tracking? The kid who liked sex and fire?”
    “John Mail,” Lester said. “That’s a definite washout. I don’t know why, but Black left a note for me. They’re looking into three other possibilities.”
    “Shit,” Lucas said. “The guy sounded good.”
     
    W ITH TWO SETS of cellular tracking equipment, they would need six helicopters, one flying high and two flying low in each of two groups. The gear from Chicago arrived first, along with three techs, and they busied themselves fixing odd-looking globe antennas to the support struts on the choppers. The gear from Los Angeles arrived two hours later, and the other group was put together. When the choppers were ready, and the equipment checked, they assembled on a landing pad at the airport.
    “All you have to do,” one of the techs told the assembled pilots, “is generally face in the direction we tell you, and hold it there. The instruments will do the fine tuning. And keep track of what you’re doing: I don’t want to get hit by a goddamned jumbo jet because you get interested in what we’re doing, and I don’t want anybody running into anybody