Mortal Prey

phone. It goes to John Ross. The call was made at 5:10 P.M. from Dallaglio’s home office.”
    “Somebody called Ross?”
    “Yeah. Probably Dallaglio. There’s a phone call from that home office number to Dallaglio’s mother’s home, and that lasted twelve minutes. Then, one minute later, another call to Executive Air, which we figure was arrangements on the plane. And one minute after that, the call to Ross’s, which lasted for two minutes. We think it was Dallaglio, working down a list.”
    Lucas nodded: That seemed likely. He tapped the Executive Air call. “I wonder if Rinker used those guys—if that’s how she got around. Has anybody looked at Executive Air?”
    Sally shook her head. “No. We can. But that could be quite a few people….”
    “So get one of your paper experts to do it—find out who works there, cross-reference them against Rinker’s known work record. Check criminal backgrounds, see if there was any kind of link between Executive Air and the assholes. The Mafias, or whatever they are.”
    Sally nodded. “There’s still the problem of Ross. That he might have set it up.”
    “We should talk to Mrs. Dallaglio again. See if there was any kind of competitive thing going on.”
    “Think she’d tell us?”
    “Why not? She’s not a hood—we can’t hang her. She doesn’t know nuthin’ about nuthin’.”
    “Too late now,” Sally said. Lucas turned to look at the wall clock. Ten after three.
    “First thing tomorrow,” he said.
    They agreed to meet in the hotel lobby at eight o’clock. They’d had enough for the night. Derik said he had a few more things to do, that he’d be another fifteen minutes, and Lucas and Sally walked out to the stairs. On the way down, Lucas stopped, said, “Goddamnit.”
    “What?”
    “I gotta go back. I need to talk to Derik. I’ll catch a ride back with him.”
    “Something important? A coup?”
    “Probably not. Another detail to check.”
    Back upstairs, he asked Derik how long it would take to get all of Ross’s phone calls for the past two months, since the shooting in Mexico, both outgoing and incoming, with IDs on each phone. “We practically live in the phone company computer,” he said. “I could call a guy, get them here in a half hour.”
    “Call the guy. And I’ll need all of Patricia Hill’s calls from the same time. I’m gonna get a Coke. Maybe spend a little time here…”
     
    LUCAS GOT A COKE from the canteen, and when he got back, Derik said, “We know six phones that he uses personally. We’re getting lists for all six. They’ll come up here….” And he showed Lucas how to manipulate the mail feature on the group’s main computer.
    “How long?”
    “He said he’d run them right away. The rumor is getting around that we’re in trouble, so our guys back in Washington are doing everything they can.”
    “Good enough.” Lucas sat down and stretched. “You can take off if you like.”
    “I might, if you can handle this. You could call me at the hotel if you have trouble.”
    “Should be okay. I get along with computers.”
    “You were Davenport Simulations, somebody told me.”
    “Used to be. Got bought out by the current management,” Lucas said.
    “Hope you made a shitload of money.”
    Lucas nodded. “I did, pretty much. Right there in the middle of the dot-com thing.”
    “But the company’s still around, right? Doing all right?”
    “Yup. I’m out of it, don’t even own any stock—but from what I hear, they’re doing okay.”
     
    DERIK FUSSED A BIT , then left, leaving Lucas in the quiet conference room. He checked the computer every few minutes, then found that he could sign onto his home ISP and get at his e-mail. That sucked up a half hour, deleting the fast money and pornography offers, checking a few of the Porsche aftermarket companies. Then it occurred to him to check boat companies, because the FBI computer was so quick, and he started downloading photos of shallow-water boats from Maverick, and then he got onto the Boston Whaler and Hurricane sites, went out to look at C-Dory and a few more. By the time he got back to the official mail, it was after four.
    When he checked the mail, he found lists for the six phones that Ross was known to use. He took a while to figure out the formatting, then started with the longest list, which showed more than a thousand calls. On the fourth list, linked to the unlisted office phone, he got lucky. A phone call went into Ross’s office at