The Blue Nowhere

out it could be bad for me and for a lot of people.” He let Bishop mull these intra-agency politics over for a moment. Chambers then said, “I was a cop before I moved inside the beltway.”
    “Where, sir?”
    “I was an M.P. in the navy. Spent most of my time in San Diego.”
    “Broke up some fights, did you?” Bishop asked.
    “Only if the army was winning. Listen, Frank, if that boy is helping you catch this perp, okay, go ahead. You can keep him until the release order expires.”
    “Thank you, sir.”
    “But I don’t need to tell you that you’re the one who’ll get hung out to dry if he hacks into somebody’s Web site. Or if he disappears.”
    “I understand, sir.”
    “Keep me informed, Frank.”
    The phone went dead.
    Bishop hung up, shook his head.
    Sorry. . . .
    “What was that all about?” Shelton asked.
    But the detective’s explanation was interrupted when they heard a triumphant shout from Miller. “Got him!” he called excitedly.
    Linda Sanchez was nodding her weary head. “We’ve managed to recover a list of Web sites Gillette logged onto just before he escaped.”
    She handed Bishop some printouts. They contained a lot of gibberish, computer symbols and fragments of data and text that made no sense to him. But among the fragments were references to a number of airlines and information about flights that evening from San Francisco International to other countries.
    Miller handed him another sheet of paper. “He also downloaded this—the schedule of buses from Santa Clara to the airport.” The pear-shaped detective smiled with pleasure—presumably at having recovered from his earlier bumbling.
    “But how would he pay for the airfare?” Shelton wondered out loud.
    “Money? Are you kidding?” Tony Mott asked with a sour laugh.“He’s probably at an ATM right now, emptying your bank account.”
    Bishop had a thought. He went to the phone in the analysis lab and picked it up, hit REDIAL.
    The detective spoke with someone on the other end of the line for a moment. Then he hung up.
    Bishop reported his conversation to the team. “The last number Gillette dialed was a Goodwill store a couple of miles from here in Santa Clara. They’re closed but the clerk’s still there. He said somebody fitting Gillette’s description came in about twenty minutes ago. He bought a black trench coat, a pair of white jeans, an Oakland A’s cap and a gym bag. He remembered him because he kept looking around and seemed really nervous. Gillette also asked the clerk where the nearest bus stop was. There’s one near the store and the airport bus does stop there.”
    Mott said, “It takes the bus about forty-five minutes to get up to the airport.” He checked his pistol and started to rise.
    “No, Mott,” Bishop said. “We’ve been through this before.”
    “Come on,” the young man urged. “I’m in better shape than ninety percent of the rest of the force. I bicycle a hundred miles a week and I run two marathons a year.”
    Bishop said, “We’re not paying you to run Gillette to ground. You stay here. Or better yet go home and get some rest. You too, Linda. Whatever happens with Gillette we’re still going to be working overtime to find the killer.”
    Mott shook his head, not at all happy about the detective’s order. But he agreed.
    Bob Shelton said, “We can be at the airport in twenty minutes. I’ll call in his description to the Port Authority police. They’ll cover all the bus stops. But I tell you— I’m personally going to be at the international terminal. I can’t wait to see the look in that man’s eyes when I say hello.” The stocky detective cracked the first smile Bishop had seen in days.

CHAPTER 00010100 / TWENTY
    W yatt Gillette stepped off the bus and watched it pull away from the curb. He looked up into the night sky. Specters of clouds moved quickly overhead and sprinkled droplets of cold rain on the ground. The moisture brought out the smells of Silicon Valley: auto exhaust and the medicinal scent of eucalyptus trees.
    The bus—which wasn’t bound for the airport at all but was making local stops in Santa Clara County—had deposited him on a dark, empty street in the pleasant suburb of Sunnyvale. He was a good ten miles from the San Francisco airport, where Bishop, Shelton and a slew of police officers would be frantically searching for an Oakland A’s fan in white jeans and a black raincoat.
    As soon as he’d left the Goodwill store he’d