“You believe him?”

“He’s got a Big Block tat on the back of his neck,” Beckman said. “Either he’s a member of the gang or a serious wannabe. Their initiation is blood, not a carjacking.”

“What did he say about the vic?”

“Only that he was an ‘Arab-lookin’ dude,’” Beckman said.

“Age? Clothing?”

“Twenties, well dressed.”

The kind of guy who would probably slip through spot-check profiling, which the SFPD said they didn’t do. The truth was, every metropolitan police department in the nation did it. Chances were pretty good that granny wouldn’t be blowing up a street car unless she was wearing a head scarf, and Josh or Tyler was less likely to take out a federal building than Muhammad or Omar.

Jack was about to ask if he could talk to the kid when three black SUVs pulled up to the perimeter. A moment later the area was flooded with men in suits, one of whom-a hefty six-footer with the clean, resolute look of a Mercury astronaut-approached Beckman. “Where’s the officer in charge?”

“Who are you?” Jack asked.

The suit reached into his jacket and brought out a set of credentials. Field Director Carl Forsyth, FBI. The agent in charge, by his manner. The man’s eyes were still on Beckman. “Are you gonna point me in the right direction or does this loser do all your talking?”

“Whoa,” Jack said. “What the hell is that supposed to-”

“You mean ‘loser’? I know who you are. You used to have that show on TV, Truth Tellers.”

Jack stiffened. “That’s right.”

“And you’re still working? I figured we’d seen the last of you.”

It was the kind of derision that Jack had gotten used to over the last couple years, but it had been a while since he’d encountered it. After losing his job at the network in a very public way-thanks to an orchestrated smear campaign that had pretty much destroyed his reputation and wrongfully painted him as a bigot-he had removed himself from the national stage, content to work in relative obscurity as a freelance news producer.