Chapter Four

It was a perfect, blue-skied morning in Washington - well, almost perfect. The Mastermind was on my cell phone. 'Hello, Alex. Did you miss me? I missed you, partner.'

The bastard had been making obscene, threatening phone calls to me every morning for over a week. Sometimes he just cursed at me for several minutes; this morning, he sounded positively civil.

'What's your day look like? Any big plans?' he asked.

Actually, yes. I was planning to catch him. I was inside an FBI van that was already on the move. We were tracing his call and would have the exact location very soon. A court order had been put through the FBI and the phone company was involved in 'trapping' the call. I was in the rear of the speeding van with three Bureau agents and my partner, John Sampson. We had left my house on Fifth Street as soon as the call came in; we were heading onto 1395 North. My job was to keep him on the line until the trace was completed.

'Tell me about Betsey Cavalierre. Why did you pick her instead of me?' I asked him.

'Oh, she's much, much prettier,' the Mastermind said. 'More fuckable.'

One of the techie agents was talking in the background. I tried to listen to both conversations. The agent said, 'He's living up to his name. We've got a wire tap and should be able to trace the call immediately. It isn't happening for some reason.'

'Why the hell not?'Sampson asked and moved closer to the agents.