Don't Lose Her Read Online Free PDF Page B

Philadelphia for several years, had been in the detective bureau for a short time before the stink of bureaucracy sent me back to working the streets. Then one night while responding to a Center City holdup, someone’s bullet pierced my neck and my return fire blew the heart out of a thirteen-year-old child.
    I’d come to Florida to get away. But some things never leave you. I had a head full of such things. And one of them was the inability to sit still when someone needed me.
    â€œI fully understand,” I said to Duncan, meeting his eyes, giving him my best “sir, yes, sir,” attitude.
    He motioned me to the table.
    â€œWe have tapped into all the communications and computer lines here in the judge’s office in anticipation that whoever is responsible for Judge Manchester’s disappearance will make telephonic or digital contact,” Duncan said.
    â€œWe are also coordinating with all local law enforcement on a BOLO for the white van observed leaving the scene. And there is another team tracing all possible routes from that scene to access any additional video from both government and private security cameras.”
    Duncan looked up at me. “But as you might guess, that will take some time.”
    Perhaps the agent was trying to discern how long I’d been off the job: whether I’d been brainwashed by the movie and television depictions of the government’s Big Brother access to every mounted camera on every street corner and shop entrance and satellite lens in existence.
    I knew it didn’t work that way, even if it was in the interest of law enforcement to have the average citizen and especially the idiot criminal element believe it. It might be a deterrent, but it wasn’t true. Few of those cameras are monitored, or even maintained to ensure that they’re working. And there is no overwhelming computer net that links them all together. That fantasy has been around since Patrick McGoohan starred in the television series The Prisoner , and it isn’t any more a reality now than it was back then in 1967.
    The government net is increasing, and such surveillance might be scrapped together in a matter of weeks, but it wasn’t going to happen during a commercial break.
    Duncan stood at ease, as if his required update was finished. He waved a hand in Billy’s direction.
    â€œIf you would like to join Mr. Manchester in putting together a list of possible contacts, you are welcome to stay on as long as you wish.”
    I looked at Billy, who had returned to Diane’s desk.
    â€œWhat about the State Department?” I said to Duncan.
    The man raised his eyebrows.
    â€œYou already know the judge was working on the Escalante extradition,” I said. “The kidnapping of judges and journalists in South America is a well-known byproduct of the drug wars there. Would the idea that they might adopt the same techniques here not be an immediate summation of motivation?” I said, adopting the agent’s galling use of technical lawyer-ese.
    I watched Duncan’s eyes. The man was a rock. He didn’t give a single “tell.” No twitch, no crinkle of facial skin, no flit of an eye—a formidable poker player.
    â€œThat, Mr. Freeman, is not my purview,” he said, and turned away to his telephonic-digital-whatever-it-was that his team was focused on.
    â€œThus the State Department,” I said. But it could have been a statement to the wall. I went back to join Billy.
    He had reopened his laptop and was tapping away at keys in a way I had no chance of keeping up with.
    â€œHe threatened her, Max.”
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œMarty Andrews said Escalante made a veiled threat in open court this morning by commenting on her health and the health of our baby.”
    I stayed silent because I could feel the warm spark of anger flaring behind my eyes.
    Finally, I glanced over at the gathering of the feds.
    â€œThese guys know