“I don’t think so. That’s a lot to ask.”
“Sarah knows that you’re not in Chicago anymore. She thinks that you’re safely out of the country. Visiting her now can only worry her and put you both in danger. And that’s if it goes perfectly. You told her to expect to be out of touch for a time.”
“When can I be in touch?” said Marcia. “Never?”
“No. When it’s safe.”
“We’re heading in the direction of Los Angeles right now. It’s night. After what happened in San Francisco, they must think we’re as far from California as we can get.”
“Maybe you’re right,” he conceded. “They won’t expect me to do anything risky again for a while. Maybe if we keep it simple and quick, we can pull this off.”
“You seem different,” Marcia said.
“How am I different?” he said.
“This is the first time since we left Chicago that you forgot to mention that we’re doomed. What’s changed?”
“I’m still doomed,” he said. “But at the moment we’re free, driving along a moonlit sea. I haven’t seen anybody following us away from San Francisco.”
“Come on.”
“I think it was the money,” he said. “Hiding was hard and frightening, and forcing my family to lie and use false names was worse. But now, I realize how much the money bothered me too. I wanted to believe I wasn’t the bad guy, but I still had the money. As long as I kept it I was a thief.”
“And now you don’t have it,” she said.
“Nope. The US Treasury Department has the twenty million. It’s out of my hands.”
“So now you’re a happy pauper.”
“I’m not a pauper. I invested the money over thirty years ago, and the investments did well. But what’s left is invested in names that haven’t been compromised yet. If I send the money from those accounts to the government too, then those identities will be burned, including Henry and Marcia Dixon. If we run out of people to be, we’ll be caught or killed.”
“If we’re still in danger, why are you letting me go see Sarah?”
“Because I can’t stop you.”
They reached Los Angeles late that night and Hank drove to UCLA to look around, but didn’t drive past Sarah’s apartment. Hank skirted the block and looked down the street from the intersection to try to detect any surveillance operations in nearby buildings or spot surveillance vehicles parked in the street. But Sarah’s apartment building was one of several, so there would be dozens of windows that faced hers.
“I don’t see anybody who might be watching her place,” Hank said.
“Good,” said Marcia.
“But I wouldn’t necessarily see them from here.” Hank decided not to tell her the rest. This wasn’t some gang of criminals who had been searching for him. They could be watching Sarah’s apartment from one of the geosynchronous satellites that were always over this part of California. Her computer could easily be monitored. They could have planted microphones and cameras in Sarah’s car and her apartment, and be using her phone’s GPS to track her movements. Equipment hidden in her television cable box could be sending reports every second. They could be watching her a hundred ways at once.
But they might not be. Sarah wasn’t connected with him directly. She had visited her mother only twice during the time Peter Caldwell was living in Chicago. Military intelligence had seen him in San Francisco only a day ago, and he had been alone. If they believed he had killed Zoe McDonald, they would have no reason to watch her daughter.
Hank drove to John Wayne Airport in Orange County and rented a silver Nissan Altima. At a private parking lot for the airport he paid to park his BMW for a few days. Next he drove the Altima to a hotel near Disneyland and slept for the night.
The next morning Hank drove Marcia to the mall in Costa Mesa and helped her pick out clothes for Sarah. She chose clothes that every young woman in the area seemed to be wearing that fall—tight designer jeans, knee-high leather boots, and big-necked loose shirts. She bought a short dark-brown wig and oversized sunglasses. Hank told her not to make Sarah look like anyone, but like everyone.