The Narrows - Michael Connelly [71]
I now believed that McCaleb may have circled the word because he thought it was wrong. The search zone was not a circle. It was a triangle, meaning that the miles on the rental car formed the three sides of a triangle. Point one was the airport, the origin. The renter picked up the car and drove to point two. Point two was the place where he crossed paths with the abductor. And point three was the place where the abductor took his victim. Afterward, the car was returned to point one, completing the triangle.
When McCaleb had written his notes he didn’t know about Zzyzx Road. He had one point—the airport car rental return. So he wrote, “1 point gives 3,” because he knew that if one more point on the triangle was identified, it would lead to the remaining point as well.
“One more point of the triangle means we can figure out all three,” I said out loud, translating McCaleb’s note from shorthand.
I got up and started pacing. I was jazzed and thought I was getting close. It was true that the abductor could have made any number of stops with the rental car, thereby leaving the triangle theory worthless. But if he didn’t, if he avoided distractions and single-mindedly took care of the business at hand, then the triangle theory would hold. His thoroughness might contain his weakness. That would make Zzyzx Road point three on the triangle because that would have been the last stop for the car before it was returned to the airport. And that would make point two the remaining unknown. It was the intersection. The place where predator and prey came together. Its location was not known at the moment but thanks to my silent partner I knew how to find it.
22
BACKUS SAW RACHEL pull out of the side lot of the FBI building in a dark blue Crown Victoria. She turned left onto Charleston and headed toward Las Vegas Boulevard. He hung back. He was sitting behind the wheel of a 1997 Ford Mustang with Utah plates. He had taken the car from a man named Elijah Willows, who no longer needed it. His eyes left Rachel’s car and held on the street scene, watching for movement.
A Grand Am with two men in it pulled out into traffic from the office building next to the FBI building. It went in the same direction as Rachel’s car.
“There’s one,” Backus said to himself.
He waited and then he watched a dark blue SUV with triple antennas pull out of the FBI lot and turn right onto Charleston, going in the opposite direction as Rachel. Another Grand Am pulled out behind it and followed.
“There’s two and three.”
Backus knew it was what was called a “sky bird” surveillance. One car to maintain a loose visual surveillance while the subject was tracked by satellite. Rachel, whether she knew it or not, had been given a car with a GPS transponder on it.
All of this was okay with Backus. He knew he could still track her. All he needed to do was follow the follow car and he would get there just the same.
He started the Mustang. Before pulling out onto Charleston to catch up to the Grand Am following Rachel, he reached over and opened the glove compartment. He was wearing rubber surgeon’s gloves, size small so they would stretch across his hands and be almost unnoticeable from a distance.
Backus smiled. Sitting in the glove box was a little two-shot vest gun that would nicely complement his own remaining weapon. He knew he had sized Elijah Willows up perfectly when he had first seen him leaving the Slots-o-Fun on the down side of the strip. Yes, he was what Backus had been looking for physically—same size and build—but he had also sensed a detachment about the man. He was someone who dwelled alone and on the edge. The gun in the glove box seemed to prove that. It gave Backus confidence in his choice.
He hit the gas and pulled loudly out onto Charleston. He did this purposely. He knew that on the off chance