“Stone is right, Holly. You’re in a bad position legally.”
They had started down the stairs.
“Holly,” Stone said, “if you want him, you’re going to have to go to a federal judge and get a court order vacating Trini’s Witness Protection status and giving your warrant precedence.”
“How long will that take?” Holly asked as they were leaving the building.
“The U.S. Attorney’s office will fight it. There’ll be a hearing—maybe more than one. Weeks, at least.”
They got into the car.
“Or,” Lance said, “you could just kill him.”
Holly grinned. “You sure know how to make a girl feel better,” she said.
37
THE THREE OF them sat in Lance’s car, half a block from the building. They had been waiting for half an hour.
“Why do we think they’re coming out soon?” Holly asked.
“Because they’re not going to keep him in a place that’s no longer safe from you,” Lance replied. “They’ll get him out as soon as they can arrange another location.”
Another half an hour passed, then a dark van turned into the block and stopped in front of the building. There was a radio antenna on top. A moment later, Trini and the four FBI agents came out of the building, two of them carrying suitcases.
“You were right, Lance,” Stone said. “They’re moving him.”
Lance spoke to his driver. “Follow the van, but stay well back.”
The van pulled away, went around the block, and turned down Second Avenue. Traffic was fairly heavy. They followed it down Second Avenue to Sixty-sixth Street, where it turned right and drove west, continuing through Central Park.
“Looks like they’re moving him to the West Side,” Stone said. “I wonder why they still have him in New York? Why didn’t they send him to Minneapolis or Seattle or someplace no one would think to look for him?”
“Because somebody as exotic-looking as Trini would stand out like a sore thumb in a white-bread city,” Lance replied. “They’d send him to the Southwest. Except they haven’t, of course.”
The van left the park and continued west to Eleventh Avenue, then turned downtown.
“Maybe Chelsea?” Stone said.
“Maybe not,” Lance replied. “Let’s wait and see.”
As the van approached Forty-second Street it moved to the left lane.
“They’re headed for the Holland Tunnel,” Stone said.
The van turned left, then right and went into the tunnel.
“Stay well back,” Lance reiterated.
The van left the tunnel and got onto Route 3 West.
“This is starting to seem familiar,” Stone said.
“What do you mean?” Lance asked.
“It’s the route I take to Teterboro Airport.”