The First Billion

Fishing a rubber band out of a side drawer, Dodson began twirling it around his fingers. Forward and back. Forward and back. He asked himself where he would run if he were Gavallan. Home to San Francisco? New York? Overseas? The man had offices in Chicago, London, and Hong Kong, or had he gone to ground in Florida instead? Dodson had the firm impression Gavallan was on the move, that he had an agenda of his own that called for more than eluding the authorities. Whatever it was, Dodson had to give Gavallan one thing: He was a slippery fish.

As of five that afternoon, Dodson and his men had the state of Florida sewn up tight. Partnering with the Florida State Bureau of Investigation, the Coast Guard, municipal police departments, and county sheriffs, Dodson had contacted every airport, harbor, marina, bus station, and train terminal in the state. Faxes were sent to hotels up and down the coast. When agents could not visit a site themselves, a description of the suspect was faxed and a phone call made to get across the urgency of the request.

The phone rang and Dodson answered. "Well, well, Mr. Chupik," he said, recognizing the cocksure voice. Lyle Chupik was the three-hundred-pound, ponytailed, Yoo-Hoo-swilling techie who ran the FBI's computer surveillance lab. "What a surprise."

"I got a track on one of those phone numbers you gave me this afternoon," said Chupik. "A call was placed at two-thirty to a Coastal Aviation in Fort Lauderdale."

"I see you're atoning for your sins."

"If that's atoning, what I'm about to give you ought to send me straight to heaven, and I mean directly to St. Peter. The front of the line."

"Do tell."

"The number we got a nibble on didn't belong to Gavallan."

"It didn't?" Dodson examined the phone numbers. Both had a 415 area code, and the prefixes that followed them were similar. He'd assumed they belonged to Gavallan. "Go on."

"The number belongs to another one of our Daisy taps. A Ms. Catherine Elizabeth Magnus. Ring a bell?"

"I confess I hear a wee tinkling," said Dodson, as a deadly voice inside intoned, Enter the third murderer.

"Anyway, that number's co

"And the sender?"

"Drumroll, please… Mr. John J. Gavallan."

Dodson's stomach tumbled. "Bless your soul, Mr. Chupik. I'll mention your name to St. Peter tonight in my prayers."

"Actually, I'd prefer if you'd mention it to my supervisor. I'm kind of sick of being a GS-15. Time I moved up a notch. You wouldn't want to lose me to the private sector."

"Rather to Satan himself."

It took another hour for Dodson to put the rest of the pieces together.

While his assistants confirmed that Catherine Magnus had indeed arrived in West Palm Beach that morning- via an American Airlines red-eye, making stops in Las Vegas and Chicago- Dodson contacted Coastal Aviation. They were quick to report that they had, in fact, set up a private charter that afternoon, but neither the names Gavallan nor Magnus appeared on their manifest. The plane in question, a Gulfstream III, was chartered by an elderly man and his nurse. The flight plan called for a leg to Teterboro, New Jersey, then a transcontinental leg to Los Angeles.

"I'm sorry if my knowledge of business jets isn't as up to date as it should be," Dodson had said politely to the desk man at Coastal Aviation. "What is the range of a Gulfstream III?"

"About four thousand miles. But this one's got an extra fuel tank. It can go six thousand easy."

"Pray tell, did the elderly gentleman in question-"

"His name's Dodson, just like you."

Dodson bit back an expletive. He did not abide smart alecks. "Did Mr. Dodson request that the plane be fully fueled?"

"Sure did. Said he was picking up his son in Jersey and didn't want to hang around very long. Fu

"He is?"

"Plane took off at three-fifteen sharp, should have landed at seven latest. This Dodson fella's not a relative of yours, is he?"

"No," said the real Mr. Dodson. "You can rest assured he is not."

The map was ancient, circa 1989, a moth-riven relic five feet wide and four feet tall dug up from a closet in the research library on the third floor. Politically, it was obsolete. Myanmar was called Burma. Germany was still two countries. And the Soviet Union was a single rose-colored mass spa

Leaning over the map, Dodson spread a yardstick in a line from Fort Lauderdale, seeing just how far his six thousand miles would take him. He fa

"By God, he's gone AWOL on us," Dodson whispered to the team of stern, clean-cut agents who had been assigned his acolytes. "Mr. Gavallan's taken a flier on the FBI. I understand if he didn't want to meet me at his hotel. I can see how he wouldn't want to come into our offices right away. I'm not an unreasonable man. But damn it, when a United States citizen flees the country while being sought for questioning in co

Howell Dodson would teach Mr. John J. Gavallan not to toy with the United States government.