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Dumond grimaced. “I don’t think so. I can maybe get you in the right area of the city, but that’s about it.” Dumond paused and thought of something. “How cautious do you think he is?”
“Right now, I’d say very.”
“Do you think you could keep him on the line for ten minutes?”
Rapp tried to think what in the world he could say to get Villaume to take such a risk. “No way. I’d be lucky to get him to stay on for five.”
“Then I can’t track him.”
“Can you at least get me the number he’s calling from?”
“That’s going to be tough. I’ll see what I can do, but I’m not going to make any promises.”
Coleman handed the notepad back to Rapp and said, “It sounds like the guy I saw out in Colorado. What else did Villaume tell you?”
Rapp gave a brief summary of the discussion, making special mention of the fact that the Professor was the man who had taken the shot in Evergreen. While he did so, Dumond looked over the notes and began typing away at one of his keyboards. “This Professor has to have a past,” started Rapp. “You don’t just fall into this line of work. He either works in the intelligence community or used to. Marcus, can you take that description and see how many matches you get for current and former Agency people?”
“Yeah, but I’m afraid it’s going to be a big number.”
“That’s fine. Just pull all the photos so Scott can see if he recognizes anybody. If we come up blank at the Agency, we’ll move on to the NSA and from there to the DIA.” While Dumond worked, Rapp thought of something Villaume had said. “If we could get a voice print on this guy, would it help?”
“It might. The NSA keeps some pretty intense files on that stuff.”
Rapp pointed to the number he had written down. “What about getting a line on that?”
Dumond slid his chair over to a second computer and accessed a reverse listing service. He punched in the phone number, and the computer went to work. Five seconds later, it came back with bad news. The number was not in the system.
“What does that mean?” asked Rapp. “Is it a bogus number?”
“No. Not necessarily. The directory is constantly changing. It’s impossible to keep up with.”
“So what do we do?”
Dumond leaned back in his chair and chewed on the end of a Bic pen. “It’s got to be a mobile number, right?”
“I’d be shocked if it wasn’t.” Rapp looked at Coleman. “Scott?”
“Yeah. It has to be.”
Dumond continued chewing. “If we call this number, I can figure out who the provider is, and I might be able to get you pretty close to him.”
Rapp and Coleman looked at each other. “How?” asked Rapp.
“Once I find out who his carrier is, I can get into their records and track his tower usage.”
“What do you mean, tower usage?”
“The call has to be relayed by a tower. We track the towers that his phone is using.”
“How close can you get us?”
“Usually within a zip code or two.”
“Can you do any better than that?” asked Coleman.
“Yeah, but I’d need to get one of the special vans from the Agency, and you’d have to keep him on the phone.”
“For how long?” asked Rapp.