Free The Identity Thief by C. Forsyth

the room. "When the subject exited the back entrance, he passed through a dark alley. There wasn't enough light for a good image. We're having the image enhanced as we speak.
    "Las Vegas is more than 84,000 square miles - that's a lot of ground to cover, even with the manpower at our disposal."
    The multiagency taskforce working on the manhunt also included the Department of Homeland Security, the CIA and the Defense Intelligence Agency, in addition to at least four outfits Traci had never heard of. "Swimming in alphabet soup" is how one of her colleagues termed such sessions.
    "Un-fucking believable," fumed Normand, who headed the task force.
    Traci saw an opening and took it.
    "Maybe that's our problem. Maybe he's not above ground."
    "Are you suggesting that he's in the sewer?" said the CIA man dubiously. "Like in The Fugitive? "
    "I didn't kill my wife," joked red-haired FBI agent Malloy, quoting Harrison Ford.
    "I don't care," the Defense Intelligence Agency rep quoted Tommy Lee Jones.
    Everyone laughed.
    The female agent pulled out a chart from her carrying case and expanded on her theory.
    "It's technically a storm drain system," she said. "There are more than 350 miles of flood channels under the city. And it's largely habitable, although I wouldn't want to build a summer house down there. According to some estimates, as many as 700 'tunnel people' call it home."
    A tall woman, close to six feet, with a rapid, clipped manner of speaking, Traci was a graduate of Rutgers, cum laude, and her research skills had been among the attributes that had impressed Bureau recruiters. Traci was fluent in Spanish, French, Italian, German, Arabic and Pashto. The first four of these she had actually learned before she entered college.
    Her parents were of modest means. Her father was an Episcopal minister who'd served 20 years as a missionary in China and her mom was a school librarian. They were firm believers in education as a means to climb the social ladder. From the age of five, her father introduced her to foreign languages through books and audio tapes. And beginning with Spanish, she learned one every two years.
    She was brilliant enough that the burdensome Rutgers tuition was paid for by a basketball scholarship. Traci was a gifted athlete and continued to maintain a state of fitness through running, weight training and kickboxing. Traci was a black belt in kung fu - one of the reasons she was so furious she'd allowed herself to be overcome by the relatively shrimpy Ali Nazeer. She was justly proud of her figure, her long, lean legs and high, taut buttocks.
    Yet, truth be told, the agent had not had a date in eight months nor sex in a year. She was, as her friends put it, "very, very picky." To be considered boyfriend material, the suitor had to be African-American, a church-goer, exceed her height (5 feet 10 1/2 inches to be exact) and have an income exceeding her own.
    Some potential boyfriends were intimidated. Though some would, in a gentlemanly manner, retreat from the field saying, "You're too good for me," the fact was men tended to find her brittle and high-strung.
    Traci pointed to the map. "If he's down there, he could go beneath our perimeter and reach Lake Mead in a matter of hours."
    An agent appeared in the doorway. "The computer-enhanced image of the alley is back, sir. It shows the subject approaching this dark truck, and going under it."
    "The truck was searched, wasn't it?"
    "Our men went through it with a fine-toothed comb," confirmed the representative from Homeland Security.
    "Call up the image of the alley as it looks now," said Traci. Normand nodded and up popped an enlarged image of the alley on the conference room screen.
    "Here is the alley with the truck gone," she said.
    Where the truck had been, only a manhole and a flattened soda can remained.
    Normand swiveled his chair slowly until he faced Mr. Homeland Security.
    "No one noticed that there was a goddamned MANHOLE COVER at the scene?" he growled.