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though he must have been within the area where Jacoby spent the most time after his escape and before he finally took off.” Bishop paused a moment, then added dryly, “My guess is that once he was paid for looking after the dogs, and undoubtedly paid well, he headed straight for an island somewhere with no extradition with the U.S., there to live happily ever after.”
    “Do people still do that?” Maggie wondered aloud, but absently.
    “I like to hope so,” Bishop responded.
    John kept them on track. “But Jacoby took the time to get his dogs. Even knowing every law enforcement agency in the East had to be looking for him. And then he headed for the mountains.”
    “So it appears. Despite changing cars a couple more times, Jacoby was traced as far as the Tennessee state line. No reports in the area of a stolen car, no dealer in the area has any record of selling a car to him. And the shady dealers were all under close observation
because
we had an escaped felon in the area. I doubt he went anywhere near them. The feeling was, he planned ahead, and planned well. He must have had a vehicle stashed and waiting for him, possibly courtesy of the same friend who kept his dogs for him while he was locked up. The vehicle had to be a Jeep or truck, maybe even a Humvee, definitely a serious four-wheel-drive. Fully gassed up and ready to go. Tracking dogs followed a trail through rough terrain to an old logging road headed up into the mountains, then lost the scent.”
    John said, “I gather the road was explored.”
    “For about a mile. Until it was blocked by several trees. Big trees, felled recently by hand, not by nature. Exploring on foot farther in, the search team found more trees blocking the way, a road growing less and less worthy of the name, and terrain so rough the rangers claimed only highly experienced and very athletic hikers could keep going.”
    “No sign of his vehicle, though.”
    “No sign.”
    “Decoy?”
    “Maybe. Maybe he created a diversion and took another path into the mountains. In any case, as per procedure, that’s when the nearest field office would have been notified.”
    “Nash,” John said. “Was he told what you suspected?” Like Maggie, he asked a question already knowing the answer.
    “No. The official report listed Jacoby as an escaped felon, a bank robber possibly armed. Which is true—as far as it goes. He’s suspected of half a dozen fairly minor heists in the last ten years or so, but was never charged for lack of evidence. He was known to use a gun, but had never to our knowledge harmed anyone, or even fired the gun. But this heist was different. One, he was—rather uncharacteristically—caught on camera and easily identified. And two, the fact that he’d stolen ten million dollars still unaccounted for made him a very valuable fugitive indeed.”
    John mused, “Must have been some bank if they had ten million on hand.”
    “Yes,” Bishop said. “As it happened, this bank was a hub for other banks and for various investment firms. Nine-tenths of that money was scheduled to be transferred to a Federal Reserve bank the day following that of the robbery.”
    Still musing, John said, “And Jacoby just happened to hit it on the right day.” It was a question.
    “The theory is, he had someone on the inside. Investigation of that possibility is ongoing.”
    “You don’t believe it.”
    “No. Not the way Jacoby works. Which begs the question . . .”
    “How did he know so much money would be there?” John finished.
    “He has some computer skills. Never known as a hacker, but maybe he didn’t waste his time inside. That money should have been protected by layers of electronic security, but nothing’s foolproof and we all know security is usually at best an illusion; if someone wants in badly enough, and has the skills, they get in.”
    Realizing, Maggie said, “That’s the kind of skill even more valuable than bank robbery itself. Skill the law enforcement