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JOHN SAMPSON AND I warned the receptionist that a patrol officer would be there within minutes to seal the place shut. She was to leave and take nothing but her personal property.

“Does this mean I’m out of a job?” Randi said, crying again.

“I can’t tell you that,” I said. “Talk to Frost’s attorney when she gets here. And tell her she can make copies of document files if she needs to, but she is not to remove anything from the premises.”

“Where are you going?” she said.

Sampson said, “To do damage control.”

We took the elevator down and ran to our car. Sampson jumped behind the wheel, said, “I’ll call Judy Winthrop. I have a decent relationship with her, better than with Tommy Hayes.”

“I’ve got Brundage,” I said, and punched in his number. I got a message saying his mailbox was full.

I texted him to call me just as Winthrop answered John’s call. “What’s this about Brundage?” Sampson demanded and put the phone on speaker as we started toward the District.

“It’s like we told you, he’s a bad, bad guy,” Winthrop replied coldly. “Tommy’s snitch under the Bridge to Nowhere saw him retrieve a pistol from behind some rocks in what used to be Hawk’s old troll camp.”

“And?”

“And then he gave us the slip—climbed up through a hole in the ramp and ran down the other side where we couldn’t see him,” she said. “Our informant told us where we’d probably pick him up again, and we did. We are now in active pursuit on foot.”

“Where?”

“Just left Foggy Bottom Metro, heading northwest. Sorry, got to go.”

She hung up. Sampson groaned. “This does not feel right.”

“I’ll try Brundage again,” I said and hit Redial.

To my surprise, he picked up on the second ring.

“Cross,” the former police detective said, huffing. “Sorry, I was underground.”

“Where are you?”

“Southeast, where else?”

John and I looked at each other, knowing that was a lie. “What are you up to?”

There was a long pause during which all we could hear was him breathing hard. He said, “I’m following Bing Bang. If I can, I’m gonna make a citizen’s arrest.”

He hung up before I could tell him how dumb that idea was, especially if he was armed with a weapon that did not belong to him.

I wasn’t sure whom to believe at this point. I called Tommy Hayes. “Brundage says he is following Colin O’Hare and is planning to make a citizen’s arrest.”

“That’s bull,” Hayes said, panting. “We’ve seen nothing of O’Hare, and yes, we have his picture and description from your APB.”

“Brundage still heading northwest?”

“North side of M Street, just crossed Thirty-Fourth. We’re on the south side of M, and—”

He was cut off by the screeching of tires and then a crash.

“Goddamn bus rear-ended a car right in front of us,” Hayes shouted into the phone, and we heard his partner yell, “I’ve lost him!” The call ended.

The second we crossed the District line, Sampson slammed the bubble on the roof and lit up the siren.

“If O’Hare is there, we better be the ones who take him,” he said and floored it.