Hidden Impact (Safeguard #1)(9)
“Safest place for her, for now.” Gabe rubbed his jaw. “Everyone in for the night?”
“Yup.” His teammate stepped out of the shadows of the surveillance room and into the dimly lit hallway. Her hair was tied back and she wore a simple black T-shirt and jeans. Still wore her holster since she was on night watch. Even though she’d come out to greet him, she kept her gaze fixed on the security displays inside the room. “You were saying it wasn’t any kind of drunk-driving hit-and-run. I was thinking the trajectory of the car was straight as an arrow, heading toward the girl and on its way out of range. The girl all right?”
He shook his head. “Got to her apartment, found it bugged. Some fairly high-end audio surveillance. The team will need to head back to do a full sweep.”
One man trying to conduct that sort of search was definitely going to miss something. It was better completed as a team.
Even in profile, he could see Lizzy’s brows draw together. “Lot of effort invested in keeping tabs on a single woman. Wasn’t she part of the catering crew? Manager or something? Not usually the type to rate that much effort.”
He nodded. “Makes me wonder what is going on with her missing sister.”
Maylin Cheng didn’t seem the type to be involved with drugs or the black market. Outside of those, there wasn’t a lot to draw enough attention to a person to rate surveillance and assassination attempts. Mafia, maybe.
“You put her in the guest house?”
“At least until we decide on a safe house or secure hotel where she’d be more comfortable. Something we can look into in the morning. I checked over her car back at her parking garage. No obvious signs of tampering or tracking devices.” Course, he and Maylin had only been upstairs in her apartment for a very short time and he’d parked her car in full view of two different security cameras. There hadn’t been sufficient surveillance in the garage, but he’d made sure not to park in one of the blind spots. His mind moved on to the line of investigation he had for tonight. “If you can run queries on An-mei Cheng’s disappearance and background checks on both the Chengs while you’re on watch, I’d consider it a favor.”
Lizzy raised an eyebrow. “Any reason you’re not making it an order?”
As leader of their fire team, he was commanding officer. But they weren’t active duty military anymore. They didn’t have to live rank and position twenty-four seven. The structure of Centurion Corporation was more a hybrid of military and corporate organization. The corporate influence was especially apparent back at HQ in DC. His superiors at HQ oversaw contract acquisition and decided on resource allocation, sending squadrons made up of four to five fire teams, each all around the world.
For the most part, Gabe kept it simple. He commanded his fire team when they were actively on a contracted mission. Otherwise, they were more casual about their interactions within the bounds of earned respect.
He shrugged. “We’re not on official contract and I haven’t decided if we’re taking the job yet.”
She nodded. “Fair.”
Lizzy was more than familiar with the way he operated, so her response made him pause. He wasn’t committing to the job yet. “I’ll be in my room, but call me if anything comes up.”
“You got it.”
Centurion Corporation Training and Recovery was a five-acre property tucked into the northwest corner of the Cougar Mountain Regional Wildland Park just east of Seattle. Heavily wooded, the acreage didn’t offer any clear line of sight for potential onlookers, but hidden cameras were installed all over the property in addition to the more obvious perimeter fence and no-trespassing signage for normal passersby.
The men and women stationed at the training center and barracks were responsible for surveillance over the main perimeter and training grounds. The recovery cabins were set apart and to the edge of the property to give people on R & R space. Almost always having returned fresh from hot spots overseas, the Centurions staying there were operating on a high level of awareness, so they maintained their own second-layer surveillance of their section of the perimeter. Mostly for the structure of scheduled watches and for peace of mind.
It did a person a lot of good to fall into a familiar routine.
Lizzy would see any intruders long before they got anywhere near the guest house or main building. He’d have plenty of time to get to Maylin if there was trouble, and she’d be surrounded by the rest of his team too. None of them were heavy sleepers, if they slept at all.
He didn’t. Not much anyway.
The kitchen in the main rest and recovery house was dark, but indirect lighting came on as motion sensors detected his entrance. A quick search of the commercial-sized refrigerator scored him some leftover Beefaroni and stir-fried broccoli. Not a winning combination, but it’d do.
Damn. He should have made her eat something. Slight build like hers, she probably burned up calories just thinking too hard. But there had been no waking the woman, even as he’d carried her into the guest house and laid her on the bed. She’d probably have slept through him trying to force-feed her. As it was, he’d removed her shoes, spread a blanket over her and left a note next to a bottle of water for her, letting her know to come up to the main house when she woke. Hopefully not too creepy.
Gabe headed down a second hallway, past the kitchen and a couple of other rooms. He nudged the door to his own open with his foot and took a good look before entering. In the middle of his safe zone, where the chances of an intruder were slim to none, and he still couldn’t relax.