Deep Sleep (Devin Gray #1)(48)

“Sounds like he knows what he’s doing,” said Daly.

“He better. He does this for a living,” said Farrington. “Anish. Anything else I should pass along?”

“No. But I think I found something that could be very useful later,” said Gupta.

Silence ensued, which he knew was intentional. Gupta could be intolerable on occasion. But you tolerated the best in the business, which was why Gupta had been an essential part of his crew for fifteen years. Fifteen very long years when he considered moments like these. After about a half minute, Gupta gave in—like always.

“Do you want to know what I found?” asked Gupta.

“Not unless I need to pass it along to Berg,” said Farrington, giving him a dose of his own medicine.

A shorter silence this time.

“You’re getting harder to crack as you age,” said Gupta.

“And you’re getting more and more predictable.”

“More like a one-trick pony,” said Daly.

“I could always revive my gangsta phase,” said Gupta. “We’ll be chillin’ like villains for the rest of this op-er-ay-sheeun! Sippin’ on gin and juice!”

“Okay. Okay,” said Farrington. “You win. What did you find?”

“Push-to-talk satellite communications corresponding to the Dodge Durango at two points during their transit down Broad Street toward Whole Foods. Short but sustained radio frequency bursts around 1620 megahertz. A little frequency hopping between bursts, but well inside the Iridium satellite phone frequency range. I didn’t detect a back-and-forth conversation during the first set of bursts. There was a long enough pause between each burst to indicate I didn’t detect the responder’s emission.”

“In layman’s terms, please?”

“The other satellite phone user was not in our line of sight yet, like the Durango’s,” said Gupta.

“Yet,” stated Farrington.

“They joined in for the second set of bursts. Back-to-back radio frequency traffic in the same 1620 megahertz range,” said Gupta. “Which corresponded with the Durango’s little loop through the Whole Foods parking lot. My guess is they were talking to the Outback’s driver. There was another back-and-forth a few minutes after all three of the cars departed south on Broad Street, probably coordinating surveillance after Young turned home.”

“The Outback appeared out of nowhere,” said Farrington. “Especially in the context of the radio frequency analysis. It pulled in front of the Durango at some point after the first call and before they reached Whole Foods. I just don’t remember when.”

“I can tell you,” said Gupta. “I had our camera tracking the Durango the entire time. Give me a minute.”

Part of the Suburban’s retrofit had included the installation of two high-definition, 30X-zoom, controllable block cameras, one mounted to the ceiling next to the rearview mirror, flush with the windshield to prevent optical glare. The second was similarly mounted against the rear cargo hatch window. It didn’t take Gupta long to locate the segment of video.

“Looks like the driver of the Outback is staying at the Hilton Garden Inn on Broad Street,” said Gupta. “He pulled out right in front of the Durango. It’s coming up on the left if you want to take a quick look for the other vehicles.”

“Can’t hurt to know where everyone is staying,” said Farrington.

“It’s a block past this next traffic light,” said Gupta. “I’ll run the license plate identification application in live-match mode and see if we pick up any other vehicles from the coffee shop or Whole Foods.”

When activated, the application automatically recorded license plates captured by the Suburban’s cameras, compiling them in a database by time and location filmed, state, and plate number, which they could analyze later. It also ran newly recorded plates through the entire database, looking for matches. The application would allow them to drive through hotel parking lots and identify a vehicle they might have missed while visually surveilling the morning’s other areas of interest.

It also gave them the capability to detect a tail. While driving, they could capture the license plates in front and behind them for a predetermined amount of time. The heavier the traffic, the longer the camera needed to grab all the plates. It would zoom out as far as possible to accomplish this. Thirty minutes later, after executing a few soft evasion techniques—such as slowing down or running a repetitive street-grid pattern—they could reactivate the application with the live-match feature enabled, and identify every vehicle that had stuck with them.

“Scott. Why don’t you climb in back so you don’t get made, just in case they’re having a meetup in the parking lot,” said Farrington.

“Good thinking,” said Daly before leaning his seat back as far as it would go and crawling over it.

Daly returned the seat to its upright position as Farrington turned into the Hilton Garden Inn parking lot. A long driveway passed underneath the hotel’s covered entrance, paralleling the hotel until it opened into the parking lot situated behind the building. He spotted the black Outback immediately, its owner still seated behind the wheel. The man glanced through the driver’s-side window as the Suburban passed but didn’t seem to take interest. Thankfully, the lot was nearly full, the two spaces remaining clearly too tight for his oversize vehicle. He made an attempt to park in one of them, lining up a few times before driving away, to demonstrate to the Outback’s driver that he’d tried.