Hellbent (Orphan X #3)(76)

Evan stared at the streetlights, but they looked ordinary to him. “You sure those are the kind you’re talking about?”

She gave him a look, then booted up her computer.

He said, “How can they afford something like that in a broke neighborhood like this?”

Her fingers were already working the keys in a fury. “Federal funding. It’s part of the Safe Cities initiative. Detroit got a hundred mil off the government, and if Detroit can get it…” She glanced over. “You don’t keep up on this stuff, do you?”

“No.”

“The streetlights are all LED. The whole system gets paid for by the money cities save from the reduction in electricity costs. How ’bout that? A government plan that isn’t a total cluster. Not that it started with the government. The software was developed to track foot traffic at shopping malls, see what stores people go into, what they look at, how they respond to sales announcements, coupons, all that.”

“Can you hack it?”

She kept her head lowered, her fingers moving. “I’m gonna pretend you didn’t ask me that.”

He cast an eye toward the facility’s front door. “The cops are gonna be here soon.”

“Well,” she said, “then it’s a good thing I’m fast.”

*

“Turn left up there. No, the next intersection. Good. Now run it straight for a half mile.”

Evan was driving the minivan, Joey in the passenger seat, directing him through traffic and simultaneously hammering away at the laptop. He felt increasingly like her chauffeur, an observation that, he was chagrinned to note, Mia had once made in regard to Peter.

Evan was becoming just another suburban dad.

Joey had what looked like a dozen windows open on the screen. He risked a glance over. On one of them she seemed to be reviewing footage angled on the eastern flank of the McClair Children’s Mental Health Center.

“Anything?” he asked.

“Patience, young Padawan.” The laptop was humming. “Wait. You were supposed to turn left back there. Hang on.” She popped another window to the fore, this one featuring a GPS map. “Go left, left, right.”

He obeyed. Focusing on the road and the rearview mirrors rather than on Joey’s active laptop screen took some discipline.

“Okay. Just—pull over here. We’re in range.”

He looked around. A fenced park. A courthouse. A McDonald’s.

“In range of what?” he said.

She ignored the question. “Let’s get you up to speed.” She punched a button, swiveled the laptop on the minivan’s roomy center console. Evan watched the exterior of C Hall, the image so steady that save for a few leaves blowing past and the sound of out-of-frame traffic it might have been a photograph.

At last a pair of shadows darkened the bottom of the screen. Two men approached the window of Room 14. One held a crowbar, the other a pistol lengthened by a suppressor. The guy holding the pis tol moved aggressively, sweat glistening on his bald head. The men flattened to either side of the window.

Evan told his heartbeat to stay slow and steady, and it obeyed.

He didn’t recognize either man; Van Sciver had sent more freelance muscle. The gunman raised a black-gloved hand, his ridged, shiny skull gleaming as he did a three-finger countdown. The other guy jammed the crowbar beneath the sash window and slid it up. The bald man spun into the open frame, pistol raised, his mouth moving.

Issuing orders.

The streetlight sensor was too far away to capture the words, but a moment later David Smith appeared at the sill, holding his hands before him, showing his palms. He looked more shocked than scared. The bald man grabbed the boy’s shirt and ripped him through the window. As he manhandled the kid away from the building, another figure emerged at the edge of the screen, her back to the camera.

Her face wasn’t visible, but Evan recognized her form.

Orphan V.

Candy McClure pointed at the gunman, clearly issuing an admonition, and he lightened his grip on the boy. The freelancers kept David between them, hustling him away. An instant later the frame was as empty and serene as before.

The snatch-and-go had taken six seconds.

Evan looked at Joey across the console. “Seems like they want to keep him.”

“Or kill him off site.”

“No,” Evan said. “You saw the way Orphan V spoke to that guy. Van Sciver wants the kid unharmed.”

“Or she does. She might have to duke it out with Van Sciver.”

“She can be convincing,” Evan said.

Joey read something in his face and let the point drop. She leaned over, bringing up a freeze-frame of the men standing on both sides of the window before the break-in. Reference points littered their heads, a digital overlay.

“I go with Panasonic FacePro Facial Recognition,” she said. “It’s the best. Two for two.”

“Two for two?”

“Fast and accurate. They use it at SFO.”

“When do we get the results?”

“We have them.”

Another window, another revelation. The two men, identified as Paul Delmonico and Shane Shea. Delmonico was the one who’d jimmied the window and Shea the gunman. Shea had a bony build, his forehead prominent, the grooves of his cranial bones pronounced on his shiny bald skull. Their records had recently been classified top secret, which put their backgrounds and training out of reach for the time being. Evan figured they were dishonorably discharged recon marines, Van Sciver’s favorite source of renewable muscle. For now Evan and Joey had faces and names, and that was all they needed.