The Rescue(12)

He fished a slim wallet out of the man’s pocket.

“There. Let’s go,” said Harlow, reaching for the door on the landing above him.

“I need to check one more thing,” said Decker, pocketing the wallet. “Do you have a phone?”

“What?”

“For a picture,” he said. “So we can ID this guy.”

Harlow tossed him her phone. “Five seconds. That’s as long as I wait,” she said, stepping through the doorway into the garage.

Decker grabbed the man’s blue polo-style shirt by the bottom and pulled it up to his armpits. Finding nothing, he yanked the shirt over the man’s shattered head, tossing the blood-soaked garment to the landing below. Still nothing. He rolled the man onto his chest, exposing his muscular back. Bingo. A familiar tattoo lay across his left shoulder. A frog skeleton with one of the bony feet crafted to vaguely resemble the business end of a trident. He took a picture of the tattoo, followed by a few shots of the man’s face.

A minute later, they were headed north on Alameda Street, passing police cars headed in the opposite direction.

“Well?” she said.

“Uh . . . thank you?”

“Did you find anything?”

“The guy had a bone frog tattoo. Ex-SEAL,” he said, watching the Los Angeles Metropolitan Detention Center pass to their left. “Definitely not a Russian.”

“Maybe we should start digging into Aegis Global,” she said. “Start with Ares Aviation.”

He glanced at her with a raised eyebrow. “Aegis isn’t going anywhere,” he said. “But when word hits the street that I’m still alive, someone critical to our understanding of this is guaranteed to disappear for a while.”

“Who?”

“You’re not going to like this.”

A few moments passed before she took her eyes off the road to meet his glance.

“You’re out of your mind,” she said.

“Do you know where I can find him?”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea—at all.”

“You don’t have to come along,” said Decker. “In fact, I’d prefer you didn’t.”

“Because you’ve done such a great job keeping yourself alive so far?”

Once again, he didn’t feel like arguing the finer points of who saved whom back at the shopping plaza. She’d orchestrated a clever escape from a nearly hopeless situation, but she’d nearly gotten herself killed in the stairwell. They each had their limitations right now, and their strengths. He’d keep working with her—not that he had other viable options.

“Do you know where he is?”

She hesitated, finally nodding. “Of course I do. I keep a close eye on them. I have to. Despite all of the very negative attention lately, human trafficking is still big business for them.”

“You’d think they’d have the sense to lie low.”

“I suspect they were never worried about losing business. The federal case against them was dismissed a few days before you were released.”

“I still can’t make sense of that,” said Decker.

“Money talks,” said Harlow.

“All the more reason to pay Viktor Penkin a visit first.”





CHAPTER EIGHT

Gunther Ross leaned forward and put his elbows on his knees, staring over a row of stucco-tile rooftops at the distant downtown Los Angeles skyline. He sat alone on a park bench, gathering his thoughts about the failed attempt to erase Ryan Decker from the planet. He couldn’t get past the most obvious observation. A skilled crew had helped Decker out of that jam. But who?

Decker didn’t have a friend left in the world. They’d made sure of that. And even if he’d somehow managed to keep a friend under the radar, he or she wouldn’t be the type to pull off that kind of counterassassination operation. Ross had completely severed his last links to that world over the past year.

The Russians? They could be self-destructive from time to time, but a stunt like this had the potential to deliver a fatal blow to their operations on the West Coast. And what would they possibly gain by snatching Decker?

Who was left after the Bratva? Some enterprising prison guard at Victorville? Something didn’t add up here, which was why he hadn’t called Harcourt with the bad news. He was waiting for any shred of evidence that might point him in the right direction. Unfortunately, he couldn’t postpone the call much longer.

“Anything?” he said, turning his head toward the man standing several feet to his right.

“Hold on,” said the man, pressing buttons on his cell phone.

Gunther returned to the expansive hilltop view of Los Angeles. Low-rise housing surrounded the small bump of skyscrapers, extending in every direction. He’d never found the city appealing, but over thirteen million people chose to call the Los Angeles metropolitan area home, the vast majority of them packed like sardines in tiny, overpriced houses, which were likewise jammed side by side into crowded neighborhoods. He couldn’t imagine living here.

A rapid-fire conversation erupted next to him, the gist of it hanging in the air. He’d have to make that call empty-handed. Gunther took a deep breath and glanced at Jay Reid, who ended the conversation and shook his head.