The Rescue(41)

Kincaid was right. The dead ex-SEAL at the mall. The shootout at Penkin’s club followed shortly by the Russian’s curious death. And now a missing-person report for a sales representative working out of Ares Aviation’s Riverside office.

Justin Peters had left the office around lunchtime and hadn’t been seen since. His wife contacted the police when he failed to pick up their daughter from day care and didn’t answer his phone. Reeves spoke with the office manager, who said Justin had volunteered to stay behind during lunch and answer calls, something he’d never done before.

It was probably more than enough to grab Decker, but Reeves still couldn’t shake the odd feeling that he was missing a bigger connection. He’d felt that way since this morning, when he learned about the murder and commotion at the Japanese Village Plaza, but he couldn’t put his finger on it until Decker started rambling about Aegis a few minutes ago. There was more to the past days’ murders than a simple revenge plot. There had to be, and he was willing to sit on Decker a little longer to let it all shake out. If there was more to the Meghan Steele tragedy than the Russians, he owed it to the senator to find out.

“Let’s triple the number of agents assigned to watch Decker and Mackenzie. Call in the teams working Mackenzie’s other apartments. Something is off.”

“If something is off, we should bring him in. It’s safer for everyone that way, especially with a bunch of pissed-off Russians running amok.”

“Not that kind of off,” said Reeves. “I want to look into a few things.”

“You can’t do that with him in custody?”

“I’ll explain it a little later. I want those agents here now,” said Reeves.

“Got it. Do I need to bring a tactical team in?”

He shook his head. “I just don’t want to lose Decker. Remember who we’re dealing with here. Mackenzie, too. She’s worked every nook and cranny of this city for a decade. Don’t underestimate her.”

While Kincaid briefed the other agents, Reeves called the FBI watch desk at the Los Angeles Joint Regional Intelligence Center.

“JRIC. FBI division. Special Agent Carl Webb speaking. How may I direct your call?”

“Carl. This is Supervisory Special Agent Joseph Reeves, authorization code five-niner-six. Standing by to authenticate.”

“Switching you over to authentication,” said Webb.

A series of clicks and a few seconds of dead air preceded an automated voice that requested a second code. He spoke the eight-digit combination slowly and waited.

“Supervisory Special Agent Joseph Reeves. You have been authenticated by code and voice. What can I do for you tonight?”

“I need you to send me everything we have on Gunther Ross. Possibly an employee of Aegis Global or one of its affiliates. Also suspect he may have been in the United States Marine Corps or Central Intelligence Agency. Some kind of lettered intelligence agency. Current location Los Angeles.”

“I have that typed in. We’ll run it through the database. Anything else?”

“There was a murder yesterday at the Japanese Village Plaza. LAPD suspects the victim was a former Navy SEAL. They didn’t have a name when I spoke with them. ID turned out to be fake. I need everything you have on the victim when he’s identified. And one more thing, when you’re ready.”

“I’m ready,” said Webb.

Gut instinct told Reeves to scrap his final request. If Aegis or one of its affiliates was indeed up to something in Los Angeles, triggering a citywide data and surveillance crawl for Aegis operatives would only serve to give them a heads-up. He had no doubt that Aegis, which ran the world’s premiere private intelligence-gathering services, had contacts in every local, state, and federal law enforcement division and department in the city—if they hadn’t outright hacked all of the systems.

“I’ll hold off on that until I see what you produce for the other two requests,” said Reeves. “No sense in getting ahead of myself.”

Reeves ended the call and took a deep breath, praying he didn’t come to seriously regret setting this in motion.





CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

Decker glanced over his shoulder and shook his head.

“At this point, I honestly can’t tell if the car right behind us is FBI,” he said. “Either way, you’re not going to lose them in this traffic—or anywhere. They’re just sitting on us.”

“We talked about this,” said Harlow. “Everything is fine.”

“Six vehicles followed us from the safe house. I’m sure more joined them.”

“The car right next to us is probably FBI,” she said, smiling.

“I don’t think the FBI drives minivans.”

“That would be a pretty solid cover, though,” said Harlow. “Who would suspect a minivan?”

“Seriously, I’m starting to get a little worried here. You’re heading toward the airport, which normally isn’t a bad place to shake a tail, but it won’t work with this many agents following us.”

“They’ve gotten wise to the airport trick. Even if you manage to gain some distance after taking the terminal off-ramp, they call ahead and notify Los Angeles airport police. Between LAXPD, LAPD, and the LA County sheriff, Los Angeles airport is probably the worst place to try to shake police surveillance. Still works great against private-sector or criminal-sponsored tails, though.”