The Rescue(57)

“Her group is skilled,” said Gunther. “I’ll give them that.”

He settled in directly behind Robert Cooper, the operation center’s chief intelligence analyst.

“Morning, Bob.”

“Morning, sir,” said Cooper. “Sounds like Mr. Green has brought you up to speed on the status of our LA efforts.”

“He has. Any idea where Decker was hiding when the FBI picked up his trail?”

“Negative,” said Cooper. “We don’t have a direct source within the Russian organized crime division. I pulled this from an LAX police department source.”

“Was Special Agent Reeves mentioned?”

Reeves had been instrumental in bringing down Decker and World Recovery Group. An unlikely but useful pawn in the mess that had unfolded after Decker miraculously and most regrettably located Senator Steele’s daughter. Reeves and Decker had previously clashed in Los Angeles, which had made it almost too easy for Gunther.

He’d progressively leaked information about Decker’s investigation to the FBI, culminating in the perfectly timed FBI raid on the Hemet motel housing Decker’s operations team. Timed to coincide with the explosion that vaporized fifteen children, including Meghan Steele, and focused nearly all of the public’s outrage against Decker. More importantly, it directed Senator Steele’s wrath away from the Russians and toward an easy public target, giving Gunther time to permanently sever any links between Aegis and the Steele kidnapping.

The diversion had worked, from what they could tell. Without any evidence directly linking the abduction and subsequent explosion to the Russians, the FBI had gone after Decker. Someone had to pay for the unmitigated disaster in Hemet, and Decker was a convenient target. The only target—by design.

“Supervisory Special Agent Reeves,” said Cooper. “He was reportedly at the airport.”

“I don’t like the sound of that,” said Gunther.

“Neither do I,” said Cooper. “We’ve detected ongoing FBI surveillance at a number of the apartments linked to Mackenzie’s group. In addition to some private surveillance.”

“I assume you’ve pulled our people back? The last thing we need right now is FBI attention.”

“Way back.”

“And countersurveillance?” said Gunther. “Mackenzie’s people?”

“No. Private investigators from several different firms,” said Cooper. “I can’t find any connections.”

“Would it be worthwhile to grab one of them? See what they know?”

Cooper shook his head. “Mackenzie has been extremely cautious from the very start. I can’t imagine she used anyone that could provide us with any actionable information.”

“You’re probably right,” said Gunther, turning to Green. “What do you think?”

Green shook his head. “If I were them, I’d lie low and try to ride this out somehow—or leave the country. They’re on everyone’s shit list at this point. Ours. The FBI’s. Probably the Bratva’s. That’s a lot of hard-hitting people roaming the streets.”

“But it’s a massive city,” said Gunther.

“Which shrinks considerably when you link thousands of cameras to facial-recognition software,” said Green.

“I’m sure Ms. Mackenzie is very aware of that risk,” said Cooper.

“Decker is after something,” said Gunther. “They won’t stay off the radar for long.”

“I hate to break it to you,” said Cooper. “But she can avoid the camera zones using a privacy app available on the dark net.”

“Then it’s all about them making a mistake at this point,” said Green. “Not exactly the most proactive plan.”

“Very little about what we’ve done since day one has been proactive,” said Gunther.

“Sounds like you could use some good news,” said Cooper, looking over his shoulder with a grin.

“There’s good news?” said Gunther.

“I can’t say for certain”—Cooper clicked his mouse several times—“but we’ve pored over the information you provided, and I think we might have found the one that got away.”

Gunther hadn’t expected Cooper’s team to find anything more than what the other Aegis analysts previously assigned to the task had uncovered. Learning that Decker hadn’t been the only principal member of World Recovery Group to cheat death had been somewhat of a shock, but based on the contents of the file Harcourt had given him, he’d just assumed the information was a dead end. The lead was close to two years old and had been thoroughly investigated.

“You’re kidding,” he said. “Right?”

“Not kidding. Maybe,” said Cooper.

“Maybe doesn’t get me excited.”

“How about this?” Another click of his mouse.

The massive screen in front of them displayed a satellite map image he’d seen before.

“That’s what—a ten-thousand-square-mile area?” said Gunther.

“Fifteen thousand.” Cooper zoomed in to a wide section of rural road. He’d already sifted through these images.

“Still looks like a lot of nothing.”

“According to the file, that’s what the ground teams reported. A whole bunch of nada. But they were working off some obsolete data.” Cooper changed the screen again.