The Rescue(58)
“That looks the same.”
“Hold on,” said Cooper. “There’s a little story to this.”
“Let’s skip to the end.”
“Of course,” said Cooper. “The DEA had a string of mobile satellite interception stations operating in this area. During its heyday, this isolated stretch of inhospitable earth provided close to twenty percent of the nation’s meth supply. The DEA intercepted thousands of satellite calls with those stations, most of them utter nonsense, but one of those calls got flagged and forwarded to Aegis through an agreement in place with the NSA.”
“The search teams came back empty-handed,” said Gunther.
“They didn’t stray too far from the road. The assumption was that he had made the call en route to Mexico, and satellite imagery confirmed what they saw with their own eyes. There was nothing out there but a barren wasteland.” Cooper paused to look back at him.
“But?”
“But very recent satellite imagery showed something unusual about five miles north of the transmission intercept point. Something that matched an unreferenced site description provided in the file. Check it out.” Cooper zoomed in to a detailed ground-level image.
Gunther studied the picture. “Damn. That’s in the middle of nowhere,” he said.
“And virtually invisible, unless you know exactly what you’re looking for,” said Cooper. “It’s actually quite brilliant, if it’s what I think it is. Hard to tell with a two-dimensional image, but it would explain why the ground teams never saw it.”
“I can take a team and check it out,” said Green.
Gunther thought about it for a moment. As much as he wanted to tie up this loose end, it represented a distraction they couldn’t afford at the moment. The chance of Decker piecing together these clues was nonexistent, given the resources available to him. Then again, Decker and his new allies had proven unexpectedly resourceful over the past forty-eight hours. Not only had their intelligence been unusually accurate, but they seemed to have anticipated his every move up to this point. Maybe sending Green wasn’t a bad idea, in case Decker somehow showed up.
“I’ll arrange for a separate team to meet you out there,” said Gunther. “A team better equipped for this kind of mission. There’s no way to sneak up on that site—and this guy won’t go easy.”
“Guys like that rarely do,” said Green.
“I want you to watch from a distance for at least seventy-two hours before taking him down, unless Decker rears his ugly head again in LA,” said Gunther. “If there’s even an outside chance that Decker figured this out, I want to give him time to make a move. Neutralizing both of them at the same time would make my boss extremely happy, which would mean good things for all of us.”
“What kind of good things?” said Cooper.
“The six-figure kind,” said Gunther, purposefully deciding not to mention the bad things that could happen if the mission failed.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
Decker drove into the motel parking lot, cringing at how dilapidated the place looked after he’d spent a few hours in what he’d thought was an equally run-down shopping area. Apparently, nothing held a candle to the Ucky Ass Motel. After parking in front of his room, he sat there for several moments, seriously considering a change of venue. The room’s smell still lingered in his nostrils, despite having inhaled the smoky, griddle-burned air of a greasy diner.
Reluctantly, he got out of the SUV. Decker intended to check the room before off-loading the bounty of supplies and gear he had collected this morning. The motel was about as anonymous as any establishment could be, but Decker himself was a different story. He was utterly conspicuous here, drawing the wrong kind of attention from its few sketchy denizens. Not to mention from the motel staff, which probably consisted of one person, the owner, who undoubtedly had a copy of every room key. For that reason alone, he hadn’t left anything behind when he’d gone shopping. His entire life was locked away in the SUV.
Decker had turned the dead bolt’s lock halfway when the door two rooms down opened, disgorging a guy dressed in nothing but a pair of yellowish-white boxers. Decker couldn’t tell if the yellow tinge was a stain or the actual color of the underwear and had no intention of examining them long enough to make a final determination. The man’s gut hung over the front of the boxers, swinging sideways when he turned to face Decker, then settling again. A cigarette burned in his right hand, which he braced against the thick, pitted concrete column holding up the overhang.
“Hey, buddy,” the guy said, revealing a tallboy in his other hand. “You headed out again? My car’s deader than dead. I got a seat at a table. The dealer’s gonna slide some action my way. Kind of need to get over there as soon as possible. I was thinking. You know.”
Decker considered him for a moment, his initial revulsion softening just enough to engage the guy in a dead-end conversation. The guy had obviously hit rock bottom, a place Decker knew better than anyone.
“I really couldn’t say when I’m leaving today. I’m not exactly working on my own schedule,” said Decker. “I could spot you some cab fare, though. How far are you going?”
“Down to the strip. The old strip,” said the man, stuffing the cigarette in his mouth and taking a few steps toward Decker. “I got a spot in one of the back-room games. Big money. It’s a sure thing. Been playing there for years. My guy is going to hook me the hell up today. You could get in on this, too.”