The Rescue(61)
“Careful with that guy,” said Decker. “He’s clever and sadistic. A pure psychopath. I can’t say this strongly enough: do not underestimate him.”
“I hear you. We’re running the surveillance teams through a cutout, so there’s no link back to us.”
“Very few people in the world scare me, Harlow. Gunther Ross is one of them.”
“We’ll be careful. You do the same. I’m going to text you an email address. When you get your computer working, send us a quick email, and we’ll get you connected to a secure site to share documents.”
“Sounds good,” said Decker. “I’ll check in with you in a few hours, or you call me if anything earth-shattering occurs before then. My guess is everything will go really quiet while Aegis and the FBI try to reacquire us. Don’t underestimate Reeves, either. He has some really sophisticated surveillance tools at his disposal.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
Reeves stood patiently in the security lobby of the Los Angeles Joint Regional Intelligence Center while the security officer inside a mostly transparent, bullet-resistant glass booth confirmed his identity. Even though Reeves had unrestricted access to every space in the JRIC, he still had to go through the same verification every time he stepped into the building.
“Supervisory Special Agent Reeves, please place your right thumb on the scanner,” said the uniformed officer.
He complied, pressing his thumb against the biometric scanner on the counter in front of him. A few seconds later, the JRIC security officer passed his FBI badge through a thin slot in the glass.
“You’re cleared,” said the officer, smiling politely.
He got off easy today. The system randomly selected the authentication measures required for entry, sometimes requiring more than one and on occasion asking for all of them. Luckily, Reeves hadn’t been subjected to the security triumvirate in over a month. The combination of retinal scan, multiple fingerprints, and voice recognition never went smoothly. He’d once spent ten minutes trying unsuccessfully to give a voice sample that the system would recognize, eventually requiring a supervisor override. It all felt like overkill, since everyone was cleared by facial recognition before they were even allowed into the lobby.
Reeves tucked the badge into his suit-coat pocket and stepped toward the gate in front of him. The sturdy glass-and-steel saloon doors swung inward, granting him entry to a small glass vestibule. When he was completely inside the tight chamber, the security officer pushed his temporary ID card and a lanyard-equipped badge holder toward him before motioning for Kincaid to approach the booth.
Reeves inserted the hard plastic ID card in the holder and looped the lanyard around his neck. Glancing back through the ballistic glass doors, he watched Kincaid place his right eye up to the retinal scanner. He really hoped Kincaid didn’t get the special treatment this morning. They had already fallen far enough behind schedule. Reeves held his ID card up to a scanner next to a second set of swinging clear glass doors and continued into the JRIC when they opened. Kincaid joined him a minute later.
“One of these days they’re going to add strip search to the menu,” said Kincaid.
“That’ll be the day you assume sole responsibility for coming here.”
“I’ll be sure to put in for a transfer,” said Kincaid. “To Omaha.”
“Omaha doesn’t sound bad right now,” said Reeves. “We’re kind of back to square one now that Penkin’s cabal has been cut off at the knees.”
“More like at the neck.”
“Right. The only silver lining to this whole mess is that it’ll take the Russians a few weeks to fill the sudden void. It’ll give us some time to find Decker.”
“I’m not hopeful about finding Decker,” said Kincaid. “Or Mackenzie. Her whole crew blinked out on us.”
“Except for the lawyer.”
“I don’t expect her to vary from her routine,” said Kincaid. “They’re too savvy for that.”
Reeves didn’t disagree. After disappearing Decker right in front of them last night, Buzz Cut and the lawyer managed to ditch them three minutes out of the airport. They pulled their car off Century Boulevard into the snag-a-space parking lot next to the Los Angeles Airport Marriott and vanished. He’d held the pursuit vehicles back, since he could easily track the target vehicle remotely and simply hadn’t expected them to pull another stunt on them so quickly. They found the lot completely full and the neatly parked vehicle in a space near the West Ninety-Eighth Street exit. The women had undoubtedly swapped into a vehicle that had been preparked long before Mackenzie and Decker left the safe house. He’d been grossly outmaneuvered, and it didn’t feel good.
“I don’t expect them to slip up, either,” said Reeves. “So we’re going to lean on technology.”
“I thought you hated technology.”
“I hate it when it doesn’t work, or it’s working against me,” said Reeves, opening the door and entering the main JRIC hallway.
He headed straight for Surveillance, where he’d find everything he needed to rekindle the search for Decker. Halfway down the corridor, he passed the entrance to the two-story Crisis Tactical Operations Center. Contrary to television and the movies, the CTOC didn’t run twenty-four hours a day, 365 days a year, sifting through surveillance data and tracking criminals. The CTOC was only activated in the event of a terrorist attack or a citywide law enforcement crisis requiring the coordinated response of multiple agencies and departments. Reeves couldn’t remember the last time the vast space had been used.