The Rescue(70)

“I keep thinking about something we talked about yesterday,” said Harlow. “How this is all tied to the kidnapping.”

“Right. The big picture. Why kidnap Meghan Steele with no intention of returning her? We have enough pieces to start assembling the bigger picture. Assigning motivations to entities we haven’t considered yet.”

Pam and Sandra joined them in the great room, sitting around the glass coffee table.

“What’s the plan?” said Pam. “Other than hiring a chef. I’m not eating any more of those frozen meals.”

“I’m not cooking,” said Sophie.

“I don’t cook,” said Pam.

“This is pretty much a takeout crew,” said Sandra.

“We can’t do takeout for twelve people every day for every meal,” said Harlow. “It’s too much exposure. I’ll find a chef who can come in during the morning and prepare food for the day. The house is big enough to hide our SCIF team.”

“Sounds kind of expensive,” said Sandra, avoiding eye contact with her.

“I’ll cover it,” said Harlow. “Like I’ll cover the house.”

“We’re all covering the house,” said Sophie. “That’s what we agreed.”

“Anything past a week and I’m covering it. Seriously.”

“You don’t have to do that,” said Pam. “It’s not like we can go back to our normal lives with these people stalking us. We’re not going anywhere until this is resolved.”

“I can’t promise it’ll move very fast,” said Harlow. “We just got off the phone with Decker and Brad Pierce. They’ve identified a possible third survivor of the World Recovery Group purge. They’re convinced he’s the mole that brought the whole thing down, but the information they’re working off is thin. Lots of assumptions.”

“Do they have a location?” said Sandra.

“Texas. In the middle of nowhere,” said Harlow. “And that’s purely based on an assumption. If this turns out to be a dead end, I’m not sure how we move forward.”

“Harlow floated the possibility of using Decker as bait,” said Sophie.

“And just when I thought she had a crush on him,” said Pam.

“Nice,” said Harlow. “He’s a client.”

“You just said he wasn’t a client,” said Sophie.

“Whatever. You all know what I mean.”

“Using him as bait might be our only option. His only option,” said Pam.

“That’s what I was thinking,” said Sophie. “He’d probably agree to it.”

“Let’s cross that bridge when we get there,” said Harlow. “Right now, Sophie and I were thinking we could put our heads together and start from the beginning. From Meghan Steele’s kidnapping. I’d lost sight of the fact that her kidnapping started all of this, and it somehow served a purpose for someone. If we can come up with some theories for who and why, we might be able to pursue this whole thing from a different angle.”

“What variables do we have to work with?” said Sandra.

“Scratch the Russians,” said Pam.

“Don’t count them out completely,” said Sophie. “They might link to one of the other variables in a way we didn’t expect. Aegis, or whoever these mercenary types turn out to be working for, knew enough to hand Meghan Steele off to them.”

Katie walked into the room from the kitchen. “Am I the only one working?”

“We’re brainstorming,” said Sophie.

Katie raised an eyebrow. “Like I said.”

They all laughed.

“How is the countersurveillance going?” said Harlow.

“Not great,” she said. “The FBI has teams at half of the locations, including our office, and Gunther Ross’s crew is watching all of them—with off-duty cops or sheriff’s deputies. I kind of want to knock on all of their car windows and explain how it’s one big circular dead end.”

“Except Ross’s people would grab you off the street,” said Pam.

“They can try. You know me, I don’t go anywhere without a plan,” said Katie. “So. What are we brainstorming? Lunch and dinner?”

Sophie pointed at Harlow. “She’s getting us a chef.”

“We’re all not prima donnas here,” said Katie. “I can cook for a dozen people. I just need to run into the valley to pick up supplies.”

“I want to keep our exposure outside this house to a minimum,” said Harlow.

“We can avoid facial recognition. Limit our trips out to one every three days or so, changing locations. We’ll be fine.”

“We’ll have to plan it out in advance,” said Harlow. “Take no chances.”

“I think it’s better than bringing someone in. You never know who or what you’re getting in a situation like that.”

“The more I think about it, the less sense bringing someone in makes to me,” said Sophie. “If they caught a whiff of what was going on with the SCIF crew, they might call the police, which would put us on the radar. Ross obviously has local law enforcement connections. It seems like half of the city’s off-duty officers are working surveillance for him.”