The Rescue(94)

“None taken,” said Vale. “That was a first for me.”

“You and me both,” said Reeves. “I’ll resend the photos of Kathleen Murphy and try to pinpoint the target vehicle with the facial-recognition shots. She’s parked in the Natural Foods parking lot.”

“That’s not a big lot. Kind of odd-shaped. There’s a lot of ways out of there.”

“That’s why I called in a surveillance bird. We’ll have it for an hour. Should be long enough to get a solid fix on wherever they’re hiding out.”

“I’ll park in the lot and wait,” said Vale. “How far away are you?”

“At least fifteen minutes.”

“No worries. We’ll have three vehicles here within ten. Another three by the time you arrive. We won’t lose them this time.”

“Perfect. Coordinate with the other units until I arrive.” An idea suddenly hit him. “Hey. Are you dressed for street surveillance?”

“Yeah. I’m casual.”

“Good. I’ll probably send you inside when Gaines gets there. To make sure she hasn’t already given us the slip.”

“I’ll be ready,” she said.

He ended the call and went to work on his tablet, disseminating Kathleen Murphy’s photos to the inbound team and studying the traffic-cam photos. From what he could tell, Murphy had parked a red four-door sedan, face in, on the inside of the row directly across from the store’s entrance. He navigated to Google Maps and zoomed in on the store, taking a screenshot of the image. A few seconds later, he’d used an embedded graphics tool to draw a red circle around the spaces, adding RED 4DOOR SEDAN to the image. He sent the package to Vale, with instructions to forward it to the responding agents.

When she acknowledged the message, he leaned his head back and let Kincaid guide them north through the mercifully light traffic on Interstate 405. Reeves spent the time strategizing what he’d do with Mackenzie’s location when the aircraft finally marked it. Continue surveillance? Keep it under wraps until Decker was declared a fugitive and then turn it over to CID? Hand it over to Senator Steele and let her deal with it?

He knew the right answer was to call the whole thing off and get back to work on the Russians, but something deep inside refused to let it go. A persistent gut feeling that the Decker-and-Mackenzie angle was just the tip of the iceberg. That he’d be derelict in his duty to Senator Steele if he ignored it. Reeves turned to Kincaid.

“What am I forgetting?” said Reeves.

“That we’re skating on thin ice with this?”

Reeves stifled a laugh. “Very thin ice.”

“More like slush.”

“If this doesn’t pan out, that’s the end of it. No more Decker.”

Kincaid gave him a friendly but skeptical look.

“Seriously,” said Reeves.

“I didn’t say anything.”

“You didn’t have to,” he said, his phone and tablet chiming at the same time.

He checked the tablet in his lap, expecting to see a response from Special Agent Vale but instead finding another automated message from JRIC’s facial-recognition division. The system had registered another hit on the same camera, but this one at a much farther distance.

“Murphy’s on the move already,” said Reeves, clicking the link.

He grabbed his phone to warn Vale, glancing at the screen again. What the hell? The system had flagged Gunther Ross. How was that even possible, unless—oh, shit! He dialed Vale.

“Come on. Come on,” he said, waiting for her to pick up.

“Good timing,” she said. “I have Kathleen Murphy and Pamela Stack in sight. I couldn’t believe it when both—”

“Agent Vale! Sorry to interrupt, but I need you to listen carefully.”

“I’m listening.”

“I don’t have time to explain, but there’s another group interested in locating Decker, and we just got a facial recognition hit on their presumed leader from the same camera that caught Murphy. This group is extremely dangerous. Spec Ops–level mercenaries. I need you to back off as far as possible. It’s your call how many vehicles to keep on the surveillance. New target vehicle is a white Range Rover. Three occupants. Looks like they entered the parking lot from—”

“Saugus Avenue. I see it,” she said. “Crap. They just cruised a few feet behind Murphy and Stack. Still moving. Looks like a surveillance pass.”

“They’re after the same thing we’re after—Decker’s location. Did you put a tracker on Murphy’s vehicle?”

“No. Simonetti got held up in traffic. I guess that’s a good thing.”

“Yeah. They probably had people there soon after you arrived,” said Reeves. “Dammit. I should have seen this coming.”

“This group has access to the city’s cameras?”

“I don’t see any other way to explain this,” said Reeves. “Pass the word to your teams.”

Gunther Ross’s conservative approach to navigating the parking lot suggested he thought he was safe from the newly installed camera. He hadn’t come within standard facial-recognition range. Watts’s experimental software upgrade had paid off.

“Any update on the aircraft?” she said.