True Fiction (Ian Ludlow Thrillers #1)(40)

“Uh-huh.”

“How’s it going?”

“I’m down here, sitting in the Vine’s house,” Ian said. “That should tell you something.”

“Great,” Ronnie said. “So I’ll be getting another shit script that I’ll have to save with my performance.”

Ronnie winked and walked out. But he was right. That was exactly what would happen.





CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

Blackthorn Global Security Headquarters, Bethesda, Maryland. July 20. 3:25 p.m. Eastern Standard Time.

Blackthorn’s entire media wall was filled with a high-definition bird’s-eye view of Klamath Falls, Oregon, from the combat drone’s camera, creating the vivid illusion that Cross could walk out of the room and plunge thousands of feet to the ground below. It reminded him of his early days as an operative, leaping out of airplanes into war zones to covertly assist the rebels on the ground in overthrowing their governments. The CIA called it “regime change.” It rarely worked but that didn’t stop the agency from repeating the mistake.

“The police went to the house in Seattle,” Victoria reported, breaking into his thoughts. “They’ve found a woman’s body.”

She swiped an image on her screen and it appeared on the media wall in a window within the drone’s aerial view. Cross looked up at a crime scene photo of a woman in a black jogging suit, impaled with a fireplace poker on a bloody kitchen floor. It wasn’t Margo French.

“Who is she?” he asked.

“It’s our asset,” Victoria said.

It was unbelievable to him. An obscene practical joke being played on Cross by a cruel God. A trained assassin goes up against a writer with a broken arm and a dog sitter . . . and loses? How the hell does that happen?

The only explanation Cross could think of was that his people missed something in their background checks of Ludlow and French. One or both of the targets were trained in self-defense. His money was on Ludlow, based on what was in his Straker books and the fact that he’d survived three attempts on his life. But he wouldn’t assume that French didn’t have hidden combat skills as well.

When this was over, he’d find the morons who’d made that monumental research blunder and make them pay dearly for it. From now on, though, he’d treat Ludlow and French as if they were professional spies, two Russian sleeper agents on the run. Hell, maybe they were. It made as much sense as anything else that had happened over the last few days.

“Make sure that any fingerprints in the house that don’t belong to the owners or the dog sitter come back as dead ends,” Cross said. “I don’t want the police finding Ludlow before we do.”

“No problem,” Seth said. “But soon the authorities will discover that the dog sitter has disappeared, if they haven’t already. They might even learn that French was escorting Ludlow around Seattle and that he hasn’t shown up at his Denver signing.”

“Hopefully they’ll both be dead before the police get that far along,” Cross said. “Do what you can in the meantime to wipe French and Ludlow from the picture and slow the investigation down. Create a fake, unexpected trip for French, perhaps to deal with a death in her family, or something along those lines, to explain her disappearance. Create the entire travel trail, the same as we would to build a cover for an agent. Do the same for Ludlow. Notify Ludlow’s publisher and the bookstores on his tour that he’s had to cancel his appearances.”

“Consider it done,” Seth said.

Victoria read some details on her screen. “According to the police reports, the house was ransacked and a vintage 1968 Mustang 390 GT fastback is missing from the garage. They’ve got an APB out on it.”

Cross doubted that would lead anywhere. Ludlow had probably swapped the license plates with another vehicle. That’s what a pro would do and, from now on, that’s what he was assuming Ludlow was. But why did he pick such a distinctive car? A pro wouldn’t want to stand out.

“What other vehicles were in the garage?”

“A 2015 Porsche Panamera, a 2016 Range Rover, and a 2017 Ferrari,” Victoria said.

Now it made sense. They were all showy cars. But Ludlow chose the only car without electronics and wireless connectivity. Smart move. He wondered if Ludlow had already ditched the car in favor of another, less showy vehicle, something common like a Toyota Corolla or Ford Focus.

“Get a list of any car thefts that occurred in Seattle last night and any that occurred along the route to Klamath Falls,” Cross said. “They may have changed vehicles. In the meantime, add the Mustang to the drone’s search parameters.”

“Yes, sir,” Victoria said. “But we need a way to narrow down the search area. They could have gone anywhere after leaving Klamath Falls.”

No, not anywhere. Ludlow was definitely going somewhere specific. Cross was certain there was a strategy behind Ludlow’s actions. Maybe there had been from the moment he left Los Angeles and they’d missed it. Cross wouldn’t underestimate Ludlow again.

“He knows exactly where he’s going and what he’s doing. There’s nothing random about his actions.” Cross turned to Seth. “Go through Ludlow’s history of credit card statements and phone bills for any charges or calls within a three-hundred-mile radius west, east, and south of Klamath Falls. Go back a decade.”