Beyond Limits (Tracers #8)(63)
Derek slammed on the brakes as he nearly flew past the turnoff to the firing range. He hooked a sharp turn onto the gravel road as his phone rattled in the cup holder. It was Cole.
“You get the callback?” Derek asked without preamble.
“I’m headed out tomorrow.”
“Driving?”
“Flying,” Cole said.
“Listen, any chance you’re at the range right now? I just pulled in.”
“I’m at my sister’s place. Why?”
Derek turned into the parking lot and found a space. The crowd was sparse, with it being a Monday—just some guys who looked like off-duty cops, maybe getting in a few mags before the swing shift.
“I’ve got a question for you,” Derek said. “If I needed to get my hands on a Krinkov, a Super-Shorty twelve-gauge, and an AAC Honey Badger, who would I talk to?”
Silence on the other end.
“That’s some serious hardware,” Cole finally said. “A Honey Badger fully automatic?”
“Yeah. You know anyone around here?”
“I know a few guys, but you’d be looking at some coin. That’s quite a list.”
“I don’t want to buy it. I need to know who might have sold it recently.”
“How recently?”
“Last few weeks,” Derek said. “I have a feeling the buyer came into a nice payday.”
Cole got quiet. Then he asked, “Is this about the tango who took a dive off that roof?” There was a touch of jealousy in his voice, and Derek knew that if there was something going down, Cole wanted to be a part of it.
“I need the name of someone local,” Derek said, answering the question indirectly.
“Shit, I don’t like the sound of that, but lemme ask around, see what I can get.”
“I appreciate it.”
“Hey, you want to come out tonight? Grab some beers before we head back?”
“Thanks, but I’ve got plans.”
“Yeah, I bet you do.” Cole sounded like he was smiling now. “Be sure to tell her hi for me.”
Another call came in as Derek hung up. The Delphi Center.
“Hey there.”
“Derek, it’s Mia Voss.”
“I figured.”
“I completed those tests on your boots,” she said, and something in her voice set off a warning bell.
“Yeah, I was going to swing by there tomorrow on my way back through.”
“This won’t wait till tomorrow,” she told him. “I’m coming to you.”
* * *
“Our facial-recognition software is cutting-edge,” Elizabeth said. “It’s good against disguises, even plastic surgery. But the best countermeasure out there is a burka.”
Gordon watched her skeptically from across the conference table. He and everyone else in the room clearly weren’t sold on her female accomplice theory.
“All this is based on a smell?” Gordon asked.
“It was prompted by that, yes, and then an eighteen-inch-long hair recovered from the motel room,” she said. “I believe we should seriously consider the idea that the elusive accomplice we’ve been searching for could be female. I mean, why shouldn’t it be a woman?”
“How about a couple thousand years of tradition?” Torres said. “How about strict religious beliefs? Their whole motive for this thing is their anti-Western ideology.”
“Their strict religious beliefs didn’t keep them away from the Pussycat three nights running,” Lauren countered. “Looks to me like they’re willing to bend the rules when it suits them.”
“Let’s get back to the facts,” Gordon said. “Did anyone at the motel actually see a woman coming or going from this room we’re looking at?”
“Not that we’ve been able to locate,” Elizabeth said. “But one of the maids told us she heard what she thought was a female voice coming from the room one morning when she walked by.”
“Maybe they had one of the Pussycats over,” Torres said.
Elizabeth glanced around, frustrated. “Let’s just assume for a minute that Tango Two is a woman. It makes their plot so much easier, especially in terms of facial-recognition software.” She focused her attention on Gordon. “The vast majority of the faceprints in the terrorist database are male. If she had a decent passport, a good forgery, she could have walked right through immigration posing as a British national or a Canadian or someone from any of our other non-visa countries. We don’t have her prints or her photo on file, so how would we know?”
“It would be in keeping with their MO,” Lauren said, throwing her a lifeline. “We know two of these guys posed as Latin American businessmen so they could get over here and then sneak through a border tunnel. With the right passport in hand, a woman wouldn’t even have to sneak.”
“What do we know about these guys’ wives and sisters?” Torres asked Gordon.
He was leaning back in his chair, contemplating the whiteboard where investigators had taped photos and biographical info about the two known terrorists. The two unknowns—the driver of the Chevy Cavalier and now the passenger from the narco sub—had no pictures on the board yet, only big red question marks.