Hell. To be young again.
Fully aware I probably would not be the only one making a move on the device, I paid peripheral attention to my surroundings as I continued my search. I had to know its precise location to plan ahead. No point in lying in wait amongst the bushes, looking earnestly in entirely the wrong direction while the guy came and retrieved the device and went on his merry way with me none the wiser.
My apartment building glowed invitingly across the street in a way it never had back in the day when I had no missions and no one stalked me. As I approached, a glint from up in the branches caught my eye.
I looked up to see the device, nestling comfortably out of sight. Unless someone actually looked for it. I felt impressed, in a grudging kind of way. Not bad for a rush job. Not bad at all. Hell, the bloody thing probably remained invisible day and night.
If it hadn’t been for the combination of the light coming from the entrance to my apartment and my exact location, combined with the fact I initiated an active search, it would have remained entirely hidden.
I looked around then, trying to figure where a good vantage point would be, somewhere safe, but close enough to act at a moment’s notice. I had to hurry, on the off chance I’d have company soon at this exact spot. I didn’t exactly want to be standing around when they arrived.
No, I had an entirely different greeting planned for them, and it involved avoiding them altogether. I can’t lie to you, I felt something akin to rage inside, which I needed to unleash upon these bastards. But not yet. Now I needed to play the game strategically. Play smart.
The rage could come later.
So I looked around for a vantage point, and it only then occurred to me that I needed a stakeout, in the purely classical sense. This close to dawn it started getting colder, or so it seemed, and I didn’t much fancy hiding in wet foliage.
I realized I had erred by taking the Ferrari. Nothing could be more conspicuous than that piece of Italian joy and performing a stakeout in one seemed like trying to hide in a caramel sundae.
Great, I thought. It’s getting damn cold and I’m out here performing a stakeout without a car. Smart bloody move.
As it turned out, I didn’t have to worry. A movement in the corner of my vision. I turned my head slowly and saw a car, black and completely ordinary in appearance, slowly cruising in my direction.
Shit.
I dove behind the tree where the device lay hidden and used the shadows to move to the next tree, about ten feet away, and hunkered down.
I parted the leaves just enough to see the car slowly coming to a stop right where I’d been standing. A figure in dark clothes and a black beanie got out and approached the tree where the device still lay hidden. Probably the same bastard who’d put it there in the first place.
Shit, we possessed only one lead, and he had the advantage, by virtue of his position to the car in relation to my position in the bloody bushes. As soon as I moved from the bush I’d be in direct line of sight, and as much as I looked, turning my head both ways, I couldn’t see any way to approach him without him seeing me.
Wait, I thought. Get your head in gear, bud. The guy has to climb up there first, if he wants to get at the device, which although not high up, nevertheless lay just out of reach.
He looked around, as if expecting someone to be out there, ready to pounce any moment, but I guess in the hierarchy of missions this one ranked as clandestine for him.
Except someone really hid in the shadows.
Okay, I did not plan on pouncing. Everything had to go down without him ever knowing of my presence. The entire plan relied on that, and I had to make sure it went down without a hitch. Rachel’s life depended on it. I’d let her down before, and I sure as hell intended making amends.
The man in black made his move, walking casually toward the tree, looking up into its branches, obviously looking out for the tell-tale glint which would let him know he had the right tree. He looked around once more, making sure no one watched before beginning to climb. Carefully and quietly, he made his way up the tree like he did this kind of thing for a living.
When the tree’s branches obscured his head enough for me to make my move, I moved carefully away, keeping low and moving as fast as I could while still keeping dead quiet. I moved from the cover of one tree to the next, making my way around his position and eventually got to a tree close to his car. In an effort to be covert himself, he had avoided parking directly beneath a streetlamp, just like I had.
Good but I still faced a stretch between myself and his car. I looked back to see if he had located the device. I heard a slight rustling as if he were wrestling with the thing.
Good, time to make my move.
I broke cover and shot from the tree, still staying low, and swung around the rear of his car, stopping and keeping dead quiet to listen for the continued rustling from the tree which would tell me he hadn’t become aware of me.
Silence.
Shit.
I waited, counting to ten, and on eight the rustling resumed. I breathed a sigh of relief and lay back, pulling myself under the car. I had to get the phone as close to the center of the vehicle as possible to keep it properly out of sight and take no chances. So I pushed further into the shadows beneath the car until I gauged the right spot and took the phone out of my pocket.
Mel had mentioned something before I had left which would likely not have occurred to me, well not in time anyway. He’d said to keep the device off until in place, to keep as much power in the battery as possible. Good move.
I turned the phone on, and then I heard a grunt. I stopped dead.
The sound of footsteps, no longer trying to remain quiet, told me the guy had retrieved the device, and would arrive at the car within seconds.
I pulled on the strips protecting the adhesive side of the tape we’d wrapped around the phone as fast as I could, pulling them loose and sticking the phone firmly into the car’s belly, choosing a point which would give no room for it to fall off while driving, and lodged it securely in place. The guy’s steps sounded very close now.
I did a quick check to make sure the phone remained secured by both the tape and the car’s undercarriage and started pulling myself back out when the door opened. Shit, the guy had been as close as he had sounded. Or perhaps someone else had been inside all long.
I lay still, realizing I could do nothing. The car rocked above me as the guy sat down, slamming the door shut. But he didn’t start it immediately as I expected he would. A moment’s silence. A moment which seemed to stretch out forever. Then came the muffled sound of a voice, presumably talking on a phone.
I strained to decipher the conversation but the closed car windows prevented me from making out a word apart from his muffled voice.
Then silence once again, although short-lived this time. The car roared into life, and I lay there wondering why the hell I hadn’t brought my gun.
It pulled away from the curb, missing me by inches as it turned, and sped off into the night, leaving me lying on the road, staring up at the stars and thanking God for my luck. If the guy had driven straight before turning into the street I would have been directly in his rear-view mirrors. I rolled off the road and onto the grass slope that led up to the sidewalk as quickly as I could, lying motionless until the car disappeared, and breathed a sigh of relief.
Game on.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Shelley looked at me with a mixture of shock and horror after I’d related the morning’s adventures to her and Mel. I couldn’t blame her. I’d been pretty tense myself for a while back there. No matter what you’ve been through or how thorough your training as a SEAL, certain situations still got the adrenalin racing.
Believe me.
“Close enough,” Mel said, shaking his head. “In fact, way too close, my friend.”
The three of us sat around the coffee table in his lounge, and Mel’s eyes kept flicking to the screen, then back to us. All told, barely an hour had passed,
but it felt a hell of a lot longer to me.
“You should have come along. I had a blast.”
“Indeed,” Mel replied. “I always seem to miss all the fun. Perhaps staying alive has something to with it.”
“I needed to do it,” I replied. “So I did. I shouldn’t have expected it to be a cakewalk, but there you go. And anyway, how the bastard would pull away from the curb represented the only real danger. If he’d gone straight ahead he would’ve seen me and there would have been blood.”
“Yeah,” Mel said. “Well, you did it, Tom. Nice work, man.”
“We’re lucky they got there when they did, though,” Shelley said, starting to get over the initial shock of my close call.
“Not really,” Mel replied. “Nothing good planning and a few educated guesses can’t take care of, Shel. Tom and I did this for a living.”
“Yeah, I guess so,” Shelley said. “Yeah. Nice work, boys.”
“You were right there with us, Shel,” I replied.
“Thanks Tom,” she said with a tired smile.
“Nothing to thank me for. You did good, kiddo.”
“Okay, so how’s the trace going?” Shelley asked, looking at Mel with an anxiousness that I hadn’t seen up until this all started, and I had the feeling I’d be seeing it a lot more in the time it would take us to find Rachel.
“I’ve got a lock on the car,” Mel replied, watching the screen intently. “At the moment it’s moving through the city center, heading toward the coast, doesn’t look like it’s heading out of town, which is a good thing.”
“Shouldn’t we be tailing it?” Shelley asked. “What if it gets away?”
“Away from GPS?” I piped up. “Really, Shel?”
A pause as I landed up on the receiving end of another one of her looks.
“She’s right, Tom,” Mel replied. “There is a way we can lose them.”
A pause, and then it hit me. Ah hell.
“The battery,” I said softly. “Shit, well let’s hope they’re not going on a road trip.”
“Yup,” Mel said. “If that battery goes we’ll all wish we had a tail on the vehicle. But the route doesn’t look like they’re heading out of town, and sorry Shel, but we need to know where they’re going. If these guys are professionals, and I believe very strongly they are, then they’ll spot a tail in seconds.”
“So we just sit back and wait for them to reach their destination? And, what, hope they don’t leave the city and leave us screwed when that little blip on your screen goes dark?”
“Easy, Shel,” I cut in. “Mel is right. He has every route out of this city flagged on his computer. If they even thought about it we’d know. And as he says, they’re heading for the coast, which is not very far, and there’s no way out of town from there.”
“Unless they have a boat,” Shelley muttered.
“Yeah,” I replied. “Unless they have a boat, arrived, and then drove clear across town as the fastest way to get their device. Sorry, but I don’t think they have one.”
“Yeah, okay,” she muttered. “No boat. I get it.”
“Good, because it’s just silly,” I added, trying to get her to smile.
She elbowed me in the ribs, which I took as a good sign.
“Ouch,” I grunted.
“Serves you right, smartass.”
“In all likelihood,” Mel said. “They’re based in one of the houses on the coast. Perhaps a beach house, somewhere in a relaxed environment where they could get on with whatever they’re doing. They’ll arrive there soon enough, Shel. And when they do-”
“We’ll have them.”
“Yup, we’ll have them by the balls,” Mel replied. “Then it’s just a matter of taking one of them aside, preferably without being seen, and asking them a few questions, perhaps knock them around a bit if they prove… less than helpful to our cause.”
“I volunteer for the position,” I said, raising a hand. “It would make my week.”
“And you’ll get it,” Mel said. “But we need to do this quietly, carefully. As far as these assholes are concerned, you’re on your way to Beirut. I’d very much like to keep it that way for as long as possible. It’s pretty much our major edge at the moment.”
“Agreed,” I said. “The plane is going to touch down soon enough, and when it does, we should assume these guys will know it’s empty as soon as anyone else, whether it’s true. Let’s plan for the worst case scenario.”
“So we need to use the fact we’re ‘not here’ to our advantage while we still can.”
Mel nodded, “We made a good first move by planting the beacon on their car, but there’s more we need to do before the truth of that flight comes to light.”
“So we need to get in close, once we have their location,” I said.
“Yeah,” Mel replied, still watching his computer monitor, his untouched coffee probably cold by now. “We move in close and pull one of them away somehow.”
“And then we have a nice little chat,” I said with a grin.
“Well, I don’t know about nice,” Mel said. “Nice wouldn’t be the word I would use to describe it. But a chat? Yeah, sure. Works for me.”
“So in the meantime we just wait,” Shelley said, not looking very happy about it. I couldn’t blame her. She understood the plan, but it must have been hard for her to just sit around while her little girl was out there somewhere. I admired her for her courage. And for a while I remembered why I’d fallen in love with her all those years ago.
“Think of it as biding our time, Shel,” I said then. “We’re waiting for them to take us where we need to be. And once I’m there, well, the first punch is for you and Rachel.”
“I think I can go along with that,” she replied, with a smile on her face, which warmed my heart.
But the glint in her eye scared me a little.
“I thought you might.”
The apartment building stood across the road from the beach. A nice place, but not what Mel and I had expected. Not by a very long shot indeed. This was no house, no fortified compound with armed guys like we imagined it may be. Just an ordinary, if somewhat pricey, apartment building slotted in amongst many others of the same ilk.
The guy in black had parked on the street, no doubt in a hurry to stow the device at his place before the world woke up.
I could draw no other conclusion as to why he hadn’t parked in the basement parking, or perhaps he intended leaving again soon.
Either way, the car angled itself across the road, halfway on the pavement across the street from me, its glinting black shape a stark contrast to the white washed beach and still ocean beyond it.
“Ok, so I’ve got eyes on the vehicle,” I said into my burner phone, coming to a stop in the shadows cast from an apartment block.
“No sign of the target?” Mel asked from the other end, his voice sounding slightly far off, alerting me to his use of speaker phone, Shelley no doubt right beside him.
“No,” I replied. “No eyes on our guy. Mel, it’s a bloody apartment block. He could be anywhere in there.”
“Shit.”
“Yeah, that’s pretty much what I said.”
“Ok, Tom,” Mel replied. “Give me a sec. I’ve got an idea.”
I heard the sound of typing; obviously coming from his laptop.
Eventually he said, “Right, give me the car’s license plate number.”
I rattled off the numbers and heard the sound of tapping on a keyboard again.
A brief pause, stretching out for a bit.
“Ok, I’m searching the DMV for the owner’s information,” Mel said. “When I get a hit, we’ll know who he is and more importantly, what number he lives in. Then you get to have a field day with the son of a bitch.”
“Music to my ears.”
“Assuming this is his place,” Shelley said in the background.
She was right. That had been worrying me too, ever since I first laid eyes on the building. But I did not wish to add fuel to
the fire. Would the guy be in there by himself, or would I walk into a situation I couldn’t control.
“How long is this going to take?” I asked. “I’m feeling a bit exposed here, people.”
“I’m running it through my company’s server,” Mel replied. “Much, much faster. It won’t take long.”
“Ok, call me when you have a hit,” I replied. “I’m going to get a coffee across the street.”
“Will do, bud.”
I ended the call, got out of the car, and crossed the street to a coffee vendor I’d seen setting up for the day when I arrived a little after seven thirty. After picking up a cup of more or less drinkable coffee, I sauntered over to a bench just past the sidewalk and had a seat, taking a sip with a mild grimace, looking out to the sea.
So, we’d gotten this far. Not bad.
But not good enough, and the plane would touch down in Lebanon soon.
Thanks to a bit of cloak and dagger, some cool technology, and a fair whack of luck, we’d gotten this far. Now we needed some hard Intel, and the guy in the building behind me fitted the bill for the job.
The burner phone rang about five minutes later, and I answered, “Yeah? You got a hit? Tell me you got a hit, Mel.”
“I’ve got a hit,” Mel’s voice came back to me. “His name is John Masters. He’s an employee for a company called Division9, and his address is 411, Summer Seas.”
I looked back at the apartment block, checking the name.
Yup, Summer Seas.
“So what’s Division9?” I asked. “Anything you’ve heard of? Anything I need to know?”
“It’s a private security firm,” Mel replied. “Corporate security, more like. I haven’t looked at it any closer. Getting this Intel ranked high on my list of priorities. But it looks like they deal with some pretty advanced shit. Just be prepared, Tom.”
“Ok, thanks Mel,” I replied. “Looks like I’ve got some work to do.”
“Just make sure he’s not going anywhere when you’re done with him,” Mel said.
“We don’t want him running to anyone else who may be involved in this and have our cover blown. That would be a royal mess up.”
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