Hellbent

Lyle swallowed to moisten his throat. “Okay.”

The silence was uncomfortable.

Enough time had passed that Lyle could fiddle with his Nikon again without drawing attention. He lifted it up, watched Joey chewing and gazing absentmindedly into the middle distance. The sun was directly overhead, warming the patio. They were in fucking Arizona. Why wouldn’t she just take a sip of water?

At last she wiped her mouth. She reached for the glass. She lifted it from the table.

A figure loomed behind her, blurry in the zoom-lens close-up. A hand lifted the water glass out of the girl’s hand.

Lyle adjusted the focus, found himself staring at Orphan X.

How the hell did X know the water had been spiked?

Abruptly, Lyle was perspiring. The ASU polo stuck to the small of his back. X was saying something to the girl.

Lyle’s breathing must have changed, because Van Sciver said, “What? What is it?”

Lyle started at the voice; he had forgotten about the phone pressed to his cheek. His mind whirled, assessing the best phrasing of the update. He opened his mouth, but dread prevented any words from exiting.

The girl rose to leave.

Orphan X paused by her chair, water glass still in hand.

Then he drank it down.

As X followed the girl out of the plaza, Lyle felt his mouth drop open a bit wider. A chime announced the GPS beacon going live on his Samsung.

Van Sciver said, “What happened?”

It took Lyle two tries to get the words out. “We just hit the jackpot.”

* * *

Samsung in hand, Lyle ran across the plaza to where Pellegrini waited in the idling truck. Lyle jumped in, eyeing the GPS grid, gesturing madly for Pellegrini to turn right.

“There, there, there! We only have seven minutes left.”

Pellegrini looked confused by Lyle’s urgency. “We got the girl?”

Lyle said, “We got Orphan X.”

Pellegrini’s expression went flat with shock. The tires chirped as he pulled out. Lyle directed him around the block, following the blinking dot on his screen.

“Do we do this ourselves?” Pellegrini said. “Or wait for backup?”

Lyle held up the screen. As former Secret Service, they had a clear operational sweet spot, and that encompassed surveillance, prevention, and protection. When they had to be, they were proficient assaulters as well, but that wasn’t where the critical mass of their training had been spent. That had been made all too apparent by the death count of their fellow recruitees.

“We have Orphan X tagged,” Lyle said. “We can get the drop on him if we move right now.”

Pellegrini nosed the truck around the corner, and they saw it up ahead, a black Nissan Altima with a spoiler, Orphan X in view behind the wheel, the girl in the passenger seat. Lyle texted the vehicle description and license plate to Van Sciver.

Van Sciver had access to satellites, and once they locked the car in from above, there was nowhere on God’s green earth it could go that it wouldn’t be found.

Van Sciver’s text confirmed: BIRDS ONLINE NOW.

ARE YOU EN ROUTE?

ALMOST AT THE AIRPORT.

The Nissan wheeled around the corner. As it turned, Orphan X’s face rotated slightly toward them.

“Shit,” Pellegrini said. “Did he see us?”

“I don’t know,” Lyle said. “I don’t think so.”

“Tell Van Sciver.”

Lyle texted: MIGHT HAVE BEEN MADE. UNSURE.

Van Sciver’s reply: PROCEED. BE CAUTIOUS.

The Nissan kept driving, neither quicker nor slower. They stayed on its tail.

“Holy shit,” Lyle said. “We’re gonna be the ones. We’re gonna be the ones.”

“Calm down,” Pellegrini said.

Up ahead the Nissan pulled into a six-story parking structure.

Lyle texted Van Sciver: ENTERED PARKING GARAGE.

The reply: BIRDS ARE UP. WE’LL PICK HIM UP WHEN HE EXITS. FLUSH HIM OUT BUT DO NOT PURSUE.

Lyle brought up the GPS screen, watched the dot rise and rise. “He’s heading to an upper floor.”

Pellegrini turned into the parking structure. As he slowed to snatch a ticket from the dispenser, Lyle pointed ahead. The black car, now empty, was parked next to the handicapped spots by the elevators.

The truck pulled through, and Lyle hopped out and circled the car, confirming it was empty. As he ran back to the truck, he was already keying in his next text to Van Sciver: CAR EMPTY, PARKED BY ELEVATORS ON GROUND FLOOR.

The last reception bar flickered, but the text sent just before the Samsung lost service. Lyle climbed into the truck. “Go, go, go. He went upstairs.”

Pellegrini said, “Why?”

“If he’s switching cars on another level, we have to get there to ID the new vehicle for the satellites. We’ve only got a few minutes before we lose GPS.”

A circular ramp looped around a hollow core at the center of the parking structure. Pellegrini accelerated into the turn, centrifugal force shoving Lyle against the door as they rode up the spiral to the second level.

He watched the dot. It was way above them on six.

Pellegrini made a noise, and Lyle glanced up from the screen.

A black rope was now dangling down the center column of the parking structure.