Middle Of Nowhere

   The cell phone in Hu's hand carried an open line to Gaynes's right ear. Gaynes wore a small headset attached to her cell phone to keep her hands free. She mumbled into the headset and then informed Boldt, "A Caucasian, female, just entered the store."

   Boldt turned up the volume on the dash-mounted police radio receiver. Being in the back room, Dooley Kwan and his RF microphone provided no insight into the goings-on in the front of the store. Boldt desperately wanted to know what was going on.

   The slightest movement on Kwan's part resulted in a scratching through the receiver's small speaker.

   "You turn that up any louder," Gaynes commented, "and we're going to hear him sweating."

   "Description?" Boldt requested.

   Gaynes repeated the request into her headset. Poking the earpiece firmly into her ear to hear Kwan's reply she reported, "Female. Late teens, early twenties. Caucasian. Five-six, five-seven. Platinum—"

   "Courtney Samway," Boldt said. "Flek sent her to pick up the scope for him." He had an undercover team in place following Samway—later that day he would have heard about this visit in the team's daily report, albeit too late. He used the radio to notify her surveillance team to leave the area. He didn't need any additional confusion.

   They transmitted Samway's identity to "Dooley" Kwan and informed the others to follow the suspect if and when she left. Jilly Hu on foot. Danny Lincoln by bike.

   The radio picked up Dooley as he responded to Wong. Boldt and Gaynes listened intently. The exchange was brisk. Dooley delivered Flek's scope to the front of the store, at which point his concealed microphone picked up the conversation in the room.

   Wong told Samway, "Tell your friend all sales are final. The modifications he requested have been made, and that next time I won't deal with a go-between. It's not how I do business."

   "Whatever," the woman said. "He just asked me to pick the thing up for him. I don't know what he wants with some microphone anyway."

   "It's her," Boldt said to Gaynes, recognizing the voice. "It must be in a microphone box."

   Gaynes nodded. "Yup. The girlfriend. I overheard her in the Box," Gaynes said. "You think it's conceivable she doesn't know what it is?"

   "I think he does her thinking for her, if that's what you're asking."

   Over the radio, Wong said, "A hundred and fifty for the modifications."

   "He only gave me a hun," Courtney Samway complained. She was fifty dollars short.

   Boldt checked that the cassette hubs were spinning. He said, "That connects her pick-up to a man, and we already have her connected to Flek. That'll help Delgato in terms of arrest warrants."

   She complained, "Does us no good without the collar."

   "Notify the street team the mark is good," Boldt ordered. "And remind them that Flek may have simply dropped her off. He could be in the area."

   Boldt then radioed SPD dispatch and dictated instructions for the uniforms in the patrol cars. For security's sake, the messages to the patrol cars would be sent over the vehicle's onboard mobile data terminal— MDT. These digitized text messages were impossible to intercept.

   He wanted his team alert. If Flek was in the area, he probably had the assault rifle in his possession. Scope or no scope, it represented lethal firepower.

   Wong and Samway argued money over the radio worn by Dooley.

   Samway's voice said faintly, "Hang on. Let me make sure he only gave me the hun."

   Boldt didn't want Wong to refuse her the scope. He needed that scope to lead him to Flek.

   "What do you know?" Samway said. "I had it all along."

   "Next time no go-betweens," Wong complained, heard over the radio. "I no do business with go-betweens."

   "Yeah, yeah," the young woman scoffed. A doorbell rang softly, signaling her departure.

   Courtney Samway appeared on the sidewalk in front of Wong's store.

   "Doesn't look like a stripper from here," Gaynes said.

   Boldt watched and listened as his crew kicked into gear. Jilly Hu followed on foot.

   Danny Lincoln fixed the chain, mounted the bike and pedaled out into traffic. Samway walked west. Boldt's team followed. He and Gaynes carefully monitored the radio.

   Lincoln informed dispatch that Samway had boarded a bus.

   Gaynes asked, "Eastbound or westbound?"

   "Damn!" Boldt shouted, traffic blocked by a doubleparked bread truck.

   "Wonder Bread," Gaynes said, reading the back of the delivery truck. "Wouldn't you just know it?"

* * *

As the eastbound bus pulled away from the curb, Samway aboard, Boldt's team scrambled to follow—although to look at them, one would not detect the slightest bit of anxiety; this, in case Flek was himself watching.

   Boldt drove the van with Gaynes as shotgun; Lee drove a Ford with Hu as his passenger; Danny Lincoln pedaled furiously on the bike.

   Predictably, in tortoise-versus-the-hare fashion, the bike out-paced the slower vehicular traffic and kept up with the bus, Lincoln reporting its location block by block.