DHS had taken over East 57th and Sutton Place, an area that gave them a quiet
residential cul-de-sac that terminated at a pocket park bordering the East River.
Plenty of room for the Mobile Command Center and absolute control of the zone. Heat
and Rook jumped out of the cruiser at the cordon and single-filed between the line
of plain-wrap Crown Victorias, Malibus, fire trucks, and ambulances to the white RV,
where they found Agents Callan and Bell standing outside its open door. Twenty feet
from hello, Yardley Bell spotted them and called, “Sorry to inconvenience your date
night with a little law enforcement.”
Nikki wanted to smack her. So what if it was only dry cop humor? It might have only
been that. It also might have been cheap snarkiness from Rook’s ex. For the second
time that night, Heat firewalled her feelings and held professional focus. “Agents,
” she said, “bring me up to speed on the target.”
Agent Callan beckoned them inside the RV, the interior of which had been fitted with
all the tech essentials to command and communicate during a tactical operation.
“Cool,” said Rook. “It’s like Air Force One’s dinghy.” He scowled and
attempted Harrison Ford. “Get off my RV.” Registering their stares, he said,
“Proceed.”
“To the best of our info,” said Callan, “Tyler Wynn has a safe house in a
fourth-floor apartment up the block near First Avenue.” A junior agent at the
console brought up a satellite photo of the neighborhood with resolution unlike
anything available on Google Earth. He then touched the screen to zoom in and
highlight the building. Callan continued, “Like the rest of this neighborhood, it’
s mostly over-sixty-fives with money.”
“Hide in plain sight,” said Heat.
“Exactly.”
Then she asked, “What do you mean by your best info? Have you had a sighting or an
eyewit?”
“We have not seen the target ourselves, although we now have a surveillance dome
over this place.” Then the agent went on, “What we did, however, was send in one
of our tech units posing as a repair team to service the building’s security
cameras. Basically, that allowed us to tap their system without sending up any
flares, in case the doorman or concierge are getting spiffed by Wynn for warnings.”
Callan signaled the board operator, and a window of security video rolled and then
froze on the image of Tyler Wynn getting off the elevator on the fourth floor,
holding a tennis racquet. “Is this your man?”
Heat said, “The time stamp is just after ten this morning. Is this the latest hit?
”
“Affirm. We scrubbed video from then until now, all possible exits. Target went in
this ayem and hasn’t come out.”
“How did you find him?” asked Rook.
“All thanks to you,” said Agent Bell. Nikki caught the shoulder pat Yardley gave
him. And how it lingered and trailed across his back.
“Hey, great, I’ll take it, but how?”
“You gave me the idea yesterday of tracking him through his retail purchases. You
know, the RFID chips?”
Rook said, “Of course, I know. We are all over that at the precinct.”
“And that’s adorable,” she said, somehow not sounding condescending this time,
not to Rook. “But come on, we’re in The Bigs. We have the resources. We do this in
our sleep. In fact, we did. Our mainframes were humming overnight, and—thanks to
your list of Wynn’s connoisseur tastes—they spit out critical overlaps to this
address. We sent in the geeks to tap the security cams, and by noon, we had him.”
“Noon?!” shouted Heat, unable to control the flash bang of rage that had just gone
off inside her. “Are you kidding me? You have known this since noon today?” She
turned to Rook and saw him fuming, too, which only fueled her anger and resentment.
“You walk into my precinct, you essentially hijack my investigation—plus, without
telling my squad we’re wasting our goddamned time, you duplicate our efforts to
follow the RFIDs—and now take a bow like we should throw roses and kiss your ass?”
She whipped her head to Callan. “Is this what you feds call cooperative interface?
”