So far her new cohorts consisted of a muscular misogynist and a knife-wielding mutilator. Lovely.
They rode in silence for an hour before Dani felt the van angle downward and make several turns as if they had gone into a multilevel subterranean parking garage. She couldn’t recall any structures fitting that description in Manhattan. Had they gone into New Jersey? Wherever they were, the surveillance teams would have had a tough time maintaining a tail over such a long distance. At least they still had their concealed tracking devices.
When the van came to an abrupt halt, Chopper slid the door open and hopped out. The pungent stench of urine hit her before she clambered from the vehicle to find that she’d been correct about the underground garage, but she couldn’t pinpoint her location. The gray concrete walls and floor could have been anywhere, and the fact that the space was only half-filled with cars told her they had likely descended to the lowest level.
Two more men were waiting when they got out. One could have been a heavyweight boxer, with bulging muscles and a misshapen nose that looked fresh out of the ring. He stepped forward, holding a metal-detecting wand.
“This is Guapo,” Toro told her. “He’s got security duty today.”
Dani figured the code name was ironic, because the man before her would hardly be anyone’s description of handsome. His face had been fractured in many places, and deeply scarred as well.
When Chopper, Jock, and Toro stood with their arms and legs spread, she followed suit, wondering what they would do with her weapons and bracelet cuff.
The wand emitted a high-pitched tone, prompting Chopper to remove first a compact pistol, then a shiny butterfly knife. He placed them inside a duffel bag clutched in Guapo’s free hand.
“Well isn’t this cute?” Guapo said, smirking at the gun that fit in the palm of his beefy hand.
“That’s a Glock Model 30, asshole,” Chopper said. “There are ten .45-caliber rounds in the magazine, and one of them could be for you.”
“Do we all need to drop our pants and get out a ruler?” Toro said. “Or can we get on with this?”
As Guapo moved on to Jock, Chopper stepped over to the next man, who held something that resembled a bright-yellow plastic flashlight with coiled wires where the bulb should have been.
“What’s that?” Chopper asked the man.
“Extra security,” he responded, pointing the end with the coils at Chopper. “Hold still a sec.”
Chopper frowned. “I’d like to know what you—”
“Done,” the man said after pressing a red button on top of the device. “Didn’t hurt at all, did it?”
Chopper grumbled and stepped aside.
Dani figured the thing must be some sort of scanner, but her mind was on a more pressing matter as she saw Jock drop a .357 Magnum revolver and a switchblade into Guapo’s duffel. What would she do when he finished with Toro and came to her? The rule book said she should not give up her weapons, but she was certain her undercover assignment would end here and now if she refused to turn them over.
Toro bent to place his gun and knife in the bag, and Guapo stepped in front of her. He looked down at her with interest as he passed the wand over her. The first beep sounded at the top of her head.
She pointed at her hair. “Just a metal hair clip,” she said.
Guapo grunted and kept going. He did not seem to care about her bracelet, either, for which she was grateful. She might be unarmed, but at least she could still be tracked.
As expected, the device beeped again when he passed it over her chest. He rested the duffel bag on the floor and reached out to her with his free hand, eyes alight with lascivious interest.
“Back off.” She reached inside her upper pocket and pulled out the extra magazine, then dropped it into the bag.
A second pass of the wand confirmed there was nothing else in that spot. He muttered something crude under his breath and went about his business, scanning her body until another tone sounded at the small of her back.
“Nice piece,” Guapo said, admiring the Sig Sauer she had pulled out. “Good stopping power.”
“When I shoot something,” she said, “I want it to stay down.”
Guapo jerked his chin toward the duffel, and she hesitantly placed the pistol inside.
“We’ll be getting these back, right?” she asked him.
“Absolutely.” He continued to scan, stopping at the top of her boot and waiting while she slid out a black tactical folding knife and tossed it into the bag, where it landed among the other weapons with a metallic clatter.
Before she had a chance to see what he was doing, the man with the yellow flashlight-looking device had already pointed it at her and pressed the red button.
Based on his evasive comment toward Chopper, she decided not to press him for details about what kind of scanner it was.
After stooping to pick up the duffel, Guapo sauntered over to the black van they had arrived in and gave the side panel two thumps with his fist. The van sped away, heading in the direction of the ramps that led up to the street-level exit.
There were only two reasons to dismiss their transportation. One was because they were all about to be killed where they were. The other was to switch vehicles and evade a tail. Neither option boded well. Guapo continued walking until he came to a charcoal-gray Suburban with windows tinted so dark it was impossible to see inside.
He motioned them in, and Dani joined the others climbing into various seats. The driver faced forward, avoiding eye contact with his passengers. As soon as they were all inside, he drove smoothly upward and out of the garage.
Finally able to see her surroundings, she made out a sign confirming that they had traveled into the Garden State. The nearby waterfront and surrounding buildings told her she was in Jersey City.
The vehicle switch had been an unexpected tactic, telling her more about the group’s sophistication and expertise than anything Toro could have said. Fortunately for her, the FBI would be able to track their hidden transmitters despite the vehicle transfer.
“By the way,” Toro said to the second man, his tone casual. “What was that thing you zapped us with? I mean, I’m still going to be able to father children someday, right?”
A slow smile split the man’s face. “You’re still fine,” he said. “But your electronics—not so much.”
Dani concealed her alarm. “What do you mean?”
He turned to her. “That was a handheld EMP device. You may as well toss your cell phones. They’re paperweights now.”
She made an effort to control her expression. An electromagnetic pulse generator that size would fry any electronic device within a yard. In retrospect, that explained why they had been standing away from other cars in the parking garage. They hadn’t gone to the Suburban until after the EMP had been put away. Why hadn’t Toro warned them about this?
She cut her eyes to see him glance at his smart watch and curse. As she had feared, his watch and her hidden tracker had been rendered useless along with their cell phones. She doubted Wu and the others were aware of the vehicle switch, which had taken place deep underground.
In less than an hour, she and Toro had been disarmed, surrounded, and left completely on their own.
CHAPTER 21
Wu sat with the others in the JOC, looking at the series of wall-mounted monitors that formed two rows of streamed images. He focused on the center screen, which displayed the satellite feed.
“What’s that garage he’s driving into?” he said to Johnson, stationed at the computer terminal closest to him.
She typed rapidly before directing Wu’s attention to a different screen. “It’s a public self-park in Jersey City on Washington Boulevard,” Johnson said. “There are levels above and below ground.”
Wu shifted his attention to Flint. “Tell the alpha team to go in after them.”
Flint tapped the screen of his cell phone and put it to his ear. “Wait sixty seconds and follow them in,” he said. “But make sure you stay well back. If the van is parked, find a space where you can keep an eye on it, but do not approach unless it’s an emergency.”
“Depending on how many levels that garage has, they’ll have to use the radio to get back in touch with us,” Wu said, watching one of the teams they had tailing Vega and Toro make its way around the block before pulling inside the garage.
Detective Flint broke the silence a minute later. “The van’s coming out.”
Wu switched his gaze back to the satellite feed. Sure enough, the same black van was leaving the parking garage, where it made a quick right turn to merge with traffic.
“Must have picked up more passengers in the garage,” Wu said. “Tell the beta team to pick up the tail.”