She glanced around, squinting in the late-afternoon glare. They must have flown into a different time zone, which was definitely west of where they had been. She took in a small private airstrip surrounded by a wide expanse of flat, dusty ground. They seemed to be in the middle of nowhere. She could not determine what state they were in, assuming they were still on US soil.
A shuttle bus idled nearby, and the Colonel made his way to its door, which opened with a hiss. The front compartment was totally separate from the passenger area of the bus, and Dani could not get a good look at the driver through the reflective windows.
It seemed the client was determined to keep the group separated from his employees as much as possible. Given the fact that they were all supposed to be nameless and faceless, Dani assumed the Colonel had made the arrangements as part of the contract.
She followed the others once again, taking what had become her customary seat beside Toro near the back. The bus roared off, jolting along increasingly narrower and bumpier roads. Dani peered out at the bleak deserted country going by. She could not make out any landmarks in the featureless terrain.
After what felt like the better part of an hour, they bumped to a stop. The Colonel led the way off the bus, with the others falling in line. Looking around, Dani had the impression they had been dropped off in the middle of a barren patch of earth. There was nothing around except a rectangular cement structure about eight feet tall jutting straight up from the ground like a modern monolith. Senses on high alert, she began to suspect her cover may not have survived scrutiny after all. Were the others about to attack? The Colonel had not returned their weapons as promised.
Before she could form a question, the Colonel led them around the structure, revealing a metal door set into its opposite side. She watched as he punched a code into a keypad above the handle. After a loud metallic click, he pulled it open. When he entered and began to walk down, she realized it had to be some sort of underground facility.
Guapo trailed behind her, making sure she fell in with the others. She hesitated at the entrance and looked down into the gloom lit only by a flickering bare bulb. Her boots thudded on concrete stairs as she descended. She turned to see Guapo pull the door shut after he entered. The metallic clanging had the ominous finality of prison gates closing. A loud electronic click followed by a ka-thunk told her the reinforced door had been remotely locked.
She was well and truly trapped.
CHAPTER 24
After a hair-raising drive through the Holland Tunnel with lights and siren blaring, Wu stood on the uneven cobblestones in the Court Street alley beside one of the Bureau’s Ford Econoline vans. This one had been outfitted for prisoner transport with a stripped-down interior that consisted of two long benches with chains attached to bolts on the floor.
“You want me to take the lead?” Detective Flint asked him.
They had been finalizing how they would interview Kurt Guthry, who waited inside, handcuffed. The two agents on the delta team of the surveillance detail had raced down the alley to catch Guthry before he could escape. They had been driving the transport van, which also served as an operational vehicle.
Hoboken police officers cordoned off either end of the alley to keep spectators away until Wu and Flint arrived. He had wanted to interview Guthry personally, and the vehicle provided the ideal mobile interrogation room.
Flint’s patrol contacts had told them Guthry was a well-known local street hood who had only enough ambition to get up in the morning to score dope. If times were desperate, he’d been known to burglarize an apartment or hold up a liquor store. Hardly the kind of trained mercenary the Colonel was known to recruit.
“You go ahead,” Wu said, coming to a decision. “I want to focus on his body language. I’ll jump in at the appropriate times.”
“Yeah, like maybe if I get my hands around this moron’s neck and start squeezing.”
Wu didn’t blame Flint. First, they had thought Agent Vega and their asset had gone up in flames in the back of the van. When the fire department reported the vehicle was empty, they realized they had a new problem on their hands. What had happened to Vega and Toro?
“Time’s wasting,” Flint said. “We need to find out what Guthry knows.” At Wu’s nod, he slid open the FBI van’s side door and hauled himself inside.
Wu followed, shutting the door with a deliberate bang, hoping to bring the sound of a slamming cell door to Guthry’s drug-addled mind.
Watching the prisoner while Flint Mirandized him, Wu detected plenty of nervousness. As he had expected, Guthry waived his rights, anxious to talk. The man was either arrogant or had no information to bargain with. The former would make him a pain in the ass, the latter a complete waste of time.
“I got nothing to hide,” Guthry said, the telltale cocaine sniffle putting the lie to his words. “Didn’t do nothing wrong.”
“You set fire to a vehicle in an alley,” Flint said. “That’s a felony.”
“I was paid to do that.”
Now they were getting somewhere.
“Who paid you?” Flint asked. “And what did he tell you to do?”
Guthry struggled to get his synapses firing. “I never seen the dude before. He offered me a grand to use his van to drive some people to an underground parking garage on Washington Boulevard in Jersey City.”
If Guthry was telling the truth about his instructions, it would say a lot about their adversary.
“What happened when you drove into the garage?” Flint asked, cutting to the most critical point of the interview.
“I heard people get out of the van. There was some talking. Then someone banged on the back of the van twice. That was my signal to go, so I took off. Never looked back.”
“Who got out of the van?” Flint pressed. “How many people, and what did they look like?”
“There was a divider between me and whoever was in the back. Never saw them. The guy gave me the cash and walked away.” He shrugged. “Didn’t ask no questions. Didn’t talk to nobody else.”
“They switched vehicles,” Wu said to Flint.
“We put all our attention on that damned van,” Flint said. “And the whole time they were driving away.”
Wu slid the side door open and jumped down to the pavement, leaving Flint to wring whatever details he could out of Guthry.
He pulled out his cell and tapped the speed dial.
“Johnson here.” The analyst’s tone was crisp and efficient.
He wasted no time with pleasantries. “Get with the New Jersey State PD. Find out if there are any traffic cams around either of the two parking garages the van entered. Pull any footage you can find beginning right after Vega went in.” He heard a keyboard clacking in the background. “Send me a spreadsheet detailing every single car that went out of there.”
“Yes, sir,” Johnson said. “I’ll start the observation window fifteen minutes before she entered and capture every vehicle for an hour after she left.”
He disconnected. There would likely be hundreds of license plates to run down. Somewhere in that group would be the vehicle that had spirited away Vega and Toro.
A police officer tapped his elbow, interrupting his thoughts. He turned to her.
“We got a hit on the VIN,” she said.
Once the fire department had put out the blaze, police had been able to find a vehicle identification number stamped onto the engine block. He had asked them to run it.
“Who’s it registered to?” he asked.
She tore a sheet from a notepad and held it out to him. “Here’s the name and address of the owner, but don’t get your hopes up.” She pursed her lips. “The van was reported stolen two hours ago.”
Another dead end.
Self-recrimination settled in. He was in charge of the operation. Vega and Toro were his responsibility, and they had gone missing on his watch. He had underestimated the Colonel, a mistake he would not repeat.
CHAPTER 25
Dani stood beside the others under the dim glow of the lone overhead bulb. She was waiting for the next instructions when the light suddenly went out, plunging them all into darkness.
Nerves stretched tight, she heard the men shuffling around as if trying to get their bearings.
“Settle down,” the Colonel’s voice echoed through the small chamber. “I’ve got night-vision equipment. Form a line and put your hand on the shoulder of the person in front of you. I’ll lead you to your starting point.”
The Colonel had known they would be operating in the dark and came prepared, but he hadn’t shared that fact with his group. A leader who didn’t look out for his troops was no one she cared to follow.
“Why can’t we see where the hell we’re going?” one of the men called out.
“Because you’re supposed to be in a totally unfamiliar environment,” the Colonel said, not troubling to hide his irritation. “That’s the whole point of this exercise. You’ll all start in a separate location and will have to deal with whatever comes up.”
She felt Toro’s heavy hand on her right shoulder and groped in the darkness with her left hand until she grasped a beefy shoulder in front of her. Unlike Toro, she chose to keep her dominant hand free.
“What’s our objective?” she said into the darkness.