Which meant it was something else.
The timing troubled him for another reason. It implied that he might be under surveillance, and the entry was in anticipation of his imminent arrival.
Which was standard operating procedure for his ex-employer.
But if that was the case, why lie in wait at the store? Why not simply put a bullet in him as he rode to work?
The answer was obvious: they wanted to interrogate him. Which meant they needed to take him alive.
The entire sequence of thoughts ran through his mind in a blink, and to any observer he looked like he had just checked his messages and was heading back on his way. He rolled forward and, once up to speed, ducked down an alley that paralleled a larger street. He watched for following vehicles in his mirror, but there was nothing.
A part of him wanted to chance driving by the shop to see what, if any, evidence there was of a forced entry, but he dismissed the idea as too dangerous. If they knew his shop, they probably had a description of his motorbike, if not its license plate, even though it wasn’t in his name.
But what if it was a false alarm? Little paranoid, old boy, aren’t we?
Paranoid was when you saw threats where none existed – which meant you were wrong. Matt had been many things in his life, but paranoid wasn’t one of them. As someone who had directed his share of dirty deeds on behalf of God and country, he understood more than most just how extensive the clandestine apparatus truly was, and what it was capable of.
But he had to know.
Five minutes later, he was seated in the back of a gypsy cab, an unmarked olive Renault sedan, cruising past his shop, one of a dozen similarly anonymous vehicles on the street.
The security awning was still in place. As he’d have left it if he’d been running an op. Because he’d have gone in through the back door.
The car returned him to the alley, and he retrieved his phone from the storage compartment of the scooter, where he’d ditched it in case it was somehow being tracked – a very low probability since it was an unlocked version he’d bought slightly used at the local flea market only three weeks earlier; but still, a potential risk.
He thumbed through the menu and selected an icon in the password-protected area and activated it. A black-and-white image came to life on the screen, and he peered at it with the intensity of a scientist through an electron microscope. The interior of the shop looked as he’d left it, nothing out of place. The tiny remote camera on a laptop he left strategically positioned, covered in dust, an apparent failed repair, offered a reasonable image – enough for him to feel more relaxed. Perhaps it was a false alarm. A bum trying the rear door or a short or a…
He squinted at the slight movement he’d detected in the corner of the screen. There.
Almost out of the field of vision of the laptop, but not quite.
It was the toe of a boot.
Someone was in the shop. And that someone had taken sufficient precautions to avoid being seen by the laptop camera. Almost.
Which confirmed that it was a pro.
Possibly a team.
There was only one reason he could think of that a professional would be waiting for him at his store, and it wasn’t for computer repair.
Chapter 10
Jet mopped the wood floor of the dining room, cleaning up the splatter left behind by Hannah, but her mind was elsewhere. She couldn’t believe that she’d spent well over a year with her daughter since reuniting with her – the time had flown by. It was with mixed feelings that she packed her off to preschool every day, but she knew it was important for Hannah to be around other children, to have friends, to interact and socialize. If it was up to Jet, she’d keep her daughter by her side twenty-four seven, the memory of their near misses still as fresh as a bleeding wound, but that would ultimately be bad for her child, so against her emotional judgment she let her go.
Her phone trilled from the kitchen, the distinctive ring that she’d assigned to Matt’s calls. He’d probably forgotten something and wanted her to ride over on her bicycle when she was out later and swing by his shop. She didn’t mind – she had five hours to fill before Hannah would be back.
She leaned the mop against the wall and hurried into the kitchen, answering on the fourth ring.
“Hi.”
“I’m blown,” Matt said, and then the call died mid-sentence.
She stared at the phone like it was a live scorpion, processing the two-word warning, and then rushed up the stairs, her conditioning kicking in. She pressed redial, but her phone showed no signal, alerting her to the likelihood that someone was jamming it.
Jet moved to the bedroom window and stood in the shadows, peeking out at the street. Three sedans she didn’t recognize were parked in front of the house, as were two vans, one of which boasted an array of antennas.