Total Control

by Griffin, Laura

  Jake sat forward. Had he just witnessed a handoff? Scout whimpered softly, seeming to sense his alarm.

  Several more women filed into the studio, and the man let the door close behind them. Then he walked across the parking lot toward the Honda. Dark hair, medium height, medium build. He wore mirrored sunglasses and had a neatly trimmed beard, but Jake knew in a heartbeat it was Jerome Matapang from the surveillance photo.

  “Fuck me,” he muttered.

  Had Courtney given him her keys?

  Jake’s question was answered when the man stopped beside her Honda. With a quick look around, he popped the locks and slid behind the wheel. The brake lights came on as he backed from the space. He drove to the far side of the parking lot, waited for a break in traffic, and pulled onto the boulevard.

  Jake started his engine but hung back, waiting until the Honda was almost out of view before he shifted into gear. There wasn’t a doubt in his mind that Jerome would be looking for a tail, and whatever he was up to right now couldn’t be good.

  Jake pulled out and followed him.

  Lexie was twenty minutes from her office when she got a call from Amy.

  “Hey, what’s up?”

  “Where are you?” Amy demanded.

  “On the freeway.”

  “We need you in Venice, ASAP. Did Brian call you?”

  “No.”

  “Shit. He said he was calling you. Listen, everything’s blowing up. Brian did a trash run last night and collected that fast-food bag you told us about.”

  Lexie’s pulse picked up. “You’re talking about Courtney Stapleton’s?”

  “Right. We ran it for prints and got a match with the unsub from the Bangkok nightclub bombing.”

  Lexie’s blood turned to ice. “Tell me you’re kidding.”

  “No. He’s freaking here. In town, and obviously working with a group that includes Courtney. He’s been at her house, and we’re thinking they’re plotting something.”

  Lexie glanced in her rearview mirror and sailed across three lanes of traffic, prompting a chorus of honks as she barely made the exit.

  “Nate’s working on a warrant,” Amy said. “In the meantime, we’re going to pick her up for questioning.”

  “She’s at work. She teaches a class at nine thirty over at Black Swan Yoga.”

  “We know.”

  “Who’s he sending?”

  “Conners and Hull. Can you meet them there? Once she’s in custody, Nate’s going to try to get a warrant for the house.”

  A call beeped in, and Lexie ignored it.

  “I’m ten minutes away,” she said, making a U-turn under the freeway. “I’ll be there as fast as I can.”

  Lexie pressed the gas, weaving in and out of traffic to make the light. It was a bad time of day to be rushing anywhere. She used an app to avoid pockets of congestion and made it to Courtney’s neighborhood in eleven minutes.

  A Bureau vehicle was in front of the house when Lexie pulled up, and she spotted Amy and Brian in the front seat. She parked in front of the neighbor’s house and jumped out.

  Brian got out of the car, shaking his head. Amy got out, too, but she was on the phone, and her expression told Lexie something was very wrong.

  Jake hung back, craning his neck to keep track of the Honda that was now a good six blocks ahead of him. He’d already lost it once, then found it again, but he didn’t want to take the chance of getting too close and getting made. His technique seemed to be working, because Jerome was driving normally and had made no evasive moves.

  The Honda’s turn signal went on, and Jake muttered a curse as the stoplight ahead of him turned red. While he waited, he made another call to Lexie, but she didn’t pick up. He sent her a text telling her to call him.

  Beside him, Scout stirred in her seat. She was anxious, obviously picking up on Jake’s tension.

  The light changed, and Jake swerved around slow-moving traffic to catch up with the Honda. He hung a right, following the route it had taken, and breathed a sigh of relief when he spotted the maroon Honda at a stoplight ahead.

  As Jake closed in, the turn signal went on again, and Jerome swung into a parking garage.

  The car ahead stopped suddenly, and Jake shot out his arm to catch Scout as he slammed on the brakes.

  He waited impatiently for the light to change, checking his phone. Why wasn’t Lexie picking up? He hoped she didn’t turn her phone off in meetings. Jake sent her another text.

  When the light turned green, he punched the gas, driving aggressively now in his rush to make it to the parking garage. The concrete structure was five stories tall, half the height of the office building beside it. Skimming the sign out front, Jake saw that most of the building’s tenants were doctors and law firms.

  A metal arm blocked the parking garage entrance. Jake punched a red button for a ticket. As the arm lifted, Jake hit the gas. The parking lot was dark, and the spaces were filling up as people arrived for appointments. Jake scanned the cars as he went around and around, going up multiple levels without spotting the Honda. Had he lost it?

  A wheelchair rolled out from the elevator bank, and Jake hit the brakes as a group of people crossed in front of him. He glanced around, combing the rows for any sign of Jerome or the Honda. Finally, the pedestrians cleared, and Jake rounded another corner, narrowly missing a black van. Two more levels up, and the darkness gave way to sunlight as he neared the roof.

  And there it was.

  The maroon Honda sat at the end of the very last row, its windshield gleaming in the sunlight.

  The car looked empty.

  Jake glanced around. Not a person in sight. Jerome had parked on the end of the partially filled row, but the man was nowhere. Jake looked at the nearest elevator bank, but it was empty. Had he gone down the stairwell?

  Jake pulled his SIG from his ankle holster and tucked it into the back of his jeans. He pushed open the door and got out just as his phone buzzed. Lexie.

  Scout scrambled over the console and jumped from the truck.

  “Stay.”

  But instead, she dashed away as Jake answered the call.

  “Hey, where are you?” he asked.

  “Executing a search warrant. I really can’t talk right now, but I saw your message and—”

  “I’ve got Jerome.”

  “What?”

  “Or I had him. I tailed Courtney to work and saw her hand him a set of keys. He took off in her car.”

  “Wait, you saw Courtney this morning?”

  “Yeah, I followed her to work.”

  “We tried to pick her up for questioning, but she skipped out on her nine thirty class, and no one knows where she is. I’m at her house right now.”

  Scout was darting around the Honda now, sniffing at the tires, the doors, the bumper. Abruptly, she sat.

  “Oh, shit.”

  “Jake? Are you listening?”

  “Lemme call you back.”

  “Wait! You said you’re tailing my suspect? Where are you?”

  “At a parking garage at Venice and Oak Street.”

  Scout looked at Jake and gave a sharp bark.

  “Scout just alerted on the car. I’ll call you right back.”

  Jake hung up and walked over, a ball of dread filling his stomach as he scanned the rooftop. He was the only person up here, and he could hear brakes squealing on the parking levels below as cars whipped around corners.

  “What is it, girl?” He approached Scout, but his eyes were glued to the car. She’d alerted on the back bumper.

  Jake peered through the windows but saw nothing more than empty seats. He noted the doors were locked.

  A low whimper from Scout. The ball of dread in Jake’s stomach expanded. Something was in the trunk. Or something had been in the trunk, and she was alerting on the residue. Her nose was amazingly sensitive. She wasn’t trained to sniff out a bomb, per se, but the chemical components that went into one: TNT, RDX, urea nitrate—the list went on. The various odors were im
printed on Scout’s brain, and she knew what she smelled.

  Before Jake could overanalyze it, he jogged back to his truck and grabbed a tire iron. He returned to the Honda and shattered the driver’s-side window with a sharp jab, knocked out enough shards of glass to get his arm through, and reached inside to press the trunk release.

  The trunk opened with a quiet pop.

  Not a bang or a boom—just a harmless little sound, and Jake breathed a sigh of relief as he stepped over to look inside.

  Empty.

  Scout put her paws on the bumper and gave another bark as Jake stared at the space. A mildewed white shower curtain was spread across the back, but that was it. No pipe bombs. No pressure cookers. No IEDs of any kind. But Scout had smelled something, she was one hundred percent clear.

  Jake glanced around, but he was alone. He thought of all the cars he’d passed on the way up here.

  The black van.

  “Fuck.”

  He ran back to his truck and jumped behind the wheel. Scout hopped into his lap and scrambled over the console. Jake dialed Lexie as he rocketed backward out of the space. Balancing his phone on his knee, he shifted into drive.

  “What’s going on?” she asked. “Where’s is he?”

  “Lex, listen to me. He’s got a bomb, and I think he just moved it.”

  “Did you see him?”

  “He ditched Courtney’s car at the top of the parking garage, and Scout went nuts alerting on the trunk. I think he transferred an explosive of some kind into another vehicle and took off.”

  Jake screeched to a halt as a car edged from a parking space. Jake blasted the horn and swerved around it, his tires shrieking as he whipped around the corner.

  “I think he’s in a black van,” he told Lexie. “I passed one leaving on my way in here.”

  “Can you catch up to him?”

  “I’m trying. I’ll call you back.”

  He reached a straightaway and gunned the gas, speeding toward the exit. A metal arm blocked the way, and a uniformed attendant sat in a booth beside it.

  Jake rolled down his window. He dug into his pocket for some money and handed over his parking ticket plus a twenty-dollar bill.

  “The black van that just left here,” he said. “Which way did it go?”

  The attendant was young and skinny and had earbuds stuffed in his ears. He pulled one out and leaned closer.

  “What’s that?”

  “The black van that just left here. Which way did it go?”

  The kid turned and gazed out, looking perplexed by the question. He pursed his lips for what seemed like an eternity. “He hung a right.”

  “So northbound? You’re sure?”

  He nodded. “Yep. Looked to be in a hurry, too.”

  Lexie knew there was something off the second she crossed the threshold.

  The house was silent and dim. It wasn’t clean but tidy, and the faint scent of curry hung in the air. Glancing around, she decided the home looked inhabited and yet not, for some reason. The many bare surfaces put her on alert.

  “Smells like Thai food,” Amy observed, holding out a box of latex gloves.

  Lexie pulled on a pair. She walked through the living room and down a short hallway to a bedroom that seemed to have been converted to an office. It had a narrow futon and a cheap wooden desk with a computer monitor on top.

  The next room down was a bathroom. Shampoo bottles lined the side of the tub. No shower curtain. The vanity was empty—no toothbrushes or toothpaste. Lexie opened the medicine cabinet.

  Empty.

  Lexie hurried into the next room, another bedroom. This one had a queen-size bed piled with decorative pillows. A closet door stood open, and Lexie noted dozens of empty hangers. She turned and yanked open a bureau drawer.

  “Shit.”

  “What is it?” Amy asked from behind her.

  “She’s gone.” Lexie thought of the suitcases Courtney had loaded into her car late Friday night. “I bet she’s headed to a safe house. Someplace she’s already got set up.”

  Lexie returned to the second bedroom and checked under the desk. Plugged into the wall was a surge protector but no CPU.

  “She took her clothes, her computer.” Lexie stepped up to the desk and looked around. On the desk was a mug with half a dozen crushed cigarette butts.

  “Our unsub, you think?” Amy asked, nodding at the cigarettes.

  “Probably. I doubt she’s a smoker, just like I doubt she eats burgers and milkshakes for dinner.” Lexie glanced around the room, frantic for clues. “The bomb maker has been staying with her. Check the kitchen trash for mail, receipts, any papers with scrawled writing. We need something to link them to a place. We need to know what they’re targeting.”

  Amy rushed off, and Lexie stared at the monitor as her stomach filled with dread. There was a pen on the desk and a yellow pad of sticky notes, but the top page was blank. Someone had been sitting at this desk, drinking coffee and smoking as they worked on the computer. They’d been planning something, but without the hard drive, there was no way to follow their digital tracks.

  Her phone vibrated, and she pulled it out. “Mays.”

  “I caught up to him.”

  Relief flooded her. “Thank God. Where are you?”

  “He’s moving north on PCH.”

  Lexie stepped closer to the desk and stared down at the yellow pad. She put her phone on speaker, so she could talk to Jake as she switched on the phone’s flashlight. Shining the light at an oblique angle, she noted faint indentations on the paper.

  “Alexa?”

  “I hear you. Don’t lose him, okay?”

  “I won’t, but we need to know where he’s going. I can run him off the road, or the cops can, but that’s not a good move if he’s loaded with explosives.”

  “You really think he’s transporting a bomb?”

  “Scout thinks so. Okay, now he’s got his blinker on. He’s getting off on Sunset.”

  Lexie opened the desk drawer and found a pencil. She set her phone on the desk and picked up the notepad. As softly as she could, she shaded the top sheet of paper with graphite. The faint traces of indented writing appeared.

  It was a phone number, and the first three digits were a local area code.

  “Alexa, you there?”

  “I’m here. Give me a sec to check something.”

  She entered the number into her phone’s search engine. She got a hit.

  “Oh God,” she said.

  “What is it?”

  “I know the target.”

  Jake pressed the gas, keeping the van in his sights as he tried not to draw attention to himself.

  “The Willoughby Hotel,” Lexie said over the phone. “There’s a notepad here at Courtney’s house, and someone jotted the phone number down. It has to be the target.”

  “Why?”

  “It’s in Bel Air. There’s an economic symposium happening there today. I heard about it at the office last week. There’re some senators there, and I think the vice president is speaking.”

  Jake’s heart lurched. “The vice president?”

  “Yes! Jake, I have to go. I have to call this in.”

  She clicked off.

  Jake cursed, and Scout whimpered beside him.

  He didn’t know the route to this hotel, but Jerome seemed to be heading toward Bel Air, as Lexie had predicted. Jake tapped at his phone, bringing up a map of the area. He glanced down at it, looking for landmarks as he tried to keep an eye on the van in front of him.

  Up ahead, the van slowed at an intersection and hung a left. Jake’s pulse kicked up a notch. Jake hung a left, too, keeping as close to the van as he dared while trying to come up with a plan. Lexie would sound the alarm with the FBI. But the Secret Service was in charge of the VP’s security, so there would be at least a short delay getting the message through.

  Up ahead, Jake spotted a brown brick sign for the Willoughby, with the hotel’s name in scripted letters.

  The v
an’s brake lights glowed. Then the turn signal flashed. Before reaching the driveway to the hotel, though, the van hung a right.

  What was he doing? Jake scanned the area, looking for clues. The suspect had stopped short of the Willoughby and turned into a private driveway leading to a high-rise condominium set back on a green lawn. Jake slowed and watched the van pull into the condo’s driveway and approach the covered entrance.

  What the hell?

  The condo’s entry was flanked by palm trees and manicured flower beds. Parked in front were a sleek white Jaguar and a red Porsche. Jerome passed the fancy cars and rolled to a stop. The boxy black van looked totally out of place.

  Jake pulled over abruptly, and drivers behind him laid on their horns. Traffic raced past him. Jake looked from the condominium to the hotel, a stately brick building rising over the neighborhood’s big oak trees. Why pull into the condo, if the target was next door?

  Tactical considerations flashed through Jake’s mind. He thought about the flak vests, the van, the MP5s, which were a favorite with SWAT teams.

  And suddenly he knew.

  “Shit.” He smacked the steering wheel as it all fell into place.

  A faint siren sounded in the distance, confirming Jake’s suspicion.

  He tried Lexie, but the call went straight to voice mail. Cursing, he tapped out an urgent message.

  More sirens sounded, growing closer and closer. Jake glanced around, trying to throw together a plan. He could attempt to take the terrorists down alone, but if they were on a suicide mission, they might detonate their cargo right there beside a ten-story building filled with people. Whatever was in the van had to either be disarmed or moved to an area not jammed with people.

  The sirens grew louder. Traffic slowed as drivers tried to figure out where to go.

  Jake tried Lexie again, and she picked up.

  “Someone just called in a bomb threat to the Willoughby,” she said. “It’s in the ballroom at the back of the hotel, supposedly, and they just started evacuating. I’m almost there.”