Ty wondered what he was seeing. Why would the woman in the suit, presumably an employee of the clinic, be paying this woman in cash? Suddenly realizing that it might be beneficial to get a picture of this transaction, Ty dug for his phone, hoping he could use it to take a picture through the binoculars. By the time he finally extracted it, the pregnant woman was flipping her cigarette into the gravel lot and climbing into the Escalade.
He'd missed his chance. “Shit,” he grumbled.
Mind racing, Ty rapidly assessed his options. Did he place the camera or try to find out more about what he’d just seen? He could try to have someone run the tag on the Escalade but what would that tell him?
He wanted to know what that money was for. The best way to get an answer to that question would be to follow the vehicle. If he could see where the pregnant woman got dropped off, maybe he could talk to her. If he could get her contact information it was possible they could flip her into an informant.
Without placing the second camera, Ty stashed the binoculars, slung the gym bag over his shoulder, and hurried out of the brush. He waded onto the gravel shoulder of the road, trying to appear casual as the Cadillac rounded the building and pulled onto the road, heading south. When he got to his truck, Ty slung the orange cones and the duffel bag into the bed and tried to get in the truck.
His hardhat didn’t clear, striking the doorframe as he hopped into the seat. He mumbled a curse as his entire spine was jolted, then snatched it from his head, tossing it into the floor on the passenger side. With the road clear ahead and behind him, Ty swung a U-turn and accelerated away from the clinic. He was going uphill and couldn’t see beyond a rise ahead of him. He figured the Escalade could be as far as a mile ahead and a lot could happen in a mile. There were numerous places to turn and disappear from sight.
When he topped the rise, the road sloped away from him and he could see ahead for several miles. In the distance he spotted the Escalade going beneath an underpass and signaling a left turn. They were getting on the interstate.
Ty was already speeding at that point, anxious to find the vehicle he was pursuing, but he slowed now. He didn’t need a ticket and he could catch them. In less than a minute he drove beneath that same overpass and made that same left turn. He punched the gas and shot up the onramp, merged into the sparse interstate traffic, accelerating to the speed limit and then a little faster. He could ease off when he had the Escalade in sight, but he’d feel better when he had eyes on them.
He had to smile at the sense of deja vu he was experiencing. Hadn’t he been down this path before, blindly pursuing a gut feeling down the highway? Yes, he had, and it had paid off in the end. He'd found Gretchen.
This time he wasn’t totally in the dark. He had more than a feeling. He had Raylene Kidd's suspicion that there was something shady going on at the clinic. Beyond that, the transaction he’d witnessed had raised his hackles too.
Best of all, he wasn’t alone anymore. Ty had a team. While they might not be in his truck with him, they were within reach. He was part of a unit again, on a mission and pursuing an objective. His life wasn’t only about him anymore. It was about something much, much larger.
24
Wytheville, Virginia
Outside of Wytheville, Virginia, Interstates 81 and 77 merged for a short distance, creating one of the most congested and unpleasant stretches of highway in that part of the state. Every exit was packed with truck stops, restaurants, and repair shops. By the time Karen pulled off the highway, Tonya was squirming for a bathroom break. They pulled into a truck stop and Karen went inside to buy another pack of cigarettes while Tonya ran to the restroom.
Outside, Karen lit up, observing the hubbub of the truck stop. The place was a madhouse—kids, families, old people, truckers, and everything else in the human spectrum. Karen didn’t notice the pickup truck pull into the lot and park across from her, nor did she notice the driver watching from the cool confines of his air-conditioned cab. Karen paced around, smoking and stretching her legs while she waited. She'd be glad to see this one out of her hair. Tonya had jabbered for the entire drive.
“Damn, I didn’t think I was going to make it,” Tonya said when she reappeared. “I’d forgotten what it was like when they’re in there kicking your bladder like a soccer ball.”
Karen started to ask how many children she’d had before, but decided that she didn’t want or need that information. Instead, she raised her hand, cigarette pinched between her fingers and pointed to a green semi-truck parked in the overnight lot. “There’s your next ride, Tonya. I just texted the driver and he’s waiting on you.”
“What do I need to do? Do I go get in his truck or do I need to go to his window and talk to him first?”
“The passenger door is unlocked and waiting for you. Just go open it and climb in. Don’t linger around the parking lot like some kind of lot lizard. Go ahead and get in like you belong there. You’ll be out of here and on the road in less than a minute. You still have those instructions I wrote out for you?”
“I got them,” Tonya said. “I guess I’ll be seeing you next week then.”
Karen shook her head. “I’ll send the money through the mail. You probably won’t be seeing me again at all. That’s how this works. You can forget you ever saw me.”
“Okay then,” Tonya said before heading off awkwardly.
Tonya went directly to the passenger side of the green semi, hefted herself onto the running board, and fumbled with the latch on the high door. Despite her belly and the alcohol she’d had that morning, Tonya managed to pull herself into the truck and close the door behind her.
Only then did Karen breathe a sigh of relief. She’d been afraid for a moment she was going to have to get beneath Tonya and shove her drunk ass into the cab of the truck. Tonya was exhausting. Despite the hour, the ordeal of riding with her made Karen want to go inside the store and buy a beer just to calm her nerves. She couldn't though. She needed to get back to the clinic and shouldn’t have beer on her breath when she was meeting with recovering substance abusers.
She’d wasted enough time already. If Tonya wasn’t carrying such valuable cargo there was no way Karen would fool with someone so needy and annoying. She climbed into her Escalade, lit another smoke, and headed back the way she’d come. She hoped the rest of it was less challenging. Either way, she was picturing a margarita or three waiting for her at the end of her shift.
25
Truck Stop
Wytheville, Virginia
When the two women split up at the truck stop, Ty understood the hunt wasn’t over yet. The pregnant woman heading for the semi remained a person of interest and he needed to follow her. Presumably, he could always track down the frumpy woman in the business suit at the clinic, since she likely worked there. If this pregnant woman got away from him, though, there was no telling if he’d ever see her again.
After the pregnant woman made it into the semi, Ty shot a picture of the Escalade’s tag and did the same for the semi. It was then that he was hit by a wave of doubt. What if the counselor was simply helping the pregnant woman to get home to her family? What if she’d given her money to assist in the journey? Maybe this trucker was a relative or friend of the family? This could all be a big misunderstanding, kindness rather than conspiracy.
Ty was briefly overwhelmed with uncertainty but pushed it out of his head. The military had taught him to rely on his training, to continue with the mission despite the unexpected. That was what he was going to have to do. His current mission was to talk to the pregnant woman and find out about the exchange of money he’d seen at the clinic. If he eventually spoke to her and determined that his inner voice had been wrong, he’d back off and come home. The only thing he’d have wasted was his time and he had plenty of it.
Besides, what else did he have to do? Sitting on the couch and waiting to hear from Cliff would be torture. Doing nothing would leave him susceptible to that malicious darkness that rose up from nowhere and threat
ened to swallow him. That was not an option.
Ty was pulled from his thoughts when the green semi began moving. It exited the truck stop parking lot and headed for the eastbound onramp. Ty let a few vehicles fall in behind the semi before he headed out after it. He took the same onramp, merging onto the interstate a couple of vehicles behind the truck.
It occurred to him that he had absolutely no idea where this semi might be headed. They could be going to Maine, Florida, or anywhere in between. He checked his fuel gauge and saw that he had over three-quarters of a tank remaining. He’d filled it up after buying the trail cameras yesterday and hadn’t made any other trips. He was in good shape for gas but he didn’t have any clothes or gear with him, other than his concealed carry gun and the generic utility contractor “costume” he was wearing.
He decided it was time to utilize some of the Door Kickers’ resources if he could. Ty punched up the contacts on his phone and called DKI headquarters.
“DKI, how may I direct your call?” came the same voice that had answered the very first time Ty had reached out to Cliff when he was headed to Arizona in pursuit of a missing child. The only difference was that Ty could now put a name to that voice.
“Maria, it’s Ty Stone. How are you today?”
“I’m good, Ty. How are things in Virginia?”
“Not bad. I’m already looking forward to getting out to Arizona though. I’m falling in love with your state.”
“It’s beautiful, for sure. What can I do for you, Ty?”
“Is Kel in?”
“I’ll check for you. One moment.”
Ty was put on hold, where instead of music Cliff played public service announcements related to DKI’s mission. He was on hold for about twenty seconds before a different voice picked up on the line.
“Wassup, Ty?”
It was Kel, the young woman Cliff called his Hacker-In-Chief. She was a forensic computing specialist with both licit and illicit access to some very helpful resources. Ty figured it was better to start with Kel than trying to coerce his old Wasteland friend Jess into running a tag for him again and putting her job at risk.
“Hey, Kel. I’m doing some work on that clinic investigation. You know the one I’m talking about?”
“Yep, I dug into the ownership structure a little bit. It was like investigating the mob. Whoever set up these clinics at the corporate level knows all the offshore accounting tricks. It would take an entire team a year to dig out all the roots. They intentionally based their company out of the tiny island of Nevis in the Caribbean. It’s near St. Kitts. You can only research their records by going there in person. If you do, they’ll send you running around in circles trying to find the office where the records are located. I’ve talked to people who’ve been through this and it’s maddening. It’s like a nationwide conspiracy to not be helpful. You’ll come away with nothing.”
“That seems like a lot of trouble to go through for a clinic,” Ty said. It was the first gap in the conversation where he’d been able to get a sentence in. Kel sounded like she was jacked up on an energy drink, but maybe this was her normal state. He didn’t know her well enough to be certain.
“I thought the same thing. A lot of these clinics are non-profits, but not all. The only reason people do that offshore shit is when they want to hide what’s at the end of the trail. Anyway, I’m sure that’s not what you called me about. What’s up, my brother?”
“I’m chasing down a lead and I was wondering if you guys could run tags?”
Kel fell silent.
“Hello?” Ty prompted.
“I’m here. I guess the technical answer is yes. There are official ways I can do that, there are questionable ways I can do that, but Cliff takes these kinds of requests seriously. He doesn’t like to invade people’s privacy without a good reason. Is he aware of this call?”
Now it was Ty’s turn to hesitate, but he wasn’t about to lie. “Not yet he doesn’t. This is a new development that I’m chasing down as we speak. With Cliff out of the country, I didn’t know if I should bother him about it.”
“Ty, I know you’re new here and you probably don’t know all the intricacies of how we work yet, but I really can’t do something like this without Cliff’s approval. If I hack in and the intrusion gets tracked back to us, Cliff could take some heat for it. I could go through official channels with one of our law enforcement partners and have someone run it for me but, again, I don’t want to do that without Cliff’s approval. You really need to talk to him first.”
“I get it, Kel. I don’t want you to do anything that’s going to get you in trouble or upset Cliff. Like you said, I’m new to this and I’m learning the ropes.”
“Well, we’re a team here, Ty. Tell me exactly what’s going on and I’ll see if we can come at it from another angle.”
“So basically we're on hold here until our FBI contact gets clearance for an undercover op at the clinic. Cliff’s out of town and I’m off the schedule, so I've been chilling at home. Once all the energy started to wear down I went to a dark place. You getting me?”
Kel understood. She was a combat vet too. “Been there, brother.”
“I realized the only way I was going to keep my head straight in the off-hours was to find some way to keep the investigative momentum going. I can’t spend all day, every day at the gym and the range. It’s not cutting it anymore.”
“I hear you.”
“So I decided I was going to set up some of those trail cameras across the street from the clinic and get a feel for what was going on there.”
“Eh, that’s questionable. Probably something Cliff would have wanted to know about. He might go easy on you since you didn’t put them on clinic property. I’m not a lawyer but I’m not sure something like that would constitute admissible evidence in court.”
“While I was placing the cameras, I watched one of the clinic staff give a pregnant woman some cash. Then they got in the staff person’s vehicle and got on the interstate. The clinic lady handed the pregnant woman off to a trucker at a truck stop. Now I’m following the trucker down the road. It just hit me that this guy could be going cross-country or something. I was wanting to see if the tag might tell me anything.”
“A trucker?” Kel's voice became enthusiastic. “That’s easy, Ty. Roll up beside him and get a shot of the motor carrier company name and the DOT permit number. Don’t be all obvious, dude. Stealth mode. Be discreet, then text the picture to me.”
“I can do that.”
“Excellent,” Kel said. “That should give us some info without us having to wade into the murky waters of running a tag, my friend. Text it to this number.”
She rattled off a cell number and Ty stored it in his phone.
“Thanks, Kel. I appreciate this.”
“No prob. Teamwork, buddy. I’ll call you as soon as I know something.”
Moments later, Ty casually switched lanes, holding his phone at chest-level like he was on a speaker call. The entire time his camera was shooting video. Once he was ahead of the truck he texted Kel the video. He was probably too distracted with his phone to be driving on this busy section of interstate but he didn’t feel it could wait.
A sign indicated that the road was splitting ahead. Interstate 81 would continue northbound to Roanoke and beyond. Interstate 77 would turn south. Uncertain of what the truck behind him might be doing, Ty slowed and allowed the driver to pass him. As the green semi went by, Ty shot more video in the same manner as earlier, this time capturing the passenger side of the truck. He caught clear images of the woman from the clinic looking down at his vehicle from the passenger seat. He couldn’t prove that anything was going on here but he’d just caught documentation tying the woman to the truck if there was.
He didn’t send the passenger-side video to Kel but checked his phone and saw the first video was still sending. When he looked up, he saw that the semi was signaling for a right turn. They were headed south. Ty hit his signal too and fell in behind
the truck in the turn lane.
Uncertain of what lay ahead, Ty figured it was time this adventure had a soundtrack. He found a metal playlist on his phone. The first song was Pantera. It was mission music and Ty settled back in his seat to see where the mission would take him.
26
DKI Headquarters
Tucson, Arizona
Kel’s personal cellphone buzzed on her desk, her dark-ringed eyes flickering from the computer screen to her phone. She didn’t recognize the number but assumed it must be the text she was expecting from Ty. She unlocked her phone and opened a text with a video attached. Ty's video was a little bouncy but it managed to gather all the info they needed from the side of the truck.
Since Ty wasn’t in her address book, Kel saved Ty’s contact info before she did anything else. She’d learned a long time ago that if she didn’t do those things when her mind was on them she’d end up forgetting. Once that was done, she watched the video again, capturing screenshots that showed the relevant information. She emailed those picture files to her desktop computer and saved them in the file she’d already started on this investigation. She liked having everything neat and organized.
While running vehicle licenses exposed you to scrutiny over privacy concerns, running motor carrier and US Department of Transportation numbers did none of that. Anyone could get the data associated with those numbers from a searchable database on the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration’s website. Kel ran the numbers and the permit came back as belonging to a North Carolina-based interstate trucking company, which matched exactly with what was printed on the truck.
Digging a little further, accessing subscription databases that contained corporate and business profiles, Kel learned that the trucking company specialized in hauling agricultural products in the central North Carolina area. The company didn’t have a website and she was unable to find anything advertising how a potential customer might contact the company to hire them. Even the video of the truck door didn’t show a phone number.
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