For someone so cool on the job, I sure lost it in a hurry.
It was that goddamn bastard. Orbits was the only one who had ever gotten so far under her skin. She had known he was a mistake from the beginning, but she couldn’t help herself. And boy, how she’d emotionally paid for it after she’d found him in all his glory with his two new surgically enhanced friends. He’d even invited her to join in.
Just the memory of it made her shiver.
Three years of scar tissue that apparently could still be ripped off at will. She didn’t want him back. God, no. She didn’t want anything to do with him.
“No, Ricky. I will not be calling you.”
After she deleted his message and his number in her missed calls list, she went to her safe, retrieved one of the many unused SIM cards she kept for emergencies, and traded it with the one in her phone. The card for her old number she cut in half and then burned in the kitchen.
COLUMBIA CITY, WASHINGTON
WHEN ORBITS’S PHONE rang, he hoped to see Ananke’s name on the screen, but the caller ID read DONNIE.
“Yeah?” he answered, not bothering to keep the disappointment from his voice.
“Got something for you on the California team,” Donnie said.
“What about them?”
“They just boarded a helicopter and headed east out of the city.”
Orbits sat up, his funk forgotten. “Where are they going?”
“I have it on good authority they’ve got a location on Quinn and are on the way to intercept him.”
If the team reached Quinn first and grabbed the girl—assuming the cleaner had her—then Ricky’s bonus was gone.
“I need to follow them,” he said.
“Already got you covered. I’m texting you an address. Get there quick. There’s a chopper waiting. One of those jet kinds. Goes real fast.”
Donnie could be a little weird but he was surprisingly efficient at times. “Thanks, buddy,” Orbits said. “You rock.”
The helicopter was revved and waiting when Orbits arrived.
As Orbits climbed aboard, the pilot, a thirtysomething guy in a dark green jumpsuit, pointed at a set of headphones hanging next to the passenger seat.
“Afternoon, Mr. Orbits,” the man said. “I’m Marv Sutter. I’ll be your pilot.”
Orbits shook his hand. “Call me Ricky.”
“All right, Ricky, where are we off to?”
Orbits pulled out his phone. On the drive over, Donnie had been texting every minute or so with updated GPS coordinates of the other helicopter’s position. Orbits used these to track the aircraft’s route on a map. At last report, it was southeast of Bellevue, paralleling the only major road in the area.
“Follow the I-90 east as fast as you can.”
“How far we going?”
“You’ll know when I know.”
__________
ORBITS WASN’T THE only hunter to arrive in the Emerald City looking for Danielle Chad. Four others touched down at Sea-Tac International Airport on separate flights that morning.
Each represented a different interested party. Three had the singular goal of finding the woman. The fourth, however, was operating under slightly different instructions.
The first of the other three landed at 10:45 a.m. on a flight from Las Vegas, took possession of a waiting car, and drove straight to Edmondson’s neighborhood. The second and third arrived right before and right after 11:00 a.m. They, too, had vehicles standing by. While the second took the same route as the first, the third chose to start his search with the Bellevue safe house. All three had been briefed that others might be interested in the woman, but each was sure he would be the one to find her.
Bianca Zorn—hunter number four—arrived on the same Las Vegas flight as number one. Unlike the other three, she knew for a fact she wasn’t the only one searching for the asset. As she had waited for her flight north, she had received an e-mail with pictures of six men potentially in or on their way to Seattle for that express purpose. It turned out that one, Drew Evans, was seated two rows in front of her.
Upon arrival, she followed him through the airport. In the crowd as they neared baggage claim, she moved in close enough to slip a tracking node under the bottom of his suit jacket. She then let him move ahead, and waited until he exited to the street before doing so herself.
She, too, had arranged for transport. In her case, it was not a car but a KTM 1290 Super Duke R motorcycle—an extremely agile, high-performance bike. Hanging from the seat, locked in place, was a helmet.
She donned the black leather jacket she’d brought with her, then detached the helmet and set it on the ground. Reaching under the seat, she felt around until she found the hidden latch and clicked it into the open position. A portion of the seat flipped up, revealing a Heckler & Koch VP9 pistol, two spare magazines, a suppressor, and a small kit bag containing the other items she thought she might need. She placed the magazines in her backpack, attached the suppressor to the gun, and slipped them into a custom-made slot inside her jacket.
Next, she retrieved the mounting kit she’d brought with her and affixed her phone near the midpoint of the handlebars so she could see it while she drove. After pulling on the helmet, she synched its comm to her phone via Bluetooth and climbed on the bike.
She followed Evans at a distance of a quarter mile, down I-405 and into Columbia City. She had no idea what he expected to find at the Edmondson house. The woman was long gone and the police would still be crawling all over the place.
Another one of those sense-driven hunters, she guessed. They like to “feel” where their target had been, saying it gave them valuable insight. It was all bullshit, sideshow stuff. She relied on a combination of actual clues and logic-based intuition, not some invisible vapor memory that didn’t exist.
She parked the bike around the corner from where Evans had stopped. Leaving her sunglasses on, she exchanged her helmet for a blue baseball cap from her bag. She pulled her long blonde hair through the back and created a loose ponytail, making her look nothing like she had at the airport.
According to the tracking dot, Evans hadn’t moved for the last three minutes. She confirmed this as she rounded the corner and spotted him sitting in his car, parked at the curb. The chaotic scene in front of Edmondson’s house started about a block farther down. Evans seemed to be staring at it, “sensing” all he needed to know to find the girl.
Bianca had other tasks to deal with so there was no reason to prolong this. As she walked down the sidewalk, she unzipped her jacket halfway. Right before she reached the man’s car, she moved into the street, stopped near his closed driver’s-side window, and stared off toward the police activity.
After a few seconds, she looked at the car and asked, “Hey, do you know what’s going on?”
Evans acted like he didn’t hear her so she tapped on the glass.
“What’s with all the police?”
Reluctantly he glanced in her direction. “Sorry, don’t know.”
“Was there a fire or something?”
He looked at her again, clearly annoyed. “I don’t know.”
She saw him reach for the ignition button. She’d been hoping to get him to open his window but you couldn’t have everything.
Keeping the gun tight to her chest, she slipped it out of its slot and pulled the trigger, her aim instinctive and dead on. Because the window was made of laminated safety glass, it crunched instead of shattered as the bullet pierced it. A quick look around revealed that no one seemed to have noticed.
Instead of slumping onto the passenger side as she would have liked, Evans had been wearing his seat belt and remained mostly sitting up with his head lolled onto his shoulder.
Moving quickly, she put her gun away and folded the fractured glass inside the car. She then removed the shoulder strap holding Evans in place and shoved him below dash level.
Upon returning to her bike, she pulled out her phone and called The Wolf. As usual, she was greet
ed with a single beep.
“Bianca checking in,” she said. “One down. Daniel Evans.”
She stuffed the phone in her pocket and climbed on the bike. As she was pulling the helmet over her head, a car drove past and turned down the same street Evans was parked on. Though the glimpse she got of the driver had been brief, she’d seen enough to know it was Kimball Norris, another one of the hunters whose photos she’d received.
She took the helmet back off.
CHAPTER 16
I-90, WASHINGTON
THE FOREST-COVERED mountains finally gave way to wide swaths of grassy, rolling land. Soon homes began appearing, scattered here and there, signaling the approaching town of Ellensburg.
“We need to fill up,” Nate said.
Quinn glanced back at Danielle. “Find someplace to pull over for a minute first.”
Once they were stopped, Quinn hopped out and opened the back passenger door. Danielle was lying on the seat, with seat belts strapped over her.
“I know this isn’t going to help you trust us,” he said, “but if I were you, I’d be doing whatever I could to draw attention and get some help.” He could see in her eyes she’d been thinking exactly that. “We can’t have that. I’m sorry.”
“For what?”
He leaned over the seat and, from one of the duffels in the back, pulled out two unused rags and the leftover plastic sheeting.
Holding one of the rags, he said, “I’ll take this off right after we fill up.”
He moved it toward her mouth.
“No, no, no,” she protested, pulling her head back. “I won’t say a word. I promise.”
“I’d say the same thing if I were you, and I’d be lying.”
“I won’t! I swear!”
“I’m sorry.”
She gritted her teeth, but he was able to pry her jaw apart enough to get the rag in. He then wrapped the second rag over the first and around the back of her head, where he tied it. “I promise as soon as we’re on the road again, it comes off.”
The look she gave him said she couldn’t care less about his promises.
The last thing he did was drape the plastic over her in a way she couldn’t easily shake off. Feeling slimy for what he’d done but knowing he had no choice, he climbed back into his seat. “Let’s go.”
They stopped at the first gas station they saw. While Nate filled the tank, Quinn went inside and purchased some drinks, pre-made sandwiches, and an assortment of snacks.
As soon as they pulled away from the pumps, Danielle began grunting. Quinn reached back and lifted the plastic enough to see her. She said something through her gag that he interpreted to mean, “Get this off!”
“As soon as we get on the freeway.”
He dropped the plastic back down and glanced out the rear window.
A dot hung in the distance sky, moving at a fast pace paralleling the interstate. Not a bird. An aircraft, the first he’d seen since not long after leaving Seattle that wasn’t flying at forty thousand feet. It was no more than fifteen hundred feet up.
Not a plane. A helicopter.
The California Highway Patrol had a whole fleet of aircraft to spy on highway traffic. Perhaps the state of Washington did, too. But in California, Quinn seldom saw CHP helicopters this far from a big city. Could be private, some ranch owner heading home, or maybe a corporate aircraft traveling to a factory.
Whatever the case, it made him uneasy.
“Stay with the traffic flow,” Quinn told Nate as they pulled onto the freeway. “No sudden movements.”
Nate flashed him a concerned sideways glance. “What is it?”
“Helicopter. May be nothing, but…”
Nate nodded as he merged the Jeep onto the interstate.
In the back, Danielle yelled in protest.
“Slight change of plans,” Quinn said in her direction. “As soon as I can get to you, I will.”
She continued to scream so he lifted the plastic again. “I’ll move this off of you if you’ll be quiet.”
The shouting stopped. He folded the plastic away from her head, tucked it behind her shoulder, and turned back around.
“I don’t see it,” Nate said, his eyes flicking between the road and the mirrors.
Quinn looked at the mirror outside his window, and then moved down until the helicopter came into view. Its silhouette was clearly visible now, leaving no doubt as to the type of aircraft. It was a big one, the kind that could hold a dozen or more passengers.
“It’s still there,” he said.
He checked the map. A couple miles past Ellensburg, I-90 intersected with I-82. The latter headed south to Yakima and eventually into eastern Oregon. If they stayed on I-90 past the junction, there would be only a few alternate routes they could take in an emergency—all county roads of unknown quality. I-82 offered more options and went through the larger towns of Yakima, Richland, and Kennewick.
The decision was an easy one.
Quinn checked the mirror again.
“Crap,” he muttered.
The helicopter was large behind them and would reach the junction of the two interstates before they did. From there, its occupants could monitor both the cars staying on 90 and those making the transition to the 82. The perfect observation spot.
As long as the aircraft kept going east, Quinn could relax, but if it stopped at the junction, he’d have to assume it had been sent after them.
He could hear the whoop-whoop-whoop of the helicopter’s propellers as it flew overhead.
“What do you want me to do?” Nate asked, his voice mission calm.
A road sign was coming up.
Exit 109
Canyon Road
Ellensburg
1 Mile
Quinn consulted the map again. Maybe not the perfect observation spot after all. “Take that exit,” he said. “Then go south.”
He leaned forward and looked up through the windshield as the helicopter roared into view. Black with no identifying marks—neither local law enforcement nor civilian. It was the kind ops teams used.
He watched as it raced toward the junction, willing it to continue on, but right on cue, it slowed and dropped to the ground, out of sight.
Trouble for sure.
The off-ramp at Canyon Road was a wide, one-eighty turn, pointing them back in the direction they had come from before they could turn onto the new route. At the stop sign, Quinn noticed another silhouette flying toward them from the west.
“You seeing what I’m seeing?” Nate asked, his gaze also fixed on the new aircraft.
“Keep moving.”
As Nate turned south, Quinn tracked the new helicopter. It was traveling faster than the other one had been and appeared to be smaller.
If they were working together, that would complicate matters. Two aircraft could follow both highways.
“So where am I going?” Nate asked.
“This bypasses the junction and still gets us to the 82.”
“And then?” Nate asked.
“It’s too early for ‘and then.’”
__________
STEVENS HAD HIS pilot set down on a grassy field north of the interstate, fifty yards west of where it met up with I-82. On the flight out, he had arranged for the Washington State Patrol to be notified of a military emergency preparedness exercise that would be taking place in the area. That should keep official attention at arm’s length, and provide an easy answer for any curious civilians who called 911.
Stevens’s men set up the camera equipment right outside the helicopter. He would have preferred a rig with multi-spectrum capabilities so they could view both visual and thermal images of the cars going by, but they had to use what gear they could get on short notice and were stuck with just the visual spectrum.
It would have been nice, too, if the area had some bushes and trees to shield them from the road, but no such luck. Again, you play the hand you were dealt. By the time their targets realized they were passing through a trap,
it would be too late from them anyway.
“We’re up,” Manny Garcia announced. He was in the control seat behind the equipment. Taped to the sides of the monitor were photos of the three suspects.
“Find them,” Stevens ordered.
__________
ORBITS HAD FINALLY caught a glimpse of the Californians’ aircraft ten minutes earlier, and had Sutter slow enough to not overtake them. He had watched through the pilot’s high-powered binoculars as the other helicopter descended to the ground, near where the interstates met.
Had they spotted the vehicle the woman was in? If so, they were one up on him. He still didn’t know what kind of car Quinn and his friends were using. Donnie was searching traffic camera footage in hopes of picking them out, but so far had not found anything.
“We’ll fly by their position in about a minute,” the pilot informed Orbits. “I’m guessing you don’t want to do that.”
“You’re right. I don’t.” Orbits looked to the north. “Can you take us over the town, then circle around so that we’re directly behind them?” He may not have wanted to fly past them but he did want to know what they were doing.
“No problem.”
“Bring us to about a quarter mile away and hold there.”
“Roger.”
The helicopter banked hard to the left and buzzed over the town. When they reached the desired location, Sutter put them into a hover a thousand feet up.
Orbits focused the binoculars on the others. They had set up some equipment, and though he couldn’t see the gear well enough to know what it was, it had to be something that scanned the passing vehicles. So they didn’t know what kind of car Quinn was in, either.
Good news, but not great.
If the cleaner and his friends drove past the Californians’ observation point, then it was game over. Which meant Orbits had to write off anything east of that point on the 90 or south on the 82, leaving him only the last few miles prior to the junction the targets were probably traveling down right now.
He looked at the map to confirm he was right. He wasn’t.
The Buried Page 10
