“No, we didn’t lose her. She’s entering the Baker Street Underground station.”
“Accessing station cameras,” Jar said. After a few seconds, “I have her at the entrance. Looks like all the cameras are in working order so I should be able to track her wherever she goes.”
“I’m sending Kiet after her,” Nate said. He glanced at Michael, more specifically what he wore over his shoulders. “A hundred pounds for the scarf.”
Michael touched his Tottenham Hotspurs scarf. “This? But—”
“Two hundred.”
“All yours.” Michael pulled it off.
“Wrap it around your face,” Nate said as he handed the scarf to Kiet. “If she’s catching a train, you don’t have to be in the same car as she is, but you do need to be on it.”
“I will be.” Kiet climbed out of the car and hurried over to the station, pulling the scarf over his mouth and nose.
“So, um, if that will be all,” Michael said, “I’d appreciate a good rating, and I hope that you enjoy the rest—”
“Afraid I’m going to need you a little bit longer.”
Michael’s hopeful smile faltered.
DEHLER TOOK HER time getting to her chosen platform at Baker Street station, pretending to talk on her phone while checking the other travelers. The news about the watchers continued to nag at her. If nothing else, their presence in the city was a reminder that she needed to be ever vigilant.
During the cab ride, she’d casually checked the cars around them, but picking out tails in a big city at night was never easy. More than one of the cars behind the taxi had been there for most of her journey, but there was no way they were all following her.
The Baker Street station appeared free of problems, so she made her way to the platform of the westbound Bakerloo Line. She could have taken the Circle Line or even the Hammersmith & City, but those would have higher volumes of passengers. Hiding in a crowd was not a bad thing, but the less traveled Bakerloo would provide her the opportunity to see if anyone was following her.
There were about a dozen other people waiting on the platform when she arrived. While it was possible one of them is a pursuer who’d anticipated her choice and gotten there ahead of her, the likelihood was low. She concentrated on new arrivals.
A pair of women, an older man, a couple, and five teenagers all stepped onto the platform before the next train pulled into the station. Satisfied that none of them were interested in her, Dehler boarded the front car.
Within half a minute, the train was speeding away again.
JAR WATCHED KIET on one of the feeds make a wrong turn and end up on the southbound platform of the Metropolitan Line.
“No, no,” she said in Thai. “Not there. Go back up the stairs!”
She guided him through a corridor, down to another level, and then over to a set of stairs that burrowed deeper into the earth. On another feed, she could see the train exiting the tunnel and slowing at the platform. “You are almost there. It’s at the bottom of the stairs. But hurry, or you will miss the train.”
She followed his progress as he took the stairs two at a time, raced across the platform, and jumped into the last car moments before the doors shut. Jar checked the camera in the first car, the one Dehler had entered. The woman was standing in the aisle, holding on to one of the straps, and displaying no indication she had noted Kiet’s arrival.
“Are we good?” Kiet asked.
Jar gave it another moment. “It looks like it. Be ready. I will let you know when she gets off.”
The comm went silent for a second before Nate said, “When you have a moment, you might want to translate that for the rest of us.”
“Yes, of course,” Jar said. “Dehler is on the Bakerloo Line heading west. Kiet is also on the train.”
“Any problems?”
“None.”
“GOOD NEWS, MICHAEL,” Nate said. “We’re back in business. Turn this thing around. We need to head west.”
Nate couldn’t be sure, but he thought Michael might have said a quick prayer before shifting back into Drive.
QUINN, ORLANDO, AND Daeng had just passed the marble arch at the northeast corner of Hyde Park, and were now on Edgware Road.
“Where am I going?” Quinn asked.
“Stay straight,” Orlando said. “Anywhere she’d get off is still ahead of us.”
AS THE TRAIN pulled into Edgware Road station, Jar stared at the image of Dehler, looking for any sign the woman intended to get off. But the only movement Dehler made was to step aside so someone else could exit.
Soon the train was moving again.
The next stop was Paddington, a much larger station, with plenty of other lines Dehler could transfer to. It was also a British Railway station, with traditional trains that could whisk the woman to other parts of the UK.
It wasn’t surprising, then, that a large number of passengers moved toward the doors as the train slowed.
Among them was Dehler.
Sticking to English this time, Jar said, “Kiet, get ready. She is preparing to get off.”
“Copy,” he said.
“What stop?” Nate asked.
“Paddington,” Jar replied.
The train continued to decelerate, crawling then inching and then finally stopping along the platform. Jar momentarily lost sight of Dehler as those exiting moved through the door en masse, but picked her up again right after the woman stepped over the gap.
“Confirmed. She has left the train.”
Farther down the platform, Jar could see Kiet hop out of the last car.
“Do not get too close yet,” she said. “There are a lot of places she can go, and much potential for accidentally meeting each other. I will guide you.”
“Copy.”
All right, Jar thought as she focused back on Dehler. Where are you headed?
NATE AND MICHAEL were two minutes away from Paddington when Jar announced Dehler and Kiet had arrived.
“Is there a place to park at Paddington Station?” Nate asked Michael.
“Park? I don’t know. Maybe. I do know there’s a drop-off area.”
A drop-off area wouldn’t be optimal. Dehler could come through that way and see Nate.
“Oh, there,” Nate said, spotting an opening at the curb ahead. “Take it.”
Michael pulled into the spot and put the car into Park. “Please tell me we’re done.”
“Still to be determined.”
Nate kept his eyes glued to his partial view of the station.
“Will I ever know what this is about?” Michael asked.
Gaze focused down the street, Nate replied, “Not unless something goes horribly wrong.”
“And by horribly wrong, you mean…?”
“You shouldn’t worry about that.”
“You know, when people say things like that, it makes me more worried.”
“Then you’re clearly a smart man.”
“That’s not helping.”
DEHLER HEADED THROUGH the Underground passageway, and chose the exit that would take her into the main train station. She paused on two occasions to check behind her. No followers in sight.
It should be safe to go to the flat now.
She headed toward the exit and was soon back in the London night.
“SHE IS LEAVING the station,” Jar announced. “Still on foot. Kiet, you need to get in visual sight. I do not know what the CCTV situation around there is yet.”
“Copy.”
“What side of the building is she on?” Nate asked.
“Southeast, going through what looks like a drop-off area.”
It was good to know he’d made the right move. “Quinn, where are you?” Nate asked.
Orlando answered, “Just a few minutes away.”
“Okay, I’ll head over and back up Kiet.”
“Copy.”
Nate pulled out his emergency cash and peeled off a thousand pounds. “Good news, Michael. We’re done.” He held the cash out
to the driver. “Best if you not tell anyone about this. Ever.”
Michael stared at the stack. “Sure. Whatever you want. I won’t say a word.”
He grabbed the money, but Nate didn’t let go. “Just so I’m clear, I have ways of knowing if you do say something.”
The last of the color in Michael’s face disappeared. “I won’t say a word. I promise.”
Nate smiled and let go of the money. “I believe you. Now go home. You’ve earned the rest of the night off.”
The moment Nate hopped out of the car, Michael sped away.
IT TURNED OUT that Jar was right to be concerned about the CCTV cameras. At first it was only a camera here and there that was out. But the farther Dehler walked, the more nonfunctioning cameras Jar encountered. Until suddenly none of them worked. She did a quick sampling of the area.
“This is odd,” she said into the comm. “Dehler just walked into an area that appears to be about two square blocks where not one camera is working.”
“I can still see her,” Kiet said.
“I’ve got her, too,” Nate said.
Jar checked the software that ran the camera system. “There are no warning indicators. The police know nothing about this.”
“Someone hacked the system?” Orlando asked.
“It appears so, but it is unproven at this point.”
“I’ll bet you anything Dehler’s safe house is within the blackout zone,” Nate said. “She either hacked in herself or had someone do it for her.”
“Let’s see where she goes before we jump to any conclusions,” Quinn said.
For half a minute, no one spoke. Then Nate said, “She turned onto a street ahead of us.” He paused. “Kiet, go over to that corner over there. I’ll take this one.” Another pause. “Oh, it’s a short street. Kiet, let’s hang back until she gets close to the other end before we continue after her.”
“Is the street Westbourne Crescent?” Jar asked, consulting the map.
“Checking,” Nate said. A few seconds passed. “Yes, confirm. Westbourne Crescent.” Another thirty seconds before he spoke again. “Looks like she’s going all the way to the end of the block. All right, Kiet, let’s—”
“Hold your position!” Jar said. The blackout zone ended at the point where Westbourne Crescent met Sussex Gardens, meaning Dehler would be exposed again if she kept going. That didn’t make sense to Jar at all. “If she leaves the street, I will be able to see her.”
She stared at the feed Dehler was supposed to appear on, only the woman never did.
Chapter Twenty-Five
A RIPPLE OF unease moved down Dehler’s back as she turned onto Westbourne Crescent, where her basement apartment was located.
She’d long ago learned not to take such feelings lightly, so without even a glance, she walked right by the stairs that led down to her door and continued toward the end of the block. As she neared the corner, she eased into the shadows and stopped two meters shy. To go farther would mean leaving the security of the CCTV blackout Esa, for an extra fee, had arranged for her.
She looked back the way she’d come. Westbourne Crescent was a smaller side street, only a block long. At the moment, it was free of any traffic, vehicular or pedestrian. She stayed where she was, feeling in her gut that someone was about to turn the corner.
AFTER ABANDONING THE Volkswagen farther down Gloucester Terrace, Quinn, Orlando, and Daeng made their way on foot toward Nate and Kiet.
Not wanting to attract the kind of attention a group of five loitering on the sidewalk might bring, they stuck to the other side of the street from Westbourne Crescent and stopped right before they would have had a view straight down the road.
“Status?” Quinn asked.
Across the street, he could see Nate look down the road through a pair of compact binoculars. “She’s still at the other end.”
“Doing what?”
“Leaning against the wall, looking back this way.”
“She must have seen you.”
“She didn’t.”
“You’re sure?”
Nate’s voice was calm and cool. “One hundred percent.”
“Something must have tipped her off.”
“It wasn’t us.”
Quinn looked both ways down Gloucester Terrace, wondering if someone else was around. After all, he and his team weren’t the only ones interested in Dehler. But the few pedestrians did not set off any internal warnings.
Orlando said, “Maybe we can circle around. Try to get a look at her from—”
“She’s moving,” Nate said.
“Which direction?” Quinn asked.
“Coming back this way.”
“KIET, GET OUT of sight,” Nate said. “I’ll hold here as long as I can.”
“Copy.”
Now that Dehler was walking back down the sidewalk, Nate didn’t need the binoculars to follow her progress.
If she kept at her current pace, he figured he could stay where he was until she was about ten meters away, at which point he would need to slip into one of the nearby exterior stairwells that led to basement doors. Most of the buildings on the block had similar below-ground entrances, where it would be easy to hide.
But relocating turned out to be unnecessary.
“She just stopped,” he whispered.
Dehler had paused in front of a building, a little more than halfway down Westbourne Crescent. Nate watched as she reached into her pocket, removed a phone, and looked at the screen. It was a completely natural move, one that would fool most people into thinking she was checking messages. But Nate knew she couldn’t care less what was on the display. Like a good operative, she was using her peripheral vision to note any unusual movements. She stayed like that for a minute and a half, thumbing her screen as if she was scrolling through an app.
After she finally put the phone away, she walked past two more houses in Nate’s direction, and then quickly descended the basement stairway.
For a second, he wondered if she was hiding in the same way he’d planned to do, but he heard a soft thunk followed by a click.
“She went down the basement stairs of one of the buildings,” he reported. “I don’t have visual confirmation, but I think she went inside.” He paused. “Kiet, did you see the building she entered?”
“Yes.”
“I want you to circle behind it and see if there’s another exit.”
“Copy,” Kiet said.
Nate stared down Westbourne Crescent. There was only one way to find out whether she’d gone inside or not.
“I’ll do a walk-by,” he said.
He waited for Quinn to object, but his former mentor had apparently done the same mental math he had, and figured out it would be a risk no matter who went, because the only thing Quinn said was, “Make it fast.”
Taking a play out of Dehler’s handbook, Nate pulled out his phone, but instead of looking at the display, he held it to his building-side ear, using it to mask his face. He was three houses away when he came to a sudden stop.
On the stone wall above the stairs Dehler had taken was a decorative bump that protruded about five centimeters, like half an eggshell. He looked at the house closest to him, and back at several of the others he’d passed. In all other aspects, they were identical to the one Dehler was presumably in, except none of them had the bump.
He reversed course, adding two houses to the cushion between him and Dehler’s place, then pulled out his binoculars to take a closer look at the bump. At the tip of the bump was a dark spot. He couldn’t tell for sure if it was a hole, but every instinct told him it was. Which meant the egg-shaped addition was a camera, the entrance watched like her place in Munich.
He abandoned any attempt to walk by and returned to the corner.
“I think we’ve found her hideout.”
“Explain,” Quinn said.
Nate described what he’d seen.
“Sounds like a safe house to me,” Orlando said.
“Kiet, a
nything in back?” Nate asked.
“A door like you thought, but no one has used it since I’ve been here. There is also one of those cameras you described.”
Nate’s attention was drawn to the sliver of the basement window he could see in Dehler’s stairwell.
“She could have escaped out the rear before Kiet got there,” Jar suggested.
“Could have, but I don’t think so,” Nate said.
“Why not?” Quinn asked.
“Because someone in that basement just turned on a light.
WITH ORLANDO’S ASSISTANCE, Jar hacked into a property ownership database for London, where she discovered the flat was owned by a Portuguese corporation, Coelho-Helena Construction.
This sent her on a digital trip to Lisbon, where—surprise, surprise—there were no records of the company. It wasn’t proof the place was a safe haven, but it was enough for now.
More importantly, within the records was a blueprint of the building. The basement was a single, four-room apartment that did indeed have a rear exit, at the end of a long, narrow hall.
A hiding place. A tucked-away hole from which Dehler ventured out only on rare occasions, and only when heavily disguised.
Orlando clicked off her mic and glanced at Quinn. All the frustration and anger and grieving that had cocooned him since that January night in Jakarta had coalesced into the look of anticipation that now boiled in his eyes.
“You want to take her now?” she asked. It wouldn’t be her choice but she would understand if it was his.
All these months looking for Liz’s killer, and here she was, waiting half a block away. Not only did they have the element of surprise, they had Dehler boxed in. She might try to put up a fight, but it wasn’t one she’d come close to winning.
But, they both knew, if they were to act now, it would mean abandoning their larger goal.
As if he had to fight to get each word out, Quinn said, “We stick to the plan.”
They installed their own cameras along Westbourne Crescent, and put a few in the area behind the house. In case Dehler left her apartment, Nate, Daeng, and Kiet spent the night at a nearby hotel, ready to follow.
The Aggrieved Page 23
