Jack jogged across the fourth lane to avoid being flattened by a Porsche coming around the corner. Bayfront Station was at the fulcrum of what had once been a famous hairpin turn in the first and only Grand Prix race to actually run in the streets of downtown Miami. Some drivers thought the race was still running.
“Guitarist is one of ours,” said Andie as Jack approached the street-level entrance to the station. The tune sounded like something from the Gypsy Kings. The guy actually wasn’t bad.
“You’re early,” said Andie. “Don’t want you trapped on the platform with nowhere to go. Stand where you are and listen to the musician.”
Jack stopped. The guitarist transitioned into Cat Stevens’ “Moonshadow.” Really damn good.
“Okay,” said Andie, “take the escalator up to the platform. Decoy will arrive in ninety seconds.”
Jack fished a couple bucks from his wallet and bought a Metromover token from the machine. He dropped the change in the musician’s open guitar case, which drew a string of “Thank you, thank you, thank you.” Nerves had a way of triggering funny thoughts, and special agent Cat Stevens had Jack thinking that it wasn’t just lawyers who yearned for another career.
“You’re welcome,” said Jack. He pushed through the turnstile and started up the escalator. It seemed painfully slow, but Jack knew it was just the circumstances. Halfway up he spotted the Sydney decoy on the sidewalk across the street. She was walking toward the station.
He wondered if Merselus saw her as well.
Jack stepped onto the platform. It was cooler up there, a salty breeze blowing across the park from the bay. His gaze fixed on the FBI decoy as she crossed Biscayne Boulevard. She didn’t look all that much like Sydney Bennett. The blond wig, the scarf, the sunglasses at night-the entire getup was more like what Sydney might look like if she were trying not to be recognized in public.
Jack moved to the thick yellow warning line in front of the track, right at the edge of the elevated platform. No trams were in sight. He looked up and down Biscayne Boulevard. To the north he could see all the way to the arena, home of the Miami Heat. He spotted a few pedestrians along the sidewalk, not knowing which ones were FBI agents, no way of knowing whether one of them was Merselus. If someone didn’t make a move on the decoy quickly, the whole mission would be a failure.
Jack’s phone rang. He checked the number. It was from Sydney’s phone.
Andie’s voice was in his earpiece. “Answer it.”
Jack put the phone to his other ear. “This is Jack.”
Silence.
He glanced toward the escalator. The Sydney decoy was on her way up.
“This is Jack,” he said into the phone.
No response.
Anger rose up inside him. Sydney’s entire role in the operation had been simply to call on her iPhone and tell Jack to meet her at the central fountain at eleven thirty. If Sydney was on a mission to take over and screw things up, she was playing a dangerous game. Jack put his phone away, but it chimed immediately with a text message.
Check the bench, it read.
He turned around to face the wood bench in front of the billboard in the center of the platform. The bench was vacant. He was completely alone on the platform until the Sydney decoy reached the top of the escalator. Jack glanced at her, then back at the bench, and something caught his eye. He stepped closer, closer. Then he saw it clearly, a polished copper hoop hanging from the armrest on the bench.
It was Rene’s necklace.
“Don’t touch anything,” the undercover agent told him.
Jack stepped away from the bench, sickened by the symbolism of the swap.
“He’s got Sydney,” Jack said.
The agent said something into her hidden microphone about “abort,” which took it from obvious to official that the mission had failed.
Jack’s gaze drifted back to the necklace on the bench, and he wondered if Sydney was still alive-and how much time they had.
Chapter Fifty-Two
Andie’s surveillance and apprehension team quickly shifted gears to abduction and recovery mode. The FBI communications van was at the exit to the parking garage, poised to speed down Biscayne Boulevard. Andie was buckled into the passenger seat with tech support on the line.
“I need a location,” she said, her patience waning.
“No GPS reading,” her tech agent said.
“Damn.” Andie was certain that Merselus had found Sydney because she had screwed up the FBI’s directions on how to disarm GPS tracking on her iPhone.
“We’re triangulating now,” tech said.
Andie crossed her fingers. The electronic pulse that every cell phone in the power-on mode transmitted to cell towers every eight seconds was distinct from GPS tracking, but the process of triangulating between a cell phone and towers took more time.
“Got it,” he said, and he gave her an approximate address, give or take a hundred-yard radius. Triangulation was less precise than GPS. “That’s the best we can do.”
“That’s on the river.”
“North of the Brickell Avenue Bridge,” he said. “I’m sending you the coordinates now.”
“Send them team-wide,” said Andie. “And thanks.”
The driver hit the gas, and the tires squealed as the van raced out of the parking garage. They were headed south on Biscayne Boulevard as Andie confirmed backup and got on the line with Special Agent Crenshaw, whose team was already on the move in a black FBI SWAT van.
Crenshaw asked, “How current are the coordinates?”
“About four minutes ago.”
“Four minutes? They could be five miles from there by now.”
“It’s all we’ve got to go on for now.”
“How about an update?”
“Not likely. Our guess is that he texted rather than called to try to keep the phone on for less than eight seconds. He barely missed it. We got one reading when he sent the text, which by itself may not have been enough for us to triangulate. Got a second pulse just before the phone was powered off, which gave us a little more data to work with. I wouldn’t expect him to turn on the phone again and send another pulse.”
“Did you issue a BOLO?”
Andie understood the point of his question. A be-on-the-lookout alert could draw everyone into the conflict-from local police to the neighborhood crime watch. Or even the media.
“BOLO went out three minutes ago,” said Andie.
“Shit,” said Crenshaw.
“Had to do it,” said Andie. “If they’re speeding down I-95, I need highway patrol in the loop.”
“Be on the lookout for what, though? Do you honestly think Sydney Bennett looks anything like what she looked like in trial?”
“Probably not. But we have a decent image of Merselus that we lifted from a snippet of enhanced video taken by a Coast Guard officer of him and Sydney on the runway at Opa-locka Airport. He may not even know we have it, so it may be helpful.”
“Send me that now,” said Crenshaw. “And while you’re at it, why don’t you supplement the BOLO with the usual multijurisdictional caveat.”
“And that would be. . what?”
“Tell the locals to stay out of my way,” said Crenshaw.
She knew he was only half-serious-maybe a little more than half. “Roger that,” said Andie.
Chapter Fifty-Three
Midnight came. Jack was driving across the Rickenbacker Causeway to Key Biscayne, halfway home and flanked on both sides by the dark waters of Biscayne Bay. With a slight turn of his head to the left, he could admire downtown Miami and the sparkling skyline that stretched along the shore of the mainland. The view was beautiful-deceptively so, as the city seemed oblivious to Merselus and his plans for the night. Rene, her necklace, and Sydney were heavy on Jack’s mind when the phone call came from Andie.
“Are you okay?” asked Andie.