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 greeted 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
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.