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.
For the last hundred miles or so, most of the roads leading off the I-90 were local streets going no more than a dozen miles before ending. But while the junction with I-82 provided the first real opportunity to change directions, the junction itself wasn’t the only way to get to the new interstate. A few miles west of where the Californians had landed was a couple of cut-off roads that could get someone from the I-90 to the I-82 without the interchange. So the I-82 wasn’t a write-off after all.
Whether Quinn and his friends would go that way or not was still an open question, but it was Orbits’s only option.
“This way,” he said, tracing the route he wanted Sutter to fly.
The pilot looked hesitant. “We’re going to have to turn back pretty soon or we won’t have enough fuel to get home.”
Orbits reached into his bag and pulled out his wad of petty cash. After removing ten one-hundred-dollar bills, he held them toward the pilot. “For you, on top of the agreed upon fees, if we keep going and you find somewhere on our way to fuel up.”