The clouds had retreated entirely back out to sea, and the sky overhead was a deep, smog-free blue. Every few minutes, she craned her neck forward to look up through the windshield, trying to spot an airplane that might be orbiting overhead. Each time, she leaned back in her seat, frustrated that she still hadn’t seen the signs she was being followed.
When a notification appeared on her phone, she unlocked it and opened the calculator app. She entered her passkey, then clicked on “Receive” and waited to see if the Marine had come through for her. She moved into the left lane, giving a wide berth around a car parked on the shoulder, when her phone chirped.
1 NEW MESSAGE.
She felt a nervous excitement and tapped on the icon to download it, then glanced up to complete a scan of her mirrors and surrounding traffic. When nothing triggered her acutely honed sense of awareness, she moved back into the right lane and forced herself to continue driving just below the speed limit.
1. NAVY LT COLT BANCROFT. TOPGUN INSTRUCTOR.
2. ABOARD COD FOR NORTH ISLAND.
She still needed to shake her tail and get out from under whoever was surveilling her, but now she had a name. She had a target she could prosecute. If the pilot wasn’t already on the ground in San Diego, he would be soon. And she needed to make sure that’s as far as he got. She abandoned caution and switched from the encrypted messaging application to Signal, found the number for her man in San Diego, and placed a voice call.
When he answered, she said, “We have a problem.”
“I’m listening.”
She took a deep breath and considered her break from protocol. The urgency of the situation necessitated that she forgo her normal coded communication methods in favor of an expedient solution. “Colt Bancroft,” she said at last. “He is a Navy lieutenant with information that could jeopardize our operation. I need you to kill him.”
“Where and when?”
Chen tapped up on the cruise control to increase her speed. “He is flying to North Island from the carrier. I don’t know when.”
“I’ll take care of it,” he said, then ended the call.
She should have felt relief that the Marine had come through for her and given her what she had asked for, but she couldn’t shake the nagging sensation that events were spiraling out of her control. Chen was meticulous in how she ran her operations, and she was unaccustomed to playing back on her heels. She tapped up to increase her speed further, succumbing to her subconscious need to play offense.
With her men taking care of this Colt Bancroft, she could focus on what troubled her most.
Rick sat on the side of the road while trying Punky’s phone again. When it went to voicemail for the third consecutive time, he cursed and switched back to the tracker application to check on TANDY’s location.
“Oh, shit!”
The flashing blue beacon was less than half a mile behind him, and he quickly glanced into his side-view mirror as he put the BMW in drive and prepared to pull out behind her. Within seconds, he spotted the Jeep Wrangler he had been following all night and watched it move into the left lane to pass him. He turned and watched the SUV move back into the right lane and continue south on the highway.
Dammit.
He knew it had been a bad idea to pull off on the side of the road, but after noticing the beacon exit the highway twice more since leaving Avila Beach, he began to wonder if the increase in SDRs meant she had somehow detected him. Without air support, he needed to ensure she didn’t ditch the vehicle, and the only way of doing that was by getting eyes on. Still, he knew she had seen his car now and would become suspicious if she spotted it a second time.
Rick waited until the Jeep had gone half a mile, then pulled out into traffic and quickly accelerated to match her speed. He tried reaching Punky again but was met with the same frustrating result, so he put the phone down and focused on maintaining his surveillance. Now that he was in view of the subject, he couldn’t afford to become complacent and make careless errors.
He saw the Jeep’s turn signal flash, and he eased his foot off the gas. Here we go again.
As she took the off-ramp for Price Street, he allowed the M5 to coast and preserve the separation he had established. He knew she was likely completing another surveillance detection route and would be looking to see who followed her off the highway, but he couldn’t simply drive past and wait for her to catch up again now that she had already seen him on the side of the road.
By the time he reached the exit, the Jeep was at the stop sign at the end of the off-ramp. He continued slowing as she made a right turn, backtracking up the coast on the Business 101, forcing him to choose between two equally unappealing options. If he turned left, he would lose sight and she could pull into any of the hotels or restaurants lining the beach to swap out the Jeep for a clean vehicle. But if he chose to follow her, she could double back unexpectedly and spot him.
“Dammit, Punky…”
Following a subject with two vehicles was infinitely easier and would have precluded him from having to make this decision. And even though it wasn’t her fault that she wasn’t there to help, he couldn’t help but allow his frustration at her ignoring his warnings to bubble over into his own predicament. At last, he rolled the dice and turned right, hoping TANDY intended to backtrack to the previous on-ramp and return to the highway.
As Chen made the right turn at the bottom of the off-ramp, she glanced into her rearview mirror and saw a silver car also exiting. Something about the car seemed familiar to her, but she couldn’t place it and fought the temptation to simply dismiss it as paranoia. She had good reason to be paranoid, and until she satisfied herself it was nothing, she treated it like everything.
Okay, let’s find out who you are.
She kept her speed low as she watched the silver car near the stop sign behind her, then she turned left and descended into the Shore Cliff Hotel parking lot. She was certain that if the sedan was following her, its driver would have seen her make the turn. She coasted down the hill and parked in a spot reserved for electric vehicles, angling her rearview mirror so she could see the road, and waited to see if the car continued driving north.
When she saw a flash of silver, she quickly backed out of the spot and raced back up the hill to the street. She looked left and watched the silver sedan continuing north on Price Street as if nothing was amiss. But still, something bothered her about the car, and she racked her brain to try to figure out what it was.
Two hundred yards up the road, the silver car turned right and drove under the freeway. She pulled out onto the road and followed, knowing full well that if the driver had been following her, he would have seen her leave the hotel parking lot. He would know he had been burned and would attempt to disengage, but Chen wasn’t about to let that happen. She reached alongside her seat and felt for the Glock 19 peeking out above the center console.
This ends now, she thought.
She turned right to follow the sedan underneath the overpass and spotted it on the other side, driving up a hill to an access road on the other side of the highway. If its driver had been following her, he gave no outward sign that he had been burned and drove like any other Southern California driver.
But she was tired of pretending. She pressed on the gas and sped up, narrowing the distance between them. She wanted the driver to see her closing on him and wanted to startle him into making a mistake she could exploit. When she got within one hundred yards, the sedan turned right and drove up a hill. A quick glance at her map showed that it was the only way in or out of the parking lot for Pismo Preserve.