The Black Order by Jeff Rovin

Author:Jeff Rovin
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: St. Martin's Publishing Group

* * *

Breen lowered the window as she approached—at a walk, in case anyone in the van was watching.

“There’s a Stroud van next block,” she said. “I’ll brief you later.”

“What do you want to do?”

“Knock on the door, see who and what’s inside. You have that business card from Stroud?”

“Sure.”

As Breen reached for it, she looked back—and swore.

“What?”

“Jaz is going over.”

Grace snatched the card and hurried away.

“Dammit,” Breen muttered. There was nothing he could do other than prepare to get off base and regroup if Grace and Rivette were stopped and detained.

Just then, Williams texted that he was finished with his interview. Breen revved the engine slightly so Grace would hear, then pulled away. The woman acknowledged with a wave as she cut briskly across the lawn of the office complex, once again rolling her shoulders back, getting used to movement under the thick leather garment.

The absence of the van brought a slight psychological shift. Grace knew, felt, that she and her partner had no backup now.

The lieutenant caught up to Rivette as he neared the Stroud van.

“Lance Corporal, what are you doing?”

“We are being watched.”

“How do you know?”

“The mirror on the driver’s side? It followed you when you left. See the way the glass is turned?”

She looked over. The mirror was angled forty-five degrees from the rearview.

“He may be feeding that to the front gate, Jaz.”

“Or not. Cops in LA used to watch my cousins the same way. Mobile unit truck was facing one way, like they were looking at a beach and digging the view. Inside, John and Judy Law looked another way. This dude probably has a camera behind the glass, nice fish-eye lens to watch the whole block. Probably got facial recog, communications, a whole setup.”

“Please wait.”

Rivette was about to turn from the front of the vehicle to the passenger’s side. He stopped, saw the dish, nodded.

“Right there is incoming. Think about it. If he were here for ONI, he’d use a secure phone to give and get. He’d be their remote eyes and ears. They wouldn’t have a major digital dump for him. This van needs that dish for heavy-duty bandwidth—just like the cops had multiple, linked vans to track people.”

“Other Stroud vans.”

“Or the store. Or multiple locations.”

“If you’re right, then they aren’t watching Mrs. Hamill—”

“She’s bait. They had to figure more than ONI would be looking into this. Maybe that’s why they let her live. Otherwise, Black Order could’ve phoned their message in.”

“Let’s go around to the other side,” Grace said, nodding toward the small satellite dish. “The guards won’t see us there.”

Rivette smiled. “Roger that.”

Grace did not believe that the masters-at-arms were complicit in whatever was going on in the van. If they were, one of the four would have questioned their own presence here. The gate had to have informed them—

By radio, she thought, which means that the van knows too.

“Let me do the talking,” she said.

“Why? I know how to ask goddamn questions.”

“Your right hand is a fist. What’s your rule about being tense? You telegraph your intent?”

“Says the woman who fights with her fists.

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