“Understood.”
Josie pulls up the Capitol Hill traffic feed.I don’t know how she’s hacked access, nor do I care.I’m just glad she’s good enough to do it.
“Here it is,” she says, zeroing in on a black car outside of the restaurant where Tessa met Schwartz.She advances the footage until the front door of the restaurant opens and Adrian Schwartz walks out with Tessa.My heart hammers against my rib cage, fear clogging my throat.She’s going with him willingly, but there’s no way she’d do that.Tessa might dive head first into dangerous situations, but that’s a level of stupidity she doesn’t possess.My only guess is that he has leverage on her.
Josie freezes the frame and zooms in on the vehicle’s license plate.Partial.B-something-7-something-4.“Running it now.”
She feeds the number into the system and BOB starts working combinations while she simultaneously pulls the highway camera network.The car appears again fourteen minutes later on the I-5 on-ramp heading north, and then again on the SR 522 interchange heading east.She tracks it through three cameras before the network ends.
“Last confirmed position,” she says, dropping a pin on the map.“Time stamp three seventeen p.m.”
“Logically, they’re heading into the Mt.Baker–Snoqualmie National Forest,” Malik says, rubbing his jaw.
It’s the best bet, if I were willing to bet on Tessa’s life.The Cascade Mountain Range runs north-south from British Columbia down to California.The Mt.Baker–Snoqualmie National Forest is on the western slope of the Cascades closest to Seattle, and 522 is a direct shot.If they were going to go into the North Cascades National Park, they would have followed I-5 north, which is good in some respects.That area of the Cascades is incredibly rugged and remote.Not that the Mt.Baker area is much better.The terrain is all steep mountains, logging roads and thick old-growth forest.
“BOB says there’s an 82 percent chance you’re right,” Josie says, its property analysis results on the same map.Three properties are flagged within a hundred-mile radius of that exit: two registered to shell companies with SAPG financial fingerprints and one showing utility usage consistent with intermittent occupation.
She zooms in on the third one and the farthest away.“This is a parcel of twelve acres registered to a holding company called PacNo Holdings, which BOB has already linked through four layers of corporate structure to Strategic Asset Protection Group.There’s a cabin on the property, single-access road, and the last utility activity was six weeks ago.”
“That’s it,” I say.
“Confidence level is high,” Josie says.“Not certain.”
“High enough,” I say, looking at Malik.
He looks at the map for exactly three seconds.“Go,” he says.“I’ll call Hara.Josie stays here running real-time support.Reid, Sully with you.”
We’re halfway to the door when Josie says my name.I turn and she’s looking at me from her station.The expression on her face has none of its usual professional composure.Just the raw honest face of someone who is afraid for her new friend and isn’t going to pretend otherwise.“Bring her back,” she says.
“On it,” I say, refusing to find failure on this mission.
And I go.
The truck eats the highway at too slow a pace for my liking, but roads are narrow, unmarked and winding, making max speed hardly above thirty miles per hour.Nighttime encroaches and the truck’s headlights cut through the dark.It’s a good thing Sully is driving as I’d be taking the curves too fast and would probably launch us over the edge.He’s maneuvering the truck with contained confidence and knows how to save his energy for when it matters.Reid’s in the back seat reviewing a tactical map pulled up on his phone and I’m trying not to let my imagination run wild as to what might be happening in that cabin.
I think about the route.The access road.The approach vector Josie is already mapping for us from Jameson.The structure of the property, the sight lines, the most likely interior layout of a rural cabin being used as an operational safe house.We have more support than most military organizations and yet there is still so much unknown about what we’re walking into.We’re a three-person extraction team against an unknown number of SAPG operatives in a contained space.
My phone buzzes and I connect Josie through the speaker.“Satellite imagery of the property just came through,” she says, and I can hear keyboards in the background.“It’s a single structure approximately nine hundred square feet, one story.Front door faces the access road.Back door opens onto a covered porch.Two windows on the north wall, one on the south, two on the east facing the tree line.”A pause.“Only one vehicle currently on the property, looks to be a tactical SUV.”
“How many inside?”Reid asks.
“Can’t tell from imagery,” she says.“But the vehicle could easily hold eight.”
“Copy,” I say.We’re going to have to wait to get close and use heat imagery to narrow down the number of hostiles we’re dealing with.
“Cole,” she says.“Hara called back.FBI tactical is mobilizing, but they’re looking at ninety minutes minimum.”
“We’ll be there in thirty-five,” I say.
A beat of silence.“I know,” she says.“I’ve got eyes on your GPS.I’ll be with you the whole way in.”
I disconnect the call and watch the highway unspool ahead of us into the darkening Cascades.
Thirty-five minutes.
She just has to hold on for thirty-five minutes.
CHAPTER 22
