Her phone buzzed, and Holt’s name flashed on the screen.
“Quinn here,” she said smoothly.
“I’m looping you in for an update on the situation in Seattle.Xaden and Cooper are on the line.”
“Roger that,” she replied.
“We have photos of several possible vehicles to be used in the pending attacks,” Xaden said.It sounded like he was walking down the city street.Quinn could hear noises in the background—car engines, a horn honking, and voices carrying on various conversations around them.“Cooper and I are two blocks south of the Space Needle.There’s a self-driving vehicle parked on the street nearby.”
“It could be a coincidence,” Cooper said over the line, “but I also spotted one three blocks east.For a system that’s supposedly only being tested right now in this market, why are not one but two of the self-driving cars parked in sight?”
“That’s a damn good question.I want eyes on them both,” Holt said, his voice hard.
“Let me see if I can get into a different camera from here,” Quinn said, her fingers flying over the keyboard.“We can monitor them electronically if this works.Okay, I’m in, but I don’t have a good view of the car you’re referring to.What intersection are you near right now?”
Xaden rattled it off, and Quinn frowned.
“No.It’s just out of range.I could see if any of the local businesses have surveillance cameras aiming at the street.If I get into those feeds, we can watch it.”
“We should’ve brought our own cameras,” Xaden said, his voice low.“We could’ve set up our own surveillance system and positioned a few in specific locations.”
“I’ll check my gear,” Cooper replied.“I might have one.”
“Tell me the coordinates of where the second vehicle is,” Quinn instructed.“I’ll look for that one as well.”
Knox gave her the street names, and although Quinn could see the second car, the first was still out of range.
Twenty minutes later, she was on the phone again.Knox was still out of the office, assessing the terror cell’s weapons’ cache, Gage was briefing with Holt, and Cooper and Xaden were attempting to set up a camera feed near the suspicious vehicle.
“Quinncess, I can’t get this damn thing to work.”Cooper said.
She rattled off some instructions to Cooper, scanning the open camera feeds as well.“I’ve got other IT staff trying to help, but we don’t have eyes on you.”
“Which means you can’t see the vehicle either,” he muttered.
She bit her lip, frowning.That was problematic, given her discovery earlier.If the terror cell would eventually load the explosives into the self-driving vehicles, Bravo Team needed to be watching those in vicinity of the known targets.
“Xaden or I will have to stay here,” Cooper said, echoing her thoughts.“We’ve circled the area, and this vehicle is the closest one.I don’t want someone loading explosives into it while it’s unguarded.We could have the damn thing towed, but then they’ll guess someone is onto them.Either that or we tow every damn vehicle on the block.”
Quinn bit her lip, frowning.“No.I’ll come down.I can be there in less than half an hour.I’ll bring extra cameras.You two need to focus on finding whoever is carrying the explosives.You don’t have time to babysit a self-driving car.Once we have eyes on any suspicious vehicles in the vicinity of the Space Needle, my team and I can monitor them from the office.It’ll free you up to get the bad guys, so to speak.”
Cooper huffed out a laugh.“Okay.I don’t like that you have to come down here, but that might be the quickest option given our time constraints.”
“It is,” she assured him.“We don’t want to miss our chance to nab anyone in the terror cell network.”
“All right.See you soon,” he said, ending the call.
Leaving her laptop open, Quinn grabbed her cell phone and shot off a quick text.
Quinn:I’m heading out to do some last-minute tech support.
Knox:Everything okay?
Quinn:Yep.I’ll touch base with you later.
Knox:Be safe.
A flush washed over her.He didn’t even know what she was doing, yet he’d told her to be careful.
