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“So, what else do you want to know? I can tell you pretty much everything short of the stewardess’s bra size. Sorry. I believe the politically correct term is cabin crew’s bra size.”
Payne chuckled. “Where did the flight originate? Key West?”
“Nope. Dallas. Went wheels-up at Dallas Love Field at ten-fifteen local time. You want that in Zulu time?”
“Dallas?” Payne repeated, looking at Chad, who shrugged.
“Flight duration was right at three hours. Fourteen hundred seventy statute miles, most of the time at four hundred thirty-one knots and forty thousand feet.”
“When did it get to Dallas?”
“Hang on . . . okay, looks like last night. Landed twenty-fifty hundred hours local. Route was Key West to New Orleans Lakefront, then on to Dallas. Before that, it left PNE Friday morning for Key West.”
Matt looked at Chad. “You landed at Key West last Friday morning.”
Chad nodded as the Lear came to a stop and its engines began winding down.
“Okay, Kerry,” Payne said. “I’m not sure what I learned. But thanks. See you in a bit. I’m begging a ride to the Roundhouse from my buddy.”
“The party is going on here in the war room.”
“Got it.”
Payne ended the call, then said to Chad, “You’re a corporate bigwig type. Do you block your tail number?”
“We don’t need to. We’re not a publicly traded company with everyone second-guessing our every business decision, including how we use our planes. Although I have to admit I agree with the activist shareholders who want true transparency from the hypocritical politicians screaming about carbon footprints—and sticking it to me to pay what essentially is a luxury tax on a business tool—while they’re secretly jetting around in corporate aircraft.”
Payne grunted as he looked at the casino’s jet.
“Transparency and politicians? Dream on, buddy.”
[TWO]
Locust Near Fifty-fifth Street, West Philadelphia
Monday, November 17, 2:47 P.M.
Dmitri Gurnov had slipped back behind the wheel of the Audi, which was parked a block down the street from the address that Ricky had said was the place called the Sanctuary.
A three-story brick-faced building, the facility looked from the outside like a small apartment complex with an interior central courtyard. It was much bigger—maybe three times the size—than the two row houses on Girard Park that made up Mary’s House.
Like Mary’s House, the Sanctuary had no signage that said what the facility was. It did have one reading RESIDENTS ONLY. NO TRESPASSING. SMILE! YOU’RE ON CAMERA! And, also like Mary’s Place, the intercom buzzer was answered by a woman well practiced at not answering questions, particularly those of strangers.
Neither woman had admitted to knowing a Ms. Mac or a Krystal Gonzalez.
And when he tried pressuring the woman at Mary’s House, saying he knew that Ms. Mac worked there, the woman sternly but calmly said that he had exactly ten seconds to leave the property or she would call the police and have him arrested for trespassing. And she began counting, Ten, nine . . .
He’d used the first five of those seconds t
o quickly apologize if he in any way had offended her—then headed for his car parked around the corner.
Sitting in the Audi now, he watched people coming and going from the Sanctuary building. They mostly were teenagers, both male and female, and the occasional adult with a child in tow. To enter the locked door, he saw that they used some sort of electronic card key.
Getting inside the facility would pose Gurnov no challenge whatever—the teens, for example, were standing there and talking while holding the door wide open with no care in the world—but gaining entry would serve no purpose other than drawing the wrong kind of attention.
What he needed was information.
When he had asked Ricky if there were any other girls recruited from these two facilities, he’d said only the two who were gone.
