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“Just fine, Liam,” she says. “How about you? Traveling again anytime soon?”
Near Belinda is a bank of CCTV monitors, covering the front door, alleyways on each side, and the rear door for maintenance workers and deliveries. There’s no one visible on the screens.
“No travel for a while, I hope,” he says. “Hey, has anybody come by looking for me? Or calling for me at the front desk?”
Belinda shakes her head. “I’ve been here two hours, Liam, and noone’s looking for you.” Her smile broadens. “You got some woman pissed off, stalking you for not returning her texts?”
“I wish,” he says. “Have a good night.”
He goes to the elevator banks, punches the Up button, and waits.
Abuzzat the door and he turns.
Mrs. Lucianne from upstairs, and her two young boys. The two boys start fussing about something and when the elevator door opens, he quickly steps in and hits the Close button, and waits.
Rude to his neighbors, but he has to keep moving.
In his unit on the third floor, he makes a quick sweep of the place. He doesn’t have a house cleaner, and he always leaves little telltales around the unit to see if any unauthorized visitors have come in, from the arrangement of magazines on the coffee table to a piece of thread tied across the bedroom doorway.
Nothing.
Finding a lockbox in the main closet, he dials the combination, opens it, and takes out a 10mm Glock semiautomatic pistol with three spare magazines. Also coming out is a waist holster and a thousand dollars in one-hundred-dollar bills, and a passport that marks him as a citizen of Canada with the name Lee Grayson.
Last out are two burner phones, placed in each jacket pocket, and then he leaves the unit, not knowing when he’s coming back.
Liam goes back to the elevator bank and keeps on walking, taking the fire stairs down to the lobby, peering over at every landing as he descends to make sure the stairwell is empty.
It is.
At the lobby floor Liam quietly opens the door, walks the few short yards to the lobby, and stops, taking a quick glance at Belinda.
She’s not alone.
He slides back into the hallway.
Recalls what he’s just seen.
Two large men with matching dark suits and sensible shoes,talking quietly and forcefully to Belinda, trying to intimidate her by leaning over the counter.
Liam knows that’s not going to work, but he’s not sticking around to find out.
He walks quietly down the hallway, to the outside door markedEXIT, pushes the bar and gently closes the door behind him, then starts moving quick, just in case one of the men back there saw him leave via the CCTV system at Belinda’s station.
Liam returns to his pace of walking, backtracking, and taking the Metro and getting off to make sure he’s not being followed.
But what now?
With Doc’s death, does that mean he’s next?
Or is he still a useful enough tool for POTUS and his people to be kept alive?
He steps out of the Union Station stop—the busiest in the Metro system—and backs up against a concrete wall, takes one of his burner phones out.
He could call his former supervisor at the Directorate of Operations, but then what?
His old boss would tell him to come into Langley for Liam’s own safety, and a debrief.
But that assumes Liam would get there alive.
