Hannah changed the subject. "So what about our mercenary savior?"
Neeley explained that he was a pilot who could be persuaded to fly anywhere if the price was right. "I'll call him."
Hannah nodded. "Better than driving." Her eyes narrowed. "Why are we going to Boulder?"
Neeley figured she needed to take things one step at a time and not overload Hannah. "I have a safe house in Colorado. We'll go there and figure out a plan." She paused. “Do you know what a safe house is?”
“I’ve read a book or two,” Hannah said.
“What was with all those books?” Neeley asked.
Hannah shrugged. “It beat living in the real world as you noted earlier.”
Neeley spotted a truck stop and decided it was a good time to change cars again. Neeley took an exit and parked in the lot. After transferring the load to a new car, she wiped the old car down, removing their prints. She left the windows open and the keys in the ignition. With any luck it would get stolen again. She found a pay phone near the truck stop and left the motor idling while she talked.
"Hello?" a man's voice answered.
"Kent, this is Neeley."
"Hey, lady, how you doing? Been a long time since I heard from you. How's your Gant?"
"Gant's dead, Kent."
"Shit. What happened?"
"Cancer."
"Damn. Sorry to hear that. He was a good man. You could count on him."
"I need a flight."
"I only do domestic service now," Kent said. "Flat fee ten grand anywhere in the Continental United States. One way. No hanging around waiting."
Kent was an old acquaintance of Gant's. He was the one who had flown them up into the mountains for the winter training a few years back. Gant and she had gone to his place in Wyoming twice more to do some skiing over the years.
"I've got the money," Neeley said.
"Where to where and when?" Kent succinctly asked.
"As soon as possible. I'll be in Lawrence, Kansas. I need to get to Boulder, Colorado."
"Hold on a second. Let me check the weather."
While she waited the operator demanded more money and Neeley slid the quarters in.
Kent was back on in two minutes. "I can leave tonight and do IFR. I'll be there in the morning. There’s a small airfield outside Lawrence. No tower." He gave her the directions.
"I'll have one person with me," Neeley said.
"Just double the fee."
"All right."
"See you in the morning."
The phone went dead.
A car pulled into the lot and slowly drove along the front of the restaurant. Neeley recognized the make. The same as the one that had been in the parking lot of the restaurant outside St. Louis. Hannah watched it too.
"Goddamn," Neeley muttered as she hung up the phone. The car rolled through the end of the parking lot and disappeared but Neeley knew it wouldn't go far.
"He knows where we are all the time,” Hannah said.
Neeley headed back toward the Interstate. She glanced at her companion and returned her attention to the speedometer. "You just figured that out? We've got to make it to Lawrence and that plane."
Hannah nodded. "But how do we keep that guy from climbing right on board? He doesn't seem to have any trouble following us and this is a new car. He can’t have bugged it."
Neeley banged her hand on the steering wheel with frustration, causing Hannah to jump. "We're going to have to make a run for it."
Hannah nodded in slow agreement and reached back for her tote in the backseat. She pulled out a brush and began brushing her sleep matted hair.
"What are you doing?"
"What's it look like? Besides, it helps me think."
Neeley gripped the wheel tighter. "What you need is about fifty more IQ points to help you think."
Hannah tossed the brush back in the bag. She pushed the bag on the floorboard and reached for a metal case in the back seat. "And your stuff's perfect, right? Let's see what John had that was so damn important." Popping it open, she murmured, "Oh." Hannah didn't recognize the contents of the case in her lap. "What's this?"
"Wrong case," Neeley said. "That's mine and it's a receiver." Neeley glanced in her rear view mirror. No sign of the trailing car but she knew it was back there. Could he have had observation on them all this time? Neeley had been careful but she supposed it was possible.
Hannah reached along the side of the flat green screen and she pushed the small button that was there. There was a brief hum, the screen glowed and a bright dot showed up square in the center accompanied by a low beeping noise.
"Damn," Neeley whispered as she heard the sound and glanced over.
"What?" Hannah asked. "Did I do something wrong?"
"You didn't do anything wrong." Neeley lifted a hand off the wheel and pointed. "That dot. It represents a tracking bug. We've got one in the car. That's how this guy is following us."
"How can we have one in the car?" Hannah demanded. "We switched cars."
"It's not in the car," Neeley said. "Well, it is, but not on the car."
"What do you mean?" Hannah asked.
"Your thigh," Neeley said. "It's in your thigh. That's why that guy stuck you with the knife. He was putting a bug in you." She should have focused on the fact that the knife had looked strange, but it had been one detail in the middle of a lot of things happening.
Hannah stared at the spot on her thigh with her first sign of emotion in quite a while. "Get it out."
Neeley switched out of the fast lane and headed for the nearest downtown exit. "Hold your horses, Hannah, I'm driving."
Hannah spoke in short clipped words. "I don't care. Get it out! Get it out now!"
"Well, at least we know how he's tracking us. We need to set up a trap and get rid of this guy."
Racine knew they had spotted him. He didn’t want them to become complacent. He always found it best to keep the quarry off-balance.
He stopped at the booth the tall one had been in. He called the operator for the company that serviced the phone. Using his FBI badge number, another perk from the Cellar, he had her give him the last number called from that phone.
After he hung up, Racine looked at the number for a few seconds. The area code was Montana. The shadow world covered the entire planet but the population that dwelled inside the borders of that world was a small one. Racine closed his eyes and his mind flashed through names and faces until it clicked.
“Damn,” Racine muttered as he got back in the car. The bitches were going to fly. He couldn’t allow that. Then Nero would get involved further and it would be out of his hands. He would have to stop them before they got on that plane.
Racine stood still for several seconds, thinking, coming up with his plans. Plan A was to stop them himself. But he knew he needed a plan B, just in case.
Neeley was slowly navigating through the crowded business district and looking for a place to park. They left the car and headed for a mostly empty restaurant, Neeley carrying a small black kit and John's briefcase. In the bathroom, Hannah looked down at the hole in her thigh as Neeley dabbed away the blood. "They can really make one that small?"
"They can make transmitters extremely small," Neeley said. "The problem is the battery. That's what takes up most of the space." Neeley looked about. “But I don’t think he was worrying about it having to last very long. Just long enough to catch us.”
Neeley felt with her fingers in the cut and Hannah took a sharp breath, but didn't make any other noise. "I can't feel anything in there."
Neeley reached into the kit. She pulled a small scalpel and tweezers out. "I'm going to have to dig. It'll hurt."
Hannah nodded and looked at the wall over Neeley's shoulder. "How did you end up like this?"
Neeley turned the faucet on hot, letting the water run until it started steaming the glass over the sink. Then she put the blade under the water and held it there.