“She’s going in,” Andy Harriman reported from the passenger seat next to Art. He lifted the binoculars to his eyes for just a second and checked the front of the motel. “No visual. It’s a bad angle.”
Art took the mic from its clip on the dash. “King Eight to King Six and King Four.”
“Go, Eight.”
“Go.”
“Frankie’s in.”
Two acknowledgments of the information came immediately. Art and Andy’s unit, King Eight, had the best vantage point. They were parked on Vermont south of Eleventh, and were focusing their attention farther south on the “$22.50” motel, which occupied the southwest corner of Vermont and Twelfth. Agents Dan Burlingame and Drew Smith in King Six were a half-block south of the motel, parked in a strip mall on the opposite side of the street. King Four, with agents Tina Mercer and Tim Russo, was parked on Twelfth, nosed east toward Vermont and had a very limited view of the scene. All three units, however, could be to Frankie in just seconds.
Art cupped his left hand over the small earpiece connected to the receiver. His right hand dropped down out of habit and ran across his jacket. The move did not go unnoticed to a smiling Harriman.
“Mr. Smith okay?”
“Right where he should be, Andy,” Art said unabashedly. The ready signal from Frankie sounded in his ear. “One more time.”
“Hi!”
The desk clerk looked to the lady across the counter with little care for her bubbly personality. “Room for two?” Were there ever any rooms for one?
“No. No. Nothing like that,” Frankie responded with mild embarrassment. “I’m returning a wallet.” She reached into her oversized purse and retrieved the item. “Mr. Flavio Alicante called our store and said he thought he’d left it there.” She flipped open the “license” and avoided holding her breath. “But he didn’t give me a room number. He just gave this address.”
The clerk eyed the picture, then the lady, then the wallet again. It was bulging with something in its recesses. Money? Hmmm. “You want me to give it to him.”
Yes! “No, it’s got, you know, kinda a lot of money in it, and he made me promise to deliver it in person.” She smiled apologetically.
“Yeah. Okay.” He glanced down at the keyboard beneath the counter. “He and his buddy are in one-oh-six. Out the door and to the left.”
Frankie’s smile dissolved instantly. She dropped her bag and pulled out her shield and weapon, which was pointed upward. “FBI. Do not move, do not say anything.”
The young man’s eyes tripled in size as his hands slowly came up. “Yeah, whatever you say, lady.”
“Yes!” Art slapped the steering wheel, but a radio call from headquarters interrupted his celebration. He reached for the mic, looking right, and took no notice of the yellow taxi passing to his left and heading south on Vermont. He also missed the lone passenger in back.
“There it is,” the man said to his partner in the driver’s seat.
“Got it,” the driver acknowledged, sliding the small compact into the northbound left-turn pocket for Twelfth Street. He stopped before reaching the intersection, however, and waited for a break in the midmorning traffic coming south on Vermont. The last car in the traffic wave was a yellow taxi, which turned into the driveway immediately to his left. He cranked the wheel and followed it in. “Time to go to work.”
The man in the passenger seat undid the restraining strap on his shoulder holster. “You got it.”
“Art, we’ve got the address of where the shooters are staying.” It was Lou Hidalgo calling from the office.
“What? We just found them, Lou.” Art looked right to Andy, who returned the perplexed look. “How did you find out?”
“I can’t explain everything. It’d take too long. But listen, this thing runs deeper than we thought. Much deeper.”
Lou had full knowledge of the whole story, unlike the rest of the agents working on this. What the hell did “deeper” mean in this situation? What could run deeper? “Wait, Lou. We found them. All we do now is set up the plan to take them.”
“There may not be time, Art. A wiretap team in Miami recorded a conversation between those guys and their boss, or their contact. We don’t know exactly. But whoever it was, was sending someone out to get a tape from them.”
“A tape? We have the tape,” Art said.
“I know, but that’s not the point,” Lou explained with frustration. “The whole conversation, even the way they made contact, was set up to keep locations secret. The contact was not supposed to know where they were, but he asked directly for it, with full knowledge that they didn’t have the tape. Just a tape.”
“But why would the person running these guys break security procedures to…” Art froze with the realization.
“They wouldn’t. The shooters could have express-mailed the damn thing back to Miami faster than it would take to send someone out here to get it,” Lou said. “And with less risk. Whoever’s coming is not here to play messenger.”
“Goddammit!” Art keyed the radio. “Okay, I’ll get LAPD to seal off everything fast so our visitor can’t get close.”
“Or visitors, Art,” Lou added.
“Wonderful.” He laid the mic on the seat and pulled his earpiece out. “You listen for Frankie’s signal to close in.”
“Trouble?”
Art grabbed his cell. “I don’t know, but I want blue suits out here fast.”
“Is there anyone else in the office?” Frankie asked as she walked behind the counter, one hand grasping the clerk’s collar into a bunch.
“No, just me.”
She glanced into the small room off the office. A bed and nightstand were visible, as was an open door to a bathroom. “Anyone in there? In the bathroom, maybe?”
“No. I swear.”
The young guy was too scared to lie, she knew. They had them.
“King Eight,” Frankie said, tilting her head slightly downward toward the mic behind her lapel as she looked across the parking lot and down the street toward her partner’s car. Another vehicle passed in front of the office window, catching her attention before she could finish the message. When she saw who was in the backseat, the word she uttered was not the one those listening were expecting.
Drew Smith lowered the binoculars, a questioning grimace on his face.
“You see something?” Dan Burlingame asked, his third doughnut of the morning half-gone.
“I’d swear the guy riding in that cab was the reporter.”
“You mean Sullivan?”
“Yeah,” Smith answered. “And a car going north turned into the motel right behind. Two guys in it. Nice clean compact.”
“Are you sure about the reporter?”
“Not positive, but it’s still a lot of traffic for that place this time of day.”
Dan Burlingame nodded, swallowed, and reached for the radio.
“Sullivan?” Andy repeated with surprise.
Art looked right as he waited for the Metro Division lieutenant to come to the phone. “What?”
“She says Sullivan just pulled in in a cab. Into the lot.”
“Shit!” Art dropped the cell and reached for the mic, but King Six’s call cut him off.
“King Eight, this is King Six. We may have some movement. One cab and one blue compact just entered the lot.”