The lead officer used his bolt cutters to break a chain that secured a side door. The team entered the warehouse.
The tension was almost too much to bear. Justine could hardly breathe. She caught glimpses of the SWAT team moving through the building, although it was hard to be sure, they were difficult to spot in the dark windows.
“This guy isn’t going down without a fight,” Sci said, echoing her thoughts.
She was expecting fireworks.
Less than a minute after the team entered the building, a convoy of police vehicles, a SWAT truck, and some unmarked sedans rolled into the parking lot of Angel’s warehouse, following a lead vehicle that crashed through the gates, snapping the rusty chain.
“This is it,” Mo-bot said. “Let’s see if we can get a few words with the guy.”
She got out and hurried across the lot, Justine and Sci following.
Justine could tell something was wrong the moment they reached the parking lot in front of Angel’s warehouse. Uniformed cops milled around with the despondency of baseball fans who have just seen their team get thrashed. The SWAT team emerged from the warehouse and started removing their helmets.
Luiz Salazar peeled away from a group of cops and marched over.
He didn’t seem happy.
“Nothing,” he said. “The place is completely empty. Either your man is a ghost or he’s just played you and us for fools.”
“That’s impossible. There’s a signal coming from inside the building,” Mo-bot responded.
“I don’t know what to say. The place is deserted,” Luiz responded. “Completely empty.”
“Any sign of Alison Lucas?” Justine asked.
“No sign of anything but rodents,” Salazar replied. “I appreciate the tip, and I know you guys have a great reputation, but I really could have done without this result today.”
“I’m sorry,” Mo-bot said. “I was sure he was here.”
Justine had never seen her look so shaken. Someone had got the better of her, an event so rare Justine couldn’t remember the last time it had happened.
Chapter 51
“We’re moving out,” Salazar yelled, walking back to his colleagues.
There was a lot of radio chatter and activity, and the cops started getting into their vehicles and leaving. Justine watched the speedy withdrawal with a sense of despondency. What now?
Mo-bot hurried after Salazar, who opened the door of his Dodge Charger.
“You mind if we look around?” she asked. She wasn’t giving up.
“Knock yourself out,” he replied. “I don’t think the landlord is going to press charges for trespass.”
He slid behind the wheel, and moments later became part of the convoy of vehicles churning up dust as they left the scene.
“You think they missed something?” Sci asked.
Mo-bot nodded. “I missed something, maybe they did too.”
Justine followed her and Sci toward one of the loading bays. The roller shutter had been left open by the cops and Sci jumped onto the loading platform and turned to give Mo-bot a hand up.
Justine pushed herself onto the ledge and ducked beneath the shutter to follow them inside. She saw Mo-bot produce her phone and activate an app.
“The signal from the Raid-Box definitely came from here,” she said. “My guess is he used some kind of relay, maybe another Raid-Box, as a cut-out to protect his true location.”
Justine sensed a change in Mo-bot’s voice, as though something had brought her back to life. She studied the app on her phone intently.
“He could cloak the cut-out and without the machine number I’d never find it,” she said, gesturing around the gloomy warehouse. “We could spend weeks searching this place and still come away empty-handed.”
Justine didn’t relish such a prospect. The building was dark and reeked of rodent infestation.
“It could be hidden in the walls,” Mo-bot went on. “But the cut-out isn’t the only piece of equipment he’d have hidden here.”
She walked purposefully, heading for what might once have been administrative offices at the back of the building.
“He’d want to know if the location had been compromised,” she said, pushing open an interior door. “So he’d probably install a motion detector or camera somewhere. And they’d give off a signal. A signal this app I built is designed to detect!”
She brandished her phone as she led them into an old office, full of relics of whatever firm had once been here.
“Over there,” she said, gesturing at a green glass bottle in the corner of the room. “Trash to the casual observer or the cop in a hurry. But if you look closely you’ll see a motion detector inside.”
Justine picked up the grimy bottle and saw Mo-bot was right. There was a device inside.
“And here,” she forced open the bottom drawer of an ancient rusting filing cabinet, “is the relay device broadcasting the motion detector’s signal that is showing up on my app.” She gestured at her phone.
Justine peered over a rotting wooden desk to see a tiny device that looked like a WiFi signal booster box hidden in a filing-cabinet drawer.
“Can you trace the destination?” Sci asked.
Mo-bot nodded. “Call Salazar and tell him we can give him a real location.”
Sci stepped away to make the phone call, while Mo-bot adjusted the settings on her app.
“He’s close,” she said.
She was now alive with the thrill of the chase and her energy was contagious. Justine had almost forgotten the disappointment of earlier.
“He’s four streets away,” Mo-bot said. “Looks like a house in a residential neighborhood.”
Sci returned and was less than enthusiastic.
“Salazar says he’s not going on another snipe hunt.”
“What?” Mo-bot asked. “I’ve got the guy this time.”
“I think he’s caught heat from the higher-ups for ordering a mass deployment without verifying the intel,” Sci replied. “He says we should get proof it’s Angel.”
“So we’re on our own?” Justine asked.
“Yeah,” Sci said. “We’re on our own.”
Chapter 52
Justine ran back to the Nissan Rogue with Sci and Mo-bot trailing her.
“Give me the keys,” she yelled, and Sci tossed them over.
She jumped behind the wheel and started the engine, while Sci and Mo-bot, older and less fit, got in the car, panting for breath.
Justine put the Nissan in gear and shot out of the parking lot.
“Stay on this road,” Mo-bot said from the back seat. It curved out of the industrial estate.
“Next left,” Mo-bot said.
Justine swung the wheel and took a narrow left turn that led them out of the industrial estate into a rundown residential neighborhood. Two-story aluminum homes lined the street, standing behind rows of rusty pick-up trucks and old cars.
“Next right,” Mo-bot said.
Justine slowed as they approached the mouth of another residential street. When she turned the wheel and cleared the house on the corner, she saw a face she recognized: Angel, sitting behind the wheel of a utility vehicle that was reversing down the driveway of a dilapidated bungalow.
“There he is,” Justine said. “Put your seat belts on.”
Sci was already clipped in, but Mo-bot hurriedly snapped her buckle in its anchor.
“Hold on,” Justine said.
“Don’t do anything crazy,” Sci responded.
“Too late for that,” she countered, accelerating toward the cab of the target vehicle.
Angel saw them at the last moment and reached down to grab something — probably a weapon — but he wasn’t fast enough. The Rogue hit the black Chevrolet Express just by the driver’s door. The impact sent the vehicle spinning into the road.