As soon as the call disconnected, Griffin phoned the geek.
“I think I might have cracked it,” the geek said.
“You got the rest?” Griffin asked. To this point, the kid had only been able to identify four numbers, leaving six to go.
“Give me, like, five minutes.”
It ended up taking the geek seven to call back.
“So? Did you get it?” Griffin asked.
“Hell, yeah, I did. Told you no one could hide anything from me.”
After writing down the number the kid rattled off, Griffin hung up. On his phone was the customized application allowing him to pinpoint cell-phone location. He input the number, and was rewarded thirty seconds later with a glowing blue dot in the middle of a map.
A low chuckle escaped. You’re a liar, Howard.
Unlike what the man had told him, it appeared Howard was in DC. Not only that, he was only a few miles from where Griffin was.
For two minutes, he stared at his phone, waiting for the blue dot to move, but it remained anchored in place.
Excellent.
Griffin had made a career of not only recognizing opportunities, but acting on them. Leaving the tracking app running on his cell, he picked up his desk phone and called Dima.
“I need your assistance.”
“What do you want me to do?” Dima asked.
“I want you to dip into that wonderful armory you have there at O & O, then meet me.” He gave Dima an address two blocks away from where Howard was.
“Are you kidding me? I can’t leave here. I’m on duty.”
“I’m sure you can arrange it.”
“I can’t come—” Dima paused. “Hold a second. I have a team calling in.” It was nearly a minute before Dima came back. “Mr. Griffin, I am not a field agent.”
“You were once.”
“Yes, but that was years ago.”
“I just need your presence. I don’t need you to kill anyone,” Griffin said. While the second part was true, the first was only partially so. Yes, he needed Dima’s presence, but that was because he’d decided Dima’s usefulness had come to an end, and it was time to eliminate the weak link. If he could get Dima to help him in the process, all the better.
“Okay, okay,” Dima said, defeated. “I’ll get someone to cover the rest of my shift. But it’ll take at least thirty minutes for me to get there.”
“Make it twenty. Oh, and Michael?”
“Yes?”
“There’s one other thing I’d like you to bring.”
“S2 to S1,” one of Witten’s men said over the radio.
“Go for S1,” Quinn replied. Unlike the others, he was the only one not wearing a radio in his ear, and had to rely on the Suburban’s dash-mounted unit.
“Griffin is on the move,” the spotter reported.
“Copy that.”
The blue dot on the tracker led Griffin to a twenty-four-hour diner called Mama Jo’s. Arriving ten minutes before his scheduled rendezvous with Dima, he did a slow drive-by so he could peer in the windows, but while he could make out several people sitting at tables and a handful of customers at the counter, the layout of the restaurant made it impossible for him to see all the diners.
He checked his phone again. The blue dot had not moved, so either Howard had left his cell at Mama Jo’s, or he was inside.
Griffin picked up his speed, intending to turn down the next block and head over to the meeting point, but he saw something that caused him to bring his car to a quick stop. Parked at one of the metered spots, a full half block beyond the restaurant, was a Jeep Wrangler, dark blue with a black hardtop. He checked the license number against the one Dima had given him. It was a match.
Howard was definitely here.
Griffin hurried over to the meeting point and was pleased to find Dima waiting for him. A honk of the horn prodded the O & O man out of his vehicle and into Griffin’s.
“Did you bring what I asked?” Griffin said.
Dima removed an inch-wide, rectangular box from his pocket, and tried to hand it to Griffin.
Griffin kept his hands on the wheel. “Prep it, please.”
“Oh, uh, okay.”
Dima fumbled with the box before finally getting the top off. Inside was an empty syringe and a small glass bottle.
“How long are you going to want the subject knocked out for?” Dima asked.
“Not long. Twenty minutes should do it.”
Dima consulted the chart on the inside of the box cover before filling the syringe from the liquid in the bottle. “They only give a range. It, um, could be as long as forty minutes.”
“That’s fine,” Griffin said.
Dima capped the needle and, his hand slightly shaking, gave it to Griffin.
“Relax,” Griffin said. “This is going to go nice and smooth.”
“What are we going to do?”
“Have a little chat with someone.”
“With who?”
Griffin sneered, and shifted the car into Drive. “One of the people your men were supposed to catch two days ago.”
“S3 to S1.”
“Go for S1,” Nate said. With Quinn now in position, Nate had assumed command.
“Rendezvous with Dima complete.” The way the spotter pronounced Dima’s name left no doubt how the O & O team felt about a leaker in their ranks.
“Copy that, S3.”
Griffin sped back to the block Mama Jo’s was on, and parked at the curb two spots in front of the Jeep. Once they exited the sedan, Griffin took a look around. It was a mixed-use street, businesses with some apartments above. At this hour, though, the only place open was the diner, and the lights in the majority of the apartments were off.
He checked the tracker. The blue dot was still centered over the restaurant.
“Do you remember what the driver of the BMW in the pictures you sent me looked like?” he asked Dima.
“Well enough, I guess.”
“I want you to go down to that restaurant and see if you can spot him inside from the window. Don’t stay long, though. If he’s moving, I need you back here.”
“Sure,” Dima said. He was clearly still nervous.
“Are we going to have a problem, Michael?”
“What? No. Of course not.”
“Then get it together.”
“I’m together. Don’t worry.”
As Dima headed toward Mama Jo’s, Griffin stepped back into a recessed entrance to a closed hair salon about thirty feet past the Jeep on the restaurant side. He could stand within its shadows and watch Mama Jo’s, then move farther back where he wouldn’t be seen by anyone walking by.
Keeping an eye on Dima, he pulled out his phone and called the head of Darvot’s own five-man special ops team. With O & O in chaos, he’d had no choice but to bring them in.
“Status,” he asked.
“Everything’s ready,” Reynolds said. “Team’s in place.”
“Good. I’ll let you know when we’re on our way.”
As soon as he hung up, he checked the tracking app again. The blue dot was still in the restaurant, but it was moving through the building toward the exit. He shot a quick glance at Dima. Though Howard should be visible to him, the man from O & O seemed to still be searching the interior.
When the blue dot reached the front entrance, Griffin slipped his phone into his pocket and watched the door. A couple seconds later, it opened, and a man stepped out. A few feet away, Dima glanced over at him, but almost immediately returned his attention to the interior of Mama Jo’s. Griffin was starting to think Dima was a complete moron when their target stepped into the halo of the nearby streetlight.
The man wasn’t Howard.
Griffin snatched his phone back out and checked the screen. The dot was definitely traveling with the man. Had Howard dumped his phone on this guy? Perhaps planted it on him? Or had it not been Howard calling him at all?