Megan and Eli spent the rest of the morning and afternoon waiting. Waiting on what, they had no idea. They were currently sitting in the car, parked a half block down the street from Hayes’s address. They barely had a view of the drive—just enough to see any car coming or going. And so far, none had done either.
After leaving Vargas, Megan had spent twenty minutes on the phone with Jennings. He told her that Jon and Boz were safely back. That he had them over at Bethesda getting a full medical evaluation. She relayed the message to Eli, interrupting Jennings. Both she and Eli celebrated while Jennings was left hanging on the line. It was the best news she’d heard in months.
“Don’t you let Jon tell them he’s fine,” she said. “Make him listen to them.”
Jennings assured her that he was in charge. Not Jon.
They spent the rest of the conversation talking about the possibility of the woman Vargas saw being Alex Sokolov, a.k.a. Alex Smith. Jennings said it wouldn’t surprise him.
“Kevin, I watched the woman die!” she said. “I physically watched her take her last breath.”
“How long did you stick around after?” Jennings asked.
“I didn’t. Are you kidding? I was in Dubai in the middle of the start of World War III. And…I had just called in a bomb threat to the airport, caused a massive wreck on the road leading into the airport, and then got into a gunfight with a trained Russian assassin. I wasn’t looking to put down roots.”
“My point exactly.”
Megan knew he was right. She’d heard of people being brought back to life by doctors ten minutes, twenty minutes, sometimes an hour after death. She had no idea what had happened to Alex Smith. And now, she feared, the woman was back. “I swear, I think that woman is the spawn of Satan.”
Jennings half laughed. “You might actually be right.”
She’d meant it as an attempt at levity, but given the last few months, it wouldn’t surprise her. “Let’s hope not.”
“Amen to that,” Jennings said.
“So what now? Where do we go from here?”
“I want you two to sit on Hayes. I want to know where he goes, who he talks to, or who comes to him.”
“What about Alex? If she’s here, something big is going down. We need to stop her.”
“If it is her, and she is there, then you need to stay as low to the ground as you can get. She’s obviously not in Raleigh to take in the sights.”
Megan got it. “Peterson.”
“Yeah, and the last thing I need is you running into her. We’ve got enough going on without trying to explain why half the city of Raleigh got blown up by two of my agents and a supposedly dead assassin. So stick to Hayes. If he doesn’t lead you to Pemberton in the next day, we’ll switch gears. But my gut says those two are closer than they’d like anyone to know. And like I said before, if there’s one thing Peterson was good at, it was intel. If he said Hayes and Pemberton are in cahoots with one another, I buy it.”
Megan had given Jennings her word that she would follow his orders and not go looking for Vargas’s woman from the parking lot. Which led them to sitting here in the car for the last—she checked her watch—six hours. And not even a delivery truck had appeared anywhere near Hayes’s place. It was getting on close to dinnertime now and the sun was starting to set. Megan looked over to Eli, who had been napping. She nudged his shoulder. “Hey, get up.”
Eli sat up in the seat and rubbed his eyes. “Getting dark.”
“Yeah. And I’m hungry. So sit up and pay attention while I get that bag from the trunk.”
Before taking up their position, they had stopped at a convenience store. They had no idea how long they would be sitting there.
She pulled the lever on her seat so it would lay down. Then she turned around and removed the seat cushion from the back of the rear seat, allowing her to reach into the trunk. She retrieved the bag and set her seat back up. She dug inside and pulled out two premade sub sandwiches wrapped in plastic wrap, a couple of bags of chips, and a zip-up cooler large enough for two soft drinks. She handed Eli his. She hadn’t realized how hungry she was until she took the first bite of her turkey.
Eli thanked her and took a bite of his roast beef. “You know, I’m kind of impressed that we’ve been here all this time, and not once have you mentioned having to go to the loo.”
Megan wiped some mustard from her chin. “The loo?”
“You know, the water closet, washroom…”
Megan nodded. “You mean the bathroom.”
“Yes, the bathroom.”
“Well, neither have you.”
“Yes, but I’m a trained spy. I’ve learned how to…how do you say…hold it.”
She took another giant bite of turkey. “And I’m a girl. We can last all day, sometimes, without going.”
“How is that possible?”
Megan thought about it for a second. “I don’t know. I guess we just…don’t think about it. It’s like when you forget to eat.”
Eli just looked at her like she was crazy.
“Trust me. It’s just a girl thing.”
“I had a girlfriend tell me that once. Back at university—whoa!” He stopped short and caught the half-eaten sandwich Megan had just tossed him.
“Heads up, chief,” she said. “We’re moving.”
An old pickup truck was waiting to pull out as the gates to Hayes’s driveway began to slowly creep open.
Eli quickly stowed the sandwiches and drinks while Megan turned the engine on and got ready to drive.
She waited for the truck to completely pull out onto the road and take off before easing out onto the road behind him. She stayed as close as she could without risking being made.
“How do you know that’s him?” Eli asked. “The man has two Mercedes and a Range Rover in the garage and a Porsche sitting out front. I never saw an old pickup truck.”
“I don’t know. Maybe he keeps it around the side in a shed or something. But it’s him. There’s a picture of him standing outside that truck in his office. He was duck hunting or something. Had some camouflage overalls on and a shotgun, posing with some hunting dogs.”
“Probably drives that thing when he doesn’t want to be recognized.”
“Exactly.”
“Lucky for us you like to look at other people’s pictures.”
Megan nodded and let off the gas as the truck’s brake lights lit up. “Hey, grab the map. There’s not much traffic out here and I don’t want to get spotted. I’d like to know, as he turns, how far ahead I can leave him before we run the risk of losing him to a random turn.”
“No problem.” Eli reached behind him and pulled the map up front.
The first ten minutes or so were sketchy. Light traffic in the residential area made it harder to stay back and remain unnoticed. But once they got into town, it became easier. With more cars on the road, Megan was able to shorten the distance between them and even change lanes a couple of times, without drawing any attention. Once they got through town, however, it was a different story altogether.
They found themselves on Durant Road, a two-lane running parallel to the I-540 bypass. The road was long, winding, and there weren’t many cars out. It was after dark now. Megan was having a hard time keeping the truck in view. A couple of times, she had hung back, only to make the bend in the road and not see the truck’s taillights. Cautiously, she would speed up a little, easing around a bend, only to see the truck rounding the next curve.
After ten minutes of this, she came around a big sweeping bend that opened up into a long stretch of road. Even in the dark, she could tell there was at least a mile of straightaway ahead of her. And no pickup. She hit the gas, hoping to see the faint red glow of the truck’s rear lights ahead. She pushed the car hard to gain some ground, but even after the next bend, which gave way to another long straightaway, the pickup was nowhere to be found.
Hayes had vanished.