Bwana shook Buster gently and when the drunk rubbed his eyes and opened them, crouched in front of him.
‘Who are you?’ Buster croaked.
His eyes flicked to Zeb, Roger, and settled on the twins.
He got to his feet hurriedly, lost his balance, and was helped back by Bwana.
‘Sorry, ma’am. Ladies. Didn’t know I had company.’
He reached into a dirty bag and drew out a bottle of water and drank deeply. He wiped his mouth on his sleeve and scrunched his face when the cop appeared.
‘Buster, these people want to have a few words with you. They’ve driven a long way. It’s important.’
‘I ain’t done nothing,’ Buster shrank back.
Meghan came next to Bwana. ‘We know that, Buster. We are looking for Doctor Beldwin. You know him, don’t you?’
Her voice was gentle and calmed Buster.
‘Sure, I know him.’ He sneaked a look at the cop who moved out of earshot.
‘How do you know him, Buster?’
Her green eyes compelled him to answer, but at the last minute, Buster backed away.
He wasn’t going to lose his source of powder.
‘Why do you want to know?’
‘Some people might die, if you don’t tell us.’
Buster thought of that for a long moment. Those green eyes were like one of them whirlpools. They came near to sucking him.
He shook his head and stepped back. No sir, he wasn’t going to fall into that trap.
Another woman came to stand in front of him.
Buster stared at her helplessly. More brown hair. More green eyes.
He couldn’t escape them. He gave in.
He and the doc were in the doc’s car, two weeks back.
A strange relationship had developed between the two. They shot in each other’s presence occasionally, in the medic’s car in some remote parking lot.
He had learned that the doc was one of those who treated people’s minds.
‘Mine’s gone, pal. It can’t be treated,’ Buster had laughed.
They talked sometimes, stuff that made no sense to either, but gave some kind of comfort to each other.
That evening, doc and he were floating. Buster had told him of this new trash bin he had found behind a takeout. It was always full. It was like the motherlode to him.
The doc had nodded as if he agreed. Buster warmed to that. The dude was a stand-up guy. He knew the importance of a full trashcan.
The doc mumbled something.
Buster was playing with an orange sun that was revolving in front of him and he didn’t pay attention.
The docs spoke louder. Buster turned slowly toward him. He felt light, yet his body was heavy, like one of those oil tankers in the sea.
The doc’s head was on his chest.
‘You saying something, buddy?’
‘Decoys.’
‘That’s all I remember, ma’am,’ Buster said apologetically.
Meghan asked him more questions, however it was clear, Buster didn’t know anything more.
They thanked him, asked the cop to take him in, for his protection.
The police officer protested. That wasn’t how things worked.
Zeb made a call which resulted in more calls and the cop’s phone rang.
He took Buster to his cruiser.
Zeb belted himself, waited for his friends to seat themselves, reached out to the dash, when his fingers stopped.
His phone rang.
It was Broker.
His voice was taut, tense, sharp.
‘Hold up a second,’ Zeb said.
He put it on speaker. ‘Go ahead.’
‘Beldwin is in Lighthollow.’
Four hundred brake horsepower flooded through the SUV and sent it racing down William Street and carried it out of Manassas as Broker ran it down for them.
‘He has masked his IP address and is no doubt server-bouncing.’
‘Track every house down in Lighthollow.’
‘On it, Zeb,’ Chloe replied. ‘However, this may not be Lighthollow, Virginia. There are several other Lighthollows.’
‘It is.’ Zeb surprised himself with the conviction in his voice. The beast in him was sure. Bob wasn’t in some distant state.
Bob was in Virginia.
The air in the war room could have lit a thousand light bulbs when they returned from Manassas.
People were returning from work, streets were busy, horns honked, and yet traffic had parted willingly for Zeb as if it sensed an ominous presence in the SUV.
Chloe whirled round at their entrance.
‘We are down to three possibles. One is a pawnshop, another is a residence that has seen lot of traffic in the last few months, and the third is a boat repair outfit.’
She explained about Lighthollow, where it was, how they had narrowed the search down to those three locations. They had checked out all residents against various databases, cross-checked with employers, and social media. They had even checked residents’ travel.
‘You could do all this in the time we were driving back?’
‘Werner did. Social media posts are public. Werner is hooked up with several databases, such as the DMV, that can easily verify identity in the first instance. The rest is a matter of digging into more databases.’
Chloe and the twins would have heaped scorn at Zeb’s query, normally. The thrill of the hunt had wiped that impulse out.
Broker hadn’t even looked up at their arrival. He was standing, hunching over Werner’s screen, frowning.
Zeb joined him.
‘Problem?’
‘Why would you have a boat repair business in the middle of nowhere?’
‘Why wouldn’t you?’ Bear countered. ‘If you’ve got a rep, boat people will come to you.’
‘They have a rep,’ Broker acknowledged. ‘Good reviews. Not that far from the ocean.’
Zeb picked the sheets Werner had spat out; details of the owners, all three of which were companies.
Werner had tracked down their shareholders and had run identity checks against them. The results weren’t conclusive and hence the supercomputer had flagged them up.
Pawn shop will have traffic. Lots of it. Will Bob want traffic? Residence and marine repair are quieter places.
He smelled gun oil and turned to see Bear and Bwana were back to cleaning their weapons.
Nine p.m. Four more hours to hard entry.
‘Check the reviews,’ he said suddenly.
Broker narrowed his eyes, trying to guess what he was leading to.
‘The reviews,’ Zeb repeated. ‘Who posted them? Where from?’
Light flooded in Broker’s eyes. He typed. The twins pulled up two other keyboards and followed suit.
‘What about Burke?’ Roger voiced a thought that had been running in Zeb’s mind.
‘Shouldn’t we tell her about Lighthollow? She can put more resources.’
‘Yeah, there’s that leak, isn’t there?’ Roger answered himself after reading Zeb’s face.
Zeb got a large printout of the repair shop and laid it out on a table.
It was a residence whose garage was converted to a large workshop. A driveway fed the house as well as the garage.
Lawn. Backyard. Hedge at the rear. Neighbors, though at a distance. Wide street in the front. Enough turning space.
A garage like that will have spray paint equipment.
‘Covert entry will be a nightmare.’ Roger pointed to the front of the house, at the lack of cover.
‘What about the other house?’ Bear wiped his hands on a rag and approached the table.
Zeb laid out two more sheets. The house as well as the pawnshop.
The house was smaller. The pawnshop had lots of glass in it. Windows. Display cases.
‘Not that one. Bob will want closed walls, not glass cases,’ Bwana said finally after they had studied the three layouts in silence.
‘It can’t be the residence either. Too small. Bob will have his four men with him and the two boys. Beldwin too. That’s a lot of people in that one residence. My money’s on the boat repair outfit.’
No one disputed him. Roger cocked an eyebrow at Zeb, but before he could speak, Beth drowned him out.
‘It is the boat yard!’ she yelled.
Meghan shushed her, turned around and explained. ‘All those reviews are from the same few IP addresses. None of those reviewers are real people.’
‘We need to check it out.’
‘And we’d better do it fast,’ Broker said grimly. ‘Once Bob gets wind of the assaults in Winchester and Chantilly…’ his voice trailed off.
He will flee, taking the boys with him. That’ll be high risk.
Roger cut short Zeb’s musing. ‘Do we have a plan?’ the Texan asked.
‘Our SUVs have armor?’ Zeb asked Broker, in turn.
‘Yeah. You have something in mind?’ Broker asked curiously.
‘I have a plan.’