I drive fast, but there’s no way to outrun electronic tracking, and the more I think about it, the more I’m convinced that’s how Mike found us. I scan the horizon, looking for a place to pull over. Upstate New York is filled with deep gorges and elevated crests, geographic features that are remnants from the last ice age. When I find the right place, I pull off the road fast, driving up a steep hill, then down the other side, stopping at the base of the valley where a combination of thick trees and hillside might interfere with a satellite’s ability to pick up a tracking signal.
I screech to a halt and ask Howard and Tanya to get out of the car.
I start with the interior on the passenger side. Mike could have easily slipped a GPS device into a door handle, in between the seat, under the mats.
Tanya watches me.
“Now’s not a great time to clean the car,” she says.
“He’s not cleaning,” Howard says. “You’re looking for a tracking device, aren’t you?”
“I can help,” he says.
“How can you help?” Tanya says.
“I’m kind of a tech whiz,” he says.
“Kind of is an understatement,” I say.
Howard and I pull the car apart, starting with the interior, then moving to the engine block, the wheel wells, any place where a device could be hidden.
We don’t come up with anything.
I stop and rethink my approach. If Mike didn’t plant a device, then who did?
That’s when I remember something Mike said. I asked him if The Program knew where we were.
Not unless I want them to, he said.
At the time, I thought he meant he was tracking us, and he could give them the information. But there’s another possibility, a more ingenious one.
The Program could be tracking us, and Mike could be intercepting their data stream.
“I have to search both of you,” I say. “Howard first.”
He looks at me like I’m crazy.
“Were you dressed the whole time at the house?” I ask.
“They took my clothes at first. Then they gave them back to me.”
“That’s what I thought,” I say.
I motion for him to hold his hands above his head. I pat him down from neck to feet, checking the seams of his clothes, his belt, every possible place The Program might have planted a device. But I don’t find anything.
I step back and look at him.
“His sneakers,” Tanya says.
Howard takes off his sneakers and hands them to me. I pull out the insoles and check beneath them, finding nothing. I examine the sneakers, and I notice an imperfection in the Adidas label at the back of the heel.
I pull the steak knife from my pocket.
“What the hell—” Howard says.
I use the point of the knife to dig behind the Adidas label. It looks as if it’s been slit open and reglued. I search inside and come up with a small metallic disc.
Howard whistles.
“What is it?” Tanya says.
Howard holds out a hand and I drop the device into his palm.
He says, “It’s a miniaturized GPS beacon.”
“That’s how they found us,” Tanya says. “So we can go now, right?”
She opens the car door and gets in.
“Hang on,” I say. I grab the door before she can close it. “It’s your turn.”
“Why me?”
“You were at the house, too.”
She sighs and gets out of the car.
“You want me to take my clothes off?” she says.
Howard’s eyes widen.
“How about we start with your shoes?” I say. She removes her shoes and passes them to me. I check them over, but I don’t find anything.
“Maybe I don’t have a beacon?” she says.
“Maybe not. But I’ll have to search you to be sure.”
“That’s fine,” she says. “But I have to warn you I’m a little ticklish.”
“Who said anything about being gentle?”
I feel heat bloom in my cheeks. It’s rare for me to lose my cool around women, but Tanya seems to have that effect on me.
I start at her head, running my fingers through her soft blond hair. My hand snags on a hair clip.
“I’ll get it,” she says.
She takes out the clip and hands it to me, hair spilling down around her shoulders.
“I need a haircut,” she says self-consciously. “The salon in the prison really sucked.”
“Your hair is fine,” I say. “I’m going to check your clothes now.”
“What are you guys talking about?” Howard asks.
“Your friend’s about to feel me up,” Tanya says.
“Believe me, my intentions are purely professional,” I say.
Tanya grins and raises her arms above her head.
I glance back at Howard. He’s standing by the car, watching us. I make a signal for him to turn around.
“No fair,” he says.
“Howard—”
“Fine,” he says, and he turns his back.
I begin, feeling the collar of her shirt, then her shoulders, moving over her arms, pausing to check the friendship bracelet on her wrist before patting under her arms and down her ribs. She shivers.
“Are you okay?” I ask.
“Why wouldn’t I be?”
“Because you’re ticklish, remember?”
“I don’t feel ticklish right now.”
I run my hands across her belly and I sense her muscles twitch under my fingers.
I reach behind, checking the pockets of her black jeans and tracing the seams across her butt and hips, then down her pant legs.
“Did you find anything?” she says.
“Nothing,” I say.
I stand up. Our faces are close now.
“You didn’t check everywhere,” she says.
“I was being polite,” I say.
“It’s just professional, right? That’s what you said.”
“Of course.”
“Then don’t be polite. Do whatever you have to do.”
I follow the outline of her chest, moving my hands to the sides and underneath, checking the fabric of her bra. Her breasts are soft and heavy, the breasts of a woman, not a girl.
“You killed that man outside the house, didn’t you?” she says. I run my hands up her shoulders and across her bra straps. “He was already knocked out, but then you went further and killed him.”
“He saw us. If he survived, he’d be able to identify us. And they’d know who to look for.”
“Because they know you?”
“Yes.”
“So it was him or us,” she says.
“That’s right. And I chose us.”
She nods like she understands.
My fingers brush against something in the lining of her bra.
“I need you to take your bra off,” I say.
“Personal request?”
I smile. “Still professional.”
She hesitates. “I like to know a guy’s name before I take my shirt off. Call me old-fashioned.”
“My name’s Zach.”
“Do you mind turning around, Zach?”
“Not a problem,” I say, and I give her some privacy.
I hear the rustle of clothes. A moment later she places a bra on my shoulder.
“For you,” she says.
It’s a blue-and-white-striped sports bra. Still warm.
I pat it down, moving to the side where I thought I felt something. I take the knife and cut into the seam of the bra. There, buried in the elastic, is a round disc like the one I found in Howard’s shoe. I turn and show it to her.
“They were tracking me, too,” she says.
“Are you guys done?” Howard says. “It’s been like six hours already.”
“We’re done,” Tanya says.
He turns and looks at the bra in my hands.
“Wow,” he says. “I missed the good part.”
I hold out the small disc in the palm of my hand. Howard adds the first one to it.
“Two tracking devices. The Program has been following you, and Mike has been following them, intercepting the signal. Maybe redirecting to keep them off our tail.”
“The Program?” Tanya says.
“That’s the name of the organization that took you. Mike works for them.”
“And you work with Mike.”
“In a manner of speaking. We were like brothers in The Program.”
“Were?”
I think of Mike on the phone earlier.
I’m coming for you.
Tanya reaches out and takes the small discs from my hand. She says, “If Mike still works for the organization, why would he be keeping them off your tail?”
“I don’t know,” I say.
She looks at the beacons up close. “We should destroy these.”
“No way,” Howard says. “We should plant them somewhere else.”
Howard has good instincts now, developed over the last two missions we spent together.
I fold the beacons into a paper towel, and on the way back to the main road, we pass a bunch of construction vehicles parked at a house where work is being done. I slow down and toss them into the back of one of the trucks before driving away.
“That should make things interesting,” I say.
“What now?” Tanya says.
“Now we get as far away from here as possible.”