35

Shoshana continued slowly down Long Street, keeping an eye on the front door of the club in her rearview mirror, then heard, “This is Koko. I’ve got a parking spot. I’m foxtrot one block up.”

Pike said, “Koko, your target. Get in there. Blood, Blood, what’s your status?”

“One street over. Parking now.”

“Prep a Dragontooth. He’s meeting someone, and I want a beacon on that fucker. Break, break—Carrie, keep on the target car. Let me know where it goes.”

In spite of the fact that she was now out of the action, Shoshana smiled. Pike was working the problem better than most. She checked her rearview mirror, saw the vehicle coming, then said, “I’m on him.”

She followed the car down Long Street, watched it turn into a paid lot, and went past before pulling to the side of the road, wishing like hell she was in the hotel. Pike had planned it perfectly, keeping her out of the action. Keeping her from doing anything of substance.

Thirty minutes later, she was grinning again. Jennifer had said that Apple Watch had met a black man inside the bar and had been passed a key. From there, her target car had circled around and picked him up, and she was the only thing in play, as everyone else was on foot.

She’d followed the car to the V&A wharf and had decided to stick with Apple, letting the car go free. Someone else could track it. If they could get here quickly enough.

She trotted across the street, passing the lobby of the ritzy V&A Hotel and a host of taxis and tour cars, seeing the blond head disappear into the crowd.

She followed him through the tourists, passing beer gardens and restaurants, then hit the water of the harbor. He took a right, headed toward a pedestrian bridge that crossed a concrete canal of water leading to a marina. Before he reached it, a light started flashing, and a man prevented anyone from crossing. Shoshana looked into the harbor, saw a sailboat approaching, and realized the single footbridge was a miniature drawbridge. It began to swing away, letting the boat through, and she was stuck on the same side with her target.

She went to the breakwater, watching a mother and two kids feed the seagulls. She took a seat on a bench, trying to remain invisible.

She kept her eyes on the target and received a call from Pike. “Carrie, Carrie, what’s the situation? Last call was a dismount at the wharf. Give me a lock-on.”

Afraid he was about to pull her off, she said, “Crossing the footbridge. No clear direction or purpose. I’m still good. Heat state is ice.”

“Don’t fuck with me, Carrie.”

The bridge took an agonizingly long time to transfer back. She said, “I’m not, Nephilim. Have some trust.”

He said, “We’re at the wharf. We’re coming. Just keep him in sight and rotate out when I call.”

The light went off, and the pedestrians began to cross. She followed the target, saying, “Okay. As long as I’m not forced into something before you get here.”

She heard him panting on the radio, clearly running his ass off. “Don’t . . . You . . . Do . . . A . . . Fucking . . . Thing.”

The target passed the famed clock tower of the wharf, right in front of the gateway ferry to Robben Island, the location of the desolate block of granite on which Nelson Mandela had been imprisoned for most of his adult life. He reached the lower level of a two-story mall and walked in with a purpose.

It was a shallow opening, with few people. If she entered at his intrusion point, she would be burned. If she didn’t, he would accomplish whatever he was doing inside.

But he was boxed inside the mall. And she needed more manpower to continue the surveillance. She couldn’t do it alone, as much as she wanted to.

Every fiber of her being told her to follow, Aaron at the forefront of her mind, begging the target to give her reason to interdict him. But she did not. She deferred to the team. She called Pike, told him the status, and rolled off, going to the right of the building to a set of stairs next to a garish Ripley’s Believe It or Not! attraction. She went up them and then took a seat on a bench, waiting on the cavalry to penetrate the mall.

She heard, “We can’t get across. The pedestrian bridge is rotating for a boat.”

No sooner had that come across than the target exited right in front of her, moving to a placard on a wall, pretending to study it while glancing at the door.

The realization hit her immediately, along with how lucky she had been.

Surveillance-detection route.

He’d entered the mall solely to pick out anyone following, taking the escalators to the second floor, then rapidly exiting. Anyone who did the same would clearly be on him. And she’d beaten his game, all because she wanted to prove to Pike she wasn’t a lone wolf.

She smiled and clicked her radio. “He’s back on the street, and I’m on him.”

“Shoshana, back off. Your heat state has got to be molten by now.”

She said nothing, letting the target go by her, not moving at all as long as she had him in sight. He walked about a hundred meters, leaving the tourist area and entering the working port. He took a left at a jetty full of warehouses, and she stood. She walked for about thirty meters, making sure he wasn’t doing more countersurveillance work, then sprinted to the corner of the warehouses.

She heard, “Shoshana, we’re coming across. Give me a damn status.”

She pulled up short, then stuck her head around the corner. She saw the target seventy meters away, unlocking a door on the row of warehouses, then disappearing inside.

She said, “I’ve got him. He’s on the jetty past the tourist area. He’s inside some shipping warehouse, but I can’t get close.”

Pike said, “Pull off. We’ll meet you at the clock tower.”

She saw the target appear again, closing the door. She said, “He’s out. He’s out. He’s headed back my way. I’m off.”

She slipped around to the other side of the jetty, where the boats docked and unloaded. She ignored the looks of the hard men on the dock, waiting on the target to pass. When he did, she called Pike, telling him Apple was on the way and running right into him, and that he had control.

“What are you going to do?”

“Check out that warehouse.”

She slunk down the jetty, trying to look like she belonged, dodging forklifts and staring eyes. She reached the door she’d seen Apple exit, glanced left and right, then turned the handle. It refused to move.

Shit.

She considered picking the lock, but one look at the activity around her and she knew that would be a nonstarter. She studied the lockset and then had an idea. It was a six-pin restricted-key cylinder built by the Swedish lockmaker Assa Abloy. Something she knew about from her work in Israel. She took a knee, set her cell-phone camera on macro, and took a frontal shot of the keyhole.

If Pike’s vaunted Taskforce didn’t have the ability to do anything with the photo, she knew a group that did.