Authors: Nathan Goodman
“What a lovely spot,” she said. The excitement and emotion poured out. Although she didn’t need to vomit again, tears burst forth as her erratic breathing accelerated. Jana struggled to get a hold of herself.
No agent would lose it right now. No agent! I’m not a fucking little girl anymore. This is real, this is now, and this is me. Now quit your whining.
She exhaled hard several times, calming herself down.
The other agents can never see me like this, ever.
Jana collected her bag, determined to not screw up, and shook the nerves out of her system. Back out in the front, a loud car horn blared as she pushed her way through the front door and into the bright sunlight. The smell of black exhaust was thick. Still, there was no activity in the gravel parking lot across the street; the vehicle was still there. How would she explain it if she had lost the new subject? “Ah, sorry, I thought I was going to hurl” wouldn’t sound too convincing.
Around the side of Eats was a dumpster. It reeked of month-old beer and rotting food, yet would provide an unbelievable view of the gravel lot across the street.
“Well, you wanted to be in the FBI,” she said, her determination resolute. Behind the building she found the parking lot deserted. Jana jumped through the heavy metal sliding door and into the dumpster. The putrid smell and stagnant air struggled to move in and out of her lungs. She gagged as the taste of vomit lingered in her mouth. Trudging forward over the refuse, Jana slid the other door ajar and looked through the camera lens. Her phone rang again. “Baker,” she said, coughing.
“Baker, this is Agent Stark; I see your twenty still at the corner of Ponce and Glen Iris. We’re two clicks out and coming your way. What’s the sitrep?”
Jana’s eyes widened. Stark was the special agent in charge of the Atlanta field office. Normally the SAC wouldn’t be in the field. It was a signal of how big a deal this really was.
“Yes, sir, status is nominal. I’m positioned across from subject number two. He’s inside the building; his vehicle is a black Ford sedan . . . oh shit, he’s coming out; he’s getting in the vehicle. I say again, subject two is leaving the scene! I have no vehicle. I have no way to pursue.”
“What? You don’t have a . . . shit, speed up, we’ve got to be there right now!” Stark said to the agent driving the car.
“No, wait,” Jana said. “He stopped the car. He’s backing up. He’s pulling back into the lot.”
“All right, Baker, we’re moving your way heavy. Be there in zero-three mics. What’s he doing now?” Jana could hear the siren and a thunderous car engine over the phone.
“He’s out of the car. Headed back in the building. I think the engine is still running,” Jana said as her breath quickened. The smell of rotting food dissipated as adrenaline again surged into her veins.
“Baker! Listen to me. Get out of your position. Move as fast as you can to the subject’s vehicle. We can’t lose him. We can’t! You’ve got to plant your tracking device on that vehicle,” demanded Stark.
“You want me to just go up there and casually drop a tracker into his car? But he’ll see me . . . we need a warrant, don’t we?” Jana stammered.
“Dammit, Baker! Fuck the warrant. Get that tracker onto his car or we’ll lose him. Do it now!” Stark was screaming.
There was no way Stark and the other agents would be on the scene before the subject left. Jana had to act. She flung open the sliding door of the dumpster, tripped as she leapt onto the sidewalk, and gouged her knee on the unforgiving pavement in the process. She jumped to her feet, leaving a bloody knee print behind, and sprinted across the street as a car on Ponce de Leon locked its brakes to avoid hitting her. Her feet pounded the pavement; her hair flew back as she charged across onto the gravel lot. She was fully exposed; if the subject came outside now, the surveillance would be blown. She quieted her feet running forward, gravel crunching more quietly now. The tracking device was already in hand. Fifty feet, thirty feet, fifteen feet,
almost there, almost there
. . . Suddenly, the swinging metal door of the building banged open against the brick facade. Jana ducked behind the car. Out walked the subject; he was fifteen feet away from her, and she had to act fast. She had no way to know if he would walk around the cars’ front or rear. The sound of footsteps switched from cement to gravel.
She had to chance it and ducked behind the rear side of the car. She reached under the rear metal bumper of the Ford, fishing in terror for a place to stow the tracking device. Even though the device wasn’t meant to be placed on a vehicle, it was designed to be carried by a person, she stuffed the tracker inside the bumper, praying it wouldn’t fall out. The footsteps drew near as the subject rounded the front side of the car and headed straight for the driver’s door. She couldn’t decide where to look—forward at him, because he may see her, or towards the building, fearing someone would be standing there. She wanted to just disappear, if only for a few seconds. The footsteps stopped. The only sound was that of car tires whining their way up Ponce de Leon. The man wasn’t moving. She held her breath and didn’t dare look up.
What the hell is he doing?
It felt like time froze; Jana froze; everything went into slow motion. Finally, the car door opened, and he got in. The car pulled away as Jana huddled motionless, terrified he might see her in the rearview mirror. The car pulled onto Ponce and disappeared beyond sight of the building.
Jana looked to her right to see if anyone was in the doorway. It was empty.
Thank God,
she thought. She wanted nothing more than to get away from this place.
This time, the rush of adrenaline felt different. She didn’t want to vomit, she didn’t want to flee, and she wasn’t shaking. She exhaled, and it felt good. The adrenaline was a high, and it was an exhilaration on a whole new level. That was better than sex, well, maybe not all sex, but pretty darn good just the same.
Back behind the cover of Bradford Pear trees, she pulled out her phone again and realized she had never hung it up—it had been on the whole time. She had been so focused on getting the tracker in place, she’d forgotten about Stark and the other agents rushing to the scene.
She held the phone to her ear where Stark was speed talking. “Baker? Baker? Dammit, I can’t tell what’s going on . . . Baker?”
“Yes, sir, I’m here.”
“Baker? Jesus Christ, are you all right? What’s the situation?” said Stark.
“We’re good, sir. The tracker is in place. We’re good,” she said.
“Holy shit! You did it? I mean, you did it. Excellent work, Baker. I could hear footsteps. What happened?”
The car pulled up, and Stark put the phone down and motioned Jana to the back seat.
“I did what you told me to do,” she said as she got in. “I hauled ass across the street and stuck the tracker up under his bumper,” said Jana.
“Wow. I didn’t think you’d do it. Man, that was ballsy. Okay, we’ve been in comm with HRT. They’re tailing your Jamaican. Were those footsteps I heard from the second subject?”
“Yes, sir, I had to crouch behind the car to avoid being seen,” Jana said. She thought her voice cracked, but no one seemed to notice. “He stood there a minute and then got in his car with me right behind it. I was afraid he’d see me once he pulled away.”
“Great work, Baker. Hey, your leg’s bleeding, are you okay? That’s a pretty bad cut. You need medical?” Jana stared out the window, ignoring the question. Stark continued, “The HRT guys said something about a tow truck?”
“Yeah, some asshole towed away the car I commandeered. But . . . those HRT guys are pussies, anyway,” she said, smiling.
Laughter erupted in the car. The male agents were impressed. Agent Baker was going to fit right in.
23
Agent Stark fixated on the iPad’s map application as he watched two dots move across the screen on a detailed street view of Atlanta. The dot representing subject two’s vehicle trailed a faint white line as it traversed the map. Speaking to the driver, Stark said, “All right, keep your distance. With this tracker in place, there’s no need to get too close and blow our surveillance.”
Baker spoke up, “Sir, I had no time to get that tracker into place sufficiently. It’s stuck inside the rear bumper. It’s not like it’s got a magnet or anything on it.”
The other agents looked at each other.
“It would sure suck if it fell out and we lost him,” said Stark, still fixated on the map. “This guy’s all over the place. Charlie, take a look at this, he starts out heading east on Ponce, turns south, darts into a neighborhood, weaves his way around it, then comes right back out. Now he’s heading back west again.”
Charlie, another agent in the vehicle, replied, “Sounds like he’s trying to make sure no one is following him. It would be impossible to tail right behind him and not give yourself away as he weaves all over those neighborhoods. Damn good thing we have that tracker.” He looked over at Jana, his eyebrows raised in a slight nod of approval.
The agents followed the tracker’s signal for half an hour as the car took turn after turn.
“All right, looks like we’re headed into Buckhead. He’s heading up Lenox Road towards the mall,” said Stark, looking into the distance ahead of them. “He’s turning south on Peachtree.”
The agents pulled into the mall parking lot. “Don’t go in the parking garage, we might lose the signal,” said Stark to the steely eyed driver. “He’s slowing down. He’s not half a mile from us. Okay, looks like he’s turned right down there.”
Jana said, “He must be turning into one of those tall buildings. There’s no through street right there.”
She was right. On the map, Stark could see the blip on the map pull in between two buildings, and then the signal went dead.
“Shit. It’s gone. The signal’s gone,” said Stark, tapping the iPad.
“Probably went into a below-ground parking deck,” said Charlie. “Don’t worry; the range on that tracker is excellent. And we should have a few weeks of battery life left. All right, let’s see what that building is. Okay, I have it. It’s that tall one down there. You know, the newer one they built last year? It’s the one that went up right next to Cheesecake Factory where an old 1970s bank building used to stand. Some software company was in that old bank building . . .”
Stark interrupted, “Charlie, Jesus. Enough with the history of Atlanta development. What’s the building that’s there now?”
“Oh, sorry. Thoughtstorm, it’s a company called Thoughtstorm. Anybody know what that is? I’ll pull the building schematics. We need to get down there, get into the underground parking area, and find that car. We’re going to need to affix a more permanent tracker.” Charlie was an expert in the technology of tracking and surveillance. His nickname around the office was “Hound,” a reference to his ability to track a suspect across any surface. Jana didn’t know if it was true or not, but rumor around the office was that he once apprehended a wounded suspect after tracking him across half a mile of cement. The specks of blood were said to be so faint on the darkened surface that Charlie crawled on his hands and knees to locate them.
Stark turned around. “All right, we need to get on foot. Baker, what’s the subject’s description?”
Jana’s stomach dropped. She wanted so badly to impress these guys, but the truth was, she had no idea what he looked like. She looked Stark in the eye and said, “Sir, I didn’t get a good look at him. He was in the shadows. I could barely see him.” She was making no excuses, and she wasn’t backing down.
“But he walked within nine feet of you,” he said.
Jana needed something professional to say. “I wasn’t going to compromise my mission by giving away my location, sir.”
Stark looked at her, started to say something, but stopped.
“Ten-four. How about photography—you said he was in the shadows? Did you get him on camera? Maybe we can enhance the digital images.”
“I snapped several shots of him while he was in the shadows talking with the Jamaican. I don’t know if the photos will show anything. It was dark where he was standing, but I got a few of him when he lit a cigarette. There may have been enough light then. It all happened so fast.”
“Roger that. Go ahead and wirelessly upload those photos to HQ right now. I’ll set a priority status on them.”
The Thoughtstorm building loomed in the sky, towering over the surrounding buildings, like a Goliath to their David. Its shadow darkened Peachtree Road.
“Pull in across the street, into the Atlanta Financial Center building. Take the first entrance,” said Agent in Charge Stark. “Let’s park and walk across.” He turned to the driver. “Joe, I want you to stay in the vehicle; we may need to get moving quickly.”
“I’ve got an idea,” said Charlie. “These buildings are connected to the MARTA train below through a tunnel that runs under Peachtree Road. Why don’t two of us take the tunnel. It connects with that monstrosity across the street. Then we can come up into the building as though we just got off the train. It won’t look as obvious as three of us walking straight across the street and into the front door.”
“Good plan,” said Stark. “Set your comm to channel six one five. You two head down to the garage levels. Find that vehicle, but look sharp. We don’t know what we’re walking into. I’ll get a surveillance team heated up. We’re going to have to build a camp right here and watch this place. You two act like you’re dating. You know, hold hands or something.” Stark took a good look at the two agents. Charlie, the tough and chiseled type, had too much gray hair for someone Jana’s age. “Well, eighty-six that idea. Charlie, you’re too, well, too . . . too old, and frankly, she’s out of your league.” Stark realized his lack of political correctness too late. “Baker, sorry. Listen, look sharp for this guy. Finding that car is critical, but we need the suspect identified.”
The pair worked their way through the long, wide tunnel underneath Peachtree Street that connected the train platform to both the Atlanta Financial Center and the Thoughtstorm buildings. Once inside, they took the elevator down to parking level B. Charlie removed his iPad from its case, hoping to find a signal from the tracking device. But there was nothing. Two floors below however, on level D, the iPad blipped a small alert sound. “This is it,” Charlie whispered from underneath a burly mustache, “your car is on this floor. Should be down that way a bit.” A sound echoed from the floor above as a car moved up the ramp, its tires squeaking across the painted surface.
“We have a problem,” said Jana.
“Holy shit,” replied Charlie, surveying all the cars on level D. Every car was exactly the same. All of them were identical, black, four-door Ford sedans. “I’ve never seen so many Crown Vics in my life,” said Charlie. “Looks like a Ford parade down here.”
“Who in the hell is stupid enough to have a fleet of Crown Vics besides the government?” said Jana. “And how are we going to find a dark Ford sedan in a sea of dark Ford sedans?”
“This tracking signal isn’t going to get us that close,” said Charlie. “We’ll never know which car it is. But, we’re going to have to find it, somehow.”
The two were walking down the long rows when they heard the loud screeching of tires.
“Move it!” said Charlie, grabbing Jana’s arm and yanking her behind a car. The vehicle rolled past. “Whew,” said Charlie, “that was close.”
As he stood up, Jana grabbed his hand. “Charlie,” she whispered, “this is it. This is the car. This is it!”
“What are you talking about? There’s a hundred cars in here. How could you possibly know that? The tracker isn’t that accurate.”
“Because this is my blood,” she said, pointing at the bumper. Jana positioned her skinned knee against the darkly smeared blood stain. It was a perfect match.
Charlie looked at the blood then glanced at Jana, his head shaking back and forth. “Well good God. They’re never going to believe this one.” He pulled a radio from underneath his gray canvas jacket. “Stark, this is point, over.”
“Go ahead, point.”
“The eagle has landed, over,” said Charlie, grinning. Bureau agents had a long running joke of always using code-speak. The team hadn’t planned any code be given, but Stark knew what he meant.
“It’s landed, has it? You’ve been looking for thirty seconds, and large birds of prey are landing? Can’t wait to hear this one.”