SEVENTEEN
Dani rolled over in her bed and stared bleary-eyed at the alarm clock going off on her nightstand. Six thirty? She’d been in bed for only about three hours. Why the hell had she set an alarm clock? She reached over and slapped the top of the clock to shut it off, which didn’t work. That’s when she realized it was actually her cell phone continuing to blast away beside it. Someone was incessantly calling her. Pulling herself up, she sighed heavily and then turned on her nightstand lamp. This made Bailey perk up beside her. Great. Now she would have to get up and take the dog out. Dani grabbed her cell phone and squinted at the screen. Special Agent Eric Mitchell.
“Do you ever sleep, Mitchell?” Dani answered.
“As little as possible.”
“This had better be good.”
“You ever heard of a hit man up in New York City they call the Ghost?”
Dani rubbed her face with her free hand. “Uh . . . the Ghost? No . . . wait . . . Is that the guy they suspect took out the deputy mayor there three years ago for the Moraldo family—or something like that?”
“Yep. Same guy. Real name is Logan Gervais.”
“Why are we talking about a ghost at six thirty in the morning?”
“I just got off the phone with New York. They’ve been hunting this guy forever. He works in the shadows and has been nearly impossible to track. But they finally found a crack about twelve hours ago. They said Gervais got on a private plane out of Jersey to Austin during the middle of the night.”
“Do they want us to grab him?”
“No, they don’t want us to touch him. They want the Moraldo family. So they are handling this with incredibly delicate gloves right now to see if they can somehow hack his online network and make a direct connection. But they felt obligated to inform us of his arrival.”
“Why?”
“He’s here for a job, Dani. New York intercepted an encrypted file. You’re never going to guess the proposed target.”
“I’m too tired to guess. Just tell me already.”
“Jake Slater.”
This made Dani pop straight up out of bed. “What?”
“Yeah, exactly. I thought this was worth waking you up.”
“You thought right. So . . . who hired him?”
“We don’t know yet. But I just sent you a link to a security video from a private hangar over at Austin–Bergstrom from about two hours ago.”
“All right, give me a second.” She searched her phone and found the text from Mitchell. The link took her to a secured video source. As Mitchell mentioned, the video looked to be from a security camera in the corner of an oversize airport hangar. “I’m watching now.”
“OK, good. I edited the video to take out blocks of stagnant time. You can keep track from the time stamp in the corner.”
Dani noticed that two vehicles were parked in view inside the hangar: a white Range Rover and a black Ford Taurus. Then a private jet eased into the hangar and parked next to the vehicles. A pilot lowered the stairs and got off the plane. Then a man in a dark suit climbed out of the Range Rover and boarded the jet. Within minutes, he returned to his vehicle and drove off. Ten minutes later, a man she guessed was Logan Gervais exited the plane. He settled into the black Taurus and also drove away. Then the pilot backed the jet out of the hangar and moved out of camera view.
“Who’s the guy in the suit, Mitchell?”
“No idea. Still unidentified. I’m sending you enhanced close-up still shots right now.”
Dani again checked her phone and opened the images. The guy was a gray-haired individual probably in his early sixties. “Were you able to get the plates?”
“Unfortunately not. I’m trying to see if there are other cameras around there that might’ve captured the vehicles from better angles.”
“The plane still at the airport?”
“No, it immediately took off. I think headed to the Bahamas.”
“Damn. But I do know a guy down there. Someone I used to work with in DC. Retired now. Maybe I can get him to do me a favor and find the pilot after he lands. Whose plane is it?”
“Belongs to one of those shared programs for high rollers. Called Wheels in the Air. So it’s used by a lot of different companies and clients.”
“Do we know which one chartered the flight and picked up this guy in New Jersey?”
“Not yet. Can’t get anyone on the phone there.”
“OK, keep me posted.”
“What do you think is going on here, Dani?”