“There’s nothing we could have done about that,” said Jolene. “Protocol dictated that we check on the target.”
“Exactly. And Gray clearly knows this game better than any of us,” said Rudd. “If CONTROL considers this guy to be a serious threat, they’d be better off getting rid of him immediately. My gut tells me this guy could disappear without a trace if he wanted to—and still operate right in front of everyone’s noses.”
CHAPTER 12
Devin guided his SUV around a tight turn on the narrow tree-lined road, hints of water shimmering through the lush branches. He hadn’t been out here in a number of years, but knew he was close. A few more ninety-degree twists and he’d catch a glimpse of the marina beyond one of the gravel drives lining the road. A sailboat mast or maybe the blue hull of a boat hauled out for repairs and now living on stands. That was where he should turn. On the unmarked road leading directly to the marina. But Devin decided to take a different approach.
He took the turns slowly, stopping a few times to let oncoming traffic squeeze by. After passing the marina’s unmarked gravel entrance, the towering trees opened to reveal a stark blue sky—and a sizable parking lot that marked the end of the road. Cantler’s Riverside Inn, a favorite with locals, sat on the far side of the jam-packed lot, nestled right up against Mill Creek. It was the last thing you might expect to find if you had been out for a casual drive through Maryland’s back roads.
He cruised around the lot for several minutes until a young couple, holding hands and pecking each other’s lips, jumped into an open-top BMW and left him a space. Devin parked the SUV and gave it some time. Ninety minutes, to be precise, sweating through his shirt behind a stand of trees near the entrance to the lot. He had to be absolutely certain that nobody had tracked him here.
Whoever had tagged his vehicle with the two trackers had known what they were doing. He would never have found the transmitters without the aid of an RF detector. The placement was skilled enough to leave him wondering if they had installed a fail-safe. Something that transmitted far less frequently and would likely be missed on a typical electronic sweep. He’d spent an hour and a half at a little speck of a town on the Maryland-Pennsylvania border, testing that theory. Waiting for anything that resembled a surveillance team to drive down Main Street. Nothing suspicious turned up, which didn’t entirely surprise him.
The couple that showed outside of Starbucks had looked genuinely concerned about the tracker stunt. The guy almost looked scared. Devin had snapped a few hundred photos of the couple and their vehicle from the third floor of the parking garage on the other side of Baltimore Avenue. A digital camera with telephoto lens was part of his standard countersurveillance kit, among other things, like a handheld RF detector.
He couldn’t help but notice that the couple was older. Take away maybe thirty pounds from the red-faced guy who went fishing under the minivan for the tracker, and he’d look no different than either of the guys Devin had faced in the hotel stairwell a week or so ago. He’d revisit that thought later, when he asked Brendan Shea to run the couple’s Tennessee license plates. The connection between the Tennessee plates and his mother’s death couldn’t be a coincidence, but he sensed something else. He just couldn’t put his finger on it.
With the hour and a half expired and no bad guys in sight, Devin returned to his SUV and retrieved a small nylon day pack to carry whatever he found on the boat. He took another long look around the lot before making his way to the weathered stockade fence that separated the parking lot from the marina. After slipping through a rickety gate held open by a faded orange traffic cone, he emerged on a stretch of grass intended for marina members. The gate he’d just used appeared to be a convenience that facilitated dinner and drinks after a day on the water.
He spotted a sailboat on stands closer to the water and decided to head in that direction. His assumption was that he’d find Sadie on land, unless his mother had taken up boating—a possibility, given how little he appeared to truly know about her. The sailboat turned out to be Screamin’ Mimi, so he turned his attention to a tightly packed row of three boats tucked away in the farthest corner of the expansive gravel lot. Two sailboats, one without a mast, and a very neglected-looking powerboat with a flying bridge. They were parked bow out, so he couldn’t read their names.
He got halfway across the lot before he was accosted. A stringy-haired man dressed in grease-stained khaki pants and an equally grubby white T-shirt emerged from the trees along the waterfront, directly in his path. His weather-beaten face made it impossible to guess his age, but Devin would go with somewhere between forty-five and seventy if he had to estimate. He stood with his hands on his hips as Devin approached, appraising him the whole way.