“We’ll deal with this later,” she said, placing the bag on the rear passenger seat row.
“Hopefully sooner than later,” he said, driving them to the exit onto Broad Street.
Young had passed the restaurant about a minute ago, still headed north. He squeezed into traffic and managed to cut the distance between them in half by the time they reached the Whole Foods from this morning. When she kept going, he started to suspect they were in for a long night. At the Capitol Beltway, any lingering doubt was removed. She took the on-ramp headed north, which was the last thing he’d expect anyone to do with rush hour still in progress. If Young were driving anywhere nearby, she would have been better off staying on local roads.
About an hour and a half later, Young exited the Beltway at the I-95 interchange that took them north toward Baltimore. Twenty-two miles in ninety-three minutes translated into Rudd being ready to eat the rib eye steak he’d ordered at the restaurant with his bare hands. A single hand. One would have to remain on the steering wheel. He was about to suggest that Jolene crack open their dinner when the satellite phone rang. “Rick,” she said before answering the call.
“Hope you had dinner. Looks like we’re headed to Baltimore,” she said.
Rudd couldn’t hear the other side of their conversation, but his wife hadn’t rolled her eyes yet, which usually meant she agreed with whatever was being passed along. She lowered the phone.
“Rick is thinking we should get Logan and Nathan moving in this direction,” she said. “In case this pans out. Possibly Sandy.”
He was right. If Gray surfaced, CONTROL might order them to make an immediate move against him, capture or kill being the only two options. Killing Gray on the spot wouldn’t require more than the three of them. Kidnapping was a different story. They should be able to make it work with three, but the more the merrier.
“Let’s get them on the road,” said Rudd. “But Sandy stays in place, on the outside chance that Gray shows his face at the apartment.”
She passed that along to Gentry and called the rest of the team. When that was done, she reached between the seats, and for a brief moment he thought she might be going for their dinner. Instead, her hand reemerged with their laptop. She shook her head, smiling.
“I’ll work on dinner in a minute,” she said. “We need to contact CONTROL with an update and transfer primary communications to the encrypted chat app on one of our mobile phones. Things will move fast if Gray materializes.”
“Agreed,” said Rudd.
She retrieved the Iridium SatSleeve from the glove box and inserted her smartphone, enabling satellite call capability. A few minutes later, after accessing the dark web chat box through the laptop and explaining the situation to CONTROL, she opened an app on her phone and entered a long code provided in the chat session. Shortly after that, Jolene shut her laptop and returned it to the back seat.
“We’re good,” she said.
They’d now established a direct communications channel to CONTROL through the satellite-converted cell phone, which could get tricky. The specifically designed application replicated the dark web chat box but required them to enter a memorized “start word” every time they typed into the text field. The application randomly prompted them with a number between one and one hundred by displaying it at the top of the screen—each number corresponding to a unique password. They both knew these words by heart. Only one mistake was tolerated. Two incorrect attempts shut down everything, including their laptop’s access. He had no idea what happened after that and didn’t want to find out.
At 8:34 p.m., Harvey Rudd dropped his wife at the corner of Fait Avenue and South Glover Street in what looked like an upscale part of Baltimore, even though it was hard to tell with the flat redbrick facades. The map said they were in Canton, which was within walking distance of the northwest harbor, just to the east of Fells Point—a high-rent district. They’d have to be somewhat cautious here. People paying a premium for a one-bedroom loft with a view tended to keep an eye on the neighborhood. He wanted to keep his drive-bys to a minimum, if not eliminate them altogether. Young had parked her Jeep about halfway between Fait and Foster Avenues on South Glover Street.
They’d turned off Foster Avenue onto South Glover just in time to see her disappear into a town house on the east side of the street with another woman. Young carried a backpack that looked large enough to be an overnight bag. The other woman was dressed in a business suit. The Rudds drew no conclusions from the little they witnessed, which was why he dropped Jolene off to keep an eye on things while he looked for a parking space with a view of the town house.