That was the plan, anyway. How it went would likely be another story.
chapter
fifty-six
LIVIA
While Carl was picking up the gear, Livia connected her phone through Carl’s satellite hotspot and called B. D. Little, a contact with Homeland Security Investigations. Not long before, she’d helped him solve the crime that had changed the course of his life—the loss of his teenaged daughter. They knew each other’s secrets. He was one of the few people she trusted.
He laughed when he heard her voice. “Been reading the news from out there,” he said. “I had a feeling I might hear from you.”
She smiled at that. “How’ve you been?”
“Better. Thanks to you.”
“I need a favor.”
“Anything.”
“You heard about Andrew Schrader?”
He laughed again. “Yeah. Busted out of prison. Like I said, I had a feeling I might hear from you.”
“I might need to pay a visit to his Bainbridge Island house. I need to know whether it’s being watched. The Marshal Service, FBI, whoever. Can you find out?”
“That’s easy,” he told her. “We have a central database now. I can check other federal law enforcement deployments right from my desk. Can you hold on?”
“Of course.”
It took him only a few minutes. “It’s clear,” he said. “My guess is, it’s such an obvious place, no one thinks he’d be stupid enough to go there. Besides which, there’s so much interagency finger-pointing on his escape I bet no one’s even put together a coherent plan for recapture. I can monitor things and let you know if anything changes.”
“Yes. Please.”
“You need anything else?”
“Not right now.”
“I wish you did.”
“Well, it’s only right now. It could change.”
He laughed. “Let me know,” he said. “And good hunting.”
Livia had Diaz pull into White River Amphitheater, a place for open-air concerts with a large dirt parking area separated by a short stretch of woods from the house where Schrader was being held. Larison set out wearing the TSCM gear while the rest of them waited.
“Wish we’d gotten the intel just a couple hours earlier,” Carl said, double-checking a backpack with the flashbangs, bolt cutters, and medical supplies inside. “It’d still be dark now. Call me crazy, but I think this kind of job goes down better under cover of darkness.”
Livia gave him a small smile. It had been a good night. But he needed to set aside the afterglow. “Stop worrying about me.”
For a second, she thought he was going to argue. Instead, he nodded and said, “Told you you’re getting to know me well.”
“Remember,” she added, “I’ve probably breached more houses than you.”
He scowled. “All right, you’ve made your point.”
“I’ll be fine. And you’ll be right behind me.”
“I hate that I’m going in after you. Bad enough you made me ride in the damn rear on the motorcycle in Pattaya. Now this.”
“I’m a smaller target. And a better shot. You toss the flashbang, clear the glass, we check, you cover me, I go in, then you. It’s a good plan.”
She knew that was as much lecturing as he could take. But she was still concerned. She’d seen how cool he typically was in the face of danger. His nervousness now was a measure of how attached he’d gotten. She didn’t mind. She’d gotten pretty attached herself, though she found ways to fight it. But right now, they had a job to do.