“Mr. Grimble,” she said. “I’m so very sorry to inconvenience you. Can you tell us your log-in credentials please, so we can leave?”
Grimble shook his head furiously. “Can’t, shan’t, rant.”
Even though the file had said the man was on the spectrum, Rispel was taken aback. But all right, if he wouldn’t give her the log-in credentials, Rain might have been telling the truth. There was only one practical way to confirm.
“Fine,” she said. “Then let’s go to where you have them written down.”
She muted the mic she had taken from the blonde woman and added, “I’ll need all of you to remove your earpieces, mics, and radios, and set them on the ground. Not that I don’t trust you about no one else being on the property, but you know the expression: Trust, but verify.”
When they were done complying, she unmuted the mic. Now if there was a ringer somewhere else on the property—someone like Dox—he wouldn’t know his people couldn’t hear him. He might check in. If so, Rispel wanted to know.
“Walk in front of us with your hands held high. You may have noticed, some of my men are carrying machine pistols. And there are others positioned on the perimeter. Think about that if anyone decides it would be a good idea to run.”
She had no additional men on the perimeter, but if anyone was listening in, it wouldn’t hurt for them to believe she had more resources than she really did.
Rispel’s men drifted back and they all started walking, Rain, Kanezaki, and the rest in front, Rispel and her people behind. She felt good. In control again. It had been touch and go for a while, with the stakes getting higher and higher even as the chances of success looked worse and worse. But she’d pulled it off. They’d get Grimble’s credentials, take care of business, and be out of here in no time. And that prick Devereaux was going to be kissing her ass for the rest of whatever dead-end career she might decide to allow him.
And then she heard a helicopter.
chapter
seventy-seven
LIVIA
Livia watched from the dark of the crawl space. Rispel was taking no chances. She kept probing their responses, even bluffing about having seen Carl on the property. Rain handled it beautifully. If he were ever a suspect in a criminal case, he would be hell to interrogate.
Rispel’s men seemed disciplined. Livia could take out one, maybe two. But by then the rest would be returning machine-pistol fire. And while the crawl space offered concealment, it was devoid of cover, and was even tighter than Rain had thought. Even bellied-out, Livia had just enough room to raise her head and look through her gun sights. No cover and no mobility was a death trap.
One by one, they emerged from Grimble’s office. When they were out, Rispel had them all remove their commo gear. But first she muted the mic she had taken from Delilah. Clever. She must have been hoping that some as-yet-unseen players would speak up and give themselves away. Hopefully Carl was too smart to fall for the ruse.
Livia decided to wait. If Rispel believed Rain’s story about the passcode and they moved, Livia could crawl out on the north side of the office structure and fall in behind them. Carl would open up the moment they were exposed. They’d be focused on where the sniper fire was coming from at the very moment Livia would ghost in from behind.
And then Rispel agreed to go to the other location. They all began to move. Livia felt her heart pounding. This was it. She belly-crawled to the side of the passage and looked through the lattice. She could see two of Rispel’s men, guns out, close behind Larison and Delilah. She pushed out the lattice, squirmed through, and cut to the other side of the trees. It was rarely good to follow someone from directly behind—it was where people tended to check. And besides, the gravel roadway would be noisy, and she wanted the trees for concealment.
She heard something. At first she thought it was one of the suppressed machine pistols, but no one was firing, and the sound seemed farther off than that. And then she realized—she’d been so intent on the firearms that she’d misinterpreted what she was hearing. She looked up and saw a helicopter.