Ridley Pearson - Middle Of Nowhere

He looked on as Gaynes made visual contact with the mark from a hundred yards away and quickened her pace accordingly. Keeping an eye on Samway, Gaynes made it into the mall ahead of the young woman, a position where marks seldom thought to look. Russ Lee and Jilly Hu pulled up on the far side of the mall, announcing their position to Boldt over the radio.

Boldt felt his stomach knot. A mall. The crush of a thousand shoppers. The perfect place to either disappear, make a drop, or spot a tail. All Flek had to do was watch from an upper balcony to see if anyone was following Samway.

Jilly Hu had been used in the coffee shop. Shoswitz sent Lee into the mall as backup for Gaynes, on strict instructions to keep use of his cell phone to a minimum, and then only in believable situations, fearing the phone might catch Flek's eye.

Five minutes passed in relative silence. Agony. Six. Boldt's throat stung of heartburn. Ten. Shoswitz wondered aloud over the radio if they should risk sending Hu in to assist. Boldt suggested not. "It's Gaynes, Captain." His only explanation of his confidence. Twelve minutes. He felt ready to go in there himself.

Fourteen minutes. Boldt's cell phone rang. He let out a long breath. It was Bobbie Gaynes.

"She's moving again, L.T."

"Where?"

"West side. You should have her… right… now."

"Got her." Boldt saw Samway push through the wall of doors. She seemed struck by the warm air.

"Get this, she bought herself a thong swimsuit. You suppose she deducts those things off her taxes?" She added, "What now? I don't want to stick out."

"We see who picks her up," he answered.

The area surrounding the mall was not a place for pedestrians; cars were the preferred mode of transport. Samway wasn't headed for a car, as it turned out, but the sidewalk beyond. If Gaynes followed she would be easily spotted. The same applied to Danny Lincoln, who had arrived on the scene, riding his bike, only moments before. The unmarked cars were a possibility, but not a good one.

Gaynes made for Boldt's van. Lee reported in, having returned to the Ford. Boldt's team collectively held their breath.

Samway walked behind the mall and north on Fifth Avenue NE, where Lee and Hu made visual contact. She crossed Northgate Way with the light and walked west. Boldt and Gaynes sat in the front seat listening as Lee reported the woman's progress. Gaynes caught sight of her briefly and pointed far off into the distance.

Boldt looked past the interstate, worried there might be a car waiting, worried it was about to get ugly. "The motel," he said to Gaynes, as he noticed the tower and sign placed to advertise on the highway.

"You think?"

"Flek takes a room near the mall. It gives him access to public transportation, a lot of cover if he needs it- the mall being so close, the interstate in his front yard. Flek is inside that motel watching her approach from a window."

Shoswitz barked an order for Lee to follow. Boldt cut in and suspended the order-overriding a captain. "Send Lincoln on the bike," he said. "Flek is watching. She's heading to that motel."

She was inside the motel.

Following the resolution of the sickout, Special Operations-Special Ops-continued under the command of Patrick Mulwright, a forty-something binge drinker, part Irish, part Native American, who looked about sixty. The man's two different- colored eyes-one green, one almost brown-lent him a crazed, mongrel look that forewarned of his disposition. Boldt and Mulwright's histories went back too far, overlapped too much, which happened in any organization, but was particularly difficult in a police department where lives depended on reaction and response time.

Special Ops gained access to leading-edge technology far in advance of any other unit, the way the FBI always had the cool toys ahead of any city law enforcement. Mulwright passed out digital cellular phones with walkie-talkie capability to each of the operatives involved, although the method of their distribution-having an undercover "street person" drunkenly wander the area surrounding the motel pushing a grocery cart (in which were hidden the communications devices)- took an inordinate amount of time. The digital devices could not be scanned, nor the conversations overheard, meaning that all parties surrounding the motel could monitor and communicate via the same walkie-talkie channel without concern that Flek would hear them. At the same time, the secure police frequencies remained available for communication back and forth between the field and headquarters at Public Safety.

Mulwright brought with him long-distance video and audio surveillance, high-powered binoculars and monoculars, which included night vision capability if needed, and four Emergency Response Team officers prepared to put their lives on the line and kick Flek's room if and when required to do so.

The slightly chaotic and scattered attempt to keep Samway under surveillance quickly streamlined and took on the feel of a well-run operation. Mulwright swallowed his dislike of Boldt, not allowing it to interfere with operations.

The police net was carefully structured in concentric circles. Well out of sight, positioned at key intersections several blocks away in every direction, four police cruisers-radio cars-occupied the four corner posts of a "contained perimeter." Included within this perimeter were Boldt and the Ford, with the wild card, Danny Lincoln, still pedaling, but now with a police vest hidden beneath his Nike windbreaker. Everyone involved kept a weather eye on the sidewalks, in case Flek approached on foot. The good money had Flek already inside.

Mulwright and his Special Ops Command Center personnel occupied an Ore-Ida panel truck, its painted sides and roller door advertising a NEW! thick-slice potato chip with thirty percent less fat. It was parked on the curb immediately in front of the motel, offering the ERT team quick access to the motel, if needed. A lone police sniper, under Mulwright's authority, was positioned on a rooftop west of the motel, covering the building's back side. Seventy minutes after Samway headed inside, operation "Baywatch" was in place-so named by Mulwright because the motel's small indoor pool happened to be peopled to overflowing with bikini-clad women who, according to a welcome marquee, were attending a press-on nail and cosmetics conference. Judging by the pool, not many were attending the seminars.

When Courtney Samway was spotted inside the pool area, slipping into the hot pool in the recently purchased lime green thong and matching top, it was Boldt, not Mulwright, who formulated a plan to discover which room she was in, and thereby concentrate Special Ops' considerable assets.

"You feel like a swim?" he asked Bobbie Gaynes.

Although Boldt and Gaynes had both been at the stripper club the night they had brought Samway in for questioning, Gaynes and the girl had not met face to face. Gaynes had gone backstage to the dressing rooms, but Samway had come out into the club offstage, leaving Boldt to detain her and get her into one of the cruisers. He needed someone in that pool area, and he wanted it not only a woman, but a woman he trusted.

"In front of all these guys? With twenty-power mon oculars?" she returned. "My thighs? Forget it. Try Jilly. She'll knock their socks off."

Boldt disagreed. "We used Jilly out front of Wong's store, and again in the coffee shop. She's used up. I could probably pull a woman from one of the radio cars, but the inexperience could burn us."

"L.T.!" she objected. "Use a guy. Use Milner. I've got a feeling he has a great bod under there."

"There must be a dozen women in there, Bobbie. No men. I send a guy in and nobody-nobody-is going to miss it. Another woman wanders in, nobody may notice."