Cliff Ryder - The Finish Line

Anthony sat in the passenger's seat of the dark gray SUV, dividing his attention between the morning London traffic and the open case in his lap. Every few seconds the LCD screen sent out its quiet, steady beep as it searched for the one signal that would lead them to their quarry.

As Liam wove through the narrow streets, maneuvering up and down car-and-truck-choked lanes, Anthony resisted the urge to glance back at their two replacement men. Headquarters had informed him that he would have to make do with the pair, as there were no other available personnel at the moment. The voice in his ear had silkily informed him that when additional personnel were available, they would do their best to send some along. Anthony read between the lines well enough. You fucked up, so make do with what you've got.

Fortunately, the replacements looked to be more than adequate. Right behind him, his knees pressing into the back of Anthony's seat and the top of his head brushing the SUV's ceiling was a giant of a man. He wasn't overly muscled, but solid from feet to his broad shoulders, with every economical movement combining the best of both agility and strength. His face was narrow, framed by black hair cut high and tight, a jutting beak of a nose and expressionless gray eyes. He was also the quietest team member Anthony had ever worked with, limiting his replies to nods and shakes of his head. The two original team members had thought the menacing man was mute, until he had given his name in an accented deep voice — Gregor Petrov.

The other one was a lanky American named Carl Teppen, with a New Jersey accent that Anthony hadn't heard in several years. Shorter than the Russian, he was leaner, too, almost rawboned. Despite his lanky, almost country-boy appearance, he knew the business. His light blue eyes roved the streets constantly, always checking to their left and behind them for possible trouble. Next to him, the hard-edged Petrov did the same on the right. Both men's hands were always near their waists, ready to draw whatever was necessary to accomplish their job.

Anthony had received and reviewed both their files, and was generally pleased with what he'd seen. Petrov was a former senior sergeant in the Russian army, and Teppen had made lieutenant in the United States Marines before receiving an under-other-than-honorable-conditions discharge for assaulting a civilian while on duty. Anthony wasn't too worried about that; working in the private security sector gave employees a lot more leeway in that regard. Besides, the other guy might have been asking for it, he thought. God knows I run into plenty of assholes every day of my life. As long as these two could take orders and do whatever they had to do to get that girl, then everyone would get along just fine.

He kept a wary eye on Liam, who often took pride in hazing the new team members. But either he understood the importance of not screwing around at the moment, or else the big Russian had intimidated him enough not to try anything. So far, so good, he thought.

They'd been driving around town since 3:00 a.m., making a circuit between Heathrow Airport, the train station and various bus terminals, hoping to pick up the signal from the homing device the company buyer had planted on her a few days ago. Starting at the Wyvil Road location, they had driven carefully past the scattered police cars at the scene, then spent a good hour doing a spiral search pattern with the house as the center, but had come up empty so far. Now, after four hours of fruitless searching, Anthony was finding it hard to contain his impatience. "Goddamn it, did she just vanish off the face of the fucking earth?"

"It still ain't that hard to disappear, if you know what you're doing," Liam opined from the driver's seat.

"Just keep your eyes open. The last thing we need is any more interference." Right as he finished speaking, he heard a faint chirp from the tracker. "Turn left," he said.

"Where?"

"Turn left now!"

Liam cranked the wheel over, garnering a chorus of angry honks from oncoming traffic, which he replied to in time-honored fashion by flipping them the bird. They found themselves on a narrow avenue that wound through a working-class neighborhood, with houses crowding in on both sides of them. Except for an occasional glance ahead, Anthony's gaze remained glued to the screen, with occasional directions given to his driver as the signal grew stronger.

"We should be getting close now." They rounded a curve and came out in front of a train station with yet another odd English name — St. Pancras.

"Clever girl. She's heading for the Chunnel rail link, I'll bet. Find us a place to park — we might be going on a train ride."

Kate pushed the remains of her surprisingly good sole meuniere around on her plate, then speared another asparagus stalk and crunched into it, relishing the springy texture and hint of lemon it had been steamed with. Not quite as good as Mindy's cooking, but it'll do.

The thought of her live-in housekeeper made her smile. Mindy Todd was a college student and crime-TV junkie who served as her girl Friday when necessary, which was pretty much all of the time. Kate had wanted to take her to London, as the bubbly, dark-blond-haired girl had never been to the city. But the board had already put up such a squawk about Kate coming over in the first place, and Mindy's next school term had been about to start, so they had both reluctantly shelved the plans.

She was just coming up for air and a bite or two after a frenetic eight hours of logged-in work, overseeing the sifting of evidence and intelligence and also keeping up on the various other investigations that Room 59 had ongoing around the world. When Kate traveled, the agency traveled with her, and today was no exception. In between keeping an eye on the business at Wyvil Road, she had reviewed after-action reports, interviewed two operatives about a completed mission in South America for potential follow-up and written several dozen memos, addendas, order forms, and signed her name — electronically only, but it still felt like a lot — to more documents than she could count. In the end, while we may all pass on to whatever lies beyond this world, the bureaucracy will continue, implacable, unstoppable. Kate was trying to figure out whether she had just made that up or read it somewhere when her computer chimed.

"Call from — J. Burges. What does she want?" Kate muttered to herself before she hit the button that activated her computer's telecom program. She saw a severe-looking woman with every hair in place, dressed in an almost schoolteacher-plain black business suit, with half-moon glasses perched on the end of her aristocratic nose. "Judy, what a pleasant surprise."

Judy Burges was Kate's liaison to the men and women of Room 59. In theory, she was supposed to handle much of the day-to-day operations, leaving Kate free to handle the IIA Board when necessary, and to keep an eye on the other directors and the big picture. In reality, since Kate loved to get her hands dirty as much as the board would allow, she often stepped in to handle certain ops personally, which irked Judy to no end. Although Judy was an excellent liaison — which was one of the reasons that Kate was able to go on this trip in the first place — she had a tendency to overreach, and Kate was still working on keeping her in line.

Much like I'm probably about to do right now, Kate thought upon seeing the other woman's stern expression. Although she steeled herself for the confrontation she knew was coming, Kate let no trace of it into her face or voice. "How can I help you?"

"Kate, this AA report just crossed my desk — are you really meaning to keep this Midnight Team on duty for the duration of this op?" Judy's upper-crust tone spoke volumes about what she thought of this decision.