Bob turned up Fleet, and the traffic grew a bit thicker.
He did not look around. He did not notice either the white or the black vans that had been on him since the country.
He passed through Fells Point, jammed with cars, kids, scum and bars, presumably the shady night town of the city, and kept on driving. Another mile or two and he turned on the diagonal down a beat-up street called Boston.
'Blue One, this is Blue Two. The traffic is thinning out. He's headed out Boston toward the docks. I'm going to stay on Reet, run a parallel, and let Blue Three close on him, just to be safe.'
'Read you, Two,' said the observer in the second van.
There was no way Swagger could tell, now that the van which had been closest to him sped away down another road and the unseen secondary vehicle closed the gap, that he was under surveillance. More important, he exhibited nothing in his driving that demonstrated the signature of a surveil lee who'd burned his trackers: he didn't dart in and out of traffic, he didn't signal right, then turn left, he didn't turn without signaling. He just drove blandly ahead, intent on his destination.
But once he passed two large apartment buildings on the right, at the harbor's edge, he began to slow down, as if he were looking for something.
It was a kind of post-industrial zone, with ruined, deserted factories everywhere, oil-holding facilities for offloading by tankers, huge, weedy fields that served no apparent purpose at all but were nevertheless Cyclonefenced.
There was little traffic and almost no pedestrian activity, it was a blasted zone, where humans may have worked during the day, but deserted almost totally at night.
The number-two van was a good three hundred feet behind him when he turned right, down another street--it was called South Clinton Street--that seemed to veer closer to the docks. The van didn't turn, it went straight, after its observer notified the first vehicle, which had run parallel down Boston, and itself turned right on the street Bob had turned down.
'Two, I have him,' said the observer.
'Cool. I'll roam a bit, then take up a tail position.'
'That's good work,' said Bonson, over the net.
'We're going to lose you now. We're going through the tunnel.'
'I'll stay on him, Blue One.'
'Catch you when we get out of the tunnel.'
The first van maintained about a four hundred-foot gap between itself and Swagger's truck, which now coursed down desolate South Clinton Street. Off to the right, a giant naval vessel, under construction, suddenly loomed, gray and arc-lit for drama and security. Bob passed it, passed a bank, a few small working men's restaurants, then stopped by the side of the road.
'Goddammit,' said Two.
'Burned. Goddammit.'
His own driver started to slow, but he was exceedingly professional.
'No, just keep driving. Just drive by him. Don't eyeball him as you pass him, don't even think about it, he'll feel you paying attention. I'm dropping out of sight.'
The driver continued at the same speed, while the observer dropped into the seat well, knowing that a single driver was much less of a giveaway signature for a tail job.
And he hit the send button.
'Blue Three, do you read?'
'Yeah, I'm past the Boston-South Clinton Street exchange, just pulled over.'
'Okay, he's stopped. We're going to pass him, you come on by and pull off a long way down. He's on the right. Don't use your lights. Go to night vision and monitor his moves.'
The lead vehicle sped around the curve, passed several mountains of coal ready for loading on the right.
He pulled off when he was out of sight of the parked man.
'Two, this is Three. I'm in position and I've got him in my night lenses. He's just sitting there, waiting. I think he's turned off his engine. No, no, he's turned off his lights, now he's pulling ahead, he's turning in--now I've lost him.'
'Okay, he's gone to ground.'
'Sitrep, people,' came the voice of Bonson, who had just cleared the tunnel and was now on this side of the harbor.
'Sir, he just pulled into a yard or something in the warehouse district down by the docks. Just off Boston. We have him under observation.'
'I'm right at Boston Street here. Do we go east or west off of Ninety-five?'
'You go west. Go about a mile and turn left again, on South Clinton Street. I'm off by the side of the road just around that turn, lights off, left side of the road. Two is on the other side, around the curve. We're both about a half mile away from where he's gone to rest.'
'Okay, let's meet one at a time in two-minute intervals two hundred yards this side, my side, of the location. You go first, Three, then you Two, from the other side, then I'll join you. Keep your lights on in case he's looking out. If he saw unlit vehicles, he could go ballistic.'
