Andie checked the computer screen one more time. The final relocation was critical, and it took her tech agent a minute to compute the angles and come up with a clear line of fire for her sniper.
“Haywood,” she said into her radio. “Rooftop, Edison Hotel. Friedman will meet you at the service elevator at the back of the building.”
“Roger.”
Andie switched to another frequency for the final instruction.
“New destination is covered, Jack. Proceed to Bayfront Station.”
Chapter Fifty-One
Andie’s instruction ended with a crackle in Jack’s earpiece.
Jack was already at Biscayne Boulevard, the western border of the park. Traffic was light on the four northbound lanes between him and the elevated people-mover station, which rose up like an oil rig from the urban sea of concrete and asphalt.
Jack stepped to the curb, then looked up at the platform across the street. A rubber-tired tram entered the station, and its doors slid open. One passenger got on. Two people stepped off and took the escalator down to the turnstile. The tram pulled away, leaving the platform unoccupied. Jack drew a breath, taking in the warm night air, and then started across the street.
Andie’s voice was in his ear again. “No rush, Jack. Decoy to arrive exactly at eleven forty-five.”
Jack jogged across the fourth lane to avoid being flattened by a Porsche coming around the corner. Bayfront Station was at the fulcrum of what had once been a famous hairpin turn in the first and only Grand Prix race to actually run in the streets of downtown Miami. Some drivers thought the race was still running.
“Guitarist is one of ours,” said Andie as Jack approached the street-level entrance to the station. The tune sounded like something from the Gypsy Kings. The guy actually wasn’t bad.
“You’re early,” said Andie. “Don’t want you trapped on the platform with nowhere to go. Stand where you are and listen to the musician.”
Jack stopped. The guitarist transitioned into Cat Stevens’ “Moonshadow.” Really damn good.
“Okay,” said Andie, “take the escalator up to the platform. Decoy will arrive in ninety seconds.”
Jack fished a couple bucks from his wallet and bought a Metromover token from the machine. He dropped the change in the musician’s open guitar case, which drew a string of “Thank you, thank you, thank you.” Nerves had a way of triggering funny thoughts, and special agent Cat Stevens had Jack thinking that it wasn’t just lawyers who yearned for another career.
“You’re welcome,” said Jack. He pushed through the turnstile and started up the escalator. It seemed painfully slow, but Jack knew it was just the circumstances. Halfway up he spotted the Sydney decoy on the sidewalk across the street. She was walking toward the station.
He wondered if Merselus saw her as well.
Jack stepped onto the platform. It was cooler up there, a salty breeze blowing across the park from the bay. His gaze fixed on the FBI decoy as she crossed Biscayne Boulevard. She didn’t look all that much like Sydney Bennett. The blond wig, the scarf, the sunglasses at night-the entire getup was more like what Sydney might look like if she were trying not to be recognized in public.
Jack moved to the thick yellow warning line in front of the track, right at the edge of the elevated platform. No trams were in sight. He looked up and down Biscayne Boulevard. To the north he could see all the way to the arena, home of the Miami Heat. He spotted a few pedestrians along the sidewalk, not knowing which ones were FBI agents, no way of knowing whether one of them was Merselus. If someone didn’t make a move on the decoy quickly, the whole mission would be a failure.
Jack’s phone rang. He checked the number. It was from Sydney’s phone.
Andie’s voice was in his earpiece. “Answer it.”
Jack put the phone to his other ear. “This is Jack.”
Silence.
He glanced toward the escalator. The Sydney decoy was on her way up.
“This is Jack,” he said into the phone.
No response.
Anger rose up inside him. Sydney’s entire role in the operation had been simply to call on her iPhone and tell Jack to meet her at the central fountain at eleven thirty. If Sydney was on a mission to take over and screw things up, she was playing a dangerous game. Jack put his phone away, but it chimed immediately with a text message.
He turned around to face the wood bench in front of the billboard in the center of the platform. The bench was vacant. He was completely alone on the platform until the Sydney decoy reached the top of the escalator. Jack glanced at her, then back at the bench, and something caught his eye. He stepped closer, closer. Then he saw it clearly, a polished copper hoop hanging from the armrest on the bench.
It was Rene’s necklace.
“Don’t touch anything,” the undercover agent told him.
Jack stepped away from the bench, sickened by the symbolism of the swap.
“He’s got Sydney,” Jack said.
The agent said something into her hidden microphone about “abort,” which took it from obvious to official that the mission had failed.
Jack’s gaze drifted back to the necklace on the bench, and he wondered if Sydney was still alive-and how much time they had.
Chapter Fifty-Two
Andie’s surveillance and apprehension team quickly shifted gears to abduction and recovery mode. The FBI communications van was at the exit to the parking garage, poised to speed down Biscayne Boulevard. Andie was buckled into the passenger seat with tech support on the line.
“I need a location,” she said, her patience waning.
“No GPS reading,” her tech agent said.
“Damn.” Andie was certain that Merselus had found Sydney because she had screwed up the FBI’s directions on how to disarm GPS tracking on her iPhone.
“We’re triangulating now,” tech said.
Andie crossed her fingers. The electronic pulse that every cell phone in the power-on mode transmitted to cell towers every eight seconds was distinct from GPS tracking, but the process of triangulating between a cell phone and towers took more time.
“Got it,” he said, and he gave her an approximate address, give or take a hundred-yard radius. Triangulation was less precise than GPS. “That’s the best we can do.”
“That’s on the river.”
“North of the Brickell Avenue Bridge,” he said. “I’m sending you the coordinates now.”
“Send them team-wide,” said Andie. “And thanks.”
