Page 183 of Deep Cover

3

Cole

"Idon't fucking care what it takes, just get it done!"

I disconnected and shoved the phone in the pocket of my trousers, pulling it out again seconds later. Pacing over and over through Annie's room, heart pounding, forehead wet with sweat. All I could think about was what she must be going through. If that sadist let Kie touch her, I'd tear them both limb from limb.

Annie was a cop. Annie was a black belt. Annie was a badass. All that should mean that Annie was uniquely suited to take care of herself, even in the situation that had unfolded.

She wasn't. She was not. How could she be? Vincent was deranged and dangerous and his wife was a borderline personality or a sociopath or a psychopath. She wasn't normal. She was dangerous. What she'd done to Annie at the dinner party haunted me.

I pulled the phone out again, and checked another major city. Systematically going through them. London. Hong Kong. Miami. Los Angeles. New York. Dubai. Anywhere that madman might have taken her.

He could be anywhere in the world by now. I slammed a fist into the wall. She could be dead by now.

Could be. But I didn't believe it. Because her tracker was sending out information just like it was supposed to. Tracking dots bloomed across the screen with the U.S. mapped on it and then sent out ripples showing she was there.

And there. And there.

That was the problem. There were multiple signals and they all had the same signature. They were all the same tracking device I'd implanted in her.

She couldn't be in half a dozen places at once. But a cloned tracker could. When I'd put it in her, I hadn't been thinking in terms of Vincent Geddes. Mostly I'd been anticipating a time when she would run again. Or maybe she'd be taken in a kidnapping for money, ransom and extortion.

Not by the billionaire down the road.

I moved through the halls of the compound, in and out of spring sunlight. Through corridors Annie had never seen. Into a secure communications room, and through it, into a room like an emergency services 911 dispatch room.

On the far wall, maps flickered up into being and were gone again. There was a low, tense, electric current of excitement and anticipation. Everyone wanted to bring Annie home. The reward would be tremendous.

Because they all know I don't misplace my property.

In the blue-lit room were the best hackers and computer techs in the country, sitting in front of stations, collected and brought here within the last ninety minutes. Some of them owed me favors. Others hoped to collect. Still others simply wanted a flat fee. They were the best at what they did or they weren't here.

"Tokyo, Moscow, London, New York." I was already reading out names and assignments. I was already calling in favors even as these people hacked and slashed their way into systems not made for them. Looking for traces of anything strange, putting together algorithms that could pick up the smallest anomaly, the merest hint of a woman who looked like Annie.

The favors:

In New York City, an ex-Marine with one too many bar fights on his record. We'd gotten him anger management classes, made a conviction go away when he broke a guy's back. He was a tracker. Human style.

In London, a woman with high security clearance and an unfortunate fondness for all the wrong things in bed. Not things that would be tolerated in her society. She had the ability to bring in military surveillance.

In Cabo, a talented prostitute who just happened to frequently sleep with an American expat general I thought would have some interesting ideas for finding Annie.

And Annie – her tracker was pinging off satellites or whatever it is they do and there seemed to be six Annies moving around the world.

That would scare most people but the tracker was small. If Vincent had dismembered her, the tracker would almost undoubtedly have gone whole, wherever that part of Annie's body went. It wouldn't have sent out extra signals. If the tracker had been cut up, it would have stopped working.

He'd cloned it. That was all.

I told myself that over and over and despite the fact that I was right, it was cold comfort. An hour later there were no clear reports coming in. The clones were good. All the trackers were in motion. If one stopped moving, and the others kept going, that would mean the others were electronic fakes.

That didn't happen. Neither did any of the trackers stop moving. Of course. I'd been thinking he'd left hers on her. As a taunt. But he hadn't. The original was out of her, and out in the world - useless.

"Get me Beam." I forced myself to ease up the death grip I had on the phone.

"I've heard," came Beam's voice. Police detective in Manhattan. "What do you want us to do?"

"There'll be texts and emails coming to you. Proprietary signals. Track it. Find it."

---