Page 81 of Stone
For the first time, Parks looked a little flustered. “O-okay.”
“And his accomplice is Ned—and yes, people are still named Ned these days—O’Grady. Charming guy. He has a couple of warrants out for his arrest,” Sabina chimed in, shooting Parks a look. “I’ll send you the info,” she added before the agent could ask.
“Based on the recent traffic cam data we have,” Leo continued, “we believe those two have located the clubhouse and are conducting recon activities.”
Juliana swung her gaze around, sweeping it over the three Falcons. None of them looked concerned.
“They won’t get in, not unless we invite them,” Simon said.
“I agree, they won’t,” Sabina said, pulling her attention back to the conversation at hand. “They aren’t smart enough to find a way through all the bells and whistles you have here. And before you ask, no, I don’t know what all those bells and whistles are, but I know enough to say what I said.”
Juliana sensed that the only reason Sabina didn’t know was because she’d decided she didn’t need to.
“We’ll get eyes on them,” Parks said, pulling out her phone.
Sabina nodded, her attention fixed on her computer again. “Have them liaise with HICC since our guys are on them now. They can hand the job over once your people arrive. So,” shesaid, looking up, her gaze on Juliana. “The ten-thousand-dollar question.” She paused, then frowned. “Or should that be a ten-million-dollar question? Inflation and all? Do I sound like Dr. Evil from Austin Powers? Anyway,” she said, waving off her digression again. “Where will Lowery suggest meeting?”
“If he goes for it at all,” Juliana said.
“Oh, he will,” Leo replied with a confidence Juliana didn’t share. “We’ve encountereda lotof criminals in our work. A handful are truly unique and surprising, but those tend to be sociopaths on the far end of the spectrum. Your triad isn’t there. Don’t get me wrong, they are narcissists and have sociopathic tendencies, but they are run-of-the-mill evil on our scale of evil.”
“Which means?” Viper prompted.
“Which means if you provoke them in the right way, they will react predictably,” Sabina answered.
“Okay, assuming we do that, where do you think they’ll suggest meeting?” Juliana asked.
“Can I project?” Sabina asked, her gaze bouncing between the Falcons.
Monk nodded, then leaned forward and punched a few buttons on the control panel before handing her the cord. Her screen flickered on the massive white space, then steadied.
“I agree with Stone that they are likely to pick one of the locations connected to Gregor,” she started. “These are the current projects.” As she spoke, two red dots appeared on a map of Northern California. “And these are the properties that Gregor owns that are within reasonable driving distance.” Two blue dots popped up. “He owns more property than this, but none of it is nearby.”
“The projects are in populated areas, so if we focus on the properties, there’s something in Galt and something in Auburn,” Juliana said. Galt, a historic city, wasn’t far from them. It had been one of the many small, rural, agricultural towns in the areauntil the government built Highway 99 along the edge. It still wasn’t large, but it had a lot of traffic running nearby. Auburn, on the other hand, though also small, had a larger influx of tourists and the added benefit—depending on a person’s point of view—of being between San Francisco and Tahoe.
“An old warehouse in Auburn and a defunct granary and processing plant in Galt,” Leo said.
“They’ll pick Galt,” Simon said.
Sabina flashed him a smile. “I agree. I’m 98.3 percent certain they’ll go for Galt.”
Juliana was back to blinking. That was an oddly specific probability.
“Because Auburn is too busy,” Parks said, her gaze fixed on the map, her fingers drumming on the table, and her mind clearly miles ahead of where they were.
“It is,” Sabina said. “But look at this.” She brought up two images side by side of the locations.
“The warehouse backs to a large city park,” Juliana said.
“Whereas the granary sits alone on a two-lane country road,” Simon said.
“They’d be exposed, but so will you,” Viper said.
“You won’t be able to hide your approach, that’s for sure,” Leo said. “It also means any backup will need to be positioned several minutes away.”
“I have someone looking into the security of both in order to see what we’re up against,” Sabina continued as if it were as common as picking up eggs at the grocery store.
The further into this conversation they got, the more real it all became. Juliana should have expected that—talking at a high level about putting her life on the line was one thing, but being in the weeds was another thing altogether. She wasn’t going to back out, but still, her stomach flip-flopped.
