Page 84 of Hunt Me
The choice that got her captured.
My screen flickers—new data stream establishing connection. I’ve got backdoor access to every traffic camera within five miles of the last beacon ping. Facial recognition software is already running.
“There.” I freeze the feed. Black SUV, government plates, tinted windows. “Second vehicle. Same convoy formation we spotted earlier.”
Dmitri leans over. “Can you track it?”
“Already am.”
The algorithm follows the SUV through traffic camera networks, piecing together its route. South through Seaport. East toward the harbor. Then?—
Signal loss.
Dead zone.
“They’re jamming.” I switch to satellite feeds, thermal imaging, anything that might penetrate the blackout. “Deliberate blind spot in the surveillance network.”
“How big?” Erik asks.
I run the calculations. “Four square blocks. Industrial sector near the old Navy Yard. Perfect for a black site—close enough to Logan for quick extraction, isolated enough that nobody asks questions.”
Nikolai straightens. “Can you confirm she’s there?”
“Give me ten minutes.”
My fingers blur across the keys. I need building schematics, utility records, and anything showing recent power usage spikes. Black sites run on generators, but they still pull municipal water. Leave heat signatures.
Leave traces.
I find her in eighteen minutes.
Not through satellite feeds or thermal imaging, but through the water bill.
One building in the dead zone quadrupled its consumption three weeks ago. Same timeline as Morrison’s payments from Sentinel Operations increased.
“Got it.” I angle the laptop toward Nikolai. “Warehouse complex on Marginal Street. Officially condemned. Unofficially pulling enough water for twenty people minimum.”
“Could be squatters,” Dmitri points out.
“With government-grade signal jammers?” I pull up the electromagnetic interference map. “This is military tech. Same signature as NSA field operations.”
Erik leans between the seats. “What’s the security profile?”
I switch to a screen showing the building layout I pulled from municipal archives. “Two entry points. Reinforced loading dock on the east side, personnel entrance on the north. Both likely monitored.”
“Guards?”
“Minimum four. Probably six.” I zoom in on the thermal overlay—faint heat signatures clustered on the second floor. “They’re keeping her upstairs. Northwest corner room based on the power draw patterns.”
Nikolai studies the data. “You’re certain?”
“Ninety-seven percent.”
His jaw tightens. “Not good enough.”
“It’s her.” My voice comes out sharper than intended. “Morrison took her three hours ago. They need time to set upinterrogation protocols, establish baseline responses before they start the real work.”
The real work.
