“How long?” Charles demands.
“Give me five minutes.” Three cameras. Seven vehicles leaving the terminal in the right timeframe. I’m running plates on all of them, cross-referencing against rental databases, stolen vehicle reports, known shell company registrations.
Two vehicles come back clean. Normal rentals, legitimate business travelers.
Five vehicles have flags.
“Got three possibles,” I say, highlighting them on the center screen. “Black Mercedes SUV, dark blue Range Rover, and a grey Suburban. All three have plates registered to shell companies with no legitimate business address.”
“Which one is Ryan?” Jace asks.
“Working on it.” I’m pulling traffic camera footage now, tracking each vehicle’s route from the airport. “Mercedes went northtoward downtown Asheville. Range Rover went east on I-40. Suburban went south into the mountains.”
I overlay the routes on my tablet, analyzing the patterns.
“South into the mountains,” Silas says, reading my screen. “That’s where I’d go. Remote, defensible, away from population centers.”
“Agreed.” I’m already focusing on the Suburban, pulling up every traffic camera along its route. “But I need to confirm before we commit.”
More footage. More tracking. The Suburban stays on main roads for fifteen minutes, then turns off onto smaller mountain roads where camera coverage is sparse.
“I’m losing them,” I admit, frustration bleeding into my voice. “Not enough cameras in the mountain areas. I’ve got their last known position twenty-three minutes ago but after that, nothing.”
“Give me coordinates,” Charles says.
I send them to everyone’s phones. “Last confirmed sighting was here. After that, they could have gone to any of a dozen different properties in the area.”
“So we narrow it down.” Jace is studying the map on his phone. “What’s out there? Who owns property in that area?”
I’m already on it. Right screen shows property records, filtering by recent purchases, cash transactions, properties registered to shell companies.
“Seventeen properties match the basic criteria,” I say, pulling up the list. “But most are legitimate vacation rentals, hunting cabins, family properties. I need to narrow it further.”
“How?” Charles asks.
“Utility usage.” I’m hacking into power company databases, water service records, internet provider logs. “Ryan needs electricity, running water, internet for communications. If he set this up ahead of time, there should be a spike in utility activation within the past few weeks.”
The search runs. Fifteen properties drop off the list immediately. No recent utility changes, no signs of preparation.
Two properties remain.
“Two locations,” I announce, pulling up details on both. “First is a hunting cabin, purchased four weeks ago through a shell company. Utilities activated three weeks ago. Isolated, three miles from the nearest neighbor.”
“Second location?”
“Rental property. Booked through Airbnb two weeks ago using a fake identity. Payment made through cryptocurrency. Utilities already active but internet usage spiked significantly starting yesterday.”
I pull up satellite imagery of both locations on my tablet, comparing terrain, access roads, defensibility.
“The rental,” Jace says, studying the images. “The hunting cabin is too exposed. Single access road, clear sight lines. If Ryan expected we might track him, he’d avoid it.”
“The rental has multiple access routes,” I agree, zooming in. “And it’s closer to town. Easier to blend in, easier to move if he needs to evacuate.”
“Best guess,” Charles says. “Which one?”
I look at the data. The patterns. The logistics.
“The rental,” I say with certainty. “Everything about the hunting cabin screams obvious. Ryan’s smarter than that. He’d choose the property that looks less suspicious, that gives him more options.”
