Rogue drove out of the rental car parking lot and headed northeast to Austin, an hour after the last recorded sighting of Onyx.
He drove up State Highway 281 as far north as he could before heading into East Austin.
Using his burner phone, Rogue contacted Swede.
The tech guy answered on the first ring. “You make it to Austin?”
“Entering now,” Rogue said. “Anymore sightings?”
“I’ve picked her up on several cameras using facial recognition. She’s staying clear of downtown, moving about lower-income areas. She’s ditched the cowboy hat and is now wearing a gray baseball cap. She’s been in a department store, a coffee shop and had just left a hardware store.” He gave Rogue the last coordinates of that sighting. “Although she’s probably moved on from there.”
“I’ll take whatever you can give me,” Rogue said. “At least I’ll be in her neighborhood.”
“From what I can tell, she’s getting around on a motorcycle.”
Which could make it hard for him to keep up. A motorcycle could get into or through places an SUV couldn’t.
For the rest of the day, Rogue and Swede played cat and mouse with Onyx, always a few steps or miles ahead. Their break came after sunset.
“I picked her up on a camera at an old motel in East Austin,” Swede said. “She registered as Linda Smith in Room 108.”
“Hopefully, that means she’s stopped for the night and isn’t just staging a stop here and moving to another site.”
“You won’t know until you check it out. Let me know. In the meantime, I’ll continue monitoring commercial surveillance cameras in case she shows up elsewhere.”
Using the address Swede gave him, Rogue drove to the motel and passed through the parking lot. A motorcycle was parked, half-hidden in a gap between the hedges surrounding the parking lot.
Rogue drove away from the motel, circled the block and found a position across the street in an alley between a pawn shop and a tattoo parlor. From there, he had a clear view of the motel. He sent a text to Swede.
Rogue: Motorcycle hidden in the bushes. In position with a view of Room 108, ground level at the far corner of the building.
Swede: Roger
Rogue brought out binoculars and looked through them at her room. As darkness descended, light shone through gaps in the blackout curtain shading the window. Every once in a while, the light dimmed on the edges as if someone walked between the source of the light and the curtain. Whoever was inside wasn’t relaxing or sitting still. She was moving about. Pacing or working. He watched for over an hour, wishing he could see into the room. Having been a sniper during his Delta Force days and for some of his SOS missions, he knew the value of patience. However, he worried about waiting too long. If he and Swede had been able to track her, others could do the same.
Setting aside his binoculars, he tucked his Glock in the holster on his belt, slipped his arms into his leather jacket, pulled a dark baseball cap over his head and slid out of the rental SUV.
He crossed the street further away from the motel and approached it by taking a back alley and slipping behind the hedges at the rear, closest to the corner room. He passed through the hedges at the gap where she’d parked the motorcycle, looking for the make and model, but not finding either. The bike had been scraped clean of any identification with a license plate that she’d probably lifted off another motorcycle. Basic. Stripped-down matte-black fuel tank. No shiny parts. Even rims and spokes had been painted matte black.
Rogue slipped across the back parking lot and up to the brick of the building, moving quietly and staying in the shadows.
He checked the back of the building and noted one window over what was probably the bathroom—a small but potential exit for someone who didn’t want to go out the front. For now, it remained closed. Back at the corner, he was about to slip up to the window when the doorknob squeaked.
Rogue darted across the back parking lot and dove into a gap in the hedges not close to the motorcycle.
A slender woman, dressed in faded jeans and a dark hoodie, eased out, cautious and aware. She pulled the door shut behind her and walked quickly to the motorcycle parked between the hedges. Instead of driving it out into the parking lot, she backed it through the hedges and pushed it several yards before mounting and starting the engine.
Rogue debated following her. She’d left the room without the duffel bag she’d carried in and out of the truck stop. He assumed she’d have taken it if she didn’t plan to return. Which meant she would be back. If he wanted to find out what she was up to, he had a few short minutes to get into the room, look around and get out before she realized she’d been made and bolted.
He watched her drive away, long enough to know she hadn’t immediately turned around. Once he was sure she wasn’t coming right back, he passed through the bushes, crossed the parking lot and approached the corner room. Fortunately, the motel was old and had an antiquated locking system that required a physical key to unlock the door. Within seconds, Rogue had picked the lock and slipped inside.
Since Onyx had turned off the lights before leaving, Rogue had to use the flashlight on his smartphone to get around the room. The bed hadn’t been touched other than to toss the duffel bag in the middle. As he turned toward the corner of the room, he saw a built-in dresser topped by a flat-screen television mounted on the wall. Beside it was a desk. Rogue blinked in surprise at the number of photos and information taped to or written across a large sheet of butcher paper hung on the wall. A makeshift command center.
Dead center of it all was a newspaper clipping of Senator Richard Morales. A report of his murder and the ongoing investigation to find the killer. Photos of other people surrounded Morales with names written beneath photos and lines drawn between some of the names.
A grainy photo of billionaire Marcus Kaufman associated with the Kaufman Syndicate.
A satellite image of a compound beneath his image. Perhaps Kaufman’s ranch?
