She raised an eyebrow, but said nothing more. I could tell she was still a little miffed that I’d used Amena to track the laptop, but honestly, I think it was more because she’d missed the action than it was me leveraging our daughter. Playing a terrorist mistress was the best game in town until she found out she’d missed tracking a thief for real.
She said, “You sure you’ve thought through all of the pros and cons on this?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, maybe we should call the cops and direct them to the bed-down instead of hitting it ourselves.”
Knuckles and Veep had followed the two thieves down King Street, watching them eyeball the tourists like a couple of wolves ogling herds of deer. They’d had one fleeting chance to get the laptop back when the thieves slipped down an alley connecting King with Meeting Street. Before my team could execute, the crooks had gone through an arch and into a parking lot fronting Meeting Street, back in view of the public.
Turns out, the parking lot was for a defunct Best Western motel waitingon a remodel in the constant shifting of commercial property on the Charleston peninsula. A typical U shape with two floors facing the parking lot, the thieves went up to the second floor and entered a room. They hadn’t left since.
That had been hours ago—enough time for Jennifer to start having second thoughts about using the police instead of us. And she had a point, honestly.
She repeated, “Pike, I’m all about getting our laptop back, but since we know where it is, maybe we should back off.”
I pulled a backpack out of the Jeep and shouldered it, the weight alone reminding me of the risks she was talking about, since it was stuffed with various things I thought we’d need on the assault.
We started walking back towards the center of town and I said, “These guys aren’t suicide bombers. They won’t be that big of a threat and we can call the cops anonymously, after we’re done.”
She smiled and said, “What, like Batman?”
“Well, yeah, sort of. I guarantee that room is going to be stuffed with stolen items, probably from every hotel in the city.”
We reached the entrance to a place called Bar167 and she stopped, saying, “Hey, I’m all about thumping some bad guys, but only if it’s necessary thatwedo it. There’s a lot of risk involved, that’s all.”
I opened the door and walked to the hostess stand, saying, “Sounds to me like you’re just scared.”
We told the hostess we were meeting someone and went up an outdoor stairwell to the upstairs bar, finding it jammed with people of all stripes. I looked around and saw Knuckles in the corner, the rest of the team seated around two small cocktail tables.
I took a seat and said, “Before we get to the real fun, what’s up with the candidates?”
While we were out conducting our little surveillance operation, Brett had been servicing dead drops and safe houses, acting as a node of a mysterious support network in the city.
He said, “All tucked in for the night doing pre-mission planning. Theyhave their instructions for tomorrow, all dead drops serviced, so we should be good to go for whatever you have planned. I’ve heard its high adventure.”
I couldn’t tell if he thought that was good or bad. I said, “Well, that depends on what the surveillance came up with. Could just be a B&E into an abandoned hotel room to get our computer back. Knuckles?”
He said, “One guy left, one still in there. Computer didn’t leave with the first guy, and nobody else has come in. No indication that there is anyone else in there. No power and no water, so they’re probably just using it as a stash house. If it’s found, it’s not tied to them.”
Brett said, “So we’re going to really hit that place tonight? Here in your hometown? You think that’s smart?”
“We can’t have that computer running loose. If they search it forensically to identify an owner, it’s going to cause a world of shit. It can be tied to Grolier Recovery Services, and then I’m going to have to explain why I was renting a hotel room in my hometown and why my computer has a ton of strange shit on it. We need to get it back.”
Knuckles said, “So call the cops. Have them search that place, when they find the computer, jump up and say, ‘That’s mine!’ Seems like that would be a better choice here.”
I looked at Jennifer and she held up her hands, saying, “I didn’t say anything to them.”
I went back to Knuckles, saying, “You were talking about an in extremis hit a few hours ago. Now a planned assault is too much?”
“If we had the perfect conditions, yes. We didn’t get it. Now I’m thinking we back off and let the cops handle it.”
I exhaled and said, “Okay, okay. You guys win. We’ll just call the cops, but that’s going to mean telling Wolffe that we had a computer stolen.”
Knuckles laughed and said, “I knew it wasn’t the high adventure. You just don’t want to let the Taskforce know you had a couple of thieves steal Taskforce kit.”
Indignant, I started to reply when he pulled his phone out of his pocket. He said, “It’s Veep,” then put it to his ear. He listened for a minute, then said, “Yeah, I got it. Stand by, I’ll see how Pike wants to handle it.”
I said, “What’s up?”
