Evan glanced at her. “This location makes no sense.”
Her heart pounded against her chest, her mind racing to come up with a plausible explanation as Ibrahim slipped out of his car. He grabbed his bag and strode toward a large boat being off-loaded from a trailer attached to a gray pickup truck. He climbed into the boat, slowly turned, and lifted his hand in a salute.
Kiley couldn’t see the guy’s face, but could imagine it held a cocky or malicious smile.
“Clearly he knows we’re tailing him.” Evan shoved the car into park. “Since we’re blown, I’m going to take some pictures of his friends.”
Before she could warn him to be careful, he jumped out and jogged toward the lake. Her heartbeat ratcheted up, and she bolted out of the car after him, taking a stance by a tree for cover and drawing her weapon.
She aimed at the man nearest to Evan as he pointed his phone at Ibrahim and his pilot. The man glared at Evan but remained by the truck. Evan swiveled to face the guy, and he issued a guttural warning that Kiley couldn’t make out.
He started for Evan, and she lowered her finger to the trigger, her eyes pinned on the pair.
Evan held up his hands and backed off toward the car. She stepped out, easing closer to him.
“That was a risky move,” she snapped, her fear for his life lingering in her tone. “Five against one are not good odds.”
“No biggie. I didn’t even need to draw my sidearm.” He cast her a look she couldn’t read and got behind the wheel.
She waited for him to close the door, then slipped inside and holstered her gun.
He met her gaze. “Thanks for having my back, but I think you might’ve taken a play out of my book and overreacted.”
He was probably right, but she wouldn’t spend valuable time discussing it now. “Recognize any of the men?”
He shook his head. “And I was disappointed that Bilal wasn’t in the group.”
“Obviously there’s no way we can follow Ibrahim.” Kiley watched the boat pull away from the shore, then looked at her iPad, her heart rate starting to slow now. “Nearest boat rental is thirty minutes away. By the time we get a boat and go after him, he’ll be long gone, and this lake is far too big to track him.”
Evan’s eyes remained on the shoreline. “We need a drone. You don’t happen to have one of those in your trusty bins, do you?”
“Actually we do, but it’s in Sean’s car. Doesn’t matter anyway. This lake is much larger than the drone’s max range.” She clicked on her mic and gave Mack an update. “What’s happening with Goldilocks?”
“We’re turning off on Highway 162,” he said. “Don’t know where Goldilocks is going, but he’s bypassing the dam.”
She looked at her map again. “You have Lake Oroville coming up soon. He might be up to the same thing with you. Maybe they plan to use another ramp to leave the lake and lose any tails.”
“If so, it’s clever, I’ll give them that,” Mack said.
“I’ll call Eisenhower to see if we can get a chopper out here to monitor Brother Bear. Let me know where Goldilocks settles.”
“Will do.”
Kiley selected Eisenhower’s name on the dash screen. After she explained their predicament, he agreed to call in air support if he could arrange it in a timely manner.
Evan continued to look in the boat’s direction while holding on to his phone. “I can text the pictures I just took to Cam for a facial recognition search, but then what do you want to do?”
Yeah, what should she do, other than lose her cool as she was fast doing? She wiped sweaty palms over her shorts, took a breath to calm her nerves, and traced the map on her iPad. “Let’s plan on Eisenhower coming through with the helicopter and take a strategic position so we’re ready to go after Ibrahim if he makes a break for the dam. Take Route 167 and head south.”
“Roger that.” Evan sent his text and got them going, circling past the pickup truck where the men stood facing them.
They glared at her, and the evil vibe emanating from the men sent her heart racing again. She forced up her chin and stared them down. Easy to do when behind locked doors, butfacing them earlier gave her a preview of how vicious the final showdown with Nabi and Shah would likely be.
“With those looks, it’s not hard to imagine the terrible things they’ve done,” Evan said, a tremor of unease in his voice.
She glanced over her shoulder. “Let’s keep watch to be sure they don’t tail us.”
They both continued to check the mirrors for the next few miles.
