Stone and Jack’s delay atentering the station proper had nothing to do with lines for the MetroCards, and everythingto do with allowing Watkins and the other three Strategic Services team members to go down before them.
When the two men finally reached the bottom of the escalator, they stepped out of the way of other subway users to await the next call, which came half a minute later.
“Now what?” Jack answered. He listened for a moment and glanced at Stone. “I told you he was with me…You obviously have eyes on me, so you know I have the briefcase. If you want it, he stays.” He continued listening for several more seconds before lowering the phone.
“I’m guessing he’s unhappy about my presence,” Stone said.
“Very astute. But he’s not willing to risk me walking away, so you get to stay.”
“Lucky me. What are we supposed to do now?”
“We walk toward the Seventh Avenue exit. At some point, I’ll be approached.”
“By whom?”
“That, he didn’t say.”
“Well, this should be fun.”
“He didn’t say that, either.”
Chapter 57
Stone and Jack were nearingthe stairs to the uptown trains when a mass of commuters surged into the main passageway from the steps.
Stone tried to stay close to Jack, but a group of teenagers blundered between them, forcing Stone to weave his way around.
By the time he caught sight of Jack again, Jack was standing in the middle of a crowd, looking all around.
“What’s wrong?” Stone asked.
Jack lifted his hands. Both were empty. “Someone whispered, ‘I’m here for the case,’ then grabbed it away before I could see who it was.”
“Man or woman?”
“A woman.”
As Stone spun around, searching for a woman with a briefcase, he said, “Dino, are you still there?”
“Still here,” Dino said via Stone’s ear pod.
“If you didn’t catch what Jack said, a woman took the case, but Jack didn’t see who.”
“Correct me if I’m wrong,” Dino said, “but handing the briefcase over was the plan.”
“It was. I just…”
“Want to know who took it?”
“Yes.”
“Have you forgotten about the tracker?”
“Oh, right.” Stone had. “Why didn’t you mention that sooner?”
Stone opened the tracking app and saw that the dot representing the bug was about twenty yards away in the opposite direction.
He relayed the information to Dino, who could pass the info to Watkins through Strategic Services comm gear, then signaled to Jack, “This way.”
