Page 193 of Operation: Defiance

I’ve almost convinced myself I’m being paranoid, until a reddish glow catches my eye. A brand new security camera is mounted in the far corner.

One of my local contacts recommended this particular garage because its cameras have been broken for the past year.

They tracked Mason to the rental car drop-off. They won’t have the safe house. I’ve been careful. But they’re closing in.

The guy I paid to leave me this car answers on the second ring. “Is tonight’s game at home or away?” I ask.

“You want tickets? I can get ‘em for you.” He’s calm. No edge to his voice. If he’d been compromised, he’d have told me everything was sold out.

“Any idea why there are fresh eyes in the garage you swore would never get them?”

His pause is an answer of its own.

“I was there yesterday,” he says. “Nothing had changed.”

“Well, it has now. This location’s blown. I need to know why. Answer’s worth five grand. Seven if you get it for me in under an hour.”

“I’ll be in touch.”

The call drops, and I start the engine, pull out of the space, and head to the parking lot with the blue Chevy I haven’t so much as looked at since I got to town. The camera in the corner is still broken, thank fuck, so if those SUVs and the new eyes in the parking garage are GSD’s doing, they haven’t gotten close enough for me to panic. Yet.

But they will.

I transfer the cooler full of groceries to the trunk of the Chevy, then slide back behind the wheel of the gray sedan.

The safe house is only two blocks away, but I turn it into a ten-minute fishing expedition looking for anything out of place.

By the time I pull into the garage, I’m convinced of three things.

GSD doesn’t know we’re here.

They know Mason Locke was only half a mile away.

It’s time to move. Tonight.