Blindside - By Gj Moffat Page 0,93

a quiet commotion behind him as he came around the dividing wall. The double doors at the back opened and another woman agent looked out at them. Cahill nodded at her and went to a table two up from Hunter against the same wall. He nodded at Hunter as he passed by. Hunter returned the nod and went back to reading, or pretending to read, the newspaper in front of him.

Horn watched them, expressionless.

Collins shook his head and sipped from a cup of black coffee.

Cahill sat in the chair nearest the front, turned the chair sideways so that he could see the entrance. Logan sat with his back to the rear wall.

The male agent at the cash register walked to the gap in the dividing wall and stared at Cahill.

‘Can we get some coffee?’ Cahill asked loudly.

‘What the hell are they doing here?’ Grange shouted after watching them on the monitor. ‘I told you he was trouble.’

He turned to face Webb, his lip curling up into what was almost a snarl. Webb thought that it was the most angry he had ever seen Grange.

‘He timed it well,’ Webb said impassively.

‘What?’

‘There’s nothing we can do. It’s too late.’

Grange looked like he was ready to explode. Webb held up his hands. ‘Tell them over there,’ Webb said, pointing at the diner on the screen. ‘To be cool.’

Grange boiled. Then he got on the radio and told them to be cool.

Logan saw the agents at the front move back to the cash register. Heard them talking quietly and then the woman in the kitchen came out with coffee and filled their cups. She even smiled.

Logan noticed for the first time how rigid Horn’s body language was. Everyone else was doing a passable job at looking relaxed.

Outside on Seventeenth Street Agent Ruiz watched from the driver’s seat of his car as a pick-up truck pulled up and stopped on the block north of the intersection with Market. He and Martinez were on the block of Seventeenth Street immediately to the south of the intersection. The pick-up was no more than fifty yards from them.

Ruiz nudged Martinez who was dozing beside him. He jutted his chin to point at the pick-up. They could make out four people in the cab, but not much else. No one made a move to get out of the truck.

‘What do you think?’ Martinez said.

‘Get on the radio.’

Ruiz reached inside his jacket and unsnapped the catch on his shoulder holster.

‘We got a vehicle on Seventeenth,’ Martinez said into his radio. ‘Pick-up truck. Four occupants. Copy?’

Hiss

‘Copy that,’ Webb’s voice sounded. ‘What are they doing?’

Martinez paused. Still no movement in the truck. ‘Nothing, sir.’

‘Keep watching. Let me know the second anything changes.’

‘Copy that, sir.’

Martinez followed the lead of his partner and unsnapped the catch of his holster. They exchanged a glance. Neither of them had ever discharged their weapon on active duty.

A sedan passed by their car heading north with two occupants. It slowed as it passed the truck, then sped up and turned left on to Blake.

Martinez spoke into the radio again.

‘Got another one. A sedan. Passed us and turned on to Blake behind you. Copy?’

Hiss

‘Follow the sedan.’

Ruiz started the car, checked for traffic and pulled out. Martinez looked into the interior of the truck as they passed by.

‘Four men,’ he told Ruiz as they turned on to Blake. ‘Didn’t look at us.’

Ruiz nodded, his jaw clenched tight shut. He knew it wasn’t good when four men in this situation didn’t look at a car passing by. It would have been natural for at least one of them to glance their way.

The sedan was at the far end of Blake Street, at the intersection with Sixteenth Street. Its brake lights burned red. It turned left going south on to Sixteenth, towards the intersection at Market.

Doubling back.

Ruiz followed the car and stopped at the intersection where the sedan had been. He and Martinez looked left, saw the sedan stop short of the next intersection. The one at Market Street.

They had now covered both ends of the block where the diner was: the truck at the far end and the sedan at this end.

Not good.

Martinez looked anxiously at Ruiz.

‘Tell them,’ Ruiz said urgently.

21

‘They have the street flanked.’ Ruiz’s voice sounded in the room.

Webb looked at the monitor with the diner displayed on the screen. There was no movement there. He didn’t notice, on one of the other monitors, the homeless man roll over, stand up and walk down the short flight of stairs