Granger asked, “Rick, how solid are we on this guy?”
“Seventy-thirty. He’s on a known URC distribution list, does a lot of shuttling: here, Europe, South America. Best guess: He’s either a full-fledged courier or a stringer doing logistics for them. Either way, I think he’s worth the effort. We’ve got him on a plane, with a known destination and time. Doesn’t get much better than that.”
Granger was silent for a few moments, then: “Okay, get Kingfisher in the conference room. I’m coming down.”
So what’s happening?” asked Dominic Caruso, walking into the conference room. Save Clark and Chavez, the others were already assembled: Brian, Rick Bell, Jerry Rounds.
Jack explained briefly.
“Holy shit.”
“My words exactly.”
“When’s the plane get in?”
“Three-twenty, the schedule says,” Jack replied.
Sam Granger walked in and took his seat at the head of the conference table. “Okay, it’s eight-forty here, figure seventy, seventy-five minutes to Toronto. We don’t have much time to do anything. Not without official support anyway. When are Clark and Chavez due in?”
Rick Bell checked his watch. “’Bout forty minutes.”
“Let’s see if we can get them in on this. Jack, you got Hadi’s pedigree?”
“Yeah.”
He handed out the documents, and there was sixty seconds of silence as everyone flipped through the pages. Brian asked, “Do we have a photo of this guy?”
“Nope,” Jack answered. “No description at all.”
“Rome to Toronto—on from there to Chicago and then . . . No information, right?”
“Correct,” Jack confirmed with a nod.
“If this was a Bureau op,” Dominic said, “we’d contact the RCMP and flood plainclothes guys into the airport and try to ID the guy, then follow him to wherever he’s going. But we can’t do that, can we?”
“Fly to Toronto,” Jack said. “Use the Mark-1 eyeball and pray for luck. Let’s assume we can ID the bird. Then what can we do?”
“Covert surveillance,” Dominic said. “Try to follow him to wherever the hell he’s going. Ain’t gonna be easy. Even if we succeed, we can’t arrest him, can’t interview him, can’t do much of anything, unless somebody wants to green-light a takedown.”
“No chance,” Granger said. “He’s the only shot at a bird dog we’ve ever had with the URC. We either tail him, tag him, or snag him—in that order.”
“We gather information,” Bell told them. “Whatever we get, it’s more than we have now. Small steps, guys.”
“Let’s go see the boss,” Granger said.
We have a bird in the air,” Jack told Hendley a few minutes later. “Subject name is Hadi, on his way to Toronto. His plane arrives after three Eastern Time.”
“Want to try to eyeball the guy?” Hendley asked.
“It’s a potential curveball hanging over the plate,” Rounds said. “But our subject information is a little thin,” he had to admit.
“What, exactly, do we have?” Hendley asked. Jack handed over the printout, and Hendley set it on his desktop to read. “Good catch,” he said, looking up briefly. “Okay. Let’s send everybody—”
“Clark and Chavez are almost wheels-down. Gonna see if we can intercept them.”
“Good. Jack, Dom, Brian, draw credit cards and cell phones from the second floor.”
They all drove together to BWI Airport in Brian’s Mercedes C-Class sedan. There was a 737 scheduled to leave for Canada in seventy-five minutes, Rounds told them via phone. Tickets were waiting for all of them. Once inside the terminal, they picked up their tickets, located Clark and Chavez’s flight on the board, and headed out.
Brian asked Dominic, “How’re the Canadian cops?”
“Brit tradition, and some of their own. The RCMP—the Mounties—go way back, and they’re pretty good at investigations, but I’ve never interacted with them.”
“Bright red coats,” Brian said. “But that can make easy targets, especially on the back of a horse.”
“They’re good guys, too,” Dominic reminded his brother.
Brian chuckled. “Just a random observation.”
Clark and Chavez came off the jetway, saw Jack and the others, and walked over. “Door-to-door service?” Clark asked.
“We got something cooking. You guys up for a little tag?”
Chavez said, “As long as you find me Starbucks first.”
Jack explained the situation as they exited the security checkpoint and returned to the ticketing desk for Clark and Chavez’s passes. “So how do we do this?” Jack asked Clark, as they went back through security.
“Look for a guy who looks like he doesn’t belong. He’s sort of a trained spook. He presumably knows how to be invisible. You look for that. He won’t be looking around like most tourists do, won’t be doing anything to call attention to himself,