given him precise knowledge of the outside of the building and the surrounding area and a damn good idea of the layout of the inside of the building—very few windows, the freight elevators, and the cars coming and going meant work areas and warehousing on the lower floors; big windows and lots of lights on the upper floors after dark suggested living areas. He could find his way around without too many problems. As a matter of fact, he could find his way around with damn few problems.
Continuing his observation from close to the wall, he looked across the garage full of cars again. His senses were extremely acute, but he wasn’t prescient, or omniscient, or any such thing, and yet … and yet he knew where the door under the staircase went—to a couple of storerooms and an out-of-the-way corner room with a table, a few chairs, and a refrigerator full of beer.
Looking the door over from top to bottom, he tried to place the sense of knowing, then decided it was only logical, he supposed, to have a fridge full of beer somewhere close to a garage, where guys might be working all day, someplace to go and sort through business and any personal junk that was getting in the way, a place where the gloves came off, a place to tell the truth, to put your guts on the line, to tell the guys what you really thought about the shit hitting the fan on your last mission.
Mission.
Yeah, these guys had missions, not car sales, and they had a bullpen behind the door under the staircase. It only made sense; that was all.
Holding steady up against the wall, he let his gaze track more slowly across the garage, going from Camaro to Camaro, to a badass 1970 Chevelle SS 454, cherry red with double black stripes. Another funny feeling went up his spine. He knew that car. He knew it had a 780-cfm Holley four-barrel carburetor under the hood, and he didn’t care how much sense a Holley four-barrel made on a 454, he shouldn’t know that. No way in hell.
He shifted his attention to the next car, and the funny feeling going up his spine got sharper, even more intense. Sleek, deep blue, so blue it was almost black, a 1967 Pontiac GTO glimmered in the low light, beckoning.
Corinna, Corinna … the words of a golden oldies song drifted across his mind. Corinna, Corinna …
Sweat beaded on his upper lip, and he wiped the back of his hand across his mouth.
Corinna—it was the car’s name. He knew it deep down where it counted, and it unnerved the hell out of him. Who named their cars, he wondered, then instantly knew the answer.
These guys named their cars. He looked back to the Challenger, Roxanne, then returned his gaze to the Chevelle—Angelina. Next to Angelina was Charlotte the Harlot, a 1968 Shelby Mustang Cobra. He knew them all, but how?
When in the hell had he been here before?
And if he knew all these damn cars, why didn’t he know the answer to that question?
He wiped the back of his hand across his mouth again, felt his pulse racing, and moved forward, out from the wall and toward the GTO. She was a beast, tough, and she gleamed with dual exhaust and red-line tires. Her windows were rolled down, and coming up on the driver’s side, he leaned on the doorframe and looked around the interior of the car.
“I’ve got movement coming up on Corinna,” Skeeter said at the same time as Dylan heard Creed in his earpiece.
“I have a shot.”
“Can you positively identify the target?” he asked, speaking into his mike while walking over to his computer.
“John Thomas,” Skeeter said.
“J.T.,” Creed confirmed.
“Copy. Stand by.”
There was a slight pause.
“Boss? I repeat. I have a shot.”
Dylan heard the hesitation in Creed’s voice, the hint of confusion, but he gave the same order.
“Stand by. Hold red.” There were risks. The team had debated, considered, and calculated them, but the choice came down to Dylan. This early in the game, he hoped there might be another way, what Dr. Brandt at Walter Reed Medical Center had called the possibility of “memory cognition.” If being in a home environment triggered any kind of memory response in J.T., and if Dylan could talk to him, explain to him that he wasn’t in danger, they might be able to avoid a confrontation.
That would sure beat the hell out of the Halox. The tests Dr. Brandt