Page 65 of Under the Radar
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The first thing Liz did was change the color of the dots on her screen to lime green. That way, when the scrambler tossed her a revised version, she’d have a color-coded record of the first coordinates. She dispatched locations to all four groups and ran for a quick bathroom break. When she returned, the scrambler had reassigned all the dots. She wrote the time down on a pad of paper. They had at least three hours until everything shuffled again.
Liz counted as fast as she could by circling sectors and counting the dots. She took a deep breath when the count was complete. Ninety-three possibilities. Seventy-nine of those possibilities were similar to the previous scramble.
Group One called in. They were standing under a coordinate. It was a city streetlight. She issued them a new location and used an app that allowed her to white-out the dot. One down, seventy-eight to go.
Group Three made contact. Mooney was next to a water meter in Canton. She gave them fresh coordinates, etched another dot from the screen.
Group Four checked in. They were waiting on a street corner in Fells Point. The coordinates were correct, but what were they looking for?
“Describe to me what’s around you. Start with the closest object.” She closed her eyes and listened to them. “What kind of van?” Cable TV service truck. Well, sure—that van was loaded with waves and more than likely had a GPS of its own. The team checked to make sure Mo wasn’t in the van. Liz dispatched them to another place and erased the dot.
This hunt was a little like geo-caching, but the stakes were so much higher. Instead of the small reward of a dollar or a logbook, the reward would be Mo Reardon’s life.
* * *
Mac leaped over the fence a millisecond before the Doberman’s teeth snapped shut. He’d been walking around a backyard trying to clear one of the coordinates when the owner opened the back door and let the dog out to do his business. Mac stood back from the fence to get a better look, and sure enough, the animal wore an electronic collar. He phoned it in to Liz.
“I think the dog fence is the coordinate, but I’d rather have a conversation with the owner before I cross this place off the list. This section of Baltimore is known for its drugs. I’d like to get some backup from the other guys before I leave.”
“The final decision is yours, Mac, but we have thirty-one minutes before the new scramble activates and eleven more locations to investigate. How about I write down the address and you can go back once we beat the clock?”
Mac reluctantly agreed and rattled off the address to her. The place just looked wrong to him. The street parking was bumper-to-bumper all the way around the corner lot as if someone had a lot of guests in their house.
On the other hand, Mo was kidnapped around one o’clock. Moving her to a location like this was more than risky at that time of day in the summer. There were too many pedestrians, neighbors out chatting on their stoops, and a few fearless kids playing with their skateboards in spite of the threat of gang-related violence. Someone would’ve seen them move her into the house, especially if they carried her. It would’ve looked odd, and he was sure there were a few elderly on the street watching the goings-on from their front windows. Maybe it was simply a house with a lot of occupants who owned vehicles.
Mac requested the next coordinates and slid into his car. Half a mile later, he got out on Eutaw Street and looked around. There was a lot of traffic for a Sunday because the Orioles were in town. He followed the coordinates on his phone and ended up standing in the street on some light-rail tracks. He looked up. The wires for the light rail hung overhead in a straight line. Damn. The blast of the warning horn and rumble of the approaching train forced Mac to the sidewalk.
Frustration and pressure gnawed at the edge of his mind. Mo had to be frightened out of her skin at this point. If she’d tried to talk to him, he wasn’t getting the messages. Feelings of panic and inadequacy wrestled in his mind. He needed to keep them pinned to the mat long enough to hear some good news. Surely, one of the groups had found more than a dud location by now. He called Liz.
“Eutaw Street coordinates are the light rail. How many more positions, and how much time do we have?”
“Seven minutes and six locations to go, sir. Try to relax. When the screen changes, I’ve got the remaining coordinates highlighted in yellow so we’ll be able to finish.”
Mac listened to the constant tap of fingers on the keyboard. “At the risk of distracting you, Liz, do you have any possible leads from the other groups?”
“Yes, two. Situations like the address you had me write down a few minutes ago. The six remaining sets of coordinates are in the western sector. Here’s your next set.”
Mac punched the numbers into his phone. His driver made a U-turn and turned left on Lombard Street.
They were heading back to West Baltimore where it all began.
* * *
Mo startled. There was shouting in the next room. An argument between a man and a woman. She turned her head and strained to hear.
“You get the fuck in there and take care of business,” the man demanded.
“I will not participate in this wrongdoing against another soul.” A female voice.
Something shattered against a wall and a dull thud landed against the door. Mo shuddered with horror.
“You get your ass in there and handle it. The boss said I wasn’t to touch her. Anything happens to her—I can tell him you did it.”
Minutes later, the creaky door opened with the shuffle of feet and something dragging along the floor. She shivered in frozen anticipation as the door clicked shut. A gentle hand stroked her hair and touched her shoulder.
“Miss, time to wake up, now. Poor baby, let’s get you a bathroom break.”