More Than a Mission - Caridad Pineiro [22]
“Where do you think you’re headed?”
“To the beach. It’s the most likely place for the tunnel to end. I should be able to see where she’s going from there.”
He’d raced off the main street and down to the shore, running along what little was left of the beach thanks to the high tide. By the time he got behind the cottage, his shoes and the bottoms of his pants were soaked all the way up to the knee.
The light in her bathroom still spilled into the night.
He pulled out Lucia’s Glock, crept up the rocky path from the beach and scoped out the dunes and gardens adjacent to the cottage. No activity besides the movement of the marsh grasses in the dunes from a slight ocean breeze. Crouching down, he kept to the edge of the garden that Elizabeth had crafted behind the restaurant.
Still no sign of anyone.
Moving to the side yard, he examined that area, and then paused, glancing down at the luminous face of his watch. Nearly fifteen minutes had passed since the Sparrow had slipped into the locker. He recollected her pace as she’d run the other day. If she had escaped into an open area and decided to run, she could be a good distance away already.
Cursing beneath his breath that he might have lost her, he pressed toward the opposite side of the yard, but could see nothing in the backyards of the neighboring shops and homes. A dog’s bark caught his attention.
He squinted through the night in the direction of the noise.
That was when he thought he saw something moving down at the water’s edge, close to the old stone building that was Leonia’s fish market. Concentrating, he focused on where he had seen the motion.
Was that something moving in the shadows behind the fish market?
“Come in, Blender Boy. The Sparrow’s in her nest,” Lucia advised over his earpiece.
He ignored Lucia and peered down to the market.
Definitely something, he thought. Maybe even two people behind the building. “Red Rover, confirm, Red Rover. I think I’ve got something here.”
“Sparrow just came out of the bathroom. What do you have?”
Aidan squinted and cursed that he had forgotten to bring his binoculars. But Lucia had a pair up in the suite. “Red Rover. Focus on the back of the fish market. At about two o’clock.”
Some noise came over the wire and in his mind, Aidan counted the seconds of delay as Lucia grabbed the binoculars, headed to the window and monitored the area he had pointed out. Moving nearer, he tried to confirm what he’d seen earlier, but the closer he got, it seemed to him that he might have imagined it. Or maybe it was two fisherman making an early delivery.
“Nothing in sight. Are you sure you saw her there?”
He wasn’t certain and he should have been. He had been one of the army’s best and here he was, being led around in circles by a slip of a woman. “Not sure, Red Rover. Returning to base,” he advised, then slipped the gun back into his pocket and walked through Elizabeth’s gardens to the road.
Once there, he raced back to the hotel and to the suite where Lucia was seated in front of the monitors. In one picture, Elizabeth slept soundly in her bed.
He walked up behind his colleague. “I don’t get it. I saw someone preparing for a job. I saw her leave the cellar.”
Lucia looked over her shoulder at him. “I’m not saying you didn’t. But if she did all that, she wasn’t gone for long. Or maybe it was someone else.”
“Maybe,” was all he could admit. Plopping down into the chair beside her, he returned her weapon and moved his feet, which squished noisily.
Lucia finally examined him and shook her head. “Maybe it’s time for you to get clean and get some rest. You need to be back on the job—”
“At ten. The restaurant opens for brunch at eleven.”
“I’ll take over your watch. Plus, I’ll fill Walker in later this morning.” She tucked her gun back into the pocket of her robe.
Right, fill in Walker, he thought. But there was one thing he needed to tell her before he went to sleep. “The weapon she had—”
“A Sigma SW9F? That’s what ballistics said