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Christen was a surveillance and security expert who’d been recruited from the FBI right after the team’s first mission. While Da
He
Unless, of course, they caught the Wolves here.
“Hey, he’s coming at you,” said Nuri over the team radio. “You see him?”
Da
“He should be just about to you,” added Nuri.
A black Mercedes swept into view. Da
“Heading toward the city on 581,” said Da
“I’ll be behind you in a few minutes,” said Nuri.
“Flash?” said Da
“I’m down on Stefan cel Mare, the big cross street.”
“Cut over.”
“Yeah, well, you should see the damn traffic down here. Looks like every car in the country is in front of me. They got some sort of construction going on, and a cop’s directing traffic.”
“Did you see his face?” Nuri asked.
“No,” said Da
The jam-up actually helped them. The doctor got bogged down in traffic a half mile from the city limits. He took a few turns through the side streets, but they were clogged as well.
Downtown, the doctor pulled into a lot near one of the larger buildings in the business district. Da
He was short and fat, bald—he didn’t have time to see the doctor’s face.
“Car’s in the big lot you’ll see on your left,” he told Flash, who was about a block behind him. “Get the tracker on it.”
“On my way.”
Da
There were half a dozen people inside, waiting for the elevator. Da
Was it him?
He thought so, and yet he wasn’t positive. Several minutes had passed—the doctor could be upstairs already.
The doors opened. Da
The elevator stopped on the fifth floor. A man got out. The two women got out on the seventh. Da
It might be because I’m black, Da
He took out the control unit for the MY-PID, looking at it as if setting up an app. He tilted it slightly, then pressed the button to activate the video camera. Turning to his right, he held the camera up, getting a good view of the man’s profile.
Most of the occupants emptied on the twelfth floor. Only he and the fat man remained as it continued upward. Da
He reached over and hit 23. Leaning back, he smiled at the man. He didn’t smile back.
The doors opened on the twentieth floor. Da
“He got out on the twentieth floor,” he told the others, pulling the earphone back up and turning the MY-PID back onto active coms. “I have an image on the video.”
“All right. You sure that’s him?” asked Nuri.
“No.”
“No?”
“It took me too long to get into the building.”
“You want us inside?” asked Flash.
“Hang back,” said Da
There was only one door in the hall, plain and brown. There was a list of names on a sign next to it.
Da
“What’s that say?” he asked.
“Dr. Acevda, Dr. Bolinski, Dr. Kulsch, Dr. Nudstrumov, Dr. Zvederick.”
“No Ivanski?”
“Rephrase question.”
“Is there an Ivanski?”
“Negative.”
“Check to see if there is any correlation between Ivanski and any of those doctors,” Da
The computer gave him the words. He repeated it twice but couldn’t get the pronunciation right.
“Da
“It’s all right,” said Da
The door opened into a reception room. Several men and women were scattered among a dozen and a half chairs lining the walls. A television sat in the corner but it was off. The receptionist’s desk was next to a closed door that led to the interior offices.
The woman asked in Moldovan if she could help him.
Da
“I wanted to make a doctor’s appointment,” he said. “My throat.”
The woman asked him if he could speak any Moldovan. Da
The patients were middle-aged and older, most a lot older. Da
A few minutes later a nurse came through the door and walked over to him. Da
“You speak English, yes?” she said. Her accent was thick but the words understandable. She was in her early twenties, with an expression somewhere between concern and light a
“Yes, my throat hurts,” said Da
“This is a specialist clinic, for diseases of endocrines.”
“Endocrines?”
“Glands. Disorders with the metabolism,” said the nurse. “Diabetes, and things more complicated. I’m sorry, but for a sore throat we could only recommend cough drops.”
“I see.”
She put her hand to his forehead. She had to stretch to do it. Da
“No fever,” she said.
“It’s just my throat.”
She frowned. “I can send you to another clinic. These doctors. Very good.”
“OK, thank you,” he said.
She went over to the desk and asked the receptionist for a card. Da
Spycraft 101, he reminded himself. Another course he’d skipped.
He was being watched. It wasn’t necessary to plant it here—he could do it in the hall where it would be less conspicuous.
“Go to these doctors,” said the nurse, returning. “There is a nurse who speaks English.”
“Thank you very much,” he said, taking the card.