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Cassie walked out and murmured “Got it” into her lapel mic. She was to walk now to the location of the unmarked van parked on the shoulder on a residential road behind the casino, where Spere would swipe the magstripe through a data reader. At the same moment, “Pete Lupertans” was being driven into the fields. She walked past the valet’s podium and crossed the driveway that led into the first of the parking lots at the front of the Five Nations Casino. There was a woman in a uniform standing on the other side of the driveway, talking into a radio. She stepped forward and blocked Je
“Madam, my name is Commander Ilea
Thurlow drove in silence, keeping his focus on the road in front of him, as Wingate went over in his mind the features of his own plan. Willan had supplied Greene with another fifty-four hundred dollars, which Wingate had in an inside pocket of his jacket.
He didn’t care about the money. There were two i
All of their energies were now dedicated to busting the brothel in the fields. The murder that had touched off the whole case was back-burnered now, the first salvo in a crime the dimensions of which they could never have imagined until they’d seen it for themselves. He was more or less in a state of rooted terror. He could think, but he was actively in fear of his life now. It was amazing to him that this Kitty, on nothing but her will and her wits, had gotten out of here. And then done what she’d done. This was a dangerous person, a desperate person. It had not been admitted openly, but her transit from prime suspect to victim during the past week made their attitude toward her own mission sympathetic, if not exactly collegial. If Henry Wiest and Terry Bre
Thurlow arrived at the grove at 4:45, and the black Mercedes stood guard as Wingate got out the back of the cab. It was a pleasant August late afternoon.
“He’s there,” said Spere, tracking a small, hollow blue triangle on a screen in the remote van. Hazel watched the symbol move forward at walking speed now and then stop at where the metal door was with its card reader. She imagined the door in its concrete footing and saw a pale grey square with a heavy plate in it, something like the hole Alice went through to get to Wonderland. That, too, had been a tale of i
“Where are Willan’s guys?” she asked Greene. Willan had insisted on supplying Toronto SWAT-trained men for the raid. They’d arrived in Mayfair the night before.
“They’re in place.”
“I have to give them the signal,” said Spere. “I have to run the card Je
“Who’s Dortmeyer?”
“One of mine.”
“I’m going in myself if you can’t trip it from here.”
Greene put his hand on her wrist. “I have strict orders to keep you under my wing,” he said.
“Is that the word Willan used? Or did he say thumb?”
Greene smiled at her. “Just sit tight. There’s a plan.”
She checked her watch. On foot, it was supposed to take Je
The triangle was moving again. Spere said, “He’s in. He’s at a depth of five feet. Eight. Ten.” It stopped. This was the second door. A moment later, the symbol that represented him moved forward a millimetre on Spere’s screen.
“She should be here,” Hazel said, and she stepped past the two men to the front seat of the van, where a black and white screen showed four small squares of real estate on all four sides of the van. She looked at the upper right-hand corner, which showed the view to the rear, where Cassie Je
“Take it easy,” said Greene. “James is moving around freely inside the casino now. Give her another couple of minutes.”
Hazel kept her eyes trained on the view out of the back. They were parked down Church Bay Road behind the casino, pulled off to the side. The outside of the van had been painted with the name Wilson and Son Surveying. There were even two men standing in the woods beyond with a compass and theodolite. They’d been Willan’s idea.
Wingate was now moving in a straight line again. Howard Spere was working on the screen in front of him, clicking squares on a grid that overlaid the satellite image of the fields between the Ninth and Tenth Lines. It looked like a rudimentary computer game now, with glowing red squares marking where the triangle had been. According to the grid, Wingate had travelled now to a depth of five metres, and he was about a hundred metres southeast of the entrance in the grove. Now the pathway curved and he descended another eight feet. The signal was still strong.
It was 4:50. Je
“Who is this?” it said.
“Who is this? Where’s Cassandra Je
“Who’s Cassandra Je
Hazel tried to hide the alarm in her voice. Greene and Spere were staring at her. “I must have the wrong number.” She hung up. “Fuck.”
“What is it?”
“She’s compromised,” Hazel said. “We have to get Wingate out of there.”
Before they could stop her, she’d thrown the road-side door of the van open.