“Hardworking people like that?” Brian asked his brother. “Surveillance, I mean.”
“Never tried it myself, but from what I’ve heard, it takes a lot of manpower, like fifteen or twenty, to work one subject, plus cars, plus aircraft—and a really good bad guy can outfox us even then. The Russians especially. Those bastards are trained pretty well.”
“So, what the hell are we supposed to do?” Captain Caruso asked.
“Just learn the basics,” Alexander told them. “See the woman over there with the red sweater?”
“Long dark hair?” Brian asked.
“That’s the one,” Pete confirmed. “Determine what she buys, what sort of car she drives, and where she lives.”
“Just the two of us?” Dominic demanded. “You’re not asking much, are you?”
“Did I tell you this was easy work?” Alexander asked innocently. He handed over two radios. “The earpieces go in your ears, and the microphones clip to your collars. Range is about three kilometers. You both have your car keys.” And with that he walked away, toward an Eddie Bauer store to buy himself a pair of shorts.
“Welcome to the shit, Enzo,” Brian said.
“At least he gave us a mission brief.”
“It was brief, all right.”
Their subject had walked into an Ann Taylor store. They both headed down that way, each getting a large cup of coffee at the Starbucks as a jackleg disguise.
“Don’t throw the cup away,” Dominic told his brother.
“Why?” Brian asked.
“In case you gotta take a piss. The perversity of the world has away of impinging on your carefully made plans in situations like this. That’s a practical lesson from a class at the Academy.”
Brian didn’t comment, but it seemed sensible enough. One at a time they donned their radios and made sure they worked properly.
“Aldo to Enzo, over,” Brian called on Channel 6.
“Enzo copies, bro. Let’s switch off on visual surveillance, but we’ll stay within sight of each other, okay?”
“Makes sense. Okay, I’ll head toward the store.”
“Ten-four. That’s roger to you, bro.” Dominic turned to see his brother draw off. Then he settled down to sipping his coffee and looking off the subject—never directly at her, but about 20 degrees to the side.
“What’s she up to?” Aldo asked.
“Picking a blouse, looks like.” The subject was thirty or so, with shoulder-length brown hair, fairly attractive, wearing a wedding band but no diamond, and a cheap gold-colored necklace probably purchased at Wal-Mart on the other side of the road. Peach-colored blouse/shirt. Pants rather than a skirt, black in color, black flat “sensible” shoes. Fairly large purse. Did not appear overly alert to her surroundings, which was good. She appeared to be alone. She finally settled on a blouse, white silk by the look of it, paid for it with a credit card, and walked out of Ann Taylor.
“Subject is moving, Aldo.” Seventy yards away, Brian’s head perked up and turned directly toward his brother. “Talk to me, Enzo.”
Dominic raised his coffee cup as though to take a drink. “Turning left, coming your way. You can take over in a minute or so.”
“Ten-four, Enzo.” They’d parked their cars on opposite sides of the shopping mall. That turned out to be a good thing, as their subject turned right and headed for the door out to the parking lot.
“Aldo, get close enough to make her tag,” Dominic ordered.
“What?”
“Read her tag number to me, and describe the car. I’m heading for my car.”
“Okay, roger that, bro.”
Dominic didn’t run to his car, but he walked as fast as circumstances allowed. He got in, started the engine, and lowered all his windows.
“Enzo to Aldo, over.”
“Okay, she’s driving a dark green Volvo station wagon, Virginia tag Whiskey Kilo Romeo Six One Niner. Alone in the car, starting up, turning north. I’m on the way to my wheels.”
“Roger that. Enzo is in pursuit.” He got around the Sears department store that anchored the east end of the mall as quickly as traffic allowed, and reached in his coat pocket for his cell phone. And called information to get the number of the Charlottesville FBI office, which the phone company dialed for him for an additional charge of fifty cents. “Heads up, this is Special Agent Dominic Caruso. My creed-o number is one six five eight two one. I need a tag number run, right now, Whiskey Kilo Romeo Six One Niner.”
Whoever was on the other end of the phone typed his credentials number into a computer and verified Dominic’s identity.
“What are you doing this far from Birmingham, Mr. Caruso?”
“No time for that. Please run the tag.”
“Roger, okay, it’s a Volvo, green in color, a year old, registered to Edward and Michelle Peters, at Six Riding Hood Court, Charlottesville. That’s just inside the city line on the west side of town. Anything else? Do you need backup?”
“Negative. Thank you, I can handle it from here. Caruso out.” He killed his cell phone and relayed the address to his brother over the radio. Both then did the same thing, and entered the address into their navigation computers.
“This is cheating,” Brian observed, smiling as he did so.
“Good guys don’t cheat, Aldo. They just get the job done. Okay, I have eyeballs on the subject. She’s heading west on Shady Branch Road. Where are you?”
“About five hundred yards back of you—shit! I have a red light.”
“Okay, sit it out. Looks like she’s heading home, and we know where that is.” Dominic closed his target to within a hundred yards, keeping a pickup truck between himself and the subject car. He’d rarely done this sort of thing before, and he was surprised at how tense it was.
“PREPARE TO TURN RIGHT IN FIVE HUNDRED FEET,” the computer told him.
“Thanks, honey,” Dominic grumbled.
But then the Volvo turned at the corner suggested by the computer. So, it wasn’t so bad after all, was it? Dominic took a breath and settled down some.
“Okay, Brian, looks like she’s going right home. Just follow me in,” he said over the radio.
“Roger, following you in. Any idea who this broad is?”
“Michelle Peters, so says the DMV.” The Volvo turned left, then right, into a cul-de-sac, where it pulled into a driveway that ended at a two-car garage attached to a medium-sized house of two stories and white aluminum siding. He parked his car a hundred yards up the street and took a sip of his coffee. Brian showed up thirty seconds later, doing the same half a block up.
“See the car?” Dominic called.
“That’s affirmative, Enzo.” The Marine paused. “Now what do we do?”
“You come on down for a cup of my coffee,” a female voice suggested. “I’m the broad in the Volvo,” the voice clarified.
“Oh, shit,” Dominic whispered away from the microphone. He got out of his Mercedes and waved to his brother to do the same.
Upon joining up, the Caruso brothers walked to 6 Riding Hood Court. The door opened as they came up the driveway.
“Set up all the way,” Dominic said quietly. “Should have figured that one out from the beginning.”
“Yep. Color us dumb,” Brian thought.
“Not really,” Mrs. Peters said from the door. “But getting my address from the DMV really was cheating, you know.”
“Nobody told us anything about rules, ma’am,” Dominic told her. “There aren’t any—not very often, anyway, not in this business.”
“So, you listened in on the radio circuit the whole time?” Brian asked. She nodded as she led them to the kitchen. “That’s right. The radios are encrypted. Nobody else knew what you were talking about. How do you boys like your coffee?”
“So, you spotted us all the way?” This was Dominic.
“Actually, no. I didn’t use the radios to cheat—well, not all that much.” She had an engaging smile, which helped to soften the blows to her visitors’ egos. “You’re Enzo, right?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“You were a little close, but only a really sharp-eyed target would have noticed, given the limited time frame. The make of the car helped. A lot of those little Benzes in this area. But the best choice of car would be a pickup—a dirty one. A lot of the yokels never wash them, and some of the academics at the school have adopted the same sort of behavior to fit in, like. Out on Interstate 64, well, you’d better have an aircraft, of course, and a Porta-Potti. Discreet surveillance can be the toughest job in the business. But now you boys know that.”
Then the door opened and Pete Alexander came in. “How’d they do?” he asked Michelle.
“I’ll give them a B.”
And suddenly Dominic thought that was generous.
“And forget what I said before—calling the FBI to get a DMV on me was pretty smart.”
“Not cheating?” Brian asked.
Alexander took that one. “The only rule is to accomplish the mission without being compromised. We don’t tally up style points at The Campus.”