Page 127 of Deep Tide

“Where are we—”

“Move.”

•••

Sean raced down the highway, scanning the cars around him for any sign of Gagnon or one of his vehicles.

“Are you coming?” Nicole asked over the phone. “We’re about to start.”

“I’m almost there.”

His phone beeped with an incoming call. Moore. Sean hung up on Nicole to answer it.

“What’s the word?” Sean demanded.

“I checked with the surveillance team,” Moore said. “Gagnon was at Playa del Rey playing golf all afternoon.”

“Where is he now?”

“They don’t know.”

“What? I thought we had eyes on him.”

“We did. Two separate teams, but he must have given them the slip. His car is still at the golf club, but no one’s seen him in over an hour.”

Sean gripped the wheel. “How could two teams have lost him?”

“I don’t know. Where are you?”

“On my way to the police station.” Sean sped through a yellow light, then swerved around a Jeep loaded with teenagers. “The chief called an all-hands meeting to launch a search for Leyla.”

“Leyla Breda.”

“Yes.” Hell, did Moore even know who Leyla was?

“And just to make sure I understand,” Moore said, “this woman is the caterer who was in Gagnon’s house the other night and snapped the photo of Gagnon’s desk for us?”

“Correct.”

Sean’s stomach churned at the reminder. If it weren’t for him, Leyla never would have been there in the first place. If it weren’t for him, she wouldn’t even know about the investigation of Luc Gagnon.

All of this was Sean’s fault.

“He must have found out she’s working with us,” Moore said. “Any idea how?”

Sean could think of a lot of ways. Leyla wasn’t a trained agent and didn’t know how to cover her tracks. This was exactly why Sean hadn’t wanted her over there.

“Maybe he saw her in his office,” Sean said. “Or maybe he has security cams inside his house. Anyway, how isn’t as important right now as the fact that she’s been abducted by someone who works for him, and she’s probably with him right now and—”

“You realize this means Operation Virgil is compromised,” Moore cut in. “I don’t know how, but—”

“I do. I think we have a mole,” Sean said. “Someone feeding Gagnon and Saledo information. Remember that unidentified man who was at the oil well with Gagnon and the rancher, Tillman? I got an ID on him. It’s Brian Bentworth.”

Silence.

Sean swung into the police station parking lot.

“Brian Bentworth, the DEA agent from Houston?” Moore asked.

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