Page 90 of No Safe Place

Smooth this job was not.

Shaw looked at Chief Garner, who was staring at him.

“Sorry for getting overheated with you back there, Chief,” Shaw said. “You, too, Travers.”

Garner gave a sweeping gesture with his hand.

“Forgotten. We’re all stressed out. Now what?” he said.

Shaw crossed his arms and held a fist to his chin like The Thinker.

Oh, well. They had failed. It happened. He wasn’t a miracle worker. Besides, this wasn’t over. Just round one of however many rounds it took.

They would have company analysts on the cop now, evaluating any and all possibilities. They had access to all the databases.

Shaw would pay the cop a visit soon enough. Or one of his relatives. It was a matter of when not if. They’d get back the evidence whatever it was. They always did.

“We keep getting calls from Doherty’s law firm,” Garner said. “They want to know what the hell is going on.”

Suddenly, they all looked up as there was a sound. The rotor chop of a helicopter approaching became louder and louder.

“I wouldn’t worry about that,” Shaw said. “Just stonewall them. Money will change hands. It always does.”

“And the press?”

“Same deal. They can use money, too, last time I checked. There’s nothing to be nervous about. It’s all negotiable. We did our bit. Let the higher-ups do theirs.”

“What should we do with her?”

“Doherty?”

“Yes.”

“Get rid of her.”

They looked at each other. Then back at him.

“My job is getting after the cop,” Shaw said. “So, you boys are going to have to do the mop-up yourselves. We all have to pitch in on this one.”

They heard the helicopter louder now.

Travers’s and Garner’s jaws dropped as the Sikorsky Shaw had arrived in landed right in the middle of Route 4.

“That’s my ride, boys,” Shaw said, giving them a salute. “Pleasure working with you again. See you around.”

78

The helicopter had just lifted off when I rolled out from underneath the police SUV where I had been hiding.

In the SEALs, we had learned lots of dirty tricks. And one of the lesser-known ones is to wedge yourself on the underside of a vehicle to sneak into army bases and embassies and such. This is why sharp people involved with embassy and military base security usually have a mirror on a stick to search beneath any incoming vehicles.

Lucky for me, the jackasses I was up against here weren’t very sharp.

No, not in the slightest, I thought as I came around the trail side of the police vehicle and stood staring at the backs of the two men.

Five feet away stood Travers and Garner. I recognized the both of them from Jodi’s video. They were just standing there oblivious, staring up at the deafening ascending bird.

As I stared at them, a mean rhyme from my childhood popped into my head.

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