Page 85 of Final Exit

“I’m sure he was captured, but I’ll double-check,” Devlin said. A couple of minutes later, he passed his phone back to Kade. “Austin sent an email. He took all of the prisoners’ pictures as they were loaded into the truck. He plans on running the pictures through facial recognition software to search for outstanding warrants. The program will take a while to run. In the meantime, do you see Faegan?”

Kade was already flipping through the photos and finished just as Devlin finished his explanation. “He’s not here. He must have left the cave before we got there.”

Devlin swore. “We need some pictures of Faegan. Finding him is imperative to make sure this thing is really over.”

“I’m sure I can locate some.” Kade reached for his phone, then stopped. “All I have is the burner phone I got this afternoon. Faegan took my FBI-issued phone when he picked me up at the computer lab. He switched it with the GPS tracked one that Dominic took back from me at the warehouse. I don’t have any of my photos.”

“What about the cloud?” Bailey asked. “Do you upload your pictures to a backup server?”

He nodded. “I do.”

She handed him her phone.

He tapped through the menus and logged onto his cloud server, finding several pictures of Faegan from company functions, pictures taken long before he’d turned against the honor for which the FBI stood. He handed the phone back to Bailey.

She looked at the screen. “I’m going to need everyone’s email addresses so I can send these pictures to you.”

Soon they were all studying the pictures on their phones.

“Did you send one to the email address I gave you for Austin?” Devlin asked from the front seat.

“Yeah. He should have it by now.”

Devlin punched some numbers on his phone. “Austin, yeah. Bailey just sent you some pictures of Faegan. We realized he wasn’t at the cave. If he saw us coming, he may have tucked tail and ran, didn’t even bother to warn his people. Can you... oh, you’re already doing it? Great. Thanks. Call me with any updates.”

He ended the call. “As soon as his phone buzzed with your email, he pulled over and went to work on the pictures you sent. He tapped into the facial recognition programs at Homeland Security.” He shot a look at Kade. “You never heard that.”

“Don’t have a clue what you’re talking about,” Kade said drolly.

Devlin smiled. “Anyway, if Faegan is on the run and tries to hop a bus, a train, or a plane anywhere, we’ll be notified.”

The Humvee fell silent, and soon everyone was glancing around at each other.

Kade was the one who broke the silence. “That was too easy, wasn’t it? At the cave?”

“That’s what I was thinking,” Bailey said.

“Me, too,” Jace added, glancing at them in the rearview mirror. “If they were taking in dozens of Enforcers to interrogate, the place should have looked like a maximum-security prison where we found that handful of Enforcers. But there were only two cells for holding prisoners. Kade, do you have a list of all of the Enforcers from when you began your mission, and who’s left to capture?”

Kade cleared his throat, fighting down bile as he thought about the numbers. “A lot of Enforcers went off-grid after Cyprian Cardenas was killed. Since they haven’t been seen or heard from again, Faegan agreed that searching their properties to destroy any leftover EXIT documentation was sufficient for that group. What remained was a list of... sixty-two names.”

Devlin cursed.

Bailey sadly shook her head, probably thinking about Hawke and her other friends in addition to the overwhelming number.

Kade swallowed hard and continued. “We freed six here today. There are two confirmed dead—Hawke and Sanchez. Subtracting the ones my team hasn’t captured yet, that leaves twenty-seven that Faegan needs to account for when we find him.”

Devlin nodded. “Okay, best case, all twenty-seven are being held in another location. Faegan can’t simply kill them outright without knowing whether they have safety-deposit boxes or other kinds of safeguards out there that could bite the government. Enforcers are trained to withstand torture. So even if Faegan is brutal with them, it will still take time to break them down. We’ve still got a chance to save some lives, if we move quickly. But to do that, we have to figure out where he’s holding them.”

Kade nodded his agreement. “The security at the cave wasn’t anywhere near what I’d expected. The security where he’s got them would have to be much better. With electronic systems in addition to armed guards.”

“It would have to have cells, too,” Bailey said. “To house the Enforcers. Say, four or five prisoners per cell, he needs at least six cells, five in a pinch.”

“A cafeteria to feed them,” Kade added. “Guards to watch over them. Not to mention offices, computers, phones, whatever Faegan needs to run his operation. Obviously this place here was more for supplies, and a decoy if he needed one. Like he did today. The real headquarters for his operation needs to be out of the way, so all the vehicles coming and going won’t be noticed. And it needs to be far enough away from a city or any other facilities so that no one will hear any gunshots and call the police. It’s probably secluded, with woods all around it. And yet, it will be close enough to major highways to allow easy access.” He looked at all of them. “I’d think the EXIT building would be perfect, except that I’ve been through every inch of the place. It’s basically been gutted.”

Devlin stiffened. “I think you’re onto something. EXIT headquarters would be perfect for Faegan’s needs. But not the facility in Boulder. He must have his operation running out of the other building, and he’s been using these caves when he needed to be here in Boulder.”

Kade frowned. “Other one? Are you talking about the EXIT building in Asheville, North Carolina?”

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