Page 53 of Bulletproof Jack: Hunting Lee Child's Jack Reacher

She didn’t wait long.

The big man and the Asian woman soon exited the suite, weapons still in hand. They’d heard the slamming door when Audrey had ducked out. Which meant they’d be looking for her.

She watched as they hurried along the hallway toward the elevator lobby, holding their weapons down at their sides. Their movements reflected Uncle Sam’s textbook training.

The two were operatives. No doubt about it.

When they turned the corner, Audrey slipped into the corridor and followed a discreet distance behind them.

She arrived just in time to see the stairwell fire door close behind the big man. Half a moment later, one of the elevator cars dinged loudly before it stopped on the twenty-second floor.

Two couples got out.

Talking among themselves, they didn’t seem to notice Audrey as they moved down the corridor in the opposite direction from Westwood’s suite.

Audrey smiled. She’d always been lucky.

She slipped into the empty elevator car and pushed the button for the garage lobby. The big man and the Asian woman were likely to try to escape from there.

Predicting behavior was a necessary skill in this job. A skill Audrey had honed to perfection through countless hours of practice.

Audrey reached the garage before the operatives did. She scanned the license plates on vehicles parked within easy exit range.

She spied an SUV with an Ohio rental plate.

Vehicles parked nearby sported mostly Canadian license plates. Here and there, a few New York plates. Only one Ohio plate embassy parked near the exit.

She took the chance and put a tracker under the wheel well. She snapped a photo of the Ohio plate and the SUV, just in case.

Then she sauntered to the hotel’s valet entrance and leaned casually against a pillar, phone held down by her side. A good photo of the two would help.

She wanted to know who they were and why they had been dogging Fox.

Because soon, they’d be dogging her.

Audrey liked to know exactly what she was dealing with.

She didn’t wait long before the Ohio SUV pulled out of the garage. The big man was driving and the Asian woman rode shotgun.

Which meant the woman was number one on the team. Proper procedure again. Number two was always the driver. Simple as that.

As the SUV approached the valet stand, Audrey mingled with a group of tourists and shot a burst of photos toward the windshield. Shots good enough to identify the driver and the passenger.

The big man turned left at the street and merged into traffic. Audrey waited until they’d turned the first corner, blocking her view and also blocking the SUV’s rear view.

She wasn’t concerned about losing the SUV. Her tracker had good range. No need to rush.

When she was certain she was well beyond the driver’s line of sight, Audrey sauntered to her rental and slipped behind the steering wheel.

She started the sedan’s engine and activated the tracking software on her phone.

The pulsing blue dot on her screen showed the Ohio SUV heading north.

Nothing much up that way except the picturesque old town of Niagara-on-the-Lake. The tracker showed the town resting on the south shore of Lake Ontario at the mouth of the Niagara River.

Audrey remembered it as a small and sleepy place. The shops and restaurants would have closed hours ago. The only businesses that could be accessed at this hour were hotels.

Maybe these two needed a nap.

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