Nowhere to Hide (9 page)

“Yes,” Evans said. “I decided that was need-to-know too. I didn't wanted you guys stressed out more than you were. Moore and I had also decided to push as far as we could in both vehicles before dumping the rental. The farther out from Tacoma, the bigger the circle to search.”

“So when the fake bank-robbery warrant was announced,” Moore said, “I knew it was time to make my move. Anyone seeing the Charger on the interstate would think I'm arresting you. Now, with the rental car hidden, there's little chance we'll be found.”

“That's pretty much it,” Evans said.

By then, Moore had finished the awkward process of turning the vehicle around. He moved away from the rental and headed out the dirt road and back toward the interstate.

“Except for the metal detectors in the back,” Blake said. “We're headed to Jack Murphy's mobile home, right?”

“Why guess that?” Evans answered.

“Metal detectors in the back,” MJ said.

King said, “MJ, he was asking how Blake knew our destination would be the Jack Murphy location.”

“Knew it,” MJ said. “Absolutely knew it.”

Blake said to Evans, “We're headed that direction, for starts. But if it had been about just arresting Jack Murphy, you would have done that the day we found him for you. Instead, you had MJ and me put Jack Murphy on surveillance. Now I understand why. You were hoping we'd see him go out on his property for whatever you want us to detect. Which means the team that arrested him has no idea that there's something else that needs to be found.”

“You're right,” Moore said to Evans. “They are sharp. Very sharp. Good team you've put together.”

“That leaves an obvious question,” MJ said. “What are we looking for?”

“A tunnel entrance,” Evans said.

King waited for more explanation, but it didn't come. So he asked the next obvious question. “What's in the tunnel?”

Evans turned to look back at all three of them. The Escalade was almost back to the winding highway that would lead to the interstate.

“Gentlemen, you're going to have to trust me on this one,” Evans said. “We're looking for something that is crucial for national security. What's inside is on a need-to-know basis, and you three don't have the clearance for it.”

He paused as Moore swung onto the highway.

“Trust me on this too,” Evans continued. “It's in your best interests not to know.”

CHAPTER 19

Cruising down the interstate gave King a chance to mentally review what he knew about the three days when MJ and Blake had been cyber bounty hunters for Evans.

During the first few hours of the trip, between stupid knock-knock jokes from MJ, Evans and Blake and MJ had put it together in pieces for King.

Evans had first approached the parents of all three, asking permission for the three to help track down Jack Murphy, a man who had failed to make child-support payments.

Evans had used a few arguments with the parents. One, the boys would get paid, so it was summer employment. Two, they were on a summer break, so they wouldn't miss school. Three, it was routine cyber work with no danger—a chance for Blake to use his white-hat hacking skills while MJ and King learned extra computer skills. Four, Evans was short staffed because his own computer people were focused on higher-priority national security issues. Five, while Evans couldn't reveal why, there were national security reasons for needing to locate Jack Murphy, so in short, King and MJ and Blake would be serving their country.

The parents had seen no danger and no reason not to help Evans. King, fighting panic attacks, had used illness as an excuse not to leave the island.

After assaulting Mundie and fleeing the hotel with the others, he learned how easy it had been for Blake to find Jack Murphy's location.

Armed with the man's Social Security number and other information supplied by Evans, Blake had tracked down Jack Murphy within hours to a site in Washington State's Yakima River Valley between the towns of Ellensburg to the north and Yakima to the south.

Evans had put other things in motion, including the authorization for a military drone with a high-power camera to watch Murphy's mobile home. During the day, it was visual surveillance. At night, infrared.

That's when MJ had become a valuable resource. Blake and MJ spent day and night, alternating shifts, in constant real-time monitoring of the aerial view of the mobile home with instructions to call Evans the instant Jack Murphy stepped outside.

Nothing had happened until King and Mundie entered the hotel room. Then Mundie's SWAT team had appeared. Once he had King and Blake and MJ contained in one place, it was time for Jack Murphy to be apprehended too.

One phase of Mundie's plan had been successful. At least, it was assumed to be successful. The drone had been blown from the sky before it could record Jack Murphy's arrest, but Evans concluded that Murphy would not have been able to escape.

Evans also concluded that Mundie must have somehow had an inside track on what Blake and MJ were doing because he knew enough about it to find King and pretend that Evans had sent him to get King. But Evans had no idea how Mundie could have learned about the entire off-the-books operation in the first place.

That was essentially all King had known until Moore showed up in the black Escalade. Now, with the rented Dodge Charger in a place unlikely to be found for days, and in a government-sanctioned vehicle from the governor's security detail, they seemed to have gained some freedom for a while.

King was willing to accept that they didn't have the clearance to know what might be in some tunnels that might be on Murphy's property. But he did have an important question.

He waited until they'd unpacked lunches and everyone was eating as they drove. Then King spoke in a quiet voice. “Evans, Mundie obviously made up a fake report about a bank robbery just to get the police to look for us.”

“I figured there was an even-even chance he'd go that far,” Evans said. “I thought he'd probably want this to stay as off-the-books as possible. But I guess he wasn't bluffing in the hotel room.”

“Probably found out about our Dodge Charger by locating the original rental,” King said.

“Yeah,” Evans said. “I was hoping to buy a little more time by setting those panhandlers loose with it. But I'm guessing the rental-car guy didn't disable the GPS like he promised. Once Mundie tracked down the panhandlers in the first car, they would have given him the location of the second car-rental place. I wasn't too worried though because Moore and I had this backup plan in place. We were going to switch vehicles up ahead anyway.”

“So as it stands,” King said, “Blake and MJ and I have assaulted a CIA officer and have been publicly charged with participating in an armed bank robbery.”

“First chance I get,” Evans said, “I'll call your parents and tell them not to worry. Moore's going to break out our new cell phones right away.”

“Our parents are going to ask you the same question I have,” King said.

“Fire away,” Evans said.

“How do we resolve this? We
did
assault a CIA officer.”

“It gets resolved,” he answered, “when we get enough leverage on Mundie for him to make the charges disappear.”

“Leverage?” MJ said with a mouthful of submarine sandwich.

“We assemble the evidence to show he is a rogue agent with his own
agenda,” Evans said. “We take that to the top of the CIA. That will justify everything about this off-the-books operation.”

Moore spoke. He wasn't eating but instead drove with textbook safety, two miles an hour above the speed limit. Eyes on the road. Both hands relaxed in the proper position on the steering wheel.

“Boys,” Moore said. “It's simple. If you want to avoid jail time, we need to find those tunnels.”

CHAPTER 20

The mobile home was perched on a plateau overlooking the Yakima River. To reach it, Moore had continued on Interstate 90 east, past the two Ellensburg exits, and turned south on Interstate 82, which led to Yakima. But after only a few minutes on 82, Moore had taken an exit for a crossroad west again to link up with Highway 821, a secondary road that followed the Yakima River.

They had headed south with the river to their right. The highway followed the snaking course of the river so closely that often the water was only a stone's throw away. Occasionally they could see rafters enjoying the water in the heat. There was no trace of the drizzle they'd left behind because of the rain shadow cast by the Cascade mountains, which were visible during the short stretches of highway that rose out of the river canyon. The land between the river and the highway was green with trees and bushes that could tap into the water source, but east of the highway, the land was gray and brown, dominated by the sagebrush and tufted grass that King had seen in the hotel room on the surveillance of the mobile home.

About twenty minutes after they left the interstate, the canyon had widened, showing irrigated land on the floodplain between the
highway and the river. Just past that, Moore had turned left onto a gravel road that wound out of the canyon and up to the mobile home, which was set high enough to provide a view of Mount Rainer on the western horizon.

Moore shut off the engine and swung open his door. Hot, dry wind whistled through the Escalade when Evans opened the door on the other side.

Evans unbuckled his seat belt.

“Mr. Evans,” Blake said, “I'm feeling really weird. Dizzy. Like I'm going to fall over if I stand up. It happens every couple of weeks. At home, my mom makes me lie down in my bedroom and shuts the curtains. It's not a big deal really, nothing to worry about. But could I…”

“We'll be okay,” Evans said. “The four of us can start sweeping the grounds.”

“Thanks,” Blake said.

“I'll leave the engine running so you don't get hot,” Moore said. He leaned in, turned on the ignition, and then shut the door.

To Evans, Moore said, “Let's make sure the dwelling is clear first.”

He meant the mobile home. It looked as if it had been built in the 1960s. It had a sagging roof, and the metal siding was a blurred gray except for spots where new siding had been put in place to patch it. Streaks of rust showed where rivets held the patches in place. The steps leading up to a leaning front porch were rickety, and the screen door hung at an angle. The satellite dish at the far end, however, looked brand-new.

King went out his side from the middle row, MJ the other side.

King shut the door and noted with satisfaction that the smoked-glass windows made it impossible to see inside.

MJ came around to King's side. They watched the mobile home and waited for Moore and Evans, who went inside with drawn pistols.

“This is real,” MJ said.

“This is real,” King said.

“Also hot,” MJ said.

“At least it's a dry heat,” King said.

“Maybe I need a dizzy spell to keep me inside the vehicle,” MJ said.

“He doesn't have a dizzy spell,” King said quietly. “There was a pencil in the pouch in front of me. I used part of the sandwich wrapper to slip him a note to come up with an excuse to stay inside with his laptop and use the hotspot to grab an Internet connection. We need him to find a way into some personnel files and to do some research on Evans and Mundie and Moore.”

MJ's eyes opened wide. “For what?”

The lack of an explanation about why they were looking for a tunnel had been nagging at King, but he felt as if he didn't have much choice but to follow directions.

“That's the thing,” King said. “Something is really bothering me about this. I don't know if we can trust Evans. And if we can't, this is a bad place to be with him.”

CHAPTER 21

When Moore and Evans returned, they didn't need to tell King and MJ that the mobile home was clear. Because if it wasn't clear, they wouldn't be returning with their pistols back in their shoulder holsters.