Spray her secretly. No witnesses. Watch from the drone's eyes as she fell to the floor, choking to death on her own fluids.
He reached out to start the engine when something on the right-hand side of the screen, from the drone video feed, attracted his attention.
Four police vehicles, pulling up outside the narrow cross street that gave off onto Clement Street. There was no audio feed but he was sure they had sirens going. They definitely used their roof lights.
A white van pulled up behind them. The CSU unit.
Damn!
Men and women piled out, walked briskly down the cross street then the alleyway, knowing exactly where to go. Baker watched them start stringing out the police tape, one tech kneeling by the body.
Well, fuck. No question of grabbing that suitcase; it would be found immediately and entered as evidence. Baker was good, but breaking into a police evidence locker was not something in his skill set. Nor should it be. He made his money by being smart. Breaking into a police station was lunacy.
But would they then find out who the woman was and bring her in for questioning? Could they find her for him? Or was she the one who called it in?
Baker waited, watching, directing the drone to fly far overhead in a pattern that kept the alleyway under direct observation. He watched the techs at work, watched as they loaded the body into a body bag and then onto a gurney that was pushed into the medical van.
In the meantime, no slim woman in a turquoise pantsuit emerged from the department store. If she'd changed clothes, he was shit out of luck.
Baker pulled out from his parking spot and headed toward the safe house, where another job awaited him and where he had further resources.
There was a job to do in DC, which he could manage from here.
If nothing happened in the next six hours, he would have to ask one of his tech people in Vladivostok to break into a Keyhole satellite after the drone had to leave and sift through petabytes of data. It would take at least another day to get the data, probably more. He commanded the drone to fly back to his HQ-an abandoned warehouse-when its energy started to run low.
Whatever problem the SUVs represented, what was in the warehouse was the answer. A fixed-wing drone that carried explosives and two machine guns.
Though Baker had never been Special Forces, he prescribed to the old SEAL motto that there were no problems that couldn't be solved by bombing the shit out of them.
Everything had happened so fast. Sneaking out of the hotel room, meeting with Mike, him collapsing to the ground, dead, the drone, Nick and his buddies to the rescue …
She hadn't had time to process everything in her head.
When Nick drove the powerful vehicle up the ramp and out into the street, she could feel the pull of the engine like something powering up in her life, pulling her into a new train of events like a raging tide. She thought she'd be giving info to a crusading journalist who would change things, change her life, take her away from the world and plunge her into danger and isolation.
Well, her life was changing, but in an entirely different way. She thought she'd have to step into a new life alone, shedding everyone. But no.
One thing was very clear-she wasn't facing this on her own. Nick had raced to her side and was staying there. And with Nick came the resources of a powerful company of powerful men and women.
She wasn't alone.
Kay stared blindly out the window at the streets of Portland rushing by. Such a pretty city. She'd never had time to explore much of it the times she'd come to visit Felicity and Metal. Last night, knowing she had an appointment the next day with Mike Hammer, it had occurred to her that she might never see the city again. It had been entirely possible that she'd have to go into hiding forever. Either in the country or in some small, isolated community, keeping her head down for the rest of her life, or somewhere abroad.
But here she was, in Portland, and not running away, not in the truest sense of the word.
Her head disconnected and Kay simply watched the streets go by, unable to think, only to see. She saw modern buildings, a few mid-20th century buildings, small parks dotted throughout the city. Portlanders out and about, enjoying the cool, sunny day. An elderly couple sitting on a park bench, faces lifted into the sun, holding hands. A skinny girl with blond dreads, being pulled on a skateboard by an enthusiastic mixed-breed dog, tongue lolling as it ran along the sidewalk. A small café, patrons sitting at tables outside, small vases of daisies on each tabletop. A pretty girl reaching across a table to cup her hands around the head of a handsome boy and kiss him. A middle-aged couple looking on, smiling.