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news.
    “Unacceptable.”
    Andrew spent far too long studying the file in front of him before responding. “Our man in Coronado says—”
    “Stop.” Ellis dropped his stack of folders on the desk and slid into his chair. The silence stretched out, ratcheting up the tension as it built. He could have eased the choking panic in the room, but he fed off it instead, letting the quiet throw the younger man further off balance.
    “Sir?”
    “I don’t care what anyone says.”
    “Excuse me?”
    “Call the operative back in. While you’re at it, tell him to bring his government passport and security badge with him, because if he can’t track a man escaping a fire in the middle of broad daylight he’s done at this agency.” So much for sending the guy with a decade of service to cover his top man. Garrett Hill could slip any tail. That’s what made him so good.
    “But according to our guy there was a pretty big crowd around the fire. It would have been easy for anyone to move in or out of there without being noticed.”
    Ellis flipped a switch on his desk and a bank of monitors to the left flickered to life. “There are people in this office who get paid to keep me updated on what’s happening everywhere in the world. I need you to establish other skills if you want to remain useful.”
    He also had a file on his desk filled with photos and status reports and backgrounds on every person in Garrett’s neighborhood. Ellis had possession of redacted top secret reports on the brother and a separate paper consisting of less than a paragraph about some woman named Meredith Samms, a woman Garrett should have run through a background check before allowing her to move into his house.
    When Ellis debriefed Garrett he’d add in a question or two about that. Being the best didn’t mean he could ignore the rules. Well, not all of them.
    Ellis glanced up and noticed Andrew hadn’t moved an inch in five minutes. Good.
    Now, on to the next issue. “Locate Darren Mitchell.”
    “Right now?”
    “Yes, Andrew.”
    “But he’s no longer with the DIA.”
    “It would appear we’re back to the obvious.”
    Andrew’s eyebrow rose and an uncharacteristic spark of anger flashed in his eyes. “Excuse me?”
    Ellis took the show of emotion as a good sign. He admired people who stood their ground. The weak wasted his time. “I’m aware of Darren’s work status with this agency, since I’m the one who fired him after Garrett filed his last operation report.”
    “My point is that we can no longer track the man through the building or in his car or at his house by using his badge or the GPS tags.”
    “There are other ways. He’s wearing an ankle monitor. It was one of the conditions of his bail. Get me a report on where he’s been and with whom. Also check the video surveillance.”
    “Excuse me?”
    “Say that again and you’re fired.” Satisfaction flowed through him when Andrew’s mouth snapped shut. “We’re tracking Darren’s moves.”
    “All the time?”
    “Yes. We used the Federal Intelligence Surveillance Act and got a warrant. We know everything he says and does, or we should. Your job is to check for loopholes.”
    “Anyone else?”
    “Garrett Hill has many enemies, the most immediate and obvious one being the fellow agent he turned in for extortion. With Darren’s trial looming, he is a logical choice for investigation. He takes out Garrett, he stands a better chance of walking away clean.”
    * * *
    M EREDITH PULLED BACK the thin yellow curtain with the strange flower print and stared out at the empty motel parking lot. The SUV they’d driven here had disappeared. Except for Joel walking back and forth in front of the door as he talked on the phone, there wasn’t any sign of life out there. Just the sun bouncing off the black pavement as it dipped lower on the horizon.
    They’d driven across the bridge into downtown San Diego and kept heading east until the neighborhoods disappeared and nothing