Roone disconnected the call from Donahue about his and Porter's imminent entrance into the AU's hidden facility and sat back to think. Clearly, the AU had some smart people involved, or else they wouldn't have gotten as far as they had. Penetrating their defenses won't be easy, he mused. They will undoubtedly employ misdirection, car switches, etc. in an effort to dislodge any pursuers while they transport their clients to their underground locations.

He knew it would require subtlety and patience to succeed. Contrary to popular opinion, Roone had plenty of patience when he needed it. Haven't I patiently worked my way to the top here at Hanover-Rush?He knew his public persona. Many people thought of him as little more than a hothead. However, one doesn't achieve a position of importance by being a firebrand all the time. Sometimes one must use stealth and cleverness. Roone's years with the IRA taught him plenty about such tactics.

After careful consideration, he decided on a course of action. He picked up the phone and started making calls.

“Franklin,” he said, after hearing the other man's greeting, “I have a job for you and your team. Call Haven Donahue and arrange a meeting with his team. You have his number, don't you?..Very good. I want you to coordinate a task force with him to enter the Agorist Underground. Specifically, we need to discover their more active locations. Donahue will assume command. You will organize into special surveillance teams to trade the load among yourselves and keep your men from being spotted by our quarry...Right...Good, keep me apprised,” he said before disconnecting.

A special surveillance group uses a wide range of tricks and techniques to follow someone. Every team member takes special precautions to blend into the surroundings and locale like ordinary people. The FBI and other intelligence and police agencies have successfully used SSGs for years, although most people know little or nothing about them. Each team member carries an entire wardrobe in their car trunks, so they can change appearance at a moment's notice. Some of them even carry bicycles packed in their trunks, in case they need to assume the role of a messenger.

In this case, they planned to leapfrog, a technique where an SSG team member will follow a subject to a certain point, and then hand off the surveillance to another SSG team member waiting in their target's path to pick up the scent, so to speak. The second team member continues to follow the target up to a certain point, hand him off to a third team member up ahead, and then leapfrog to pick up the surveillance farther down the street. Sometimes it became necessary to put team members in a few different places for a potential hand off, the primary reason why Roone decided to assign so many of his employees to the task. He could use the same approach with cars and other vehicles. It required constant communication, but it usually worked surpassingly well.

He proceeded to make more phone calls of a similar nature. Dawes, Peters, Hammons, Sanders–all the team captains. He intended to put his entire metropolitan staff on the case. He must not allow any more slip-ups.

Justin Knight, this time you're mine!

Haven Donahue sat on a bench in the park. He had sat here so long that his butt ached. So many meetings, he muttered to himself. So many men to brief. Still, he had nearly completed the immediate task. With only one more meeting to go, he looked up and saw Porter sitting across the path and down slightly, facing the opposite direction. This relative position to each other enabled the two of them to watch each other's backs. Porter hadn't so much as sneezed in Donahue's direction, which only meant he had seen nothing that worried him.

Donahue looked up and saw Sanders approach him.

“Haven,” he muttered with a nod as he took a seat on the bench.

“Glad you could join the party, Shorty,” Donahue greeted him in return. “You know what it's all about, right?”

Sanders nodded.

“What's the drill?” he asked. He did indeed fall a head shorter than Donahue even sitting down, but it didn't erase the perpetual grin on the man's face. Even Donahue found it unnerving at times.

“I want you to be a rabbit,” Donahue explained. “We'll follow you down the rabbit hole, once you find it.”

“Suits me. Where and when?”

Donahue reached into his breast pocket and pulled out a small, folded paper and handed it to the other man. Shorty took it and carefully unfolded it.

“Grand Central?” he snorted. “You would think they could come up with something more original.”

“Stick this SIM in your phone and make the call.”

“What call?”

“Look at the bottom of the slip.”

Shorty looked and saw a phone number he thought he recognized. “R&D? What do they want?”

“They want your cell phone's handshake signal. By using this SIM and calling that number, they can track your location using the signal your cell phone uses to connect to the nearest cell tower. It's better than a GPS device, because no one thinks about a cell phone being traceable. So even when the AU discovers that you have a cell phone, they'll have no idea that we're using it to track you.”

“Cool!” Shorty replied as he called the number on the slip after replacing his existing SIM card inside the phone.

After he completed the call, Donahue handed him a yellow envelope containing the various documents and proofs he would need to get past the AU's defenses and gain entry to their facilities, a packet which the other stuffed into his shirt without further examination.

“Get going. We'll be right behind you.”

“Not too close now!” Sanders replied with a wink and a grin before jumping up and walking toward 5^th Avenue.

By the time Shorty arrived at Grand Central, the rest of the team had already taken their positions. They stood ready to go in any direction, above ground or below, that Shorty might lead them. He took up a position near the line of cabs waiting to pick up fares, leaned against the wall, and waited.

He didn't have to wait long. About 10 minutes later, a young guy about age 20 came up to him and started hanging out about five feet away from him. Like many young people in the city, the runner could barely contain his internal energy as he kept fidgeting.

He looked Shorty over, and after a moment said, “It ain't a World Series without the Yanks this year.”

Shorty looked sideways at him and shrugged.

“Doesn't matter to me. I'm a Jets fan.”

“Yeah?” the kid said, pulling something out of his pocket. “Want some tickets for the next game? I just happen to have a couple here I'm not using.”

Shorty turned his head to him.

“End zone?”

“20 yard line, mezzanine. One kilobuck.”

“Beat it, scalper,” Shorty said, turning away.

Having exchanged the proper signs and countersigns, the kid came close enough to Shorty that he could hear him stage whisper, “We'll take a cab. Follow me.”

Quick as lightning, the kid headed for a cab which chose that moment to pull up at the curb rather than line up in the usual queue. Apparently, the driver had watched for them. The two climbed into the back seat, and the cab took off.

The cab quickly worked its way onto Park Avenue and began moving north. Shorty needed to stay in character of a man looking to keep a low profile, so he didn't dare look out the windows much. He hunched low in his seat and tried to appear furtive. Occasionally, he allowed himself a quick peek out the rear window, his nose just at headrest level.

His companion noticed his agitation. “Relax. We'll get you there safely.”

Three cars back, Shorty saw Masters' beady eyes staring at him over his steering wheel. This did indeed cause Shorty to relax, although he tried to maintain his apparent lack of ease for his benefactor's benefit. The cab turned right onto 48^th Street, went two blocks, and turned left again. The driver proceeded to execute a series of turns. He kept checking his mirror to see if he could still see the same car he had seen before. He didn't.

Shorty caught a glimpse of the side-mirror from his vantage point, and by shifting his weight slightly to the right, he managed to use the mirror to get a quick glance at the cars behind them. Two cars back, this time he saw Donahue himself driving. It all went like clockwork.

After 40 minutes of this, Shorty noticed they into a brownstone neighborhood. They pulled up to the curb, and the two jumped out. The driver took off without waiting to get paid. Amateurish. They should make it look good. He shook his head in disgust as he followed the kid up the steps. Porter walked down the street toward them. So far, so good.

The kid led him through the door and down the hall to the back, where the two of them immediately exited into the alley. Walking at a fast pace, they soon found themselves one street over, where an off-white van stood waiting for them. They climbed inside just after Shorty saw Dawes watching from the street corner. Shorty wiped the never changing grin off his face and just smiled inwardly to carefully avoid giving anything away.

“Come on, get moving,” his young friend urged as he climbed in back.

Once inside, Shorty couldn't see the street anymore, but unless something drastically surprising happened, it shouldn't cause a problem.

Donahue oriented himself east of Shorty's last known position. He had learned a trick when using a box to play vehicle leapfrog, to make sure all of the main compass points always had coverage. No matter which direction a subject might go, he could get a new tail on him in seconds.

“They're in a white van headed your way, Donahue,” Dawes's voice said over the radio. “New York plate Charlie-Bravo-Delta-two-four-six-nine-three-two.”

Donahue picked up the microphone, held it to his mouth, pressed the button and said, “Charlie-Bravo-Delta-two-four-six-nine-three-two. Got it– and here they come!” He watched the van as it passed his parking spot. Pulling quickly into traffic so as not to lose him, he again pressed the microphone button. “Now heading east on 57^th Street past Park Avenue. Masters, Porter, you guys flanking me?”

“That's affirmative,” Masters's voice replied instantly. “I'm just crossing Lexington on 59^th.”

“Ditto, I'm on 56^th,” Porter echoed.

“Dawes, you behind me?”

“Got your tail, boss.”

“Okay, I'm taking the next left. I gotta feelin' they'll be headed north past the park. Peters, you're on deck,” Donahue rapped.

“Got it,” came Peters's voice as he took up a position behind Dawes.

“He's turning left on First Avenue and heading under the Queensboro Bridge, boss,” came Dawes's voice. “Looks like you were right about him.”

“Porter, head up 3^rd Avenue. If I'm right, he's gonna start moving toward Harlem pretty soon. Masters, you just hold your position.”

“Roger,” came Porter's voice, followed immediately by Masters's.

“He just pulled a U,” Dawes announced.

“I'm on him,” came Hammons's voice. “He just crossed my intersection. Turning now. He's only a block and a half ahead, minor traffic. I'll have him in a mo'.”

“Head over to Madison, Porter. You're on deck,” Donahue instructed. “The rest of you, fan out. You ready for the double-back, Franklin?”

“I've got the back door covered.”

It went on like this for quite a while. Eventually, though, just as Donahue had predicted, their target did eventually work its way north. A half hour later, the kid opened the door. “Through there.”

They sat in a small, underground garage, big enough for a half-dozen vehicles, that had otherwise emptied sometime earlier. After climbing out, Sanders walked through the door underneath a sign which said, “Welcome to the Agorist Underground.”

Outside, Dawes sat in his car while talking on the phone.

He said insistently into the phone, “I swear to God, Donahue, we're sitting outside Yankee Stadium.”

“The new one?”

“No, the old one. I'm under the El on River Avenue at 158^th Street.”

“What the hell are they doing there?”

“How the hell should I know? They just turned up Gerard Avenue from 158^th. Wait a minute, what the hell? They disappeared. I swear they didn't have time to go even a block,” Dawes declared in exasperation.

“Porter, where are you?” Donahue asked.

“I'm on 161^st at the other end of the block on Gerard.”

“Any sign of our target?”

“Nope, I've got this end covered. No sign of the van.”

“Hey, Donahue,” Dawes called out.

“What?”

“There's a very small alley here, more of a short, narrow drive, really. There's nothing here; it just kinda dead-ends to a small loading dock.”

Donahue slammed his hand on the dashboard of his car. Dammit! They've got to be there someplace.

“Everyone, out of your cars. Start scouting around on foot. Dawes, who did you bring with you in your car?”

“Martinson and Taylor.”

“Both of them? Okay, let me talk to Martinson.”

After a moment, he heard, “Yes, sir?”

“Martinson?”

“Yes, sir!”

“Grab whatever gear out of the trunk you and Taylor will need for the next couple of days,” he said.

“The next couple of days, sir?”

“Yes, I want you to initiate close-order surveillance. If this is the AU's drop point, and if their hidden entrance is somewhere around Gerard Avenue, I want you two to find it for me. Got it, Martinson?”

“Yes, sir.”

Donahue made a quick call to the R&D department at the bank.

In a moment he heard a voice say, “Chambers.”

“It's Donahue. Are you still tracking Shorty's signal?”

“Sorry, sir, we lost it a few minutes ago.”

“Lost it? What do you mean you lost it?”

“I mean it's no longer in contact with its cell station. It's not putting out any signal at all, as far as we can tell.”

“Where did you last have him?”

“Well, he was on Gerard Avenue. He started to descend to roughly 50-60 feet below street level.”

“50-60 feet??? Then what happened?”

“Well, it just stopped sending a signal,” Chambers explained inadequately. “They may have simply gotten too deep for the phone's signal to penetrate the street and reach the station.”

Donahue thought hard.

“What buildings are on that block?”

“Uh, I don't know. It's been years since I went to a game there. I think across from the stadium there's the Yankees Sports Bar, and some souvenir shops, if I remember correctly. Oh, and Stan's Sports Bar is on the corner of 58th. Everything in that neighborhood is just Yankees stuff,” Chambers said, trying to remember.

It didn't make sense. How could Shorty be 60 feet underground behind some sports bars?

Dawes's voice came over the radio.

“There's no sign of him, boss. It must be a secret entrance of some kind.”

“An entrance to what?” Porter interjected.

“Okay everyone, let's check all the doors and windows we can find. I want the stadium's neighborhood completely canvassed. The AU is hiding something here. I want to know what and where it is.”

While the acknowledgements came back over the radio, Donahue tried to think.

Make a donation