Foreign Influence by Brad Thor Page A

the report she was reading. Reaching into her desk drawer, she withdrew the DVD the detective had given her for Vaughan to look at.
    “Is this a copy for me to keep?”
    “No. That’s our copy. There’s a DVD player in the conference room,” she said pointing across the sea of desks to a door on the other side of the room.
    Vaughan took the disc and walked over to the conference room. He was back fifteen minutes later.
    “God, I hate our blue light cams.”
    Ramirez was still working on her report and not very interested in Vaughan’s problems. “Let me guess. The footage was blurry, and the camera automatically panned right at the minute you needed to see something.”
    “Exactly.”
    “Those cameras aren’t for solving crimes,” she said, looking up. “They’re for deterring crimes. I’m surprised they record any footage at all.”
    Vaughan shook his head. They had footage of the cab speeding through the intersection, but it had happened so fast it was all blurry.And just like she had said, the camera panned away at the crucial moment where the cab number could have been identified. “There has to be another camera that caught this accident.”
    “Are you done with that?” she asked as Vaughan began tapping his thigh with the folder.
    “Yeah, I’m done,” he said, handing it back to her. Standing up, he removed his jacket from the back of the chair and pulled out his business card. “In case anything comes up.”
    She dropped it into the file and offered him a piece of advice. “Because you’re a lawyer probably getting paid by the hour, I’m not going to tell you you’re wasting your time, but there are a lot of cabs in the city. Don’t get too emotionally involved.”
    Vaughan understood where she was coming from. Detachment was the key to staying sane in their line of work. He still shook his head. “Lawyer, cop, it doesn’t matter. I’m a human being, and so was the woman who got run down in that intersection. I want to find the guy who did this.”
    Ramirez held his gaze for a moment and then dropped her eyes back to the report she’d been using as an excuse to ignore him. “Have a nice evening, counselor.”

CHAPTER 9
 
    B ILBAO
W EDNESDAY
    Harvath spent a good portion of the morning doing additional reconnaissance on the tobacco shop. Just after ten a.m., he stepped away from the tour group he was shadowing and with both his Glock and Taser handy, entered the shop.
    The old man behind the counter didn’t even bother looking up.
    “Do you have Argos and Draco brand cigarettes?” he asked in Spanish, using the names of the Troll’s two dogs.
    “Three Euros,” the old man replied, reaching under the counter and producing a pack of Fortuna Lites.
    Harvath gave him the cash, pocketed the cigarettes, and exited the store. He conducted what felt like his hundredth SDR of the day and when he was confident he wasn’t being followed, walked into a small hotel he had identified earlier and headed into its café. Taking a table near the back, he ordered coffee. Once the waiter had walked away, he pulled out the pack of cigarettes and examined it.
    It had a plastic wrapper, but had been opened from the bottom and re-sealed. Harvath peeled off the plastic and opened the package at the top. It was stuffed with tissue paper. After removing the paper, he withdrew a carkey rubber-banded to a prepaid parking receipt. In addition to the name and address of the parking facility, someone had written C-11.
    Harvath remembered having joked that the only thing the Troll’s offer was missing was a dark alley. It would seem that he hadn’t been creative enough. A dark parking structure was much more apropos.
    The underground garage was on the other side of the river. It took Harvath about fifteen minutes to walk there, fifteen minutes for reconnaissance, and another five to locate the car. So far, so good.
    He found a structural column and used it for cover as he depressed the button on the remote.