Dark Zone

69

The driver stopped, waiting to turn. Dean had glanced down at the handheld computer to look at the download of the bank statement when he heard the crack of a gunshot a block away. It was a sharp, loud bang, and Dean, a former sniper, realized instantly that they were too late.

“Pay the driver!” he yelled to Lia, jumping for the car.

Ponclare’s office was down the block and around the corner. As Dean started to run, a man came around the corner, walking casually, as if nothing had happened. He wore an American-style baseball cap and had a camera around his neck and seemed oblivious to what was going on around him.

Dean got a glimpse of the man’s face as he went past. Something poked at him in that moment, but he didn’t realize it for a step or two, not until he reached the corner.

Two men with pistols drawn were running down the block toward a man who lay sprawled on the sidewalk. They were yelling for their boss: “Monsieur Ponclare! Monsieur Ponclare!”

Dean turned around to get another look at the man he’d just passed. Lia, done with the cab, ran up to him, asking what had happened.

Rather than answering, Dean started to cross the street. The taxi driver had picked up another fare — the man in the baseball cap. Dean stopped to let the taxi pass; as it did, he slipped a small tracking device from his shirt pocket and slapped it against the car’s rear fender. Another taxi was coming down from the cross street; Dean ran out halfway into traffic to flag it down.

“What are you doing?” asked Lia, catching up to him.

“We have to follow him,” said Dean.

“Why?”

“Because this is the second time I nearly ran into him. The first was in London when we went to check out the room Kensworth had stayed in.”