Stone Cold

CHAPTER 83

FOR ONE OF THE FEW TIMES in his career, Carter Gray screamed in uncontrolled fury after being told that Alex Ford had escaped.

With a disgusted look he dismissed the stone-faced men standing in front of him. They’d missed Carr, Lesya and her son, and now this! Such incompetence never would have happened in the old days, he told himself. When he had men like John Carr…

Three deep breaths later and Gray was all business again. It was a setback, but only a setback. He had gotten another intelligence breakthrough barely thirty minutes ago. He’d discovered over the years that they tended to come in bushels.

They had matched the man’s face to a database. The gentleman with Carr and Lesya was named Harry Finn, a former Navy SEAL who now performed consulting work with the Department of Homeland Security as a member of a red cell team. Or he did such work. Gray couldn’t envision the man’s career continuing, because he was undoubtedly Lesya Solomon’s son. And that meant he was a murderer. And he had to die before he ever came to court.

Gray had already dispatched a team to Finn’s home. He lived in a cozy place in the suburbs; had a lovely wife and three darling children. He coached soccer in his spare time and from all accounts was a model citizen. And Gray was sure that when his men got to the house it would be empty. A phone call he received ten minutes later confirmed this.

However, his team didn’t come away entirely empty-handed. In a safe in the garage they discovered some interesting details. They also found some paperwork about a storage unit. When they got there, they hit the treasure trove. It was filled with the histories of Bingham, Cole and Cincetti. And Carter Gray and Roger Simpson. And finally John Carr. Though nary a scrap of information could be found about Rayfield and Lesya, Harry Finn was undoubtedly their man. Only where was he now? And where were his wife and children? In hiding, of course. And it was up to Carter Gray to flush them out. He only hoped he would have better luck.

Yet he sensed that he would. It was completely counterintuitive for them to do it, but for some reason Gray felt as though Stone, Lesya and Harry Finn were very close by. And if they were, they would succumb to a mistake at some point. It would not necessarily be their mistake. There was another factor to be put into the equation: Finn’s very ordinary family.

He lifted his phone. “Put a trace on every credit and debit card and every cell and hard-line phone registered to the Finn family. You know where he works, so put surveillance on all his co-workers and his office. Watch the kids’ schools and Mom’s book club group. If they show themselves, take them. Move heaven and earth, but get them.”