The Backup Asset

…64

Jeremy drove as fast as he could, his siren blaring, zigzagging through traffic like a maniac, and leaving behind a chorus of screeching breaks and wailing horns.

“Call your team for me, get them on the phone,” Alex asked.

“Who do you want?”

“Anyone in the surveillance lab, anyone would do.”

Jeremy told her the number and she dialed. The car’s hands-free system took over, making it difficult for them to hear over the blaring siren.

“Yeah, hi, it’s Alex Hoffmann and Agent Weber. Yeah, please go back on surveillance and look for anyone doing anything with a sandwich. What? Yeah, a sandwich. Anything… eating, buying, packing, giving, taking, just anything, any sandwich.”

Jeremy looked at her briefly, between avoiding a garbage truck and passing a cab.

She hung up the call.

“I’m starting to see your hunch,” Jeremy said, “but it’s a thin one, very thin. People eat, Alex. It’s just food, that’s all.”

“I need a mobile lab to meet us at the airport,” she continued, unperturbed. “How do I get that to happen? Whom do I call?”

“We have procedures for this kind of thing, you know,” he protested. “It’s not like a multimillion piece of equipment is at my beck and call.”

“Here’s how this is gonna go,” she said in a low, almost threatening voice. “Either you call your mobile lab to assist us at the airport, or I call a mobile lab to assist us at the airport and you foot the bill. Don’t care, really. So what’s your preference?”

He sighed, made the call, then asked wryly, “Has anyone ever said no to you and lived to tell the story?