20. Farrow #2
A pickup pulled into the courtyard from the north entrance, drove past the unit without slowing, and parked four bays down. A man in a Carhartt jacket got out. He was broad-shouldered, in his mid-forties, and wrong.
Dane lifted the binoculars.
“Farrow.”
“I see him.”
“Carhartt. Walking like the Beacon Hill watcher.”
“Coincidence?” I asked.
The man stood at the back of the pickup, pretending to check something in the bed. He didn’t open the gate or lift anything out. He stood with his back to the unit we were watching, head tilted at an angle allowing him to see it in his peripheral vision.
“He’s reading the unit,” Dane said.
“Confirmed.”
I tapped the comm. “Collins, we’re seeing a white male, mid-forties, on the north side. He’s pretending to check a pickup while reading the unit.”
“I have him,” Collins said.
The man stood by the truck for another minute. He pulled out a phone, typed something, and put it away. Then he walked toward the rental office and went inside.
“Collins, keep watching,” I said.
“Copy.”
“He’s holding the courtyard until the courier arrives,” I said.
“Or he’s waiting on a friend who’s late,” Dane said.
“Or that.”
Eamon spoke in our ears. “Report.”
“Perimeter on the unit,” Dane said. “White male, forties, in a pickup, holding the courtyard. Not the courier.”
“How long?”
“Thirty seconds.”
“Hold position. Tail the courier when you see him. Collins takes the lead. Dane and Farrow follow. We’ll hand the destination to federal when we have it.”
The line went quiet.
My pulse was racing. Dane’s breathing quickened.
We waited. The courier arrived at ten-forty-one.
It was a white panel van with no markings. It had Massachusetts plates, and the registration was current. He parked at the curb in front of the unit and killed the engine.
Dane lifted the binoculars.
He tapped the comm. “Eamon, he’s here. White Ford Transit with Massachusetts plates. It’s a solo driver. Male, white, mid-thirties, wearing a navy work jacket.” Dane provided the plate number.
“Running the plate,” Eamon said.
The man in Carhartt hadn’t moved. He’d been working a crossword on the clipboard for the last twenty minutes.
“Plate is registered to a vehicle leasing company in Lawrence,” Eamon said. “Short-term commercial leasing. We have a connection there. The lessee is a small business under an LLC name I’m running.”
“Run it against Wiley’s tier-three list,” I said.
“On it.”
The driver got out of the van. He stretched and walked around to the back. There, he opened the rear doors and looked at something inside.
The other man got out of his pickup with his clipboard. He walked across the courtyard at an unhurried pace, exchanged a nod and a half-sentence with the van driver, and they both went to the unit’s roll-up door.
The man in Carhartt produced a key and opened the unit.
The roll-up went up four feet. They both ducked under it, spending ninety seconds inside. The van driver came out first, carrying a black plastic case the size of carry-on luggage.
The driver’s posture indicated that it was heavy.
He set it in the rear of the van and went back. The other man came out next with a second case, identical to the first. He took it to the van, and they both went back inside the storage unit.
The van driver came out with a third case. He put it inside the van, got in, and started the engine.
The Carhartt pulled the roll-up down. The driver locked the rear doors. They didn’t shake hands. They didn’t speak. The Carhartt went back to his pickup. The driver got into the van and started the engine.
“Three cases. All loaded,” I said.
The van pulled away from the curb at ten-fifty-three.
Collins had his engine running. “I have him. North exit. Pleasant Street. Pike.”
“We’re on you. Three back.”
“Copy.”
I started the engine and rolled out of the gravel verge thirty seconds behind her, with the van already past the courtyard’s north gate and turning onto Pleasant. Dane had his phone in his lap with the secure line open to Eamon and his eyes on the windshield.
“Collins is one car ahead of him at the light,” he said.
“I see him.”
The van took Pleasant to Arsenal and Arsenal to the Pike on-ramp going east. Collins let one vehicle slip between her and the van at the merge, dropped back two lengths, and held the gap. I came up behind a Sysco truck three lengths behind her and stayed there.
“Collins isn’t reporting a mirror sweep,” Dane said. And no lane changes. He’s not looking for a tail because he doesn’t expect one.”
“Or he’s been told the watcher cleared him.”
I stayed behind the Sysco truck and watched Collins.
She drove the way she did everything: quietly and precisely.
“West Newton exit coming up,” Dane said. “He’s signaling.”
I spoke into the comm. “Collins, exit.”
“I see it. Taking it.”
We passed through three traffic lights. The van made all three on green. Collins made the first two and caught the third on yellow. I caught the third on red and lost a count, then closed back to two lengths behind her by the time we hit the residential part of Auburndale.
“Wiley flagged a shell with an Auburndale address last week,” Dane said.
The van slowed at an intersection and signaled left. Collins let one car pass her and turned left behind the van, dropping back to give it air. I took the turn after the car between Collins and me had cleared.
It was Lasell Street, residential with older homes set back from the road. The van slowed.
“Collins, hold at the next cross street.”
He pulled to the curb at Cottage Place and killed his lights. I came up behind him and stopped half a block back.
The van pulled into a driveway four houses up on the right side. Twenty-eight Lasell.
Dane lifted the binoculars.
“Two cases out. He’s carrying them inside. The third is still in the van.”
Dane spoke to Eamon. “Twenty-eight Lasell, Auburndale. Two cases inside. One in the vehicle. Courier confirmed entering the residence.”
There was a pause for maybe twelve seconds. I heard a chair scrape and a door close. His voice came back.
“Michael.”
“Here.”
“We have the device. Three cases moved from the Watertown storage unit at ten-fifty-three this morning, transported by a single courier in a leased white Ford Transit, plate in your file, to twenty-eight Lasell Street, Auburndale. Two cases inside the residence. One in the vehicle.”
Michael spoke. “The Auburndale residence is owned by Concord and Park Holdings, LLC, the same shell that owns the Watertown storage unit. The components are consistent with a cellular trigger device of the type the structural consultant described to us.”
“Do we have it?” Eamon asked.
“That’s a magistrate-signable package,” Michael confirmed.
The line went quiet.
I spoke in the comm. “Collins, Eamon’s handing it up the chain. Hold position. If the van moves before federal owns this, call me before you call anyone else.”
“Copy.”
“Good drive.”
“Always.”
I looked at Dane. It was eleven-eleven.
We had it. The device, the vehicle, and the address. We’d handed it off to Michael. He would help Eamon put it in a form to deliver to a federal contact. The contact would walk it to a federal magistrate.
We had done it.
“Mt. Auburn Mobil,” Dane said. “Coffee. We need to be off this street before the neighbors notice two vehicles parked here.”
“Yes.”
“Then back to Brattle.”
Eamon called once while we were on the drive. He confirmed he was on the way to the federal contact’s office in Government Center, and that the contact had read the package and was on the phone with the magistrate.
We pulled into the Mobil station, and I parked. I took both hands off the wheel and exhaled.
“Dane.”
“Yeah.”
I didn’t look at him.
“I’m going to say the thing now.”
I’d been bracing on the drive. “I want to be with you after,” I said. “I don’t want this to be an operation-only romance. I can’t walk away from this clean and call it good.”
“Farrow.”
“Let me get through it.”
He closed his mouth.
“The whole thing. Your apartment. My apartment. Whichever one we keep. The inevitable gay-merging-of-households situation where somehow we end up with three coffee makers and exactly one decent frying pan. I want the part where you let me read in bed at two in the morning while you do your little lock-checking ritual like the world’s hottest haunted Victorian widower. “
He turned and looked at me. I couldn’t stop talking.
“I’m telling you now because if I wait until after Wednesday, I’ll be telling you because we lived through it. I want to tell you because of what we are, not because of what almost happened.”
I stopped.
“Ask me again Thursday,” Dane said.
It wasn’t the answer I’d been bracing for, and it wasn’t the wrong one.
“Thursday then,” I said.
“Thursday.”
“That’s not a no.”
“Not a no.”
I started the engine and pulled out onto Mt. Auburn, going east. At Memorial Drive, I reached across the console and rested my hand on Dane’s wrist.
We took the rotary and surface streets to Brattle. At three-forty-seven we arrived.
Eamon called Dane’s secure line. “Magistrate signed. Sweep goes at oh-five-hundred. All four addresses. Federal has it.”