Chapter Twenty-Four
Twenty-Four
In Birmingham, his first stop had been the Greyhound bus station on Morris Avenue.
He needed to gain access to their CCTV camera footage and check if Mary had come out of the bus in Birmingham or not.
If not, it meant that she had probably asked the driver to stop somewhere along the way and let her off.
She could’ve given him the old ‘feeling sick’ excuse, and the driver would’ve had to stop.
With no luggage to retrieve from the luggage compartment, it would’ve taken the driver all of ten seconds to pull up to a gas station along the way, or even the side of the road, and allow Mary to jump off the bus.
Just like he’d done at the hotel in Franklin that morning, gangster-suit man simply used his fake FBI ID as he requested the footage from the bus station security room.
No one questioned him because no one really wanted to get between the federal government and a ‘wanted fugitive’ – on the contrary, most people would do anything to help.
If Mary had exited the bus anywhere along the way between Franklin and Birmingham, it would practically be game over for him.
The five-hour headstart that Mary already had on him would’ve easily turned into ten plus, and the chances of him finding her again would decrease by the minute…
but now he knew that Mary was in Birmingham – at least for the time being.
If she was clever – and he already knew that she was – now that she knew she was being tracked, she’d want to put as much distance and as many different cities…
even states… between her and the person tracking her.
Birmingham hadn’t been a planned destination for Mary.
It simply happened to be the first bus out of Franklin that morning, so yes, Mary was in Birmingham, but she wouldn’t stay long. He was pretty certain of that.
With the image of Mary stepping off the bus still frozen on the screen, the man in the gangster suit finished his donut and drank the rest of his coffee in large gulps, his brain grinding through the possibilities.
Would Mary stay in Birmingham for a day or more, or would she stay just a matter of hours before hitting the road again?
The man figured that Mary was probably just as tired as he was, perhaps even more.
Despite taking the room at the hotel in Franklin, it was very doubtful that she’d managed to get any sort of sleep.
Adrenaline would’ve flooded her system, causing tremendous anxiety, not to mention the absolute necessity of plotting an escape route in just a few hours.
Maybe she got an hour or so of shuteye in the bus, on her way to Birmingham, but that would’ve been it.
‘She’s not a bank robber or a terrorist,’ the man told himself, once again, trying to anticipate Mary’s next move.
‘She’s just a woman who doesn’t want her ex-husband to know where she is, that’s all.
Yes, she’s smart, but she’s not a spy. She doesn’t know the tricks of the trade.
She’s tired… she’s anxious… and she’s certainly scared…
but she probably believes that at least for the time being – a day, maybe two – she’s done enough to lose me, which means that she might let her guard down and take a breather.
’ The man had another gulp of his coffee.
‘What would I do if I were you?’ he asked himself, leaning closer to the monitor.
‘Well, you definitely need some new clothes because you didn’t even go back to your apartment to grab a bag, did you?
And that translates to you being a well-prepared woman.
You were ready to drop Nashville and just go at the blink of an eye.
’ He scratched the underside of his chin.
‘You’re truly terrified of your ex-husband, aren’t you?
Also…’ He pointed first at the monitor, then at himself.
‘You know that I know what you’re wearing, so a change of clothes would be a big, big priority here. ’
He pinched his bottom lip, as he pondered.
‘So, if I were you, I’d get a hotel for one night…
somewhere close by, and then go shopping…
something quick… nothing extravagant… just something that would make me look a little different than this.
’ He pointed at the screen again. ‘That’s what you did, isn’t it?
You’re somewhere not that far from the station. ’
He smiled proudly before reaching for his jacket. Time to go flash his FBI badge at all the hotels within walking distance of the bus station. But as he got to his feet, an odd feeling started to creep on in and he paused.
‘Did you get what you needed?’ the Greyhound employee who managed the control room at the station asked. He was a man of average height, who looked to be in his early sixties, with a belly that was severely testing the strength of the lower buttons on his shirt.
Gangster-suit man didn’t reply. Instead, he simply turned to look at the monitor again.
‘Hello?’
Gangster-suit man lifted a hand at the Greyhound employee, his brain, once again, grinding through the possibilities.
Back in Nashville, he had anticipated the wrong move from Mary.
He thought that she’d go back to her apartment, but she never did.
What if he was making the same mistake here?
What if he was anticipating the wrong move?
What if Mary got to Birmingham that morning, walked straight into a clothes shop nearby, purchased a simple change of clothes, and immediately jumped back on a bus? Or maybe a train?
Like he had already determined – now that she knew that she was being tracked, Mary would want to put as much distance as possible between her and the person tracking her.
Birmingham wasn’t in her plans, but she could easily use it as a springboard – adding one extra tangled twist to the web.
That would’ve been a clever move – and Mary sure was clever.
‘Maybe not yet,’ he finally replied to the employee’s original question, getting back to the seat in front of the monitors. ‘Can you load up the footage of every bus that has left the station since 9:40 this morning?’
‘Every bus?’
The man in the gangster suit nodded. ‘All I need is to see the boarding footage, that’s all.’
‘Sure,’ the employee replied, using the mouse on the desk to click away on the screen before typing a few parameters into a couple of search boxes.
A minute later, on the left of the screen, he had created a list of buses, showing their route number and the destination.
‘There you go. Just double click on the bus and the footage will load right here.’ He indicated the right side of the screen.
‘Much appreciated.’
‘Would you like another cup of coffee?’
Gangster-suit man smiled at the employee. ‘I’d absolutely love another cup of coffee.’
‘I’ll get it for you.’
As the employee left the room, he began at the top of the list.
‘I’ll be dipped in shit!’ he said, sitting up on his chair and once again, leaning closer to the monitor. He rewound the footage on the screen a couple of seconds and played it again before hitting the pause button. The screen froze at the same time that a smile parted his lips.
‘You clever little thing,’ he said before having a sip of the coffee that the Greyhound employee had brought him just a few minutes ago. ‘I almost got you wrong again, didn’t I? You didn’t even go for a change of clothes.’
On the screen, the same Mary that he had seen board the bus back in Franklin, then step out of that same bus in Birmingham that morning, was just boarding a new bus – twenty-nine minutes after arriving in Birmingham.
There had been no change of clothes. She was still wearing the same baseball cap that she had purchased at the hotel, the same jacket, the same blue jeans, and the same cowboy boots.
Just as she did in Franklin and when arriving in Birmingham, she kept her hands firmly tucked into her jacket pockets and her head low, eyes on the ground, so that the CCTV camera wouldn’t capture her face.
The man checked the list on the left of his screen. He was watching the footage from the seventh bus on that list – destined for Milwaukee, in Wisconsin. That was a long trip – eleven and a half hours. Arrival in Milwaukee was scheduled for 10:35 that evening.
He checked his watch – 3:40 p.m. There was no way that he could jump straight back into his car and drive to Milwaukee.
He needed to catch some sleep before he was able to do anything else.
He reached for his smartphone and performed a quick Internet search.
A flight from Birmingham to Milwaukee would get him there in three hours and forty-five minutes.
Another quick search.
There was a flight leaving Birmingham-Shuttlesworth International Airport at 5:45 p.m., arriving in Milwaukee at 9:30 that evening – a full hour before Mary was due to get there.
He could get a few hours of sleep in the plane, hire a car at the airport when he landed, and be at the Greyhound bus station in Milwaukee with a few minutes to spare to watch Mary step out of the bus.
‘You might not be a spy, Miss Mary Smith,’ the man murmured to himself, ‘but you certainly can think out of the box. Very smart.’ On his phone, he began the process of purchasing an airline ticket. ‘But I’m smarter. I’ll see you in Milwaukee.’