5. THE SETUP
THE SETUP
Chris hated staged danger.Real danger made sense.Real danger had rules.Adrenaline.
Reaction.Consequence.You saw the threat, you assessed it, you moved.Staged danger was different.Too many people knew what was supposed to happen.Too many things had to go exactly right.And in Chris Walker’s experience, the fastest way to guarantee something went wrong was to put six federal agents in a room and let them say the words:We’ve planned for everything.He stood inside a secured operations room at six fifteen Thursday evening, arms folded, staring at a digital map projected across the wall.Colored lines marked the planned route.Blue for Mateo’s vehicle.Red for the surveillance car.Yellow for possible exit points.Green for contingencies.There were too many colors.Chris didn’t trust plans that looked like children’s puzzles.Mercer stood near the screen holding a tablet.Sloan sat at the conference table with three members of the tactical surveillance unit.One of them was Special Agent Logan Price.Chris noticed him immediately.Logan noticed Chris noticing him.
“No.”Chris looked at him.“You don’t even know what I was going to say. ”
“Yes, I do.”
“What?”
“You were going to say I’m not good enough to chase you.”Chris smiled.“Well, now that you mention it—”
“Go to hell.”Mercer slapped the tablet down against the table.
“Can the two of you act like federal agents for thirty seconds?”Chris looked at Logan.Logan looked at Chris.
“No,” they said together.Sloan covered her mouth.Mercer did not laugh.
“Fantastic.”Chris stepped closer to the projected map.
“Walk me through it again.”Mercer pointed.
“Mateo leaves the private club at approximately nine forty-five.”
“Approximately?”
“He doesn’t publish his schedule, Walker.”
“Rude.”
“Focus.”Chris nodded.Mercer continued.“His regular driver will have a mechanical problem.”
“Meaning?”
“Fuel relay.”
“Planted?”
“Yes.”Chris looked at the mechanic assigned to the operational team.
“Clean?”The agent nodded.“Temporary failure. No permanent damage. Driver won’t be able to restart it without replacing the relay.
”Chris looked back at Mercer.“Mateo gets stranded outside a private club and magically Roman is available.”
“Rafael has already been told to keep you on standby.”
“Why?”
“Because Mateo has been using you more.”
“Not that much more.”
“Enough that it won’t feel impossible.”Chris didn’t love that answer.He looked at Sloan.“You sure Ortega buys it?”
“He already has.”
“Meaning?”Sloan leaned back.“We seeded a separate problem at the garage this afternoon. One of Vargas’s other drivers is tied up.”Chris stared at her.“You guys are really enjoying this.”
“No.”
“You look like you are.”
“Trust me, Walker. I would rather not be engineering a fake pursuit around a cartel boss.”
“Comforting.”Mercer pointed to the route.“Once you have Mateo in the Charger, you leave the club and head west.”Chris studied the map.“West puts us on Franklin.”
“For four blocks.”
“Franklin’s busy.”
“Not at that hour.”
“Still public.”
“We know.”
“Pedestrians?”
“Expected low.”
“Expected isn’t zero.”Mercer’s jaw tightened.“We’ve controlled what we can control.”
“There’s that sentence again.”
“What sentence?”
“Controlled.”Sloan sighed.“Walker.”Chris looked at her.“This is exactly why I don’t like it.”
“Because you don’t control everything?”
“No.”
“Then why?”
“Because everybody in this room thinks we do.”Silence.Chris pointed toward the map.
“Real pursuit, I decide in real time. Staged pursuit, everyone’s expecting a certain sequence.
That’s how people get locked into the plan even after the plan stops matching reality.
”Logan nodded once.Chris noticed.Good.At least one person in the room understood what he meant.Mercer folded his arms.“So what do you want?”
“Flexibility.”
“You have it.”
“No forced timeline. No pushing me into a turn because it looks good on a map. If traffic changes, I change. If pedestrians appear, pursuit vehicle backs off. If Mateo tells me to stop, I decide whether Roman would stop.”Mercer said, “Roman wouldn’t.”Chris looked at him.
“Exactly.”That was the problem.Chris Walker had a badge somewhere in a lockbox.Chris Roman didn’t.Roman couldn’t suddenly start making safe federal decisions because people might get uncomfortable.He had to behave like the man the cartel believed he was.That meant dangerous.Confident.Willing to run.Chris pointed again.
“And I want hard limits on the chase vehicle.”Logan straightened.
“Oh, now you care how I drive?”Chris ignored him.
“No contact.”
“Obviously.”
“No boxing.”
“Agreed.”
“No PIT.”Mercer stared.Chris gave him a look.“You just assigned Price.”
“Asshole,” Logan muttered.Chris continued.“No aggressive lane blocking. No fake weapons. No shots. No flashing federal lights.”Sloan nodded.“None planned.”
“Good.”Mercer leaned against the table.“The follow vehicle stays two to three car lengths behind during the aggressive portion.”
“Too close.”Logan said, “Not if you’re driving.”Chris looked over.“That compliment almost hurt you, didn’t it?”
“Deeply.”Mercer closed his eyes.Chris returned his attention to the screen.“Where’s the exit?”Mercer pointed.“Industrial corridor north of Mercer Avenue.”Chris smiled faintly.
“Named after you?”
“No.”
“Shame.”
“You’ll take the right onto Mercer, accelerate through the corridor, then use one of these exits.”Three routes appeared.Chris studied them.Route one.Wide.Easy.Too easy.Route two.
Narrow, curved.More believable.Route three.Potential construction.No.“I take two.”
Logan nodded.“Figured.”Chris looked at him.“Why?”
“Because it’s harder.”Chris shrugged.“Because it looks organic.”
“Same thing with you.”Mercer cut in.“Once you hit the underpass, Logan backs off. You make two turns, then rejoin the main road.”
“And Mateo believes we lost them.”
“Yes.”Chris looked at the map for another few seconds.Then he asked the question nobody had yet answered.“What does Mateo think they want?”Sloan said, “That’s up to him.”Chris looked at her.“No. It isn’t.”A beat.“If he thinks they’re cops, problem.”
“They won’t look like law enforcement.”
“If he thinks rival organization, that changes how he reacts.”
“We know.”
“If he thinks assassination attempt, he may draw a weapon.”Silence.Mercer answered.“We believe he’ll assume surveillance or an attempt to identify his route.”
“Believe.”Chris’s eyes narrowed.Sloan stood.“We cannot control Vargas’s interpretation.”
“That’s exactly my point.”
“We can control the threat profile.”Chris said nothing.Sloan stepped closer.
“The vehicle follows. Closes distance. Makes one aggressive move. No contact. No weapons. No attempt to force you off the road.”Chris looked at the map.Then at her.
“Why not just let this happen naturally?”
“Because naturally could take six months.”
“Maybe that’s what the operation takes.”Mercer shook his head.
“We don’t have six months.”Chris looked at him.
“Why?”Nobody answered immediately.That bothered him more than anything else.Chris stared at Mercer.
“What changed?”Mercer exchanged a glance with Sloan.There it was.Something.Chris caught it.
“Tell me.”Sloan exhaled.“We have intelligence suggesting Vargas is restructuring part of the distribution network.”
“How soon?”
“We don’t know.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning some routes may move. Some personnel may disappear. And if Mateo locks everything down again, we could lose another year.”Chris’s expression hardened.“So this isn’t impatience.”
“No.”
“Then why didn’t you lead with that?”Mercer answered.“Because you were already going in.”Chris gave him a cold look.“That’s not an answer.”
“No, Walker. It’s the answer you’re getting.”Chris stared at him.For several seconds, nobody spoke.Then Chris looked back at the map.Fine.He could argue.He could refuse.
Or he could do the job.And Chris Walker did the job.Always.Even when he hated the plan.
At six forty-eight, Chris followed Sloan into a smaller room.No maps.No tactical agents.Just the two of them.She closed the door.“Still hate it?”
“Yes.”
“You’ll do it?”
“Yes.”
“That was easy.”Chris looked at her.“Don’t confuse agreeing with liking.”
“I never do with you.”She handed him a small earpiece.Chris didn’t take it.“No.”
“Walker—”
“No comms while Mateo’s in the car.”
“It’s passive.”
“No.”
“He won’t see it.”
“Maybe not.”
“Then what’s the problem?”
“The problem is Mateo Vargas has survived this long because he notices things.”Sloan held the earpiece between two fingers.“Backup communication could save your life.”Chris shook his head.“It could also end the operation before it starts.”
“You’ll have the panic device.”
“Hidden.”
“Yes.”
“And the vehicle tracker?”
“Installed.”
“Then that’s enough.”Sloan reluctantly lowered the earpiece.“You’re stubborn.”
“You hired me.”
“Unfortunately.”Chris smiled faintly.Then Sloan’s expression changed.Serious now.
“Chris.”He noticed the first name.Not Walker.Not Roman.Chris.“What?”
“If something deviates too far, pull out.”He laughed once.“That’s easy to say from this side of the operation.”
“I mean it.”
“So do I.”
“No. You don’t.”Chris stared at her.Sloan continued.“You’ll stay in too long if you think the cover matters.”
“It does matter.”
“Not more than you.”
“That’s debatable.”
“It isn’t.”Chris looked away.Sloan stepped closer.“I know what happened in Phoenix.”
His jaw tightened.“Not relevant.”
“You got shot twice because you refused extraction.”
“Case stayed intact.”
“You almost died.”
“But I didn’t.”
“That’s not the defense you think it is.”Chris’s face went cold.“Are we done?”Sloan watched him.“Not yet.”Chris waited.She pointed toward the door.“Vargas doesn’t need to like Roman.”Chris gave her a look.“What do you need?”Her answer came without hesitation.
“We need him to need you.”That landed harder than Chris expected.Need.Not trust.