Free Uncaged by John Sandford, Michele Cook

in the same cell tower range as the kid is. We’ll film everything we can, looking at vans and SUVs and other multiperson vehicles. Sooner or later, we’ll start getting duplicates, and then we’ll know what they’re driving.”
    “What about a vehicle tag?” Cartwell asked.
    “Don’t have one. If we could get one, we’d be good. We could put out a BOLO.”
    “What’s a BOLO?” Stewart asked.
    “ ‘Be on the lookout,’ ” Harmon said. “We could put one out in the name of the FBI and have the local cops looking for it. When they spot it, they respond to the FBI. The feds wouldn’t know what they were talking about, but we have ways of monitoring that exchange.… We could be right on top of them.”
    “How long is this going to take? To find them?” Cartwell asked.
    “Honestly? I don’t know,” Harmon said. “For a bunch of crazies, they’ve got good security procedures, just like they had good technique going into the lab. But we’ll find them. If nothing else, the Davidson kid will call one of the people he’s traveling with, and if that person has a smartphone, that’ll be it. We’ll be able to track them by GPS all day long.”
    “We need those drives,” Cartwell said. “The quieter, the better, of course. We have no budget limit on this: spend what you need to.”
    He looked at his watch again, and as he did, an intercom on his desk chimed. He turned and said, “Yes?”
    A voice said, “Mr. Armie is in the elevator.”
    “Thank you, Anna,” Cartwell said. He turned to Harmon. “You’ll have to excuse us, Harmon. Find those thieves.”
    Harmon stood up and asked, “Back door?”
    Cartwell grinned at him and said, “That would be best. You’re not exactly projecting our corporate image at the moment.”
    “More like ‘Ride ’em, cowboy,’ ” Stewart said.
    “I yam what I yam,” Harmon said as he headed for the door. Behind him, the intercom chimed again and Anna said, “Mr. Armie’s here.”
    The back door to Cartwell’s office, which looked like a closet door, was down a stubby hallway that also led to Cartwell’s private bathroom. Rather than opening into a closet, however, the door led to a long, narrow, thickly carpeted hallway that ran parallel to the main hallway and emerged in an obscure niche near the elevators. Thickly carpeted to kill the sound of footsteps, of somebody coming or going. A sneaky way in and out, in case it was needed.
    Harmon went through the door, turned and closed it, then stopped and leaned back against the wall.
    He couldn’t hear the words being spoken inside the office, but he could hear that they were being spoken—a friendly rumble as people met, the words getting fainter as Cartwell, Stewart, and Sync walked with Armie back to the conversation area where he’d just been sitting.
    When he was sure they were all seated, Harmon quietly cracked open the door he’d just come through. He’d been an intelligence agent most of his life. He’d learned the hard way that the more intelligence you have, the better off you are. The meeting lasted for half an hour, and Harmon never moved. When they finished and heheard them stirring, he eased the door shut and hurried down the hall to the exit. From there he took the stairs to his own office.
    He wasn’t in the office much, and it was simply furnished: a desk, a computer, a good leather chair, and several file cabinets that were actually camouflaged safes. The door lock was the best that money could buy, and the entire office was monitored with equipment that nobody else knew about.
    Harmon leaned back in the chair and put his boots up on the desk.
    He’d learned more than he’d expected. He’d known the overall outline of the project, but not some of the uglier details.
    They were killing people.
    He’d have to think about that.

7
    The sun was coming up over the Hollywood Freeway when something made a snuffling noise next to Shay’s head. She unzipped her bivy sack and peered out. A