Free Active Shooter by Eduardo Suastegui Page B

around for times like these, like we talked
about.”
    “Of course.”
    “Good. Where are we going now? To meet with
her source?”
    “Maybe,” I said.
    “But her source has contacted her.”
    “I think so.”
    “You're not sure?”
    “No.” I said this and looked over at Bridget.
She looked back at me for a moment, and I hoped she could read in
my eyes I had just thrown my lot with her. Then I wondered. Had I
really?
    “She seems a little more savvy about this
than we thought,” Walter noted.
    “You could say that.”
    “Do you think she knows we're following
you?”
    “Counting on it.”
    “But she doesn't seem concerned. Like she has
a plan to get around us.”
    “Yeah.”
    “You're doing great, Andre. Just hang in
there a little longer. If she's going to make her move today, we
should be able to close this deal and get you back to your
life.”
    “OK.”
    “Listen, there is one thing we need you to
take care of for us, OK?”
    “Sure.”
    “Your phone. We're not getting any voice or
tracking. We're going to need you to turn it on. You know how,
right?”
    “That may prove difficult.”
    “You think she'll know you've turned it
on?”
    “Heck, yeah.”
    “Anyway you can get around it?”
    “I'll look into it,” I said.
    “We'd appreciate that. Let's go ahead and
close this conversation. How about you cut it off?”
    “Listen, I need to go now,” I said. “We'll
stay in touch and set up the photo shoot as soon as you have all
your stuff in place. Does that sound good?”
    “Roger that,” Walter said, and we hung
up.
    Bridget looked over at me and patted my
forearm. I expected her to make some joke about how short I'd been
on my side of the conversation, or to quiz me about what Walter and
I had discussed.
    Instead, she said, “Thank you.”
    “They want me to turn on tracking and voice,”
I said holding up my phone.
    She looked through the rear view mirror.
“They know exactly where we are, so I can't see where the tracking
will hurt us. As for the voice part, we'll have to figure out what
to talk about. Photography maybe?”
    “We'll have to give them more.”
    “Like?” she asked.
    “Like I'm really upset with you for playing
games with me, not telling me who your source is, not telling me
where we're going. I'll have to yell at you a little.”
    She smiled. “Well, we are in Hollywood. A
little acting might be fun.”
    We drove by Mann Chinese theater just as our
faux argument heated up. We let it reach fever pitch, and cut it
off, both of us driving on in silence like we needed a good dose of
couple's therapy.
    A few minutes later, we arrived at one of her
network's local studio. Bridget parked the car and told me she'd be
right back. I watched her go into the building. Knowing Walter's
team would tell him I was alone, I called him.
    “We have a couple of minutes here,” I
said.
    “You OK?”
    “I think so.”
    “Careful how hard you push. That was pretty
intense.”
    “I think it's necessary. It lets her know I'm
not just some lump she can push around town during her scavenger
hunt.”
    “What do you think she's doing now?” Walter
asked.
    “No idea.” I let that sit for just a second,
then added, “I'm going to have to turn-off remote monitoring.”
    “Oh?”
    “She'll probably want to re-scan the car, and
she'll catch the phone.”
    “You think she's that sophisticated.”
    “It's more about paranoia than justification,
but she's got a state of the art scanner. The kind we tested at the
lab. You know she caught every bug you had in the apartment, right?
She chose to remove only the one in the bathroom.”
    “Jesus.”
    “Can't we just get her for that?” I asked. “I
mean, that's government property, of the classified kind, right?
She's not supposed to have it. Why not just arrest her, then? That
should be enough to can her for a long time.”
    Walter considered that for a few seconds but
came back with the all so predictable answer I expected. “She's