Free Old Growth & Ivy (The Spook Hills Trilogy Book 1) by Jayne Menard Page A

she could help him round out
and fill that void that he fears will be retirement.  She had similar
concerns about herself.  If things progressed between them, perhaps together
they could define a life after their career years were behind them.  She
shook her head at herself and pulled her thoughts back.  She was way ahead
of herself.  That night Ivy composed an email back to Steve, but before
she hit the "Send" button, Ivy told herself to keep her desires under
control.  Given her work commitments and pressures, having a long distance
relationship that would have to develop in fits and starts might not be so
bad. 

Chapter
5
     
    Around nine that same evening, Steve
and Mathew arrived in Washington by train from New York, using the trip to go
over their findings and plans on the child trafficking case.  The next
day, Steve had an obligatory breakfast meeting scheduled with his boss to
update him on his assigned cases.  He had no respect for his current boss,
thinking him a Bureau HQ lightweight who had never done fieldwork. 
However he would go through the motions of meeting with him.  Steve
considered his real boss to be the Director of the Bureau and he talked with
him every week or so.  Right after the breakfast meeting, Steve along with
Mathew, Brian and four other team members, would fly to Bern to prepare for the
move against the suspected head of the child trafficking operation, identified
as located in Sofia.  He liked to work closer to the perps once they
narrowed in on a location. 
    After jumping on the Metro Red Line to
Dupont Circle, Steve and Mathew dropped their bags at their condos and hustled
out for a late dinner at the Italian place they frequented a few blocks
away.  Walking back, Steve recalled that night when he thought they might
have been tailed and kept a discrete watch in case one appeared again.  At
one point, Mathew peered quickly over his left shoulder. 
    "You've seen it too?" 
Steve asked.
    "The tail?  Yeah. 
Thought I saw something the last time we were here."
    "You never said."
    "Wasn't sure."
    "Let's split up.  You turn
left.  I'll go right and then one of us will circle behind the other,
depending on what the tail does.  Maybe we can trap him between us."
    Mathew nodded.  At the corner
they parted. Steve walked for a block and glanced back.  A man in black
was creeping along behind him on the opposite side of the street.  Steve
pulled his gun from the shoulder holster, keeping it under his jacket.  He
slowed his pace, waiting for the tail to make a move.  He risked a glance
over his other shoulder.  Mathew had turned back and was coming up behind
the tail.  Suddenly the man bolted straight ahead, ran to the corner,
turned left and fled, moving with the speed of a sprinter doing a 400 yard
dash.  Steve and Mathew each took off running. 
    Up ahead the man in black turned left
on 18th Street heading towards Dupont Circle.  Steve wanted to catch this
shadow and learn who sent him.  The man glanced back, saw him and kept
running.  Steve yelled for him to stop.  The man split left on P
Street.  Steve pushed himself harder only to see the man dash into the
Metro Station.   Steve raced down the stairs just in time to see the
man in black boarding a train as it left the station.  Mathew puffed up
behind him.
    "Missed him?"
    "Yeah."
    "No doubt we are being tailed,
though."
    "Ever see anything in New
York?"
     Mathew shook his head. 
"How did he know we were back?"
    "Same restaurant.  Maybe a
waiter or somebody gets paid to tip him off."
    "Let's go back."
    "They were closing when we
left."
    “Who do you think it was?"
    "Maybe from that drug lord we
tried to hit in Mexico."  They were walking again back to their
condos.
    "You been followed before?"
    "Not that I'm aware of, except
that one time.  Let's do a bug sweep of our condos and check our
electronic gear for tracking software."
    "Usual procedure?  I check
my place and my gear; you check yours?" 
    "And