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Without programming her destination into her phone, she scrolled along her planned route, looking for traffic that might delay her arrival in San Luis Obispo. Chen was familiar with the area and knew her route would take her across Naples before turning to parallel the San Gabriel River north to Interstate 405. She would pass through Torrance, Hawthorne, and Inglewood, bypassing both the Long Beach airport and larger Los Angeles International before traffic slowed her. Southwest of Burbank, she would merge onto the 101 and pick up speed as she traveled west on the north side of the Santa Monica Mountains. From there, she would hug the coast through Ventura and Santa Barbara, before finally reaching the sleepy college town on the central coast.

She switched back to the calculator app and read the message again.

Though she doubted the data could lead engineers to conclude the jet’s software had been manipulated via remote hack, she thought it possible they could use it to discover the fissure that allowed it to happen in the first place. That would change everything and put months of planning at risk of being wasted. She would have to respond to this, but first she needed to get moving. Mantis didn’t like to be kept waiting.

Chen put her phone in the cradle mounted on the dash, backed out of her spot, and began her drive. Normally, she’d spend at least an hour completing a surveillance detection route before proceeding to her destination, but time was short, and she elected to bypass it. Spotting a tail before San Luis Obispo would be child’s play.

Rick watched the spy climb from the RHIB onto the dock while he mentally catalogued her appearance for his later reports. Asian, most likely Chinese. Early thirties. Five foot two or five foot three. One hundred and ten to one hundred and twenty pounds. Shoulder-length black hair. Narrow face with almond-shaped eyes.

She sauntered past the neighboring yachts, and by the time she’d pulled even with his, he had recovered enough to act inebriated and call out to her. “Ahoy there.”

She flashed him a halting smile but continued moving up the dock with effortless grace, confident that she was a woman to be desired, the mistress of her domain. He made note of that characteristic as well, then pulled the earpiece out from under his collar and slipped it into his ear.

“Air One, Delta One.”

“Go for Air One,” the pilot said.

“Subject is moving toward the parking lot. Female, Asian. Early thirties.”

“Air One has a visual.”

Rick waited until she had disappeared into the parking lot, then slipped into the saloon, where he turned out the lights. He returned to the aft deck to contemplate his options. “Maintain your visual, and let me know when she’s on the move.”

“Subject is in a four-door Jeep Wrangler,” the pilot said.

Rick heaved himself over the transom and stepped on a stern line to draw the fishing boat closer before leaping to the dock. He willed himself not to run, but in the distance, he saw the Jeep back out of the space next to his loaner BMW and leave the parking lot.

“Delta One is in pursuit, maintain your visual.”

“Air One copies.”

When the Jeep had gone a hundred yards and disappeared, Rick leaned forward and sprinted up the dock to reach the BMW. Driving a flashy car had seemed like a good idea at the time, but as he climbed into the driver’s seat, he regretted his decision not to go with a boring government sedan.

He backed out of his spot and put the German car into gear, tearing out of the parking lot onto Ocean Boulevard to eat up some of the lost ground. “Status?”

“Subject is turning north on Claremont,” the pilot replied.

Rick zoomed in on the BMW’s navigation display to see the street names and purposely drove past the street she had turned down. He suspected TANDY was only cutting across to Second Street and the quickest route to the freeway, but the residential street was a good place to begin a surveillance detection route. “Copy, I will pursue on…” He squinted at the street names on the moving map. “Pomona.”

“Air One will be bingo fuel in one five mikes.”

He cranked the steering wheel over to turn down Pomona Avenue, paralleling TANDY’s route as he tried to close and regain the visual before his air support had to return to the Long Beach airport to refuel. He bit off an acerbic reply and simply said, “Copy.”

Rick pressed hard on the gas pedal, ignoring the beach cottages and parked cars whirring by as he sped through the Belmont Shore neighborhood. He scrambled to come up with a backup plan before he lost his dedicated air support.

“Subject at Claremont and Second Street,” the pilot said.