Thursday February 7, 2019

11:55 am

Virginia Beach, VA

Dante and Simon had just finished setting up video surveillance around the high end liquor store that Simon had found. There was an outstanding order for 4 bottles of Lordanov Vodka under the name, Hector Alvarez, that was supposed to be filled today. Simon had searched Hector Alvarez and was unable to find a legitimate person with that name so he was pretty sure it was a fake ID that Razin was using. With the money he was making and the Director’s contacts, Simon was sure he could create false identities very easily. Virginia Beach was also in proximity to where they found the drug ship so it was a pretty good possibility that they would cross paths with Razin when he came to pick up his vodka. They were not planning on taking him out here, they wanted to find out more about the current operation and shut it down for good.

Dante had made his way inside the store last night and installed a new state of the art tracker Simon had developed under the label of 2 of the bottles and to be safe, 2 went  into the caps on the other bottles. You just can’t be too careful. They were now in a restaurant across from the store having lunch. Simon had his tablet on the table with the video feeds playing and their server had just dropped off their food. Without looking up, Simon said in a low voice,

“Coming from the east, jeans, black jacket, blue ball cap, backpack over his left shoulder.” Dante took his cell phone and opened the camera app, turned the aspect to selfie mode and positioned his phone so he could see Razin approach from behind him without looking in his direction. Razin was trying to look nonchalant, all the while scanning all around him. He paused and turned in the direction of the restaurant for a second and then continued into the liquor store.

Dante rose from the table and headed to the exit while Simon continued with his lunch, studying the video feeds the entire time. 16 minutes later, Razin exited the store, slung his backpack over his shoulder, obviously fuller than when he went inside, and headed off to the west, away from the direction he came from. Simon picked up slight movement that looked like a shadow and smiled to himself, Dante was so much better at this than anyone he had ever seen. The boy was almost invisible. Almost….

Very quickly, Razin moved past the last security camera they had set out so Simon got up and left the restaurant, after leaving cash to cover their meal, and he headed to the chase vehicle. Dante was on comms and was whispering locations to Simon as he followed Razin. They were a few blocks away when Dante started describing a car that Razin was about to get into when Simon heard a thump and Dante grunted. He could hear some jostling around and then a trunk slam. He heard an engine start and then the sounds of the car traveling, nothing from Dante. Simon tried raising him several times but had no response. He quickly activated the tracer that was part of Dante’s comm package, that he had implanted behind his left ear, to make sure he was going the same place as the trackers in the vodka bottles. Dante wore his hair about shoulder length so no one would see the small scar. All of them wore the same implant, it saved a lot of time in the field and Simon developed them for these situations specifically. After Nikki was abducted by the Panty Snatcher, he wasn’t taking any chances with his family.

Simon picked up his cell phone and dialed Nikki, not wanting to have the conversation he was about to.

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