Chapter 95: Followed
"See you tomorrow."
Simon said it to the general vicinity of the Nerd Herd desk, collected his jacket, and headed for the parking structure.
He was thinking about a hot shower and about eight hours of sleep, both of which he had earned.
He was also thinking about what Casey had told him that afternoon, which was the kind of information that changed how you looked at a parking structure at night.
He stopped at the entrance to the lot and looked at the cars.
Row by row. Patient. The way Casey had been showing him to look at environments since he'd started paying attention to Casey's methods.
He found it on the second pass.
A black Chevrolet Tahoe, four rows back from the Mustang, parked with its nose pointing toward his car. The lot had cameras, which meant whoever was in that vehicle wasn't worried about being identified. Which meant they were either very confident or very professional. Through the Tahoe's windshield, in the driver's area, a red glow pulsed once and faded.
A cigarette.
Simon stood at the entrance for a moment, adjusting his read on the situation.
Parked in a lot, engine probably off, facing your vehicle, smoking — that was surveillance, not coincidence.
He walked normally to the Mustang, got in, started the engine, and pulled out as if nothing had happened.
"Casey," he said, activating his earpiece before he'd cleared the parking structure. "I may have a tail. Black Tahoe in the Buy More lot, positioned on my car. It's moving behind me."
"How sure are you?"
Simon gave him the details.
"That's a tail," Casey said. "I'm with Bartowski right now. Hang on." A pause. "Get him home safe first, then I'll track you through GPS. Try to lose them in the meantime."
"Understood."
The Tahoe made no effort to be subtle once they hit the open road, which was itself a statement. Whoever was driving had decided that the surveillance posture was over and the active follow was beginning. They matched his speed, maintained their interval, and held position through two turns.
Simon ran the calculation: losing a tail in LA traffic at this hour was achievable, but not guaranteed, and not without the kind of driving that attracted other kinds of attention.
He chose his moment at a signal that had just turned red — committed through the intersection at the amber, used the cross traffic gap cleanly, and heard the Tahoe's brakes before he was clear.
He covered three blocks before confirming the Tahoe was no longer in his mirrors.
"I lost them," he told Casey. "What's your position?"
"Just put Bartowski inside," Casey said. "Give me your location."
Simon read off the cross streets.
"Two minutes," Casey said.
Casey's voice came back less than ninety seconds later, and what it said wasn't what Simon had expected.
The transmission was broken — a sharp impact sound, glass, the particular chaos of a vehicle collision, and then static.
"Casey. Casey." Simon's foot was already finding the accelerator. "Hold on. I'm coming."
He called Sarah with his other hand.
She picked up on the second ring.
"Casey's been hit," Simon said. "I need support."
"I can't leave Chuck right now," Sarah said. "But I can get Beckman to dispatch a team. Send me the location."
Simon read it from memory — the street name Casey had given as his position, cross street, direction of approach.
"Team's en route," Sarah said. "Ten minutes minimum."
"I'll be there in three," Simon said, and ended the call.
The scene was two blocks north of where he'd lost the Tahoe.
Casey's car had been run — deliberately, by the positioning of the damage — and was on its side against a median barrier. Two men in dark suits were pulling Casey through the driver's window. Casey was conscious but not functional, his head lolling in the specific way that meant he'd taken a significant impact.
Simon stopped the Mustang at an angle, used the door as cover, and drew the Glock.
"Let him go," he said. "Now."
Both men stopped. Looked at each other. The specific calculation of two trained people assessing whether the person pointing a weapon at them was serious.
Simon's posture answered the question.
They set Casey down.
"Good. Hands up. Move to the sidewalk. Slowly."
They complied, which was interesting — professional people who had been told to avoid direct confrontation when confrontation became costly. Simon filed this.
When they were at the sidewalk, he called the distance right. "Stop. Face down. Hands on your heads."
They went to the ground.
Simon moved to Casey, crouched beside him, and kept the Glock up on the two men.
"Casey."
Casey's eyes opened. Took a moment.
"Simon?"
"I'm here. Support's coming. Can you move?"
"I can move." Casey started to push himself up, then stopped. "Look—"
Simon turned.
The taser barbs hit him in the back before he'd completed the turn — both of them, the full cycle, fifty thousand volts doing what fifty thousand volts always did.
He had time to feel his legs go before the world narrowed to a bright point and then nothing.
The cold came first.
Consciousness returned in fragments — the shock of cold water, a lot of it, then the disorientation of a body that had just experienced a forced system reboot. Simon blinked. The ceiling was concrete. The light above him was a single industrial fixture, bright and aimed directly at his face.
He was hanging.
Both wrists secured above his head with chain, attached to a hook in a ceiling mount. His feet were on the floor — just barely, enough to take some of the weight but not enough to be comfortable. His jacket was gone. His weapons were gone.
He tested the chain. Industrial grade. Welded links, not assembled ones. Nothing he was going to separate with physical effort.
He filed this under problems to solve later and took stock of the room.
Concrete walls. One door, closed. The industrial light overhead, too bright to see past. Nothing on the floor.
"Simon Lewis."
A voice from behind the light. Male, controlled, with the specific flatness of someone who was not angry and was not interested in theatrics — just gathering information.
Simon turned toward the sound.
Another light came on, aimed at his face.
He squinted against it.
"Who are you?" he said. "Why am I here?"
"Tell me who NSA Major John Casey and CIA Senior Officer Sarah Walker are currently protecting."
Simon processed this.
They knew Casey and Sarah by name, rank, and agency. They didn't know what the operation was — which meant they had intelligence on the handlers but not on the asset. Which meant this wasn't a Fulcrum deep-penetration operation; it was targeted surveillance that had identified the outer layer without reaching the inner one.
"I don't know those names," Simon said.
"I have no interest in your cover story," the voice said. "Tell me what I want to know."
"If you let me go right now," Simon said pleasantly, "I'll consider not reporting this. Very seriously consider it."
A pause.
"Wrong answer," the voice said.
A figure stepped out from behind the light.
[500 PS unlocks 1 Extra Chapter]
[10 Reviews unlock 1 Extra Chapter]
Thanks for reading—reviews are appreciated.
P1treon Soulforger has 20+advance chapters