CHAPTER 1
The springtime sun was slipping past the horizon as a line of government vans and black SUVs quietly snaked their way through the New Jersey industrial park. Most of the one-story buildings were deserted for the night, but light from a few of the offices bathed areas of the parking lot with a soft glow. Civilian casualties weren’t something Secret Service Agent Griffin Keller wanted to contemplate right now. Not when he was so close to capturing the man who had eluded him for nearly two years. A man, known only as The Artist, who was responsible for flooding the world’s monetary system with nearly fifty million dollars in counterfeit one hundred dollar bills.
Griffin fidgeted in the front seat of the Chevy Tahoe, an SRG rifle on his lap and a lump in his throat. Any one of those occupied offices could be housing a lookout who might alert their prey to the incoming visitors. They needed to get the strike team in place before that happened. The intel he’d received earlier in the day indicated the group was preparing to relocate. Possibly overseas. Griffin would be damned if he let the counterfeit ring slip away from his grasp. He hadn’t played nice with the FBI for all these months just to lose the biggest collar of his career.
“Subject on the move.” The voice of one of the agents staking out the warehouse whispered through his earpiece.
“Damn it! Let’s move in,” Griffin shouted into his radio transmitter. “I don’t want that son of a bitch getting away!”
Agents from the Secret Service and the FBI quickly slipped out of the vans, their bodies forming a wide circle around a darkened office/warehouse unit at the end of one of the buildings. Their dark battle dress uniforms and sleek black helmets equipped with night vision goggles made them look like a bunch of cockroaches fanning out in a kitchen after dark.
“Hey, Agent Keller, let’s not forget who’s in charge here,” Leslie Morgan’s husky voice floated through his earpiece. “No one enters that building until I give the go order.”
Louis Silva, the driver of the SUV, chuckled next to Griffin. “Damn. That woman loves her position of power,” Silva said. “I’ll bet she’s like that in bed.”
At Silva’s comments, Griffin felt himself go hard. Leslie was like that in bed; constantly trying to dominate her partner. Sex with the FBI Special Agent always turned into a sweaty wrestling match. One Griffin never let her win. He frequently wondered if Leslie’s need to best him was what kept her coming back for more. Not that he minded. Their relationship—if it could be called that—was about blowing off steam. Nothing more.
Griffin didn’t bother sharing this information with Silva, though. “Get your mind out of the locker room and back into the op, Silva,” he commanded before jumping out of the car.
Leslie had her team of agents in place just outside the bay doors leading into the warehouse. Griffin’s team positioned themselves along the perimeter of the building, blocking all the possible escape routes. Based on the intel they’d gathered from the agents manning the stakeout, there was only one person inside. Presumably, he was packing up the printing presses, ink, and specialty paper to move to their next site.
“Okay, team, let’s see who’s at home.”
Leslie had no sooner gotten the words out when one of the garage doors opened. A rental box truck, its engine running, filled the warehouse bay. Sitting in the driver’s seat of the truck, a young man, wearing a Yankees baseball cap, stared wide-eyed at the twenty assault rifles trained on him.
“Federal agents,” Leslie called out to him. “Come out of the truck slowly with your hands where we can see them.”
Griffin watched the driver’s mouth turn up in a sneer as he reached for the gear shift.
“I’m going to disable the vehicle!” Griffin shouted while he aimed his rifle at the truck’s front tire. “I want this guy alive.”
The windshield exploded before Griffin could get the shot off, however. The box truck never moved, its engine quietly idling. Through the shattered glass, Griffin could see the driver leaning against the blood-spattered back wall of the cab, his eyes still wide and a perfect black hole in the Yankee emblem of his baseball cap. Chaos followed as Griffin swore violently.
“Damn it! Who the hell took that shot? I’ll have your ass fired tonight!”
Leslie was yelling for the strike force to check the perimeter rooftops as sirens peeled in the background. All Griffin could hear was the roaring in his ears. He took two steps toward the truck before Silva grabbed him, pulling him behind the line of vans.
“Stay back, Keller,” he said. “We need to check the area for explosives.”
Fuck. Not only was his best lead dead, but all the evidence could be blown to bits, as well. Two agents dressed in explosive ordinance disposal clothing exited one of the FBI vans, each with a dog by his side. The agents slowly circled the truck as the dogs danced around the chassis, sniffing for explosives. Like the dogs, Griffin was filled with his own nervous energy, pacing as the agents and their canine partners seemed to take their time inspecting the truck.
“The shot came from a rooftop two buildings away, Agent Morgan,” a voice said over the transmitter. “The shooter got away.”
Griffin ripped his receiver from his ear and let it dangle down over his shoulder as he swore viciously again. He didn’t want to hear about anyone escaping. Not tonight when he’d been so close to breaking the case wide open. His gut had been right about someone else watching the place. Whoever it was, they hadn’t bothered warning the kid in the truck. They simply silenced him instead.
“Can we make this go any faster?” He practically growled the question at Leslie who’d come up to stand beside him.
Griffin was impatient to get inside that truck to see if the gang had left any clues to their identity. Specifically, clues that would lead him to The Artist. Not that he believed he’d find anything, but there was always a chance the black hats had slipped up. Griffin didn’t want to stand around with his hands in his pockets while potential leads slipped away.
Leslie shot him a sympathetic look, but that was the only thing soft about her. “I won’t jeopardize the safety of anyone on this team, Agent Keller.”
She was right, of course. Busting into the truck would have to wait until the area was secure. Her ability to keep cool under fire was one of the things Griffin respected about the FBI Special Agent. Griffin had a tendency to act first and think later. A trait that bugged the crap out of his parents when he was a teenager, followed by every supervisor he’d ever had. He shoved his earpiece back in and continued his pacing.