"The men out there, they're waiting for something to happen, but the men who are following us aren't going to wait. They're going to pick a time when nobody expects it." Emily looked at this 12-year-old girl for a moment. "You're exactly right," she said. Sophie looked at her with something that was not quite relief, but was in that direction.
"Okay," she said. Emily stood up and looked at Gallardo. "We need to talk about repositioning," she said to them. The briefing happened at the kitchen table while Sophie did homework in her room and Carol made coffee that nobody asked for, but everyone accepted. The Varga crew, as Gallardo laid it out in detail, now was a seven-person mobile operation with a rotating roster of support contacts in various Arizona cities.
They were not a large organization, they were a precise one, which was considerably more dangerous. Their pattern in previous situations involving witnesses or informants involved a period of extended surveillance followed by a single decisive action, not extended harassment, not escalating pressure. They watched until they understood the rhythm of the target's life, and then they moved into a gap in that rhythm when coverage was thinnest. "The school surveillance," Emily said. "Right," Gallardo confirmed.
"Sophie's schedule is the most predictable element of the family's routine. The wife works from home, the husband only leaves for specific appointments, but Sophie goes to school 5 days a week at the same time via the same two road route. "Then that's not going to continue," Emily said. "We can't pull her from school entirely. It raises questions with neighbors, with the school itself.
The cover story for why this family is here has a limited load-bearing capacity. "She doesn't go to school the same way twice," Emily said. "Different times, different drop-off points, different people doing the drop, and we're going to change where she actually is on two out of five days so that the pattern is genuinely unpredictable." "That's a significant logistical undertaking. That's what it takes," Emily said.
She turned her coffee cup in her hands. "The men you have positioned outside, what's their background?" "Former law enforcement, both solid." "I'm sure they are. They're also sitting in cars that have been in the same positions for how many days?"
Gallardo looked uncomfortable. "Four. So, anyone doing surveillance on this house has already mapped the coverage positions," Emily said. "We're moving them tonight, different vehicle, different locations, different rotation schedule." "My men won't like that."
"Your men don't have to like it," she said pleasantly. "They have to do it." Gallardo looked at her for a long moment, then he nodded. "Darnell said you'd run it your way," he said. "Darnell was right."
She was quiet for a moment. "I also need to reach out to some people, my own people, not Hells Angels involvement. This is not their situation, and I won't bring that into it. But individuals I trust, people who understand how a mobile operation like the Varga crew functions." "Who are we talking about?"
"A woman named Torres who lives outside Phoenix. She used to do skip tracing for bail bondsmen, and she knows how to find mobile operations. And a man named Eddie Briggs who does security consulting for private clients, similar background to mine. I've worked with both of them." "They're discreet."
Gallardo considered said, "You'd need to bring them in carefully. The family's location is" "I know how to bring people in carefully," Emily said. "This isn't my first time managing information security in a sensitive situation." He nodded again. Robert Ashworth, who had been sitting quietly at the end of the table listening to this entire exchange, suddenly said, "Can I ask you something?"
Emily looked at him. "Why are you doing this?" He said. "You don't know us. You have your own life.
Gallardo told me you left that world behind. So, why come back to it?" The kitchen was quiet. Carol had stopped pretending to be busy at the counter and was listening. "Your daughter told me that the people following you aren't going to wait," Emily said, "that they're looking for the gap."
"She did," Robert said. "She's right. And I have spent a significant portion of my life learning to close gaps." Emily paused. "You did something very difficult, Mr. Ashworth.
You saw something wrong and you had the option to walk away from it and be comfortable and safe, and you went to the FBI instead. That cost your family everything you built. You did it anyway." She looked at him steadily. "I don't let people who do the right thing face the consequences of it alone.
That's it. That's the whole answer." Robert Ashworth looked at her for a long moment and then looked down at the table. Carol put her hand on his arm, and the room held the weight of what had just been said in the way that rooms hold things when something honest and important has been spoken aloud for the first time. That evening, Emily called Torres.
Maria Torres was 51, former bounty hunter, current private investigator, and one of the sharpest readers of operational patterns Emily had ever met. She answered the phone the way she always answered it with her name and nothing else, waiting for the other person to fill in the context. "It's Emily Carter," Emily said. "Em," Torres' voice warmed. "It's been 2 years."
"I know. I need your eyes on something." She laid it out quickly and clearly. Torres listened without interrupting, which was one of the things Emily valued most about her, the capacity to receive information in full before responding to any part of it. When Emily finished, Torres said, "Varga crew, I've heard the name.
Tucson arm operation went mobile. That's them. They're not amateurs, Em. I know. You're going to need current intelligence on their position.
Not historical stuff. Where they are right now, today. That's what I'm asking you for. Torres made a sound that was not quite a laugh, the exhale of someone who had been doing a version of this work long enough to find it more interesting than frightening. Give me 48 hours.