TENACITY

CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

*

Monday, October 17, 2016

At the base...

"Billy," Trey called out, entering the office fully and shutting the door behind him. The older man looked up from his screen, pulling off his glasses. "Did you get any sleep at all last night?"

Billy shook his head no. "I had to post people around the house all the time, and because I asked Mr. Turner to go spend time with his wife, I took on his job as well."

"I see," Trey murmured, moving to lean against the door, then he crossed his arms over his chest. "Thank you, even though I'm not happy you had no sleep."

Billy smiled. "Did I tell you the state has given you permission to view their camera feeds?" Trey nodded. "Well, quite belatedly, they wanted to know why. So, I gave them a gist of what's happening and they want you to know that if there's anything else they can help with, they're a phone call away."

Trey smiled briefly. "I'll keep that in mind," he said as he pushed off the door. "I'll get to that right now actually. I'd rather we didn't waste any more time. I did promise Alexandra I was going to bring back our kids, and I intend to do exactly that."

"Right."

With that, Trey went to the open office area to the computer he'd used last time. The chair wasn't there so Trey went to the next desk and tapped the man there on the shoulder. He pulled his headphones off, and when he saw Trey, he stood with a salute. Trey waved it off, then asked, "Could I borrow your seat for a while?"

"Of course, sir," he said, gesturing to the seat. "I'll get another from one of the conference rooms."

Trey smiled. "Thank you." Then he wheeled the swivel chair over to the computer he'd claimed, settling in it to get to work. First, he emailed Billy, who replied almost immediately, for the access codes he must have been given, and once he had them, he entered the system quite easily.

Then he sat back to think.

They'd started the small gathering somewhere around seven pm when the sun had set, which meant he had to check up records from seven. Records of streets around his house and go from there.

To be on the safer side, he began checking from exactly seven, right up to eight, but nothing showed up next to their property. Then he remembered quite belatedly that the guy had said the car had been in the forested area at the back of the property.

Trey knew that behind the front trees, a path opened up that led to the highway, so, he found the cameras lined up on the highway and began studying the cars that had gone past from seven.

It took a few minutes, and he almost didn't, but he saw it. The car changed color when it took the turn onto the rough road among the trees. He rewound the tape several times, wanting to be sure he was seeing what he was seeing, but it didn't change.

Sure enough, the car was changing color.

And it pissed him off.

Because that right there was a new thing he'd been working on for the government, and someone had either stolen the gadget from right under his nose or had stolen the idea.

He had a couple of people in mind.

He hit rewind, paused it where the car was still in line along the highway, then zoomed in. The image was blurry at first, but he pressed a few keys and the picture cleared out. The car he saw, prior to the change in color, was the extremely rare model of Jataran cars—the J19, only two of which existed in the whole world.