Onto the screen came a shot of the bodyguard getting into a Cadillac Escalade. Black or dark blue. The wiry guy got in the back seat, but he opened his own door.

“The first four digits of the plate look like 5DUT,” Ingram said, jotting the number and letters on his hand with a Sharpie from off the manager’s desk. “Let me go outside and run it.”

He left. And Remy, Abe, and I asked the manager if we could have the place to talk. The manager nodded and took off.

“The ideal situation would be to surveil these folks,” Abe said once he left. “Track that car. And wait.”

“Especially if they can replace the gun parts that fast,” Remy added. “’Cause what we really want here are the 3D plans. More than the gun.”

I nodded, but my mind was somewhere else. On the message that Carilla sent to the throwaway cell.

“Carilla’s text,” I said. “It referred to something happening Thursday morning, right? He was trying to press the buyer into paying up.”

“He said, ‘I know you’re still gonna need what I got,’” Remy said.

“Well, it’s Wednesday afternoon now,” I said. “If those were replacement parts for that gun, then someone rushed them up here for a reason.”

“You think something’s going down tomorrow?” Abe asked.

“It’s a sniper rifle, guys. Someone’s going down. And when you shoot from that distance, it’s hard to know who even took the shot. We need to call ATF and fast.”

32

By the time we reviewed what else was found in the canvass and got back to MFPD, our friend Mandelle Clearson from Atlanta PD was there, acting in his capacity for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

He and a Fed named Quarles had set up in our conference room, and Clearson smiled when he saw me. “You hillbillies can’t seem to stay out of gun trouble, can you?”

I didn’t return the smile.

“I’m kidding, buddy,” he said.

“What do we know?” I asked.

“The bodyguard’s name is Anton Sedonovich,” Clearson said, opening up a file on the guy that the waitress called the football player. “He grew up in Louisiana, got a scholarship to wrestle at LSU, and dropped out his sophomore year. After that, he picked up a charge for domestic abuse that was reduced to a misdemeanor.”

“The shorter man’s name is Nolan Brauer,” said Quarles, the other agent.

Quarles was late forties like Clearson. Black, with gray in his sideburns. “Brauer was Army,” he continued. “Iraq War vet, and a helluva sniper from the records we’re allowed to read.”

Quarles had soft features and his shoulders were rounded. He looked more like an insurance actuary than a guy packing heat for the FBI.

“He’s been on a federal watch list for three months,” Quarles continued.

“Based on what?” Remy asked.

“Some comment he made online. Agents interviewed him, but didn’t find any reason to do more.”

The Fed had an accent like Abe’s, but different. More twangy. Like someone from the cuff of the boot of Louisiana. Or from Mississippi.