The JSOC team had done everything she’d asked of them as they’d been sent on one chase after another over the past few days, so she gave in to his demand without putting up much of a fight. She knew they’d be tired and angry for being spun up again and again, often getting to locations where facial recog hits were too old for them to do more than wander around with only faint hopes their target might just be loitering in the area reading a newspaper.

The most recent callout of the JSOC team had taken place near Union Station around two p.m. Brewer’s team at the TOC had caught the facial recog hit, and Brewer herself had double-checked it within five minutes of the image being captured.

The image was of a man, very possibly Violator, walking into the large parking garage just to the west of the massive train station in the center of the District.

Another image showing the same man was captured inside the garage just a minute later, and it had him walking up a ramp towards one of the higher levels. This photograph did not contain a good view of his face, but with the first image to go on, Suzanne decided to deploy Dakota and his men.

The full twelve-man JSOC team arrived, followed shortly behind by CIA assets, and they all searched the entire area.

But no sign of Violator was detected, and the analysts at the TOC were unable to find any images of him leaving the area. The interior of the train station was virtually enveloped by camera coverage, and the lack of any computer matches there led Brewer to the conclusion her target had simply vanished.

Suzanne then sat down at a monitor in the TOC and individually checked the image of each and every vehicle that left the parking garage from the moment Violator entered until four hours later, long past the time JSOC had ruled out Gentry still being in the area, because she worried they might have missed him. Early in this slow, laborious endeavor she thought she detected the problem. She noticed an issue with one of the cameras covering the garage. The angle at which the sun’s rays hit the windshields of the cars leaving the H Street NE exit from one forty-five to two fifteen p.m. caused a large flashing glare on each and every digital image, and even by going manually through all the images time-stamped during this period, Suzanne could barely make out the drivers of any of the cars and trucks. If Gentry had left by this exit, inside a vehicle, within a half hour of when he arrived, it would have been almost impossible to identify him.