“We’ll need to ASAP this to D.C. Our labs can enhance. Maybe we’ll get a clearer picture, something we can put out. That would cut way down on his maneuverability and operational freedom.”

Bob looked at the blurred image.

“Can you bring it up?”

“No, sir,” said the mall security boss. “It’s mainly meant for figuring out what kid hit what other kid.”

“Got it,” said Bob.

He stared at the image, but the more he bored into it, the more incoherent it became, until it was just a fuzzy mess of pixels, losing all form and content. What he saw was what he expected, but nothing actionable. His head was big; it went with his big frame and big hands, which were seen dwarfing the individual French fries as he ate them. He was clearly in command, but, in actual point of fact, he didn’t look particularly fierce: a big guy, but no different than a million other men in other malls. Not bad-looking. Baseball cap—black, no insignia—a hoodie, jeans, the shoes not visible. Clean-shaven, not that fake tough look movie stars and podiatrists affected these days. Everybody wanted to look tough, while this guy, and all true tough guys, just wanted to blend in.

At one point, he sent the boy on an errand, got himself a cup of coffee, returned to the table, and just sat. He didn’t appear to be unusually wary or agitated. It was clear he trusted the kid, who, after all, could have sold him out as a way of walking away from flattening Theola Peppers’s face. But the kid was back, and the sack revealed—another freeze, thank you—that he’d bought a phone.

“Disposable,” said Nick. “One call, then into the river. If we track the phone, the GPS signal just takes us to the river. Standard operating procedure.”

The two rose to leave. Upright, Juba was large for his ethnic grouping, with that linebacker’s body and the sparkle, the large and powerful muscles evident with each step, even though he was slightly pigeon-toed. He and the boy ambled out of Mickey D’s, back into the world, all proteined-up for fresh outrage.

“Is that it?” Nick asked.

“One more segment we think is them. Another camera, looking down the hall toward the west parking lot exit, number 2B.”

“Please,” said Nick.

This one, at least, explained something. The two were shuffling nonchalantly to the doors, Juba with fourteen inches of sawed-off shotgun wrapped in what appeared to be a hoodie. They opened the doors, stepped out, the doors closed behind them, and—

A second later, they were back, their postures changed radically. Now their faces were clenched, in fear or anger, clearly alarmed, bursting with a palpable need to move or flee or pull guns on something.