The drone maintained its steady orbit above the safe house. She watched the footage, flicking between standard HD and infrared. Her attention flicked to the back of the property as the drone’s IR camera picked up a new heat source. A figure came out of the building into the yard behind it. The drone’s targeting computer helpfully overlaid a reticule over the figure, and then a further two reticules as two more people emerged from the house and followed.

“Channel, this is Six,” she said into the microphone. “Movement at the rear of the property.”

The figures got into two vehicles and the gate was opened.

Six pushed the button to transmit. “They’re on the move.”

* * *

Ziggy was busy. The laptop to his right was displaying the location of the GPS transmitter in Milton’s boot. The machine to his left was running the photograph of the man in the car through all of the databases to which Ziggy had illicit access. The laptop in front of him was tuned in to a local police scanner; since he didn’t speak Spanish, he had set up a workaround that recorded each new piece of speech and then ran the recording through a piece of software that translated it into English. It wasn’t the most elegant way to do it, but it was working, and he didn’t have time to prepare an alternative.

He had just reached over the screen of the right-hand computer for his packet of cigarettes when he noticed that the flashing red dot that represented the tracker had started to move.

The dot moved again, going beyond the boundary of the property.

He reached for his phone. “Hicks, this is Ziggy. The tracker is moving.”

“Where?”

“Looks like it’s in a car.” He refreshed the screen and saw the dot move again. “They’re turning left onto Carrera 83 and heading north.”

“Copy that. Chase?”

“Got it. I’m on my way.”

“Me too,” Hicks said. “Chase—tell me if you can see him. Ziggy—keep watching. I need to know where that tracker is at all times.”

“Copy that.”

“Hicks out.”

* * *

Milton sat quietly as they made their way through the city. The cars had formed up in a convoy, with their car in the front and the trail car a length behind. They turned left out of the safe house and headed north. Milton watched through the window as they followed a bend in the road that took them onto a one-way road that was enclosed on the left by a wooden fence and on the right by a narrow sidewalk and then a metal fence that was itself topped with rolls of razor wire. The wooden fence fronted a series of trees, while the metal fence demarked the boundary of an apartment block. Milton felt an itch at the back of his head.

Nerves.

“Have you scouted the route?” he asked.