Hicks drove them to the hotel. He had asked whether there was somewhere that Ellie wanted to go, but, after considering it for a moment, she had shaken her head and said no. The safe house where they had taken La Bruja had lacked the security that might have been expected, and, in the circumstances, Ellie decided that it would be better to avoid the fallback location that had been proposed in the event that the operation had been compromised. She said that she would make a call once she was off the street, and work out how best to proceed from there.

Hicks pulled into the hotel’s parking lot and slotted the car into a space between two larger vehicles. He took the rifle that Chase had been using and, after ensuring that he wouldn’t be seen, he stowed it in the trunk. He found himself both annoyed and impressed by Chase’s act of bravado. It was impetuous, certainly, but there was sense in what he had done. They had an idea where Milton was, but that might only be temporary. Ziggy had made it clear that the battery in the transmitter would only last for a day or two and, even if it still had a little juice, there was no guarantee that Milton’s captors would not find it. If they moved Milton and Ziggy was unable to track him… well, that didn’t really bear thinking about. At least Chase would be able to give them a heads-up, assuming that he had found somewhere suitable to surveil the place where Milton was being kept.

Ellie got out of the car.

“Come on,” Hicks said, pointing up at the hotel. “We’re in here.”

* * *

Ziggy had all of his computers up and running and was buzzing between them. He looked up as Hicks and then Ellie came inside.

“What happened?” he said, and then, as he noticed that Hicks wasn’t alone, added, “Who’s this?”

“This is Special Agent Ellie Flowers,” Hicks said.

“Special Agent… what?”

“FBI,” Ellie said.

Ziggy shrank back a little with the hesitation born of a lifetime’s wariness of authority. “Why do I feel as if I’m completely out of the loop?”

“Ellie knows Milton,” Hicks explained.

“I was with him when we got hit,” she said.

Hicks took off his jacket, tossed it over the back of the chair and made a cup of coffee as he brought Ziggy up to speed. Ziggy listened, his attention still flitting between the screens, his fingers occasionally dancing across the keyboards.

“So Chase—he followed?” he said when Hicks was finished.

“Yes,” Hicks said. “Do you know where he is?”

“I do,” Ziggy said. He turned to one of the computers, opened a window and spun the screen around. “Here.”