He thought through his options, then made adjustments to his program, filtering smartphone traffic into a subdirectory. He wasn’t after a phone, but he’d harvest the data and check it later. If it came to that. His fingers danced lightly over the keyboard. His handwriting might be barely legible, but he could type at nearly eighty words per minute—a child of the times. He hit “Refresh” and watched the cell signature in the park disappear. That ought to clear things up a little.

But only a little. The citizens of Somerset were clearly eager to embrace the unseasonably cool weather. After weeks of days in the upper eighties, a day in the seventies felt like a gift from God. By lunchtime, downtown Somerset bore little resemblance to the ghost town that had greeted them on Sunday. The park beside the library was packed with mothers and their young children, workers on their lunch break, and people out to enjoy the sunshine. A group of high-school girls had spread out beach blankets and were sunning themselves on the grass, which in turn had brought shirtless boys and their Frisbees. An ice-cream truck set up shop on the corner and was doing brisk trade in cones and Popsicles. As the afternoon wore on, the crowd didn’t dissipate but rather swelled as people decided to play hooky from work and start their weekends early.

“How are we doing?” Jenn’s voice asked through his earpiece.

His eyes wandered over to the camera aimed at the park. Jenn was sitting alone on a park bench with a good view of the area. In her employment photo, she'd worn a business suit and her hair was down. Today, she was dressed for a workout—hair pulled back tightly in a ponytail, baseball cap and oversized sunglasses obscuring her face. She sipped a water bottle looking like she was taking it easy after a run. Given the tailored suits that he was accustomed to seeing her wear, he’d taken Jenn for one of those StairMaster-obsessed women whose goal in life was spaghetti arms and a size two. But the tank top and shorts made him realize how mistaken he’d been. She was an athlete and an incredibly fit one at that. But he knew that her extreme fitness was practical; her sculpted shoulders and thighs spoke to a coiled, lethal strength.

“Looking good,” he said.

She glanced toward the camera, but he couldn’t read her expression behind her sunglasses and Steelers cap.

“You better be talking about the weather,” she said.

“What else?”

“Uh-huh. Hendricks, status?”

Hendricks was stationed in the Cherokee a block away from the library, where he had a clear view up and down the street in front of the library.