The officer stepped close enough that the baton almost touched the man’s tie.
“You’re going to put your hands behind your back.”
The Black man looked toward the younger officer.
“Your body cameras recording?”
The younger officer instinctively touched his chest.
A small red light was visible.
“Yes.”
The lead officer turned sharply.
“Don’t answer him.”
The Black man nodded slowly.
“Good.”
The lead officer looked back.
“What’s good?”
“Evidence.”
The officer’s jaw tightened.
The man reached slowly toward the inside of his suit jacket.
The officer immediately brought the baton up.
“Hands!”
The Black man froze.
“I’m retrieving identification.”
“Slow.”
“Very.”
Two fingers entered the jacket.
He pulled out a black leather credential wallet.
The officer smirked.
“What is that supposed to be?”
The Black man opened it.
A gold federal badge caught the morning light.
Above it sat an identification card.
Federal Bureau of Investigation.
The officer’s expression did not change immediately.
His eyes moved from the badge to the photograph.
Then to the name.
Then to the title printed below it.
Supervisory Special Agent.
The younger officer leaned closer.
His mouth opened.
The lead officer looked up.
The Black man spoke calmly.
“My name is Supervisory Special Agent Adrian Cole.”
The officer’s face lost color.
Adrian continued.
“I am assigned to the FBI’s organized crime and public corruption task force.”
Silence.
Then engines approached from both directions.
Two dark SUVs entered the hotel drive.
A third stopped behind the police cruiser.
Doors opened almost simultaneously.
Men and women in dark suits stepped out.
One woman came forward quickly.
“Agent Cole?”
“I’m fine.”
Her eyes went to the shattered Bentley window.
Then the baton.
Then the police officer.
She stopped.
“What happened?”
The officer lowered the baton.
“Misunderstanding.”
Adrian looked at him.
“No.”
The officer swallowed.
Adrian continued.
“A misunderstanding ends when new information becomes available.”
He looked toward the destroyed window.
“This continued.”
The younger officer looked away.
The hotel entrance had become almost completely silent.
One guest still held a phone up.
Another had lowered his.
Nobody knew whether they were allowed to move.
The federal agent beside Adrian looked toward the hotel.
“We have a problem.”
Adrian understood immediately.
“The subject?”
“She saw everything.”
His face changed.
Only slightly.
But the other agents noticed.
The purpose of the morning had never been Adrian’s hotel departure.
It had never been the Bentley.
It was not even technically Adrian’s Bentley.
The car belonged to the federal government.
More precisely, it had been seized six months earlier from a convicted money launderer and temporarily assigned to the FBI under a court-authorized operation.
The black Bentley was bait.
And somebody inside the Marlowe Grand Hotel had just watched a uniformed city police officer smash its window in front of the FBI supervisor running the operation.
Adrian turned toward the hotel entrance.
A woman in large sunglasses and a leopard-pattern coat had disappeared.
She had been standing there thirty seconds earlier.
Now she was gone.
Adrian looked at the female agent beside him.
“Where?”
“Back through the lobby.”
“Team Two?”
“Moving.”