“Suspicious male.”
“Doing what?”
“Watching people.”
“So was the elderly man near the fountain.”
Mercer said nothing.
“So were the two college students under the pavilion.”
Nothing.
“So was the white man who recorded you putting me in handcuffs.”
Mercer's eyes flicked toward the civilian holding the phone.
Isaiah continued.
“You walked directly to me.”
“Because you matched the description.”
“A short Black male in a winter coat?”
Mercer did not answer.
Keller looked toward him.
“What exactly did dispatch say?”
Mercer reached reluctantly for his radio.
Before he could respond, another voice cut through the federal channel in Isaiah's earpiece.
“Target moving. Recipient southbound.”
Isaiah instantly forgot Mercer.
“Status?”
Lena answered, “Voss is headed east. Recipient spotted tail and accelerated.”
Keller touched his own earpiece.
“Do they know we're on them?”
“Unknown.”
Isaiah looked toward the south path.
The red umbrella woman was gone.
She had seen something.
“Scout burned us,” Isaiah said.
Keller cursed under his breath.
Mercer looked confused.
“What?”
Isaiah stepped toward Keller.
“Let me back in.”
“You good?”
“My wrists work.”
“Cole—”
“We waited six weeks.”
Keller studied him for half a second.
Then he nodded.
“Go.”
Isaiah took off running.
Mercer watched in disbelief as the short man he had treated like a helpless nuisance sprinted across the park with startling speed. His boots struck the pavement in quick controlled steps, coat open behind him, while Lena ran parallel through the trees. Within seconds they disappeared beyond the fountain.
Mercer stood alone beside the spilled coffee.
The white man with the phone was still recording him.
For the first time that afternoon, Officer Daniel Mercer seemed unsure what to do with his hands.
Three blocks south of the park, Adrian Voss realized he was being followed.
He abandoned his sedan near an alley and ran toward a crowded shopping street, leaving the leather case with the recipient. Two federal agents continued behind Voss while another team tracked the man carrying the evidence. The plan had been to make both arrests quietly several blocks apart.
That plan was gone now.
Isaiah reached Madison Avenue just as Lena pointed toward the intersection.
“Gray coat!”
The recipient was half a block ahead.
He looked back.
He saw them.
Then he ran.
Isaiah accelerated.
The man in gray had nearly a foot in height on him and longer legs, but panic made him clumsy. He knocked into a sidewalk sign, stumbled, recovered, and cut through the open gate of a parking garage. Isaiah followed without hesitation.
“FBI!” Lena shouted behind him. “Stop!”