Page 18 of The Perfect Illusion (Jessie Hunt #39)

Kat finally felt like she was making some progress.

The first real breakthrough was when she got near-definitive confirmation that hitwoman Ash Pierce was in Ecuador. And it happened because Pierce made a rare error.

Over the course of the day at her tiny office, Kat reviewed material from Gabriela Estrada, the Ecuadorian cop who’d been working with her.

Estrada had sent her every conceivable video clip she could find that matched either the original photos of Pierce or the woman at the Guayaquil port with the long, blonde hair and the baseball cap. The mistake Pierce made was the cap.

It was distinctly indistinct, gray, and without any logo.

Very few baseball caps these days are completely blank.

Kat understood why Pierce might have chosen one like that.

If it had a logo, then that could be tracked using recognition databases, making her easier to find.

But wearing a cap without any logo was also a tell of sorts.

Once Kat came to that realization, she had Estrada send her footage or still photos of any shortish woman wearing a cap like that near hostels or cash-only motels. Stunningly, she got multiple hits.

As Kat looked them over, she became increasingly confident that they had the right woman.

Over the last five days, she counted a dozen images near a hostel not far from the port.

One image was outside a local drugstore.

The woman in the video had long, black hair but otherwise fit Pierce’s description.

When Estrada reached out to the store, a counter clerk recalled that the woman in the footage had purchased hair-blonding bleach, scissors, and plastic gloves, all with cash.

It stuck in the clerk’s memory because she noted to herself how dramatic it would be for the woman to go from long, black hair to a shorter blonde style, especially doing it herself.

Part of Kat didn’t want to get her hopes up. Would someone as adept at disguise as Ash Pierce really make the mistake of wearing the same cap all around Guayaquil? Then again, Pierce was a sociopathic narcissist. Maybe her confidence had bled into arrogance.

After escaping from a county courthouse and eventually the country, she might have gotten a little cocky and assumed no one would find her in such a far-flung place.

And even if they did locate her, Ecuador had no formal extradition treaty with the U.S.

She probably felt somewhat safe, even if she was still taking precautions.

It was after Estrada sent her a more recent photo, taken just this morning, that Kat felt ready to act.

It showed a petite blonde woman wearing the logo-less gray cap as she exited the aptly named GuayaHostel.

Even with the surgical mask she wore, along with a light jacket and pants, her pale skin reflected off the sunlight.

There was also a slight bulge on the woman’s right hip, a sure sign that she’d recently secured a weapon.

The combination gave Kat certainty that she had the right woman and allowed her to finally make the call.

She dialed a number she’d only used twice in her life, and never professionally. It rang three times before Dalton Tepper picked up.

“You okay?” he asked with urgency in his voice.

“I am,” Kat answered, “but thanks for the concern.”

“No offense, but I haven’t heard from you since that incident in the desert with the crazy hitwoman, so I’m always a little on edge when I see your name when my phone rings.”

“Sorry, Tepp,” she told him. “I realize I never seem to call just to say ‘hi.’ I wish this time was different, but it’s not.”

“I’m used to it, Gentry. What’s up?”

“Is your line secure?” she asked.

“My line is always secure. You should know that. The question is whether your line is.”

“It’s not,” she told him, “which is why I’m about to call you back on a burner. Give me twenty seconds.”

She hung up and opened the drawer with all her burner phones. She picked one she’d never used and which she intended to toss once her interactions with Tepper were done. Dalton Tepper had been one of her fellow Army Rangers back when they served in Afghanistan.

When an IED took out their vehicle, it killed three other Rangers, leaving Kat and Tepp as the only survivors. She still had the facial scars from the incident as permanent reminders. Tepp lost three fingers on his left hand and had his spleen removed. They were the lucky ones.

After the incident, Kat left the military, serving as the security chief at a maximum security prison before eventually transitioning into private investigation.

Tepp went a different route. He transitioned from the Rangers to military intelligence and eventually to civilian intelligence.

He was currently the CIA station chief in Argentina.

Her burner call connected. She was about to speak, but Tepp jumped in first.

“Hold on,” he said. “I’m finding a quiet, secluded spot. Somehow I feel like this needs to be a private conversation.”

“Trust your gut on that, Tepp,” she said.

“How’re you doing by the way?” he asked. “I heard about your fiancé. I’m sorry I never called after that.”

“That’s okay,” she told him, “I wasn’t in the chattiest mood back then.”

“All right,” he said gently. “A conversation for another time, I guess. For now, I’m in a broom closet in the bowels of the U.S. Embassy in Buenos Aires. What’s going on?”

“From what you said earlier, you obviously remember the thing with the hitwoman who kidnapped me and took me out into the California desert to torture me?”

“I do,” Tepp said. “I think the last time we talked was after that, when you asked me to confirm her association with my employer, which I wasn’t able to formally do.”

“Yes,” Kat said. “I know that on the record, you couldn’t be forthcoming. And I have no recollection of any off-the-record conversations to the contrary.”

“Good,” he said. “Then you have to know that I can’t share any information now that I couldn’t then.”

"That's not what I want," Kat told him. "You've been out of the country for a while, so I'm not sure how much access you get to local L.A. news. Did you hear about the escape?"

“I don’t think so,” he admitted.

“Just over two weeks ago, Ash Pierce escaped from the L.A. County Courthouse on the eve of her trial for multiple murders. Along the way, she killed six more people, including two law enforcement officers. She subsequently escaped the country via the San Ysidro border crossing. After that, she disappeared.”

“I had no idea,” Tepp said. “And I’m really sorry to hear it. Based on what I’ve read about the woman, exclusively through public media accounts of course—.”

“Of course,” Kat agreed sarcastically.

“Based on those accounts of her prior history, I’d imagine finding her again will be a virtual impossibility.”

“You’d imagine so,” Kat said, “but you’d be mistaken. I’m 99% sure I just found her.”

The other end of the line was silent for a good three seconds. Kat could almost hear Tepp processing the news and deciding how to respond. She could also hear her own heart hammering against her chest as the anticipation and dread of an inevitable confrontation with Pierce became more of a reality.

“Where?” he finally asked.

“Guayaquil, Ecuador,” Kat said simply.

“Oh, that’s smart,” Tepp replied, sounding impressed. "No extradition treaty with us, but not actively hostile either. A low-profile location that would allow her to hide in plain sight. How are you so sure?"

“I’ve got a local cop who’s been feeding me footage from municipal security cameras,” she explained. “I won’t bore you with all the details, but I have the address of the hostel I believe she’s staying at or at least was, as of this morning.”

“That’s great,” he said guardedly, “so why are you calling me instead of having your cop friend head over there?”

“Because Estrada doesn’t have confidence in her department,” Kat said.

“It’s one thing for her to share data with me.

That’s a one-on-one secure communication.

But getting a police special operations unit to raid the hostel to secure a former Marines Special Operations element leader and—forgive my bluntness—CIA assassin, is a big deal.

She’s worried that word might get out and someone with questionable affiliations might warn Pierce in return for a big payday. ”

“So you want my help?”

“Or the help of friends of yours. I know the CIA station in Ecuador is based out of Quito. I was hoping you could have your buddies follow up on this lead, and if it had merit, escort the asset back to the States.”

“To be clear, you want our agents in-country to kidnap Pierce and secrete her out of a sovereign nation back to the U.S.”

“You guys do that sort of thing all the time,” Kat teased. “Is it really that big an ask?”

“We actually don’t do that anywhere near as often as you might think,” Tepp objected. “and it is a huge deal. Not to mention risky. I’d have to get approval at some pretty high levels.”

"Yeah, but imagine the reward," Kat cajoled.

"You run the op and get credit for it. You'd be a hero, bringing in someone who knows the agency's secrets and is clearly volatile enough to reveal them.

She's a loose cannon. Wouldn't your bosses like to get hold of her?

Isn't it preferable if the public thinks she's still on the lam, but she's really safe and secure at a CIA black site where she can't do any more damage? That's worth the risk, right?"

Again, there was a long silence on the phone.

“How long to get from Quito to Guayaquil?” he asked. “I know you’ve already broken it all down.”

“About eight hours by car,” she answered immediately. “Less than an hour by plane.”

Tepp exhaled deeply.

"All right," he said. "Let me see what I can do. In the meantime, I'm going to give you a secure link to send me the hostel address along with every identifying photo you have of her. Okay?"

“Thanks, Tepp,” she said.

“I haven’t done anything yet,” he warned her.

"I know, but you will," she said. "Two things. You should move quickly. She just bleached her hair. That could just be to keep hidden in general. Or it could be a sign that she's planning to move again soon. She needs to be wrapped up while there's still time."

“Understood,” he said. “What’s the other thing?”

“It goes without saying, but I’ll say it anyway,” Kat replied.

“Pierce is incredibly dangerous. I know you have files on her that indicate as much. But she’s quite sneaky in person.

She’s tiny. She projects vulnerability. She uses that to lull people into complacency.

Then she strikes. Don’t let your people underestimate her. ”

“You’re right,” Tepp said. “It goes without saying.”

"Yeah, well, I felt obligated," Kat said. "I still have nightmares about her. I don't want anyone else to deal with that or worse. Keep me posted."

“You know I will.”

Kat hung up, feeling genuinely optimistic about this whole thing for the first time in weeks.