As he turned into the parking lot he looked back over his left shoulder. A man walked behind him, not fifty feet back, making no sound as he did so. Renfro thought nothing of it, but he knew to keep an eye out and made note of the man’s clothing and general appearance. Forties, fit, with blond hair, a blue blazer, and facial hair. Renfro continued on till he arrived at his Lexus sedan, and he climbed behind the wheel.

Pulling out of the garage, he saw the man who had been right behind him climbing into a black Chevy Suburban.

As he drove through evening D.C. traffic he called his wife and told her he was leaving drinks and heading to dinner with a couple of colleagues. She was used to his late nights with the boys, and she told him to have fun.

Then he called Trina and told her he’d be at their rendezvous apartment in Woodley Park in twenty minutes.

Traffic was slow, but he turned up towards Columbia Heights in a bid to get out of the heaviest congestion. He rode along, thinking about the fun he would have tonight before returning home, and he looked into his rearview again. He saw what appeared to be the same black Suburban that he’d last seen ten minutes earlier in Capitol Hill.

Or could it be a different Suburban?

The SUV was right behind him now, and it pulled closer, just twenty or thirty feet back. At a stoplight Renfro focused on the driver of the vehicle, and he saw that it was almost definitely the same man who had been behind him during the walk to the parking lot.

Renfro kept looking into his rearview, not certain yet that this guy was tailing him, but his suspicions grew each and every minute as the Suburban followed his turns. He tried to remember long-ago-forgotten tradecraft about how to deal with a nearly overt tail like this, but all he could remember to do was to not panic.

He wasn’t panicking, but he was growing more nervous by the moment.

The Suburban looked like a government vehicle, but there was no way for Renfro to know for sure. His mind filled, thinking about those who might be tailing, and slowly a dull feeling of panic did begin welling inside him.

He grabbed his phone, thinking he would call Agency security, but he immediately put it down. They’d have questions for him. Why was he in this part of town, and where was he heading? For what purpose, would he think, might someone be following him?

He’d need a story, and he didn’t trust himself to make up something on the fly that would suffice.

Quickly he got the idea to stop at a nearby mall, do a little shopping, and see if the tail would dismount and begin a foot follow. He told himself this would accomplish two things; first, he would be able to see the number and disposition of the tail, instead of just the headlights of a single vehicle behind him. This might tip him off as to whether they were government or private. And second, he’d buy something for his wife here, and establish his bona fides for being in this part of town right now.

He pulled into DC USA, the largest retail space in the entire District, and he parked in the garage. It was eight p.m. now; the mall was by no means empty but it appeared to be a slower night, and he had no problems getting a parking space within a minute’s walk of one of the entrances.

As he climbed out of his Lexus and began walking through the evening, he looked around as nonchalantly as possible for the black truck. He saw no evidence of it and began to wonder if he’d imagined the entire affair. This was cutting into his already precious time with Trina, and that pissed him off, but he told himself to stick with his game plan here and go buy his wife some stupid present.

He started in jewelry stores, but within fifteen minutes of arriving he stood in a Bed Bath & Beyond, looking over a set of wineglasses. She didn’t really need them, but they were nice, and he decided they would suit his objective.

As he turned towards the front of the store he found himself face-to-face with the man in the blazer. He wore dark sunglasses, strange for indoors when the light outside was low, and he stood next to an end cap selling handheld vacuum cleaners.

His hair was short and his beard was trim around his face, but waxed into a dramatic point on the end of his chin. His sideburns were striking, as well.

And he was clearly looking right at Renfro.

“Good evening,” said the deputy director of Support for the CIA.

The big man said nothing. He was a soldier, or used to be, Renfro could tell. Up close his craggy, weather-worn appearance made him seem a little older, early fifties, perhaps, but even through the suit Renfro could tell the man was in chiseled good shape.

He chilled Renfro the way he stood there so brazenly.

After a few seconds Renfro said, “Do I know you?”

The man behind the sunglasses did not make a sound.

Renfro smiled now, though he was terrified, and said, “A little late in the day for those aviators, don’t you think?”

The man made no reply.

Renfro’s smile drifted off as he turned away and looked around the store. A woman in her thirties stood not far from him, and he thought he caught her looking away just as he eyed her.

She’s part of the surveillance team, and there’s more out there! There wouldn’t just be the two of them, he told himself.

For the next five minutes he wandered the Bed Bath & Beyond—he didn’t take the box of stemware with him—and during his stroll he sighted four other people who, he determined, were part of the follow.

Twice he looked back at the man in the shades, and both times the man stared back his way, though each time he held some random item he’d pulled off a shelf.

Renfro was certain he was being followed by a coordinated team of professionals. Other than the one overt man in the aviators, the rest seemed like extremely slick government surveillance operators.

They could be either CIA or FBI. Jurisdictionally speaking, it would make more sense for it to be the latter, but he had good reasons for suspecting it might be the former.

If someone in the CIA was having him tailed, he knew exactly why, and he knew he was in deep trouble. He hurried out into the mall, back to his car, and drove off. Not towards Trina in his secret apartment, but instead home to his wife. It would be an hour’s drive in this traffic, and he knew his mind would race during each and every minute of it.

* * *

• • •

Zack Hightower smiled as he walked calmly back to his truck. His job was done for the day; he’d head home and get some rest so he could start back tomorrow morning refreshed and ready to go.

His smile wasn’t due to the sleep that was soon to come; it was, instead, for the success he’d had this evening, on his first full day of the tail.

From DDS Lucas Renfro’s actions tonight, Zack knew in his bones this dude had a good reason to fear a government tail, and it had been so much more fun to lean on someone with fear already built into his life than the two others earlier in the day, who seemed to have nothing to hide.