Dane lifted the binoculars.
“Two cases out. He’s carrying them inside. The third is still in the van.”
Dane spoke to Eamon. “Twenty-eight Lasell, Auburndale. Two cases inside. One in the vehicle. Courier confirmed entering the residence.”
There was a pause for maybe twelve seconds. I heard a chair scrape and a door close. His voice came back.
“Michael.”
“Here.”
“We have the device. Three cases moved from the Watertown storage unit at ten-fifty-three this morning, transported by a single courier in a leased white Ford Transit, plate in your file, to twenty-eight Lasell Street, Auburndale. Two cases inside the residence. One in the vehicle.”
Michael spoke. “The Auburndale residence is owned by Concord and Park Holdings, LLC, the same shell that owns the Watertown storage unit. The components are consistent with a cellular trigger device of the type the structural consultant described to us.”
“Do we have it?” Eamon asked.
“That’s a magistrate-signable package,” Michael confirmed.
The line went quiet.
I spoke in the comm. “Collins, Eamon’s handing it up the chain. Hold position. If the van moves before federal owns this, call me before you call anyone else.”
“Copy.”
“Good drive.”
“Always.”
I looked at Dane. It was eleven-eleven.
We had it. The device, the vehicle, and the address. We’d handed it off to Michael. He would help Eamon put it in a form to deliver to a federal contact. The contact would walk it to a federal magistrate.
We had done it.
“Mt. Auburn Mobil,” Dane said. “Coffee. We need to be off this street before the neighbors notice two vehicles parked here.”
“Yes.”
“Then back to Brattle.”
Eamon called once while we were on the drive. He confirmed he was on the way to the federal contact’s office in Government Center, and that the contact had read the package and was on the phone with the magistrate.
We pulled into the Mobil station, and I parked. I took both hands off the wheel and exhaled.
“Dane.”
“Yeah.”
I didn’t look at him.
“I’m going to say the thing now.”
I’d been bracing on the drive. “I want to be with you after,” I said. “I don’t want this to be an operation-only romance. I can’t walk away from this clean and call it good.”
“Farrow.”
“Let me get through it.”