“Peter, you getting this?” Quinn asked, then let go of the button.

“Yes. That’s got to be them.” Though Peter’s voice came through the speaker, the quality was so good it sounded like he was in the van with them.

Quinn glanced back at one of the monitors covering the inside of the church. Otero had found a large block of stone to sit on, while Ownby had taken up a less visible position in a nook near the north entrance. If either man was getting impatient, they didn’t show it.

Four minutes later, one of the microphones picked up the sound of footsteps approaching the church.

“Everything recording?” Quinn asked.

Nate glanced at a small LCD monitor mounted on a swivel arm next to the hard drives. He pressed one of the buttons on the touchscreen menu. The display changed to a set of green lights.

“All drives recording,” he said, then glanced over his shoulder toward the communication equipment. “Satellite link steady and strong.”

Quinn pushed the button that connected him with the Office. “Approaching the church now.”

“Good,” Peter said. “Let’s get this over with.”

Otero must have also heard the footsteps. He stood up, and put a cautious hand on the bulge in his jacket pocket before looking back at Ownby and pointing in the direction of the approaching sound. Ownby reached under his jacket and pulled out a gun, a Beretta 9mm. From his pocket he pulled out a long cylinder, a suppressor, and attached it to the end of the barrel.

The footsteps stopped just beyond the walls of the church. Then silence for almost a minute.

“I don’t see them,” Nate said.

“They’re there,” Quinn said.

“I know. But I don’t see them.”

There were a series of numbered buttons on the base of the joystick Quinn was holding. He punched number 8 and began panning a camera covering the outside of the church’s south end.