Unfinished Business, page 21
part #17 of Sam Prichard Series
“Are you sure? The police have had a couple of calls claiming she was seen here tonight.”
The maître d’ looked at him for a moment, then turned and beckoned to a waitress. The woman came over and looked at the photo, then shrugged. “Don’t think I've ever seen her,” she said. “Wait, is that the woman they had on TV a while ago? No, I'm pretty sure she’s never been in here.”
They thanked both of them, and then walked back to the car. Steve sat behind the wheel again, and Denny picked up the sheet of paper on which he’d been writing down the various places where sightings of Gabby had been reported.
“Okay,” Denny said. “The next place is about a half-mile up the same street.”
“Then let’s go check it out. I don’t know about you, but I'm starting to get pretty tired. Got any bright ideas on where she might go to rest for the night?”
Denny snorted a laugh. “I wouldn’t bet she's even going to try,” he said. “I mean, come on, would you be thinking about sleep with Sam Prichard on your ass? I don’t know about you, but I think that might be a pretty stupid thing to do.”
“Doesn’t mean she won’t try. She may be a stone cold killer, but she's still human. She has just as many human limitations as the rest of us, including the need for sleep.”
“I’m not sure I agree with that,” Denny said. “When I was with SAS, there were times I had to go days without sleep. You’d be absolutely amazed what your body can do when it has to.”
Steve shook his head. “At this point, we don’t know enough to make that call, you know? We’re just looking for leads. I can tell you from my days as a detective, people who claim they saw your suspect are usually wrong, but you still have to check out every report.” He turned to look at Denny. “You seem to be pretty good at some of the electronic stuff. Any chance you could track her cell phone?”
Denny nodded his head. “Wouldn’t be a problem, if we had her cell number. I could get the equipment I need at just about any decent electronics store. Unfortunately, we don’t have that.”
“Too bad,” Steve said. “Might make this whole thing a lot easier.”
Denny nodded. “Yeah, but you know what they say. Wish in one hand, and in the other you can…”
“All right, all right. No point in being a smartass.”
Denny’s phone rang, and a look at the display showed that it was Sam calling.
“Sam? Any luck on your end?”
“None so far,” Sam said. “Look, guys, it’s almost one o’clock in the morning. Think it might be time to give it up for now, get back to the hotel and get some rest.”
“That’s up to you, boss. I can keep going, if you need me to.”
“There’s not much point. She's not going to be out running around in public, not after that news story. Let’s all meet back at the hotel and get some rest.”
“Yeah, well, I need to swing by the Hamilton. Took my bags over there when I got my room to watch our bird. I need to go by and fetch them.”
“All right, but be quick and watch your back. I'm sure she didn’t go back there, but we don’t know who else she might have working with her.”
“Righto,” Denny said. “It’ll only take a few minutes.”
“Okay, we’ll see you guys back at the Marriott.”
The line went dead and Denny relayed the information to Steve. Steve turned the car and headed toward the Hamilton Hotel, sat and waited while Denny retrieved his bags, and then they drove back down the street to the Marriott and went to their rooms. Both of them were asleep within fifteen minutes.
* * * * *
Ben Hickam rolled over in the bed and his eyes fluttered open. His first thought was that Cynthia must be in the shower again, because she wasn’t lying beside him, but then his eyes opened the rest of the way and he registered the fact that there were three women sitting at the table at the other end of the room. He smiled when he saw the beautiful blonde, but there was a nervousness to it as the other two watched him with blank expressions.
“Cynthia? You invited friends?”
Summer smiled at him. “Well, Ben, it’s not exactly the way you think it is,” she said. “See, I have a whole new secret to tell you, are you ready?”
Ben glanced at the other two women, and then looked back at her. “Are you sure you want to talk about it now?”
“Oh, absolutely,” Summer said. “You see, Ben, I'm not who you think I am. Cynthia Davenport is just one of many names I've used in the course of my work, because it sometimes comes in handy to be someone else for a little while. My real name is Summer Raines, and I happen to be an investigator for Windlass Security Services. I'm sure you’ve heard of the company, right?”
Hickam was staring at her, his face impassive, but his blood pressure rising rapidly.
“Then I'm afraid you’ve wasted an awful lot of time, for both of us,” he said. He threw off the covers and moved to sit up on the side of the bed, ignoring the fact that he was naked in front of three beautiful women, but that’s when he realized that his right hand was still cuffed to the bed. “I happen to know that your own federal courts have suppressed the warrants that you had for me, so I've nothing to fear from you.”
“Well, that’s not exactly true,” Summer said. “Yes, the warrants were quashed, but there was no order not to continue the investigation. Bringing in additional evidence was more than sufficient to get new warrants, so it’s my pleasure to tell you that you are under arrest for the attempted murder of Max Petrelli, conspiracy to commit murder, conspiracy to defraud, and I can’t remember how many other conspiracies.” She picked up a sheaf of papers laying on the table. “Here it is, if you want to take the time to read it.”
He stared at her, the anger building up inside him. “What new evidence? The little stories I told you? Haven’t you ever heard of fantasies, my dear?”
“Oh, yes,” Summer said. “The problem is, you knew too many of the little details. And, by the way, there’s the fact that I was an eyewitness to the confrontation between you and Mr. Morton, during which you forced him to sign documents giving you control over his business. You also told me that you were involved in the abduction of Ms. Porter, remember?”
“Your word against mine,” Hickam said. “You have no evidence at all.”
Summer looked at Jade. “Show him, girl.”
Jade picked up a tablet that was laying on the table and turned it to face them, then tapped the screen. The video of Summer’s “interrogation” began to play, and Hickam’s eyes grew wide.
“How? There were no cameras in the room, I checked carefully!”
Summer picked up the pendant hanging around her neck and swung it back and forth. “No problem, I brought my own.” She let it drop and took a couple of steps toward him. “So, here’s how it is. You are under arrest, and we're the three who are keeping you in custody. You have the right to remain silent. If you give up the right to remain silent, anything you say can be used against you in court. You have the right to have an attorney present during questioning, but we’re not going to be questioning you right now, so that’s not important at the moment. If you need to go to the bathroom, one of us will unlock the handcuffs and walk you to the bathroom, while the others will keep you covered. Any questions?”
Hickam glared at her, but said nothing else for several minutes. When he finally spoke, it was to ask meekly if he could use the bathroom, after all.
16
Gabby sat in the café and stared at the television over the counter. Prichard’s news story was running almost constantly, with her photo prominently displayed on television screens all over the world. She wasn’t really worried about the photo, because she didn’t look like that at the moment. Her blonde hair and the simple expedient of putting on a pair of eyeglasses made her look entirely different, and the clothing she was wearing looked nothing like the type of thing she wore for those photos.
The problem was that Prichard was trying to make her sound like a rank amateur. She wasn’t as skilled or devious as Reynard? How obvious can you be, Sam Prichard? It appears you want me to come after you, but you surely don’t believe I'm stupid enough to fall for your little ploy, do you?
Her phone rang at that moment, and she picked it up to see the numbers she had been dreading. It was Bastian, and she knew he wasn’t going to be happy about the situation. She had sent him an email shortly after midnight, and had expected a response long before now.
“Hello,” she said.
“Things do not seem to be going well,” Bastian said. “What has happened, Gabby?”
“Sam Prichard has been more formidable than I anticipated,” she said, being bluntly honest. “I'm afraid the contract cannot possibly succeed, now. It was announced this morning that our primary client is now in U.S. custody, and that there is in existence a video of him confessing to certain crimes, including the extortion of Mr. Morton. The merger cannot go forward, now.”
“We have had failures before. This one is a nuisance, but it is not a disaster. My problem is what to do about you. Your photograph is being televised, so it may be only a matter of time before the American authorities close in on you.”
“That will not happen,” Gabby said. “That photograph looks nothing like me at the moment, so I’m not worried about such an eventuality. I could, however, use some assistance in getting out of the United States.”
“Not just yet,” Bastian said. “Ironically, we have a new contract in New York City. Since you are already there, and with some of our assets, I feel that it could be your way of vindicating yourself.”
She sighed. “If I must,” she said. “Who’s the target?”
“Have you not been watching the news? I should think you would find it exceptionally interesting, under the circumstances. Our new client is seeking to reshape some of the geopolitical environment by driving a wedge between the United States and Israel. The Israeli Prime Minister, Yousef Ben Ibrahim, is meeting with the American Secretary of State in New York tomorrow morning. The meeting will take place in the Israeli Embassy in New York City. Your target is the Prime Minister’s aide, a young woman named Shira Dahran. She's to be killed in such a way that it suggests involvement by the Secretary of State or some of his people.”
Gabby rolled her eyes. “How the world am I supposed to be able to get into that building with no time to prepare? This is an impossible contract, Bastian.”
“Nevertheless, it is yours. If you accomplish it, then we can accept the current failure and resume our normal operations.”
“What you are saying is that, if I accomplish this mission, I can come back? Have you forgotten who I am?”
“I know exactly who you are, Gabby. To be perfectly honest, the rest of the board wanted to cut you off, now, but I prevailed upon them to give you a chance at redemption. Look, Gabby, I know you. You can do this, and then all will be forgiven and we can go on into the glorious future that awaits us.”
“Fine,” Gabby said. “I'll do it, but then I want the names of everyone who is against me. Agreed?”
She could hear him chuckle. “I expected nothing less. Call me when the contract is complete.” The line went dead, and she put the phone back into her purse.
Tomorrow morning, he had said. She had less than twenty-four hours to prepare, but Gabby wasn’t actually worried that she couldn’t complete the contract. On the contrary, she had often been forced to work under pressure, and this would not be any different.
She had already notified her people that the current contract would not be completed, but she had told them to wait for further instructions. It was time to get together with them and start setting up for the hit. She picked up her phone again and called William and Deanna.
It was Deanna who answered. “Hello?”
“It’s me,” Gabby said. “I need you to come and pick me up.”
* * * * *
Ken had been on the phone most of the morning while he, Sam, Denny, Steve, and Darren were having breakfast in the hotel restaurant. He had suggested to Sam that they needed to find out everything they possibly could about what sort of chatter might be floating around the intelligence world, so he was calling all of his contacts with DHS, CIA, Interpol, and other agencies. After more than two hours, he finally put the phone down and looked at Sam.
“There’s quite a bit of chatter going on about the Israeli Prime Minister,” he said. “He is over here to meet with our Secretary of State about the Middle East peace situation. It seems there are rumors going around in Europe that he's worried about an assassination attempt.”
“Do you think Gabby might be involved? I mean, the way it looks to me, she was pretty wrapped up in this particular case, up until now.”
“There’s no way she's going to get more, and she's smart enough to know that. Oh, she could probably figure out a way to do it, but you’ve already made the announcement that Hickam is being arrested, and that he was trying to force a merger. There’s no way in the world they can expect that merger to actually go through, not now. No, I'm pretty sure she's looking for another job in a hurry.”
“But nobody had any idea about who this organization is? We don’t have any real intel on them at all?”
“There is very little. Mostly just rumors and innuendo, no hard intel to speak of.”
Sam took a sip of the coffee in front of him, then nodded. “If you honestly think there’s a chance she might try to move on the Prime Minister, I think I can get us close to the secretary. I'm leaving the three girls to take care of Hickam, for now. Lambert is supposed to be arranging for him to go directly into federal custody, but I don’t want him sitting in some city jail. If you ask me, there’s too much chance somebody would want to knock him off.”
“I agree with that assessment,” Ken said. “Yes, I think we should take a good look at the Israeli PM situation.” He shrugged and made a face. “Actually, I’m afraid what I should say is that you need to take a good look at it. I just received orders to head out to South Korea.”
Sam looked at him. “Well, I appreciate the help you’ve given us,” he said. “If it hadn’t been for you, we might still not know who Gabby is.”
“You would have figured it out,” Ken said. “Listen, I hate to eat and run, but I’ve got to catch a plane in less than two hours. I’m going out to get my bags, and then I'm out of here. Good luck, Sam, and remember to shoot first.”
Sam shook his hand, and Ken got up and left the restaurant. When Sam and the others followed a few minutes later, he was already gone.
Sam made a couple of phone calls and arranged to meet with the Secretary of State at 11 o’clock. The four of them headed out together at nine thirty, to give themselves plenty of time. Sam put the address of the federal office building, where they were meeting the secretary, into his phone and let it feed them directions.
Denny asked to make a quick stop at an electronics store, and found one along the route. He told his own phone to give directions to that, and it seemed like both of the navigation apps were arguing with each other.
“There are too many GPS direction devices in this car,” Steve said as he turned where the directions indicated. “Just when I get used to one electronic voice, another one pops up and starts telling me where to go.”
“That’s what they’re for,” Darren said with a chuckle. “’Cause you get lost so easy.”
“I'm gonna lose you,” Steve grumbled. “First chance I get, trust me.”
They arrived at the electronics store a few minutes later, and Denny hurried inside. The rest of them waited in the car, listening to Steve singing softly along with some old country song. Denny was back in less than ten minutes, holding something that looked a lot like an old brick phone.
“Here’s what I'm thinking,” he said. “Somewhere out there, Gabby has a cell phone. Now, we don’t know her cell number, but we do have an IP address, from the emails that she sent. It’s possible Indie could track those emails back to whatever cell tower they came through, then get into the towers records and find out which phone made connection at that moment by getting its ESN. Once we have that, I can clone this phone to it, so that we can listen to any calls made to or from it, and I can grab its GPS location at the same time. I can even pinpoint a location on whoever she might be talking to.”
“That would be great,” Sam said. “Call Indie and get her started on it, now. The sooner we can track Gabby’s cell phone, the sooner we can find the bitch and put her down.”
“No problem, mate,” Denny said. He took out his own phone and called Indie, explaining to her what he had in mind. It took Herman less than fifteen minutes to find the tower the last email came through, and another five to get the ESN of the phone.
Then she was less enthusiastic. “Denny, I checked just now, and that phone is not active. It might have been a burner.”
“No, that wouldn’t make any sense, love,” Denny said. “It had her email program on it. It’s not too likely that she’d want to download the program every time she got a different burn phone. She’s probably just got it shut off for the moment. No matter, I can program this little gadget to scan periodically for it, and then lock on when it finds the phone active and powered up.”
He got off the phone and explained to Sam and the others what he had in mind. He set up the cell scanner he had bought with the ESN of the other phone, so that it would ring any time Gabby made or received a call.
“Good work,” Sam said. “That way, we can at least have some idea what she's up to.”
“Sounds good,” Darren said. “If she really is involved in any attempt to assassinate the Israeli PM, we might get a heads up.”
“That would be perfect,” Sam said. “I hate the fact that we have to have this conversation with the Secretary of State when we don’t have any real intel to give him.”
Steve nodded as he put the car back in gear and pulled out of the parking lot. “I know what you mean. People don’t take kindly to hearing about things that might go wrong, if you don’t have some evidence to back it up.”
“Right.” Sam fell quiet, and Steve drove on in silence toward the meeting, but then Sam’s phone rang.
The maître d’ looked at him for a moment, then turned and beckoned to a waitress. The woman came over and looked at the photo, then shrugged. “Don’t think I've ever seen her,” she said. “Wait, is that the woman they had on TV a while ago? No, I'm pretty sure she’s never been in here.”
They thanked both of them, and then walked back to the car. Steve sat behind the wheel again, and Denny picked up the sheet of paper on which he’d been writing down the various places where sightings of Gabby had been reported.
“Okay,” Denny said. “The next place is about a half-mile up the same street.”
“Then let’s go check it out. I don’t know about you, but I'm starting to get pretty tired. Got any bright ideas on where she might go to rest for the night?”
Denny snorted a laugh. “I wouldn’t bet she's even going to try,” he said. “I mean, come on, would you be thinking about sleep with Sam Prichard on your ass? I don’t know about you, but I think that might be a pretty stupid thing to do.”
“Doesn’t mean she won’t try. She may be a stone cold killer, but she's still human. She has just as many human limitations as the rest of us, including the need for sleep.”
“I’m not sure I agree with that,” Denny said. “When I was with SAS, there were times I had to go days without sleep. You’d be absolutely amazed what your body can do when it has to.”
Steve shook his head. “At this point, we don’t know enough to make that call, you know? We’re just looking for leads. I can tell you from my days as a detective, people who claim they saw your suspect are usually wrong, but you still have to check out every report.” He turned to look at Denny. “You seem to be pretty good at some of the electronic stuff. Any chance you could track her cell phone?”
Denny nodded his head. “Wouldn’t be a problem, if we had her cell number. I could get the equipment I need at just about any decent electronics store. Unfortunately, we don’t have that.”
“Too bad,” Steve said. “Might make this whole thing a lot easier.”
Denny nodded. “Yeah, but you know what they say. Wish in one hand, and in the other you can…”
“All right, all right. No point in being a smartass.”
Denny’s phone rang, and a look at the display showed that it was Sam calling.
“Sam? Any luck on your end?”
“None so far,” Sam said. “Look, guys, it’s almost one o’clock in the morning. Think it might be time to give it up for now, get back to the hotel and get some rest.”
“That’s up to you, boss. I can keep going, if you need me to.”
“There’s not much point. She's not going to be out running around in public, not after that news story. Let’s all meet back at the hotel and get some rest.”
“Yeah, well, I need to swing by the Hamilton. Took my bags over there when I got my room to watch our bird. I need to go by and fetch them.”
“All right, but be quick and watch your back. I'm sure she didn’t go back there, but we don’t know who else she might have working with her.”
“Righto,” Denny said. “It’ll only take a few minutes.”
“Okay, we’ll see you guys back at the Marriott.”
The line went dead and Denny relayed the information to Steve. Steve turned the car and headed toward the Hamilton Hotel, sat and waited while Denny retrieved his bags, and then they drove back down the street to the Marriott and went to their rooms. Both of them were asleep within fifteen minutes.
* * * * *
Ben Hickam rolled over in the bed and his eyes fluttered open. His first thought was that Cynthia must be in the shower again, because she wasn’t lying beside him, but then his eyes opened the rest of the way and he registered the fact that there were three women sitting at the table at the other end of the room. He smiled when he saw the beautiful blonde, but there was a nervousness to it as the other two watched him with blank expressions.
“Cynthia? You invited friends?”
Summer smiled at him. “Well, Ben, it’s not exactly the way you think it is,” she said. “See, I have a whole new secret to tell you, are you ready?”
Ben glanced at the other two women, and then looked back at her. “Are you sure you want to talk about it now?”
“Oh, absolutely,” Summer said. “You see, Ben, I'm not who you think I am. Cynthia Davenport is just one of many names I've used in the course of my work, because it sometimes comes in handy to be someone else for a little while. My real name is Summer Raines, and I happen to be an investigator for Windlass Security Services. I'm sure you’ve heard of the company, right?”
Hickam was staring at her, his face impassive, but his blood pressure rising rapidly.
“Then I'm afraid you’ve wasted an awful lot of time, for both of us,” he said. He threw off the covers and moved to sit up on the side of the bed, ignoring the fact that he was naked in front of three beautiful women, but that’s when he realized that his right hand was still cuffed to the bed. “I happen to know that your own federal courts have suppressed the warrants that you had for me, so I've nothing to fear from you.”
“Well, that’s not exactly true,” Summer said. “Yes, the warrants were quashed, but there was no order not to continue the investigation. Bringing in additional evidence was more than sufficient to get new warrants, so it’s my pleasure to tell you that you are under arrest for the attempted murder of Max Petrelli, conspiracy to commit murder, conspiracy to defraud, and I can’t remember how many other conspiracies.” She picked up a sheaf of papers laying on the table. “Here it is, if you want to take the time to read it.”
He stared at her, the anger building up inside him. “What new evidence? The little stories I told you? Haven’t you ever heard of fantasies, my dear?”
“Oh, yes,” Summer said. “The problem is, you knew too many of the little details. And, by the way, there’s the fact that I was an eyewitness to the confrontation between you and Mr. Morton, during which you forced him to sign documents giving you control over his business. You also told me that you were involved in the abduction of Ms. Porter, remember?”
“Your word against mine,” Hickam said. “You have no evidence at all.”
Summer looked at Jade. “Show him, girl.”
Jade picked up a tablet that was laying on the table and turned it to face them, then tapped the screen. The video of Summer’s “interrogation” began to play, and Hickam’s eyes grew wide.
“How? There were no cameras in the room, I checked carefully!”
Summer picked up the pendant hanging around her neck and swung it back and forth. “No problem, I brought my own.” She let it drop and took a couple of steps toward him. “So, here’s how it is. You are under arrest, and we're the three who are keeping you in custody. You have the right to remain silent. If you give up the right to remain silent, anything you say can be used against you in court. You have the right to have an attorney present during questioning, but we’re not going to be questioning you right now, so that’s not important at the moment. If you need to go to the bathroom, one of us will unlock the handcuffs and walk you to the bathroom, while the others will keep you covered. Any questions?”
Hickam glared at her, but said nothing else for several minutes. When he finally spoke, it was to ask meekly if he could use the bathroom, after all.
16
Gabby sat in the café and stared at the television over the counter. Prichard’s news story was running almost constantly, with her photo prominently displayed on television screens all over the world. She wasn’t really worried about the photo, because she didn’t look like that at the moment. Her blonde hair and the simple expedient of putting on a pair of eyeglasses made her look entirely different, and the clothing she was wearing looked nothing like the type of thing she wore for those photos.
The problem was that Prichard was trying to make her sound like a rank amateur. She wasn’t as skilled or devious as Reynard? How obvious can you be, Sam Prichard? It appears you want me to come after you, but you surely don’t believe I'm stupid enough to fall for your little ploy, do you?
Her phone rang at that moment, and she picked it up to see the numbers she had been dreading. It was Bastian, and she knew he wasn’t going to be happy about the situation. She had sent him an email shortly after midnight, and had expected a response long before now.
“Hello,” she said.
“Things do not seem to be going well,” Bastian said. “What has happened, Gabby?”
“Sam Prichard has been more formidable than I anticipated,” she said, being bluntly honest. “I'm afraid the contract cannot possibly succeed, now. It was announced this morning that our primary client is now in U.S. custody, and that there is in existence a video of him confessing to certain crimes, including the extortion of Mr. Morton. The merger cannot go forward, now.”
“We have had failures before. This one is a nuisance, but it is not a disaster. My problem is what to do about you. Your photograph is being televised, so it may be only a matter of time before the American authorities close in on you.”
“That will not happen,” Gabby said. “That photograph looks nothing like me at the moment, so I’m not worried about such an eventuality. I could, however, use some assistance in getting out of the United States.”
“Not just yet,” Bastian said. “Ironically, we have a new contract in New York City. Since you are already there, and with some of our assets, I feel that it could be your way of vindicating yourself.”
She sighed. “If I must,” she said. “Who’s the target?”
“Have you not been watching the news? I should think you would find it exceptionally interesting, under the circumstances. Our new client is seeking to reshape some of the geopolitical environment by driving a wedge between the United States and Israel. The Israeli Prime Minister, Yousef Ben Ibrahim, is meeting with the American Secretary of State in New York tomorrow morning. The meeting will take place in the Israeli Embassy in New York City. Your target is the Prime Minister’s aide, a young woman named Shira Dahran. She's to be killed in such a way that it suggests involvement by the Secretary of State or some of his people.”
Gabby rolled her eyes. “How the world am I supposed to be able to get into that building with no time to prepare? This is an impossible contract, Bastian.”
“Nevertheless, it is yours. If you accomplish it, then we can accept the current failure and resume our normal operations.”
“What you are saying is that, if I accomplish this mission, I can come back? Have you forgotten who I am?”
“I know exactly who you are, Gabby. To be perfectly honest, the rest of the board wanted to cut you off, now, but I prevailed upon them to give you a chance at redemption. Look, Gabby, I know you. You can do this, and then all will be forgiven and we can go on into the glorious future that awaits us.”
“Fine,” Gabby said. “I'll do it, but then I want the names of everyone who is against me. Agreed?”
She could hear him chuckle. “I expected nothing less. Call me when the contract is complete.” The line went dead, and she put the phone back into her purse.
Tomorrow morning, he had said. She had less than twenty-four hours to prepare, but Gabby wasn’t actually worried that she couldn’t complete the contract. On the contrary, she had often been forced to work under pressure, and this would not be any different.
She had already notified her people that the current contract would not be completed, but she had told them to wait for further instructions. It was time to get together with them and start setting up for the hit. She picked up her phone again and called William and Deanna.
It was Deanna who answered. “Hello?”
“It’s me,” Gabby said. “I need you to come and pick me up.”
* * * * *
Ken had been on the phone most of the morning while he, Sam, Denny, Steve, and Darren were having breakfast in the hotel restaurant. He had suggested to Sam that they needed to find out everything they possibly could about what sort of chatter might be floating around the intelligence world, so he was calling all of his contacts with DHS, CIA, Interpol, and other agencies. After more than two hours, he finally put the phone down and looked at Sam.
“There’s quite a bit of chatter going on about the Israeli Prime Minister,” he said. “He is over here to meet with our Secretary of State about the Middle East peace situation. It seems there are rumors going around in Europe that he's worried about an assassination attempt.”
“Do you think Gabby might be involved? I mean, the way it looks to me, she was pretty wrapped up in this particular case, up until now.”
“There’s no way she's going to get more, and she's smart enough to know that. Oh, she could probably figure out a way to do it, but you’ve already made the announcement that Hickam is being arrested, and that he was trying to force a merger. There’s no way in the world they can expect that merger to actually go through, not now. No, I'm pretty sure she's looking for another job in a hurry.”
“But nobody had any idea about who this organization is? We don’t have any real intel on them at all?”
“There is very little. Mostly just rumors and innuendo, no hard intel to speak of.”
Sam took a sip of the coffee in front of him, then nodded. “If you honestly think there’s a chance she might try to move on the Prime Minister, I think I can get us close to the secretary. I'm leaving the three girls to take care of Hickam, for now. Lambert is supposed to be arranging for him to go directly into federal custody, but I don’t want him sitting in some city jail. If you ask me, there’s too much chance somebody would want to knock him off.”
“I agree with that assessment,” Ken said. “Yes, I think we should take a good look at the Israeli PM situation.” He shrugged and made a face. “Actually, I’m afraid what I should say is that you need to take a good look at it. I just received orders to head out to South Korea.”
Sam looked at him. “Well, I appreciate the help you’ve given us,” he said. “If it hadn’t been for you, we might still not know who Gabby is.”
“You would have figured it out,” Ken said. “Listen, I hate to eat and run, but I’ve got to catch a plane in less than two hours. I’m going out to get my bags, and then I'm out of here. Good luck, Sam, and remember to shoot first.”
Sam shook his hand, and Ken got up and left the restaurant. When Sam and the others followed a few minutes later, he was already gone.
Sam made a couple of phone calls and arranged to meet with the Secretary of State at 11 o’clock. The four of them headed out together at nine thirty, to give themselves plenty of time. Sam put the address of the federal office building, where they were meeting the secretary, into his phone and let it feed them directions.
Denny asked to make a quick stop at an electronics store, and found one along the route. He told his own phone to give directions to that, and it seemed like both of the navigation apps were arguing with each other.
“There are too many GPS direction devices in this car,” Steve said as he turned where the directions indicated. “Just when I get used to one electronic voice, another one pops up and starts telling me where to go.”
“That’s what they’re for,” Darren said with a chuckle. “’Cause you get lost so easy.”
“I'm gonna lose you,” Steve grumbled. “First chance I get, trust me.”
They arrived at the electronics store a few minutes later, and Denny hurried inside. The rest of them waited in the car, listening to Steve singing softly along with some old country song. Denny was back in less than ten minutes, holding something that looked a lot like an old brick phone.
“Here’s what I'm thinking,” he said. “Somewhere out there, Gabby has a cell phone. Now, we don’t know her cell number, but we do have an IP address, from the emails that she sent. It’s possible Indie could track those emails back to whatever cell tower they came through, then get into the towers records and find out which phone made connection at that moment by getting its ESN. Once we have that, I can clone this phone to it, so that we can listen to any calls made to or from it, and I can grab its GPS location at the same time. I can even pinpoint a location on whoever she might be talking to.”
“That would be great,” Sam said. “Call Indie and get her started on it, now. The sooner we can track Gabby’s cell phone, the sooner we can find the bitch and put her down.”
“No problem, mate,” Denny said. He took out his own phone and called Indie, explaining to her what he had in mind. It took Herman less than fifteen minutes to find the tower the last email came through, and another five to get the ESN of the phone.
Then she was less enthusiastic. “Denny, I checked just now, and that phone is not active. It might have been a burner.”
“No, that wouldn’t make any sense, love,” Denny said. “It had her email program on it. It’s not too likely that she’d want to download the program every time she got a different burn phone. She’s probably just got it shut off for the moment. No matter, I can program this little gadget to scan periodically for it, and then lock on when it finds the phone active and powered up.”
He got off the phone and explained to Sam and the others what he had in mind. He set up the cell scanner he had bought with the ESN of the other phone, so that it would ring any time Gabby made or received a call.
“Good work,” Sam said. “That way, we can at least have some idea what she's up to.”
“Sounds good,” Darren said. “If she really is involved in any attempt to assassinate the Israeli PM, we might get a heads up.”
“That would be perfect,” Sam said. “I hate the fact that we have to have this conversation with the Secretary of State when we don’t have any real intel to give him.”
Steve nodded as he put the car back in gear and pulled out of the parking lot. “I know what you mean. People don’t take kindly to hearing about things that might go wrong, if you don’t have some evidence to back it up.”
“Right.” Sam fell quiet, and Steve drove on in silence toward the meeting, but then Sam’s phone rang.
