“Hell yeah, motherfucker. We ain’t about to let you down,” Enzo said, slapping a hand against Julian’s shoulder as he walked by.
Sunny said, “Tim Irungu gave us access to his company’s servers, so we have all the computing and bandwidth power needed to figure out where the hell Tubeec is.”
Zale stood up, holding a clipboard. “Simon is performing forensic auditing on the Irungu Shipping Company to figure out how the hell Tubeec stole six of their delivery trucks without being noticed. None of the trucks have been found, which means Tubeec and his crew could still be using them. Shiloh searched the flight manifests to the airstrip and came up empty. Now she’s focused on the radar images for all planes taking off and landing within twenty-four hours of the museum attack. Hakeem is monitoring chatter on the dark web, focused on known members of Tubeec’s militia and allies Tubeec has in al-Harakat.”
Julian nodded his approval, then walked over to Glaze. “Did you get a copy of Tubeec’s video call from the ASF systems?”
“Got it before they detected I was scraping their data and enacted the extra security on their systems. I’m tracing it now. It’s one of the most complex traces I’ve ever had to do, but I’m going to crack it. I will figure out where Tubeec is with Mena,” Glaze said.
“How much time do we have?” Enzo asked, standing over a pile of weapons and equipment littering a side table.
“Eight hours is when Tubeec expects Okeyo to meet him with the evidence against Rono,” Julian said, angling toward a computer monitor in the corner. “Maybe less than that.”
“Let’s make the most of it. We don’t have nearly enough weapons for an attack on Tubeec’s militia. I’m going to have to make a trip to Paul’s warehouse to get what we need,” Enzo said.
“Call it in before you head out so he can have it pulled and ready for you,” Sunny said, following behind Julian.
He glanced over his shoulder, then pulled the cell phone from his pocket.
“What do you have there?” Sunny asked.
Julian twisted the cell phone in the air. “Okeyo Lagat’s cell phone.”
“Clever. I’m not going to ask how you got that,” Sunny said.
Julian connected the small electronic device to several wires extending from the computer. “Tubeec made at least one call to Okeyo this morning and maybe more. I’m going to figure out where those calls were coming from and the last known location of that device.”
“Well, if anybody can do it, I know you can,” Sunny said, squeezing his shoulder.
“No way Tubeec kept the phone he used to call Okeyo. It’s a burner,” Hakeem said, swiveling around in his chair.
“Burners tend to have more clues than people realized,” Julian said, not in the mood to give Sunny’s second-in-command a lesson on how to find those who didn’t want to be found.
“You think you can find Tubeec from the calls made to Okeyo’s phone?” Hakeem asked.
“I know I can. Question is whether Glaze over there will crack the code to the video faster than I can crack the code on this phone. Either way, it’s a win-win situation,” Julian said, although his certainty waned.
“I’m impressed,” Hakeem said.
Julian accessed the phone, noticing two cryptic text messages sent to Okeyo’s phone minutes before the phone call was made and one more sent about an hour after Okeyo had arrived at the ASF ComCentral. Had the bastard been texting Tubeec Hirad when Julian had questioned him?
Checking the messenger app, Julian recognized it as one he’d had little trouble hacking in the past. This was the breakthrough he needed. Wouldn’t be long before he narrowed down possible locations to search for Mena.
“About fucking time! Get in here,” Enzo said, toppling his chair as he stood.
Taye walked through the door, holding two stuffed bags from a local gourmet hamburger joint. The smell of burgers, fries, and onion rings filled the air. Scrutinizing the stickers on each brown bag, Taye called out names and tossed the bags around the room.
Sunny walked to Julian and handed him a brown bag. “I ordered for you.”
Burger, plain/dry, onion rings was scribbled on the outside. She knew what he’d want, even though he had no appetite. He’d have to force himself to eat. It was going to be a long night, and he had to make sure he gave his body fuel for whatever could come next.
He didn’t bother saying thanks, turning to focus on the computer monitors. His fingers tapped quickly against the keyboard as he entered code to get past the defenses of the messenger app.
After an hour, Julian hadn’t found anything on the phone or the messenger app that could give him definitive information on the location of Tubeec Hirad or the hostages.
“Dead end,” Julian said, hurling the cell phone across the room.
“What the fuck!” Enzo screamed, ducking as the phone crashed into the back wall and landed on the floor.
