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“We decided to make a break for it, but two of our men have been slaughtered, Landry and Felix. Leila’s unconscious and they’re dragging her through a pool of blood by her hair. Another man is still alive, but I don’t know for how long. They’re coming for me and my secretary. Don’t call on this phone, I’m hiding it. I’ll call you with info as soon as I can.”
“Wait!”
“What?”
“Where’s Elijah?”
“Don’t know. He could still be alive.”
The call was disconnected.
Captain Evers stepped forward, blocking the flat screen, which was no hardship. “That was,” he looked down at his watch, “fourteen minutes ago.”
“Excuse me, Captain, I can’t see,” Jerry interrupted.
“Elijah has a tracker embedded in his thigh. If we’re lucky, he’s alive and it won’t be found. Leila is former CIA. She doesn’t have a tracker embedded, but the phone we kitted her out with is state-of-the art. It can track her.”
“All phones come with tracking capabilities,” Gideon interrupted. “What’s special about this one?”
“It has stingray components.”
Gideon whistled. “I didn’t know they made stingray components small enough to fit in a smartphone.”
“They have.” Jerry sounded like he had a woody. “Not only can we track her, but we can track the phones around her. We can listen in. If we get close enough, we can install malware into a phone with sloppy security and turn it into a listening device.”
“So, if Katherine can keep the phone hidden long enough, and she’s in the presence of the terrorists, not only will we have a location, but we can also find out their intent.” Kostya might have only nodded at the information. Gideon’s smile was so wide he looked like he was auditioning for a toothpaste commercial.
“That’s our plan.” Jerry rubbed his hands together as he leaned forward to look at his computer screen.
Gah. Someone really needs to get him a nose hair trimmer.
“So, are they still at the address Leila provided? Who has them? What are their plans?” Gideon asked.
“Umm,” Jerry looked at them all. He wasn’t talking.
“Mr. Earnest, the man asked you a question,” Captain Evers growled. “What intel do you have?”
“Our people here are having a bit of a problem getting readings from Leila’s phone. The tracker in Elijah is working just fine. We know they have left the address that Leila provided and they are on the move. It looks like they are taking the primary avenue that will connect them with either the M5 or 2 highways. That could take them to Aleppo or into ISIS and Al Qaeda territory, or just out of the city. We don’t know.”
“What are you picking up from Leila’s phone, or was it left behind?” Kostya asked.
“No, it’s with them. We can tell that it is following the same path as Elijah, but that’s it. We’re getting so much data coming in, it’s impossible to delineate who is saying what, and where the information is coming from. When we got the technology, we were told that we would get phone numbers along with the incoming conversations and locations so that we could tell them apart, but that’s not happening.”
“When did you start testing this?” Gideon asked.
“That’s the thing. We didn’t have a chance to test it before we put it into Leila’s phone. Our contractor assured us it had passed all of their quality control measures with flying colors. One of my analysts has their chief technology officer on the line. He’s thinking it’s because of the different types of cell towers that are being used in Syria that we’re having problems. That’s why there was static on both phone calls to Captain Evers.”
Jesus Christ. What were they thinking?
“No field testing was done?” the captain asked.
“Only in the United States.”
“Let me get this straight. You sent her out with faulty equipment. Is that what you’re telling us?” Kostya asked softly.
“We didn’t know it at the time,” Jerry defended himself.
“Exactly what did you promise Leila?” Captain Evers asked.
