Page 25 of Her Fearless Warrior

“Easy. I told him Jonas was coming back to step on his hand. Didn’t matter though, all we heard is how he’d failed in his mission and he was going to be killed, so we might as well kill him.”

Linc pursed his lips and shook his head. Wasn’t the first time they’d heard that from an al Qaeda prisoner.

“So our only hope is that Elijah will have an idea where they’ve taken Leila and Katherine Cole or that the two women have held onto the phone and Gideon can track it.”

Jase nodded. “Seems like.”

“And him?” Linc asked as he tilted his chin toward the man sobbing against the side of the truck.

“I don’t know. What do you think?”

“The two cars that have come down this road have just driven on past this truck.”

Jase nodded. “It was a good call on your part to push the OKA back behind the electrical power station. If people saw the truck and the OKA, they might have stopped.”

“Doubt it.” Linc hit his mic. “You got anything for us, Gideon?”

“Maybe. I’m not sure. I need at least another hour.”

“Understood.”

“I checked in with Kostya,” Gideon continued. “Elijah has been unconscious the entire trip, to Al Tanf he never regained consciousness, so we got nothing.”

“Are you saying he’s dead?” Linc asked.

“Shit, I said it wrong. No he’s still alive, just not awake to tell us anything,” Gideon clarified.

“Dammit.”

Linc looked over at his friend. It was now ten o’clock in the evening. If they stayed away from the road, nobody should spot them as they made their way to Al Qaryatayn.

“Let’s tie him up and head to town and grab a vehicle,” Linc said as he stared at the prisoner.

“Sounds good.”

After they got him gagged and zip-tied, they went over to Gideon. “What are you working on?” Linc asked.

“I’ve fed what I’ve got over to Clint Archer from Midnight Delta. He has deep connections with a big player in the wireless telecommunications field in San Diego. He’s already shared the schematics of the piece of shit stingray that Jerry Earnst gave Leila and they’re reverse engineering it to see how they can make it work.”

“That’s great and all,” Jase said. “But we don’t have the phone.”

“Really?” Gideon asked. “You’re right, we didn’t think of that.”

Jase sighed. Jase had walked right into that one.

Gideon went on to explain. “If they can reverse engineer it, the guys Clint’s involved with think they may have a way to get it to work if they can just get a connection to the phone. She’s going to have to call them, or she’s going to have to pick up their call to make this work.”

“What about what Jerry-Boy told us regarding the Syrian cellphone networks here in Syria not being compatible with this software? How are they going to fix that problem?” Linc asked.

“When I had a chance to look at the schematics, it was pretty clear that the stingray itself was fucked up. I reviewed them with Clint and he agreed, and that’s when he pulled in his buddies. Now, the Syrian network should not be a problem, because she has a satellite phone. The network was only an issue when they tried to dick with the stingray components.”

“And Clint and his buddies can get that fixed?” Linc asked.

Gideon shook his head.

“Then what the fuck can they do?” Linc wanted to know.

“We track her. Apparently, this company in San Diego has been working to make their products stingray-resistant. Therefore, they know stingray technology inside, outside, and sideways. But goddammit, they won’t be able to make her phone work the way it’s supposed to. I’m so mad at those motherfuckers who sent her out with faulty equipment. She would have been so much better off with just a normal satellite phone and a tracker, but no, they had to give her a phone with all the bells and whistles that jacked up just normal tracking capabilities. The motherfuckers.”