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At that moment, Philip’s secure cell phone rang. He scooped it up.
“Yes?”
“It’s me,” Aidan said.
Instantly, Philip set down the phone and pressed the speaker button. “Marc and I were on the verge of calling you. Do you have something for us?”
“Oh, yeah,” Aidan replied. “Terri’s about to send you a private chat message with a link to a mini-dossier detailing what I’m about to briefly relay.” Aidan proceeded to tell them what Vance’s conversation with Lauren had yielded.
Philip whistled. “The timing of this information couldn’t have been better.” He proceeded to tell Aidan about the CI Marc would be meeting with that night. “We’ll talk to Danijel about this kulen and see if he can use it to narrow the field of questioning and steer it in the direction of operations in Slavonia. We’ll move from there, hopefully armed with more ammunition.”
“Good. Were you calling to give me an update at your end?”
Marc and Philip exchanged glances, and Philip gestured for Marc to take the lead.
It was probably best that way.
“Aidan.” Marc kept it factual, laying out the realities and waiting to deal with the fallout. “Our investigation here suggests that the Sallaku OC family is likely behind the kidnapping. Unfortunately, they have a reputation for killing victims despite monetary compensation. They have their own set of rules and wouldn’t think twice about screwing over the Chinese once they’ve been paid.” A heartbeat of a pause. “Which makes it all the more crucial that Philip and I get to Lauren.”
There was dead silence at the other end of the phone.
“Aidan?”
“I’m still here.” Aidan sounded as thrown as Marc had expected. “I’ve been promising the Penningtons that Lauren would be returned safely if they followed our lead. I don’t break promises. Plus, I’m a father. How can I tell another father that, not only have I misled him, but that his daughter’s life is in even greater jeopardy than we all thought? Vance is already at the breaking point. I already need him to play his part without wavering. Based on what you’re telling me, that’s even more essential. ”
“I know this puts you in a terrible position,” Marc replied quietly. “But principles or not, candor has to take a back seat here. You can’t tell them; Vance will definitely blow it, from what you’ve said. The bottom line is that we’ll be bringing Lauren home, alive and unharmed. Her father never has to know more than that.”
“There’s no other way. I get it.” Aidan gave the only answer he could, then quickly switched gears to avoid dwelling on the subject. “Anything I should know about your upcoming meeting? Same MO?”
“Nope.” Marc knew that if anything would lighten Aidan’s mood, it was this. “I need to really pressure this CI, put him in a talkative mood. So Big Rambo is coming along with me.”
As expected, Aidan started to chuckle. “You still have that stupid knife from high school?”
“Laugh all you want. I can’t tell you how many meetings I’ve had with CIs where, once they see Big Rambo, they shit themselves and can’t stop talking.”
“Well then, who am I to stand in the way? Happy hunting. Now go read Terri’s mini-dossier.”
NanoUSA
28 February
Wednesday, 9:38 a.m. local time
Simone sequestered herself in the small office she’d been provided for her week’s assignment at Nano. With the door shut and locked, she removed the chain from around her neck and placed the ring on the Qi wireless charger sitting on the desk. She noted the current time—nine forty a.m. In thirty minutes, the device would be fully charged and ready.
She’d already done her morning homework, confirming what she’d skillfully coaxed out of Lilah Mathers, Lawrence Blockman’s chatty, newly divorced PA, yesterday as she and Simone had reapplied their makeup at the ladies’ room sink. As Lilah had mentioned, Blockman was in his nine thirty meeting with Robert Maxwell in the CEO’s office. And Lilah herself was on her regular early-morning coffee break, gossiping with other female employees in the break room.
This would be Simone’s only chance at getting inside Blockman’s office and extracting the drawings from his drawing cabinet—exactly where Vance had told her the VP Engineering kept them.
* * *
Promptly at ten past ten, Simone was outside Blockman’s door, pleased but unsurprised to find it unlocked. As Vance had explained, given the extreme security measures taken by Nano, very few executives locked their doors until they went home at night. Thankfully, Blockman was no exception. However, if he had been, Simone would have used her skills to get in anyway.
She paused in the corridor, glanced to her left and right, then let herself inside, shutting the door quietly behind her. As she crossed over to the large steel drawing cabinet, she removed the decorative barrette from her chignon, letting her hair tumble to her shoulders. She’d make the necessary repairs later.
By the time she’d reached the cabinet, she’d separated the pin from the hair accessory. Vance had emphasized that Blockman’s cabinet would definitely be locked at all times, given the sensitive nature of what was inside. Well, Simone could take care of that. In a few quick twists, she used the pin to pick the lock on the cabinet and slid open the top drawer. Just as Vance had said, inside were production drawings of the factory floor layout, including machine settings and specifications that were an integral part of Nano’s manufacturing breakthrough. There were too many drawings for the small camera to capture, but Vance had said the drawings marked “DRAFT” were the ones she was looking for. And since the goal was to make sure the images were real but not complete, she chose the first five—the exact number of shots that Ryan’s mini ring camera would allow before power would be exhausted.
She placed the drawings on the floor to take pictures and proceeded to aim the ring at her quarry. Bridging double zeroes in the middle of the year on the high school ring with the metallic nail polish on her middle finger, she closed the circuit on the charged capacitor, enabling the embedded image sensor to photograph the drawing. Without a view finder, there was no way for her to be sure if she was aiming the camera accurately. But Ryan’s genius camera design had anticipated that.
