Chapter 23
Charlie sat in the middle of the screen with her thick black-rimmed computer glasses and messed up hair in a topknot, watching as each team member’s face appeared onscreen. “So… everyone can hear me?” she began, looking off frequently into her own computer screens that were flashing and buzzing like a fighter jet. Tuck and Madoc nodded from the boardroom and Adams and Marshall finally entered the call from their private plane. “We were right that the Four Diamonds are trying to access our old phones, mainly Madoc’s. There have been general sweeps of all of ours, but I think this was to cross reference specific numbers. Marshall’s received the next highest hits, which likely has to do with his correspondence with the minister of defence. They hit the phones for the first two to three days only, reviewing phone logs, not GPS locations, so maybe they learned that ambushing the team isn’t worth it? Now there is radio silence—they haven’t hit any of our phones in the last three days. I’ve been working closely with the client’s team and it doesn’t appear that they have used the information to start tracking their phone numbers, which is strange… you would think they would be keen to know the PM’s location. I have a couple of hypotheses: firstly, they may be having more trouble locating the prime minister’s phone given that the family is so far out east—the Four Diamonds may be working with limited resources. Secondly, they could know we are watching the phones and are laying low, especially after the failed ambush. Lastly, and possibly the worst, they found another way of locating the PM’s family and are actually enroute to them already.” Charlie took out a piece of licorice and started chewing.
Madoc took over the speaker, pressing the green button in front of him. “Thanks Charlie. Adams and Marshall are headed to the prime minister’s location immediately to reinforce the team and keep an eye out for any possible attacks. Of course, with the ambush on me last week, they could be still in the area and could possibly make another attempt if it appears that I am alone on my property. Tuck is going to stay here and we will wait to see if anyone else shows up or if the phones are accessed again. If nothing happens in the next few days, Tuck and I will travel to meet the prime minister, and will collaborate with the United States Homeland Security to start looking for the other two who could still be in the US. Charlie has modified Tuck’s old phone so it appears he is at one of his condos. Charlie will stay at her home base with her resources so that she can continue to track the phones and keep an eye on the domestic flights, car rentals and borders.” Nobody on the team actually knew where Charlie’s home base was; she had made it one of the requirements of her employment. “I think they are going to make their big move in the next few days—they are likely running out of steam and resources. I can’t imagine their employer expected them to take this long, so bring all inconsequential information to me regardless of whether you think it is relevant. They are probable feeling trapped after their failed ambush, and trapped animals are capable of anything.”
Mohamed sat in the passenger seat of the small used black Kia they had just bought for cash. He looked out the window, taking in the scenery while trying to maintain his WIFI satellite connection. He preferred not to drive and always made one of his teammates chauffeur him around. It could have been point of contention, but his teammates knew how sensitive he could be, and how volatile. Khalifa had just pulled them onto the 401 highway with less grace than Mohamed would have liked, but he wasn’t about to waste his breath chastising him. He only spoke when it was absolutely necessary. He had been the one to make the call about a strategy change. After the failed ambush, they had successfully alerted the security team to their whereabouts and plans. He had been sloppy and had underestimated the injured team leader Madoc. The guy had never left the house after eight PM, but of course on the night of the ambush nobody is to be found except the two best fighters on the team and a beast from hell. It had been a costly failure and one that his client had not been happy to hear about—the four of them were expected to be in and out of the country at this point, not starting from square one. Each day brought a greater chance of exposure and death for all. Although they could assimilate to a certain extent in the bigger cities, they had to work hard to maintain their disguises in smaller towns. He had made the team shave their beards as soon as they’d arrived. Mohamed prayed to Allah his plan would result in the outcome he had promised his employer, otherwise there would be serious consequences. They had a few days to make this work, and ever since Khalifa had discovered that their hacking job was being watched, Mohamed had decided they couldn’t keep up with the technological intelligence of the KWAT team. All they could do was to go on the offensive, keep the advantage of surprise, and lay a trap to catch the team’s precious asset, Madoc.
Chapter 24
Kathryn and Ryanne had spent days in the car and were beyond happy to have reached their final destination, St. Joseph Island, home of Kathryn’s family cottage. It was an hour’s drive from her hometown of Sault Ste. Marie and located on a remote lake with only four other cottages nearby. When Kathryn had left Madoc’s house, this place had beaconed her home. The journey had given them a couple days to unwind before preparing for their planned girls’ week. As they pulled into the two storey log cottage, Kathryn sighed a deep breath of relief. She was as far away from Madoc as possible, and that suited her just fine. It was only the second week of November, but up here snow already layered the ground and the lake rustled with the slow transition from water to ice that had begun near the edges. Kathryn couldn’t hear or see a thing except her own breath as she pushed the screen door aside and put her key into the door. Ryanne was mumbling something behind her, but Kathryn was too focused on the familiar smell that reminded her she was home.
The infiltrator alert program Charlie had designed went off at noon on Thursday for a brief moment. When Charlie pulled her computer chair closer to the screen and sipped her overly large slushy, she was surprised to see Tuck’s phone identified as the culprit. Someone had just entered the phone and was scanning its messaging centres. Charlie watched in awe as the hacker moved between messages. Then it stopped. The hacker was gone. Charlie scanned for the information and time records to see which phone numbers or messages the hacker had focused on. Not recognizing the number, she would have to call Tuck to see if he could clarify. It had come up several times but no contact info was associated with it… just some deleted texts. Strange, thought Charlie, and started to dial Tuck’s number.
Madoc and Tuck were reviewing possible attack locations around the capital when Tuck’s phone went off. He picked up and answered without looking at who it was.
“Hey Charlie, what’s up? Okay, alright… k, give it to me. Okay let me think… that number is… Ryanne… yes, its Kathryn’s OT friend. K, I’ll tell him right now.” Tuck turned to Madoc. “My old phone was just hacked for about two minutes. They focused on Ryanne’s phone number and texts.” Tuck waited for Madoc to respond.
“So why would they access Ryanne’s phone?” Tuck seemed to be ahead of him.
“They could be cross referencing it with Kathryn’s number which they would have found in your phone. If they found her number, they could begin tracking her. If they are looking for Ryanne, they would be able to confirm her number using both of our phones.”
Madoc stood up. “Why is her number in your phone?”
Tuck shrugged. “I just confirmed they got home safely after the bar, that’s it.” “So if they have Kathryn’s, why Ryanne?”
Tuck sat silently for a moment. “What if Kathryn’s phone hasn’t given them what they need?” Madoc put his head in his hands and shook his head slightly.
“If they’d wanted, they could have bugged, trailed and tracked Kathryn to her condo plenty of times, you even said she was clean for bugs when you did a scan. Why now?” Madoc asked, looking up at the ceiling.
“Maybe she’s canceled her phone? Or gone off the grid? Bad breakups make people do crazy things… stay with me… you gave her the boot—”
“I did not give her the boot.”
“First they tried to target you and it turned out real bad for them, then you give Kathryn the boot, but they don’t know that and attempt to locate her. If they can’t get to her, then they look to her best friend. They are targeting someone you know…just not the Prime Minister. They get to them, they get to us. If we can’t reach her, it might be a hint that they can’t either. Call her now.” Madoc’s eyes went wide at this command from Tuck, but he knew it was what he had to do.
Madoc turned his phone over in his hand and dialed Kathryn’s number, at once hoping for and dreading her answer. A monotonic woman’s voice came into Madoc’s ear. “This number is not in service. Please try your call again.” Madoc hung up and turned to Tuck.
“She’s canceled the number… they’ll be getting the same signal.” Madoc put his phone on the table “You call Ryanne now.” Tuck picked up his phone and dialed, and after a couple of rings, Ryanne answered. Tuck was silent for the first second, speechless.
“Ah… Ryanne, it’s Tuck. Hey, how are you? Can I ask you a strange question? Where are you? What? Why are you up there? You guys shouldn’t be there—wait… wait, don’t hang up. Turn off your GP…”
Tuck dialed again, but the phone had been turned off. He turned to Madoc, whose face looked like it was going to explode.
“Where the fuck are they!?” Madoc started pacing.
Tuck answered without looking at him. “They are up north near Kathryn’s hometown Sault Ste. Marie. A family cottage on St. Joseph’s Island.”
Madoc stopped and turned to Tuck, his face purple. “Why the fuck is she there?! …” Madoc’s cell phone vibrated on the table. He practically dove across his chair to get to it.
“Yes Charlie?” Madoc asked, switching the phone to speaker.
Charlie’s voice filled the room. “So you know the border town crossing program I modified to pick up two or more individuals of eastern decent, no prior visitation and rental car? Well, we just got a hit in a border town called Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan. It is a twin city and is fairly remote… I looked up the relevance to Kathryn and Ryanne to see if there was a link and well, there is, that is Kathryn’s hometown. When I look into Kathryn’s phone, it seems like she has canceled the service, probably because of you. So I looked into Ryanne’s and she has been using her GPS locator frequently. It seems like she has been making her way up north the past couple of days. Did you know about this?”
Madoc’s veins were popping out of his head. “Yes I fucking know about it now! Anything else?” he snapped, slamming the chair in front of him. Charlie quickly said no and hung up.
“What are we going to do?” Tuck asked evenly. Madoc finally sat down, realizing his leg was starting to hurt.
“Good news is that if they are trying to track Ryanne’s GPS, then they still haven’t found them. They could be close, but at least they haven’t reached them yet. In fact, when Ryanne turned off her phone, she may have thwarted their plan to reach them today. As long as Ryanne can keep her phone off, that may buy us as much time to get there. Sooner or later they will likely connect the dots about her family cottage and access municipal records. Bad news is we don’t have the private plane here, so we would have to order a chopper and wait for the refueling and security checks at both ends. We could also call in a favour for a private plane, but that may take time to find. Lastly, we could call the police in the area and have them try to retrieve Kathryn and Ryanne.”
While Madoc had been speaking, he had made his decision. “Okay, you figure out which is faster, chopper or calling in a favour—we leave immediately. I am ninety-five percent sure that if I call the police, one or more of them is going to get severely injured or killed by one of the Diamonds or get the ladies killed. Instead, I’ll call Charlie to see if she can hack into the land registration database and get us the cottage coordinates before they reach her”. Madoc started dialing his phone and was quickly giving instructions to Charlie. He paused to listen to Tuck speak to the chopper company. “Four hours is the earliest? Really? Okay, thanks but no,” hanging up. He immediately called another number. “Hi, Tom- the Prime Minister said we had access to the government aircraft in town. We need a favour, can you fly us to the Soo? In an hour? That’s perfect. Thanks Tom” Tuck hung up and nodded to Madoc.
“Okay, flight leaves in one hour and gets us to the outskirts of Sault Ste. Marie, then we drive to St. Joseph’s. That will give us time to get to the airport and get our weapons stock so we can at least be prepared for the shit show we’re walking into.” All Madoc had really heard was that he had to wait in order to get to Kathryn. He had brought her into this and now she had two if not four of the world’s most dangerous mercenaries heading her way. He never would have predicted she would have left the city like this. She and Ryanne had really gone off the grid, something that he had done many times before. They were actually more alike than probably either one of them knew. Madoc just hoped to God they would get there in time—both his and Kathryn’s futures depended upon it.
Chapter 25
Mohamed sat in the running car with Khalifa. Usif and Adil had joined them at the convenience store off the highway. Adil and Usif’s car waited beside them, dropping several degrees by the minute. Mohamed had to be careful they did not stay here too long—the store owner had already eyed them suspiciously when the first car had pulled in. Mohamed had decided it would be prudent to go inside and check her out before Usif and Adil arrived.
“Travelling through?” she mumbled through gum.
“Ah, yes. Just waiting for the rest of our party to arrive.”
“Holy, well you guys better have your winter coats with you. They are calling for a big storm, biggest since the ice storm of 2003. You guys on vacation? You don’t seem from around here. You should stock up on more than water than this, stores won’t be open tomorrow. Nobody in their right mind will be out before the plows.”
Mohamed did not plan on being there long enough to need other resources. He’d grown tired of the chit chat and smiled briefly to the clerk before grabbing his water and heading to the car.
Mohamed wasn’t opposed to killing her just to shut her up—she was rather portly and hairy by his standards, but he didn’t know how long they would be in the area and it wasn’t good to leave collateral damage unless you were on your way out. Mohamed turned his laptop over to Khalifa as he entered the car, finding Usif and Adil already in the back.
“Both targets’ cell phones have been turned off, meaning we only know that they are somewhere on this lake. It appears there is one road in and out, and several different cottages around a large lake. We could survey each cottage—maybe we get lucky, maybe not.”
The dark skies grew more ominous as he spoke. Blistering wind hammered the car doors and windows.
“We have about one hour of good daylight left and Khalifa is working on accessing the land deed register with the address.” Khalifa looked up at Mohamed and shook his head slightly. Mohamed slowly closed his eyes, trying to contain his rage, but opened them a second later. “We have to assume KWAT knows about our hacking attempts and are en route. They’ve had almost two hours to mobilize so we should expect them soon. If we drive to each cottage to look for activity, we waste time and miss our chance to get into position for the ambush. I suggest we pick one of the three cottages and use it as a home base—they are all likely empty from what I’ve read about cottage culture in North America. It is possible we get lucky and pick the right cottage. We can grab the females and pick off the team as they arrive. If not, we spend the first few hours doing recon and locating the females and get into position. If Allah is with us, we can be back on the road by midnight with all targets neutralized and our employer will arrange for immediate removal from Canada via private plane from Thunder Bay. Our trap has been set and everything is in motion—now we await the joy of the kill and the thrill of victory. Praise be to Allah.” The rest of the team echoed this short prayer.
Mo
hamed did not watch Adil and Usif struggle against the winds to get into their car. He refused to acknowledge the worsening weather at this moment. They had known it would be colder in Canada, but none of them owned a winter coat and they had not stopped to buy one. As gusts of wind blew clouds of snow in front of the windshield, Mohamed fought a shiver, refusing to let any part of the country enter his bones.
Kathryn and Ryanne sat in front of the television, each with a goblet of red wine, a bowl of chips in between them. The weather warnings had started about an hour ago, and now the interruptions of regular programming had started. The news anchor spoke in a serious tone with video images of snow-buried streets playing beside her head.
“Weather analysts are forecasting the worst snowstorm in the Algoma region in the month of November since 1961. The storm is expected to begin at around six PM and will continue through the night. Colder fronts are expected to bring in high-speed winds and will clash with warmer temperatures off the Great Lakes, bringing heavy snowfall through the night and into the early morning hours. Temperature drops are expected and individuals should ensure they have plenty of supplies to get through the next twenty-four to forty-eight hours. Plows will be working round the clock and many stores will likely be closed.”
Kathryn was glad they had stocked up on gasoline for the generator and enough food and wine for at least four days. The winds had started to pick up and the cottage was beginning to feel the pressure of the storm against its large glass lake-facing windows that spanned both storeys.
Dangerous Care (Dangerous Care Saga Book 1) Page 11