“Want a cup of coffee, man? You look like you need it. No offense,” he chirped.
“None taken. And hell, yeah,” I replied, massaging my temples, eyes closed. “Yes, coffee would be very good.”
He got busy with the coffee maker.
“We’ve received a reply,” Shelley said, as I came over to stand beside her at the window. It would still be dark for a couple of hours yet. But time didn’t matter when we had to consider Rachel’s life. Nothing else mattered.
“Yeah?” I replied. My brain kept trying to boot up, and I honestly hadn’t gotten to the point yet where I could think of anything better to say. I just didn’t feel like I had it in me, like all those years of schooling had somehow slipped away and changed me into a caveman.
“Yes,” she continued, not seeming to notice, not looking at me yet. “It came in an hour ago. An email from Mel’s team.”
She had my attention despite my throbbing head and general fuzziness around the edges and despite being annoyed at her aloofness. I should learn the value of tact.
“And?” Again with the monosyllabic grunts. No more scotch with Mel. What did they ferment it with, weapons-grade uranium?
She looked at me then. “They did a remote sweep of the house, checking for electronic signatures which would tell them whether the house had any bugging equipment. Actually the email contained a lot of technical jargon, the kind you geeks like using. But that forms the essence of said email.”
I turned to Mel, “What did they search for?”
“Wi-Fi signals, Bluetooth signals, satellite uplinks. Checking if any hidden equipment sent waves off-site. Then we’d follow the path. Technical stuff, you know?”
“Wait, back up a bit,” I said, shaking my head. “You sent a team into a place you weren’t sure was being monitored?”
“I didn’t send a team in, Tom,” Mel said, coming around the kitchen counter with three mugs of coffee.
We took the cue and joined him around the mahogany coffee table.
“Okay,” I said after a deep sip of coffee, feeing my brain almost instantly come alive. “So what’s the deal? What did your team find out? Paranoia, or are they out to get us?”
“The house is being monitored,” Mel replied, matter-of-factly, nodding to Shelley. “No doubt about it, this young lady is a perceptive one. Don’t know how you let her get away.”
“Ah God, don’t start.”
“Sorry. Anyway, they rigged the place,” he said. “No two ways about it. And from the strength of the signals, rigged to hell and back.”
“Huh,” I have to admit up until then I’d assumed as much, but it hadn’t become real until Mel had said it out loud. Somebody had been watching Shelley and her family, watching and listening, intercepting emails and messages across multiple platforms, more than likely. Shit.
“Seriously professional job, too,” he continued, taking a sip of his own coffee. “Not something your average, if extremely wealthy, Joe like Don could do himself, for sure. This isn’t even the kind of work a for-hire security company, who would specialize in this kind of stuff, could do, to be honest.”
“Why not?” I asked. “There are some excellent companies available. And home security is a big market. You’d think there’d be some places out there who could pull off a high tech operation, wouldn’t there? I mean, the hardware is available at the right price. And the expertise that goes with it.”
“It’s not the hardware I’m talking about here, Tom,” Mel replied smoothly, as if speaking to an interested, if slightly slow, child.
“Okay,” I replied, sitting back, “then please, enlighten me, oh guru of tech.”
He grinned, “It’s the signal, man. It’s being sent through online channels only available to, well, a chosen few,” he replied. “No way can I figure out how they’re using these channels. This is military grade stuff. The encryption is insane.”
“You’re sure?”
“What?” he asked. “That it’s military?”
“Yeah.”
“No, we can’t be sure, at least not at the moment,” Mel replied. “But it’s very similar technology, which worries me.”
“Why the hell would an organization with such technology spy on a civilian household?” I asked.
“We think it has to do with Don,” Shelley replied, playing with her hands and looking at nothing much. “Something he may have been involved in. Maybe something to do with the fact he’s Lebanese, or maybe something he undertook for them.”
“Yeah, I’m inclined to think so,” Mel confirmed. “We’re actually pretty sure of that much, although what he might be involved in, remains unclear. We’re running a background check on him now. Anything and everything he’s ever done we will bloody well discover soon enough.”
“Good. Okay, so just to recap, you guys somehow did a remote sweep and picked up on this signal,” I said. “And then after finding it, what, you tried to intercept it?”
“Yeah,” Mel replied, nodding his head slowly, as if deep in thought. Or like something bothered him. “I expected a walk in the park…”
“So the encrypted signal constituted your only hurdle,” I said, trying to make light of this but feeling just as unnerved as Mel appeared to be.
“A pretty worrying hurdle, Tom,” Mel said.
“Yeah,” I sighed. “Still, hurdles are for jumping over, right?”
“True,” Mel replied.
“So anyway, the fact a military-grade piece of software encrypts the signal amounts to our only real problem now, right?”
I understood the situation, but I wanted to make absolutely sure nothing else, no matter how small, remained hidden. Negligence which could lead to someone’s death.
“Not quite,” Mel replied, nodding. “The damn encrypted signal is the bastard. All the usual signs we expected were there, and we went ahead as we usually would. When we encountered the signal, we figured we needed just a bit of time to figuring out the signal’s destination and we’d be good to go. Then we encountered the encryption. And it sort of took us by surprise.”
“So we can’t tell where it’s being sent to?” I asked. “Please tell me there’s a way around this?”
“We’re working on it.”
“Christ, Mel,” Shelley said suddenly. “My little girl’s out there somewhere and your guys have no clue? We have to do something…”
“I know Shelley,” Mel replied. “And you don’t need to worry. I only employ the best guys. They’ll break it, I promise you. It will not be long before we crack the code. Let’s just be grateful we have something to work with for now.”
I nodded, “We have a lead. That’s pretty much the most important thing in the world right now, Shel.”
“Exactly,” Mel said. “And it’s a hell of a lot more than we had before, in fact it’s a hell of a lot more than we could have hoped for. It’s a way forward, Shelley. Maybe not an easy one, but once it’s cracked, we have options. Real ones.”
I looked at Shelley, “It’s a good thing you’re so paranoid or we wouldn’t have gotten even this far.”
“Thanks,” she replied.
“Sure thing.”
“Tom,” Mel said, looking a bit more serious than he had a moment ago. “I’ve got some news for you too.”
“What?” I didn’t like news, mainly because the good kind remained elusive, so no news remained my news of choice.
“You won’t like it,” Mel continued. “Seriously Tom, maybe you want to sit down for this.”
“Great,” I muttered. “I love bad news. What is it? Spit it out already.”
“They set up your place for surveillance too.”
“What the hell? I thought I only acted under the influence of paranoia!”
“You did,” he replied. “And with good reason as it turns out.”
I shook my head. “Fantastic.”
“From a surveillance point of view, your place cannot be easily cracked,” he continued.
“Oh,” I re
plied. “Well, okay then.”
“Sarcasm doesn’t become you, Tom,” Shelley said. I couldn’t argue the sentiment.
“Oh,” I replied. “I always thought it was the greatest form of wit. I wish someone had told me this sooner. Thank you Shelley. I’ll stop then.”
“Oh ha-ha,” she replied, deadpan. “You crack me up.”
“I try.”
“And you fail.”
“Cow.”
“The van,” Mel carried on regardless. “The one you had your doubts about when we got to your apartment, Tom?”
“Yeah,” I replied, the previous joviality evaporating like dew on a summer’s morning. “So what, it’s still there? Staking my place out?”
“No,” Mel replied, shaking his head.
I clenched my fists in frustration. “Then what about my place?”
“My team indeed ran a sweep of your place too, after we noticed the van parked outside,” he continued. “I had my doubts about the van myself, thought we should have a look, see what we could find.”
The words came out slowly. “Good,” I replied, nodding slowly. “Okay, good. Thanks. So then…?”
“Whomever the van belonged to, set up a rudimentary surveillance system, old school,” Mel said. “Just a directional microphone set up in a tree across the street from your apartment, probably a rush job.”
“So you reckon they thought I’d be coming home sometime soon,” I mused, taking a sip of my rapidly cooling coffee. “And didn’t feel the need to take the risk of installing anything inside my place?”
“Yup,” Mel replied. “I reckon…”
“Okay, so I’m guessing the remote mic is transmitting too,” I said. “Which is how your people picked up on it?”
“Correct.”
“No doubt using this super-powered military encrypted signal, right?”
“Now, that’s the strange thing…” Mel said.
“What’s the strange thing?” Shel and I said together.
“It looks like they were in a hurry,” he continued. “There’s no signal coming from the thing installed outside your place except a standard GPS, Tom. It must be recording to a high capacity digital storage drive.”
“So,” I said. “You think they have plans of picking it up and downloading the information at a later stage.”
“Yeah,” Mel said. “I guess. The bloody problem is, there’s no telling when it might be, and my people aren’t exactly the gung-ho fly in the face of danger types, so lying in wait indefinitely for a potentially deadly individual, or individuals, is something I can’t do.”
“I understand. But we need to know who these people are, or at least where they are. We’ll have an edge then,” I said, looking into my coffee. “Having someone wait for the son of a bitch when he comes along to pick up his toy would certainly help.”
“Unless they already think you’re on the flight to Beirut, that our ploy worked,” Mel replied. “And this is a job they installed just before.”
“In which case someone will come along and remove it, surely?” I said. “I mean, no one’s going to just leave the thing mounted in a tree, pointed at my place, right?”
Mel nodded, “Exactly my thinking.”
“Well,” I said after a pause. “Who better to lay in wait for the sons of bitches than me?”
“Yeah, I kind of thought you might say that,” Mel replied. “But Tom, these guys are professionals. You’d need to be careful.”
“I’m a SEAL, Mel,” I replied, looking more wounded than I probably needed to. “I can kill a guy with my thumb. Hell, I can kill a guy with his own thumb.”
“Yeah, yeah,” he laughed. “Just saying, these guys are an unknown entity. The unknown always makes me a bit wary. And the encryption gives me the chills too.”
I nodded, “So then, what-”
“Batteries!”
We both turned to look at Shelley.
“I’m sure I have some lying around,” Mel said after a pause. “I mean if you’re really desperate.”
Shelley gave him a look. I’d been on the receiving end of one of those looks before and believe me when I tell you did not want to experience it more than once.
He looked away and sipped his coffee.
“What I meant,” she continued, “is mobile technology uses batteries, right? Cell phones, cameras, mp3 players and so on.”
“Yes!” I smacked my forehead and winced at the pain. “They’d probably have to come back to replace them once they’d lost their charge! Shelley, you’re a genius.”
She shrugged. “Nah, only when compared to you two.”
“So we can assume the device had a full charge when they installed it,” Mel mused.
“Seems like a fair guess,” I replied. “So how much juice do you think it has left?”
Mel shook his head. “Depends, if it’s a high capacity battery, we can’t be sure. But if it’s your basic Lithium Ion, it’s different. And GPS uses a lot of power. Hell, someone could be popping around to download as early as this morning. Or remove the thing entirely, to cover their tracks, if they bought that you guys are on your way to Lebanon.”
“You think they’d be brazen enough to do it in daylight?” I asked, not so sure myself. “Mel, it would take a terrifying mixture of balls and stupidity in equal parts.”
“Maybe, Tom,” he replied, “I don’t know. But I’d rather not miss the opportunity, any more than you would. And assuming they think you’re on the plane, they may decide to remove the device before the sun comes up. If I’d had even an hour, I could have called in a guy who could bug the device.”
“Which would lead us straight to the sons of bitches,” I replied, nodding. “Shit Mel, can’t we make it happen?”
Mel shook his head sadly, “It’s not like I keep the things around here, Tom. They’re microscopic, for a start.”
“Yeah,” I replied, having used them on occasion in the field. “And it’s not like we can just tape a cell phone onto it and turn on our own GPS.”
“Yeah,” Mel replied. “That may have worked on the roofs of trucks back in Iraq, but something tells me a big ass phone sitting on top of their unit might catch their attention.”
“You’re into computers,” Shelley said, addressing Mel.
“Yeah, you could say that,” Mel replied. “Why?”
“Why not remove the GPS from my phone,” she asked, getting a little excited. “And place it inside the surveillance device?”
Mel shook his head again, “No time, Shel. It’s a lot more complex, and we just can’t assume we have the time. Also, hiding a GPS unit inside the device would be almost as noticeable as just strapping the phone onto it. Nice idea though.”
She did not enjoy having her ideas shot down. “Oh, really?”
“Which,” Mel finished, “puts us right back to square one. We need someone at ground zero, and we need them there ASAP.”
We needed someone on the ground, waiting for whoever came to check or retrieve the device, and we needed that someone now, lying in wait before the dawn. And, we couldn’t send someone from his company, because those guys weren’t military, and we had no idea who we were dealing with, or what kind of danger they’d be in.
No option.
“Hang on a second,” I replied, slowly. “Are we all being purposefully thick?”
They both turned to look at me, and I had to grin.
“What is it, Tom?” Mel asked, raising an eyebrow. “I’ve seen that look on your face before.”
“Yeah, so do I,” Shelley agreed. “And it means he has some sort of crazy plan.”
I shook my head. “Not crazy. Just, well, different.”
“I’m all ears,” Mel said, leaning forward intently.
“This is so obvious,” I said. “That we would have thought of it sooner if we hadn’t been thinking so damn hard.”
“Yes?” Mel said, his eyes and the tone in his voice asking me to get to the point.
“Do you have any masking
tape, Mel?”
He smacked his forehead. “Of course, cell phone underneath the car. GPS on. I can track exactly where it’s going.” He grinned, and I grinned back. “Low tech style. I like it!”
“But aren’t they monitoring my phone?” Shelley asked. “I mean, as soon as the sim-card registers as being online, they’ll know its coordinates just like we will, won’t they?”
Mel smiled at her, “Give me five minutes with the thing. It won’t be a problem. When we turn it on it’ll be a different beast, I can assure you.”
I went into the guest bedroom and retrieved Shelley’s cell phone, coming out again and handing it over to Mel, who plugged it into his laptop and went to work on it using the kind of skill I wished I had. After a few minutes, he unplugged it, turned it on to test it, turned it off again and handed it back to me.
“The phone is clean,” he said, trying to hide his pride and failing spectacularly. “As far as the phone thinks, it’s just come off the factory floor. Also, it has an entirely new identity. In essence, it’s a completely different phone, and the only system it’s going to be communicating with is sitting right here on my lap.”
He patted the laptop affectionately.
“So that’s it then?” I asked, knowing the answer but asking anyway.
“Yup,” Mel replied. “Now we just need to get our asses in gear before the bastards arrive to pick up their little toy. Assuming, of course, they arrive in a car.”
“Yeah, it occurred to me,” I replied. “No way is someone who’s in a hurry going to take a stroll to my place. They’ll come running. Or in this case, driving.”
Mel nodded, “Yeah, I guess.”
“Okay,” I said, getting up and finishing my coffee. “Well, everyone, it’s been real. Time to go.”
“Kind of, yeah,” Mel replied, also standing up. “It’s not like time is on our side or anything, right? Let me get my coat.”
“What?” I said. “No way, bud. This is a one man operation.”
“Yeah,” he replied. “I’ve been thinking about it while we’ve been talking.”
“And you decided to invite yourself along?”
“Yeah,” he replied, looking me dead in the eye. “What if there’s more than one of them, Tom? You may need backup. I can’t think of a better option.”
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