“Battle stations.”
“Cool!”
They did it in two. Five minutes later, Chilly and Hot Shot were in the aft section of the cabin, hunkered side by side on a black leather sofa. They both wore Bose headsets with boom mikes, and faced a chrome worktable arrayed with identical Alienware laptops, Logitech ball mice, digital stylus pads, Bluetooth toggles, a single-side-band high-power transceiver, and, last but not least, quart-size silver thermos mugs filled with coffee. Clearly they weren’t going anywhere, and if Scott had arranged for diapers, he would have had them wear those too.
Lily had taken a seat across from the boys, with her juice and coffee perched on a pop-up table, where Susan had arrayed a white ceramic bowl of fresh fruit, napkins, and silverware. She’d lost her ear comm in China, but a blinking Bluetooth perched in her auricle, and her cell sat next to her spoon. Scott slowly paced between his paramour and his hyped-up wizards.
“Okay, boys,” he said as he walked. “Priority one is a manhunt. Lily?”
“Russian-affiliated arms merchant and all around bad-boy slime,” Lily said. “Name is Enver Lukacs.” She spelled it out as Chilly and Hot Shot pecked it into their keyboards like a piano duo. “Now on American soil.”
“But we don’t know when, where, or how,” Scott said as he raised a finger. “And most likely not under that name.”
Chilly and Hot Shot both looked up and said, “Oh.”
Scott turned to Lily. “Lily, get Shepard on the line and tell him you need the very best, recent still image he can produce of Lukacs. Probably from your surveillance vids at that club in Seoul.”
She looked up at him and blinked. “How do know about that?”
Scott smiled. “Shepard and I have become close.”
“Good Lord,” she whispered, and she made the call.
“Is that you, Mata Hari?” Shepard said in her ear. He was clearly pleased and relieved.
“The very she,” she said.
“My day’s already made,” said Shepard. “What’s your twenty?”
“Airborne, and let’s just say I’m being thoroughly spoiled.”
“Then you must be with Scott.”
“Jeez.” She rolled her eyes and told him what she wanted. After a minute her cell phone dinged, and Shepard said, “It’s up.”
Without polite preamble, Scott took her cell and handed it to Chilly. She watched his body language, a commanding demeanor she’d never seen before, and she somehow felt both thrilled and terribly off-balance.
“All right,” Scott said to Chilly. “Take that image, enhance it, three-D it, invert it, then go deep net, and get me matches. And we’re not talking Google Images.”
“Hoppin’ on it!” Chilly said with glee.
“He means ‘roger,’ sir,” Hot Shot said to Scott.
“Yeah, that too!” Chilly said as he hammered away.
After a minute Chilly squinted at his Alienware. “Okeydokey, I got five good ones, and he’s a gnarly-lookin’ dude.”
Scott didn’t bother to look at the monitor. Instead, he spoke to his jet. “Aircraft, get me Homeland Security, Washington D.C., Deputy Director Operations.”
The Bombardier’s female voice filled the cabin. “Ringing.” And shortly after that, a woman answered.
“Homeland Security, Deputy DOPS.”
“May I please have Deputy Director Grogan? Tell him it’s Scott Renard.”
“One moment, sir,” she said, and then a deep, gravelly voice came over.
“Scott! I was going to call you today. That software of yours is a great piece of ass.”
Scott laughed. “Careful there, Charlie. You’re on speaker.”
“Oh, oh. Sorry, ma’am, whoever you are.”
Lily looked at the aircraft’s ceiling. “That’s all right. I’m not the software, so I take no offense.”
“Wow,” Chilly whispered. “Boss got some juice!”
“That surprises you?” Hot Shot hissed. “Shut up.”
“Charlie,” Scott said. “I need you to use that software to run someone through your data. Let’s call it a national security issue.”
“Well, you’ve got TS clearance, so no worries there.”
Lily stared at Scott. Top secret clearance? If she’d been standing up she would have put her fists on her hips.
“Okay,” Scott said. “This guy’s a foreign national, probably hit passport control somewhere during the last seventy-two hours. But you might want to bracket that further back.”
“Coastal points of entry? Or central too?”
“No idea,” said Scott.
“Well, that’s about two million crossings or so.” If Lily expected Scott to look crestfallen at that, she was disappointed, especially after Charlie Grogan continued. “Take about five minutes. Send it to the secure portal, and I’ll call you back.”
“Much appreciated,” Scott said and disconnected the call.
Hot Shot raised a finger. “Boss, can I hit the head?”
“Knew I should have ordered diapers for you guys,” Scott said. “Pee fast.” Hot Shot slid out from his seat and hustled to the rear.
“Me too!” Chilly said.
“Take turns,” Scott said. He scrolled through his cell and showed Chilly an IP address with an access code. Chilly made quick work of sending Lukacs over to D.C. Then Hot Shot came back, and Chilly raced to the lav.
Scott took the opportunity to sit down in the seat across from Lily. The way she was looking at him, he almost laughed, but reached out and took her hand instead.
“I’m not sure I should let you touch me,” she pouted disingenuously.
“Well, think it over,” he suggested. “Then we can discuss it in side-by-side hammocks somewhere in the Virgin Islands, sipping tropical drinks.”
“With those little umbrellas in them?” Lily asked.
“With those little umbrellas in them.”
“Touch me.” She grinned and rubbed his fingers.
The wizards were back in their seats when Charles Grogan’s voice popped up in the cabin again.
“Okay, Scott. Day before yesterday at fourteen hundred, your guy hit LAX from Seoul, under the name Werner Siebolt, German national. After that, no record of any domestic flight.”
“Outstanding!” Scott said. “Charlie, you’re best.”
“Always a pleasure,” said Grogan. “Need anything else?”
“Nope, I think we can hack it.”
Grogan laughed. “Pun intended?”
“Plead the fifth.”
“Call me if you need me.” Grogan hung up.
Scott released Lily’s hand and got up again. He paced in front of Chilly and Hot Shot, then stopped, and faced them with his eyes shut.
“All right, boys,” he said as he opened his eyes and shot a finger down at his wizards. “My guess is Lukacs, as Siebolt, rented a car. Chilly, starting with Alamo, crack all the rental car agencies at LAX and look for a match. If you find it, get us the plate number. Hot Shot, just in case he cabbed it somewhere instead, access the LAX Port Authority cams outside arrivals and run Chilly’s FR software for a match. Got that so far?”
They both nodded furiously.
“All right, whoever pings first with a plate number, set up for a track. Chilly, you’re going to hack the toll systems for all major highways out of L.A. And Hot Shot, while he’s doing that, you’ll script a search algorithm that scans for a plate or that vehicle-type image match. Then, wherever he terminates, pull the top ten hotels or motels in the area and find him. You can do that part by phone. Just call the desks.” Then he stopped and changed his mind. “Scratch that, don’t call. He might have told the desk to alert him if anyone calls. Hack the hotel systems. Clear?”
Chilly raised a finger and grinned. “I got some speeding tickets in L.A. Can I take care of
that while I’m at it?”
“You’re a moron,” Hot Shot moaned.
“Do this right, Chilly,” Scott said, “and I’ll let you hack into the lottery system.”
“Awesome!”
“He’s joking, you idiot,” Hot Shot said.
“Get on it,” Scott said. “You’ve got thirty minutes, no more.”
The boys dug into their tasks as if they hadn’t eaten for a week, and what lay before them was an Easter feast.
Scott cocked his head at Lily. “Let’s leave them alone.” She got up, he took her elbow, and they moved forward and sat together again, close, on a black leather divan.
“You’re good.” She looked up at him and marveled. “MI5 would have loved you.”
“They do.” He grinned, and they both laughed, sitting back to listen as Chilly and Hot Shot bickered.
“You can’t do it that way! It’ll take forever. Just nab all the IPs and run the name through the servers.”
“Dude, mind your own business and code! It’s not my first rodeo, ya know.”
With the jet crew forward and the hackers working furiously in the back, Scott took the moment to kiss Lily slowly, as if for the first time. She let it linger and then pulled back.
“Just a few days ago,” she whispered, “I was trying to decide if our relationship would even work.”
“Three days ago,” he answered, “I was wondering if I would ever see you again...and not because our relationship might not work.”
“Hold that thought,” she whispered back and kissed him back, like she had never kissed him, or anyone, before.
Thirty minutes went by fast, but just in time.
“Boss!” Chilly called from his techno perch.
Scott and Lily surprised themselves by snapping out of their romantic torpor instantly. They took a second to realize that their professional side was as sharp as their emotional one, then got up, and hurried to the back.
“We got him,” Hot Shot said through his Tom Cruise grin. “Tell ’em, Chill.”
“You tell him, bro. Hate to admit it, but you did it.”
“Someone tell me,” Scott snapped, “or I’m dropping you off without landing the plane!”
“He’s in Vegas,” Hot Shot quickly explained. “Chilly got the plate from Hertz.”
“Way overpriced, if you ask me,” Chilly said.
“What does he care?” Lily interjected. “The North Koreans are footing the bill.”
“I picked him up on the Ten out of L.A., then all the way up on the Fifteen. Then I did what you said and ran a back-door hotel canvas. He’s at the MGM grand.” Hot Shot’s satisfied smile could have set the leathers on fire. Chilly punched Hot Shot’s shoulder and ruffled his hair.
“My hotel hacker dude!”
Scott shook both of their hands, long and hard. “That bonus is starting to look serious.” Then he spoke to his Bombardier. “Aircraft, cockpit.”
“Here I am,” the chief pilot said.
“Bobby,” Scott said. “Flight plan for Vegas, and step on it.”
“Roger that. A little five-card stud?”
“Blackjack,” Scott said. “And we’re bringing down the house.”
Chapter Thirty-Six
There were twelve desk clerks at the MGM grand: six men, five women, and someone whose gender was up for grabs. The lobby was a vast field of polished marble, with islands of retro scooped chairs, a three-story ceiling, beaded glass chandeliers, and digital posters of Cirque de Soleil and magician David Copperfield.
Lily walked in the front entrance, wearing a quickly assembled “disguise.” At the airport she’d picked up a half-length, brown leather car coat, large framed sunglasses, a plain purse, and a floppy gray fedora, beneath which she’d tucked up her hair. The chances of running right into Lukacs were slim, but Vegas had always been a place of shattered odds.
The six check-in counters to the right spanned the length of two Amtrak cars, each manned by a pair of uniformed employees. Lily scanned them quickly, looking for the one Chilly had picked out after hacking the casino hotel’s employment records. She was a single mom who had seen better days but was doing her best to hold on to whatever looks and youth she had left. Lily took out a handkerchief, rubbed her nose a few times, walked over, and tugged at her arm.
“Ek-skoos me,” she sniffed in a slight German accent. “May I speak viz you for a moment, please?”
The woman, whose name tag read “Dotty Singer” nodded at the distraught tourist, touched her coworker’s arm, and said, “Back in a jiff.” Then she followed Lily to the lobby floor. Lily stifled a sob, plopped into a chair, and fanned herself with the handkerchief. Singer perched on the arm of the chair.
“Are you all right, hon?” she said. “Did you lose at the tables?”
“No, no.” Lily dabbed the corner of one eye. “I mean yes, but it is not money. I have lost my husband.” She clutched at her chest and sobbed. “To another woman.”
“Oh, dear.” Singer touched Lily’s shoulder and squeezed.
“Yes.” Lily nodded. “I think he is here.” She looked up and gripped the clerk’s arm. “I must know! Our children are so young.... .” She trailed off.
“Hon, I’ve been there, done that, got the T-shirt,” said Singer, as Lily well knew, thanks to Chilly’s hacking. “And I’d love to help you, but it’s against the rules.”
“Please.” Lily looked at her pitifully. “I only wish to know if he is here, and with someone.” Then she took the woman’s hand, turned it over, and pressed something into her palm.
The woman looked down, seeing a pair of hundred dollar bills and a torn scrap of paper with a cell phone number. “Oh,” she whispered, and the quick mental image of her telephone bill past-due letter popped into her mind.
“Please.” Lily held up her cell phone in her trembling hand. “This is his photo. His name is Werner Siebolt.” She dabbed at both eyes this time. “I do not understand. I have tried to be such a good wife.”
Singer pocketed the cash and the number, looked at the image of Lukacs and patted Lily’s hand. “Tell you what, Mrs. Siebolt,” she said. “I’ll see what I can do.”
Lily forced a smile through her tears, despite recognizing the look on the woman’s face. It was the look of a woman who would get revenge on her own cheating, abandoning husband through helping another. “You are a vonderful person,” she whispered.
“Well, us girls gotta stick together.” Dotty Singer smiled, got up, and went back to her desk.
“Bloody right,” Lily murmured. “Good call, Chilly,” she told her team through the advanced, invisible “SR” comm in her ear and left the hotel.
Outside, in the dazzling sunlight, she crossed over Tropicana Boulevard and turned around to face the MGM. She felt vigorous and sharp, back in the game again, and mentally flipped through all of her contingencies. With no way to anticipate Lukacs’s next moves, she had to take rapid action and couldn’t afford to wait for backup from Zeta. Scott, to his credit and Lily’s burgeoning surprise, insisted that they could handle Lukacs. Letting him escape again wasn’t an option.
A white Mercedes RV pulled up, the side door slid open, and Lily climbed in. It was an eight-passenger deal, with two split-bench rows behind the driving compartment and plenty of leg room.
“Drive on, Jeeves,” she said with a highbrow flare.
“Yes, ma’am.” Hot Shot put the van in gear and started east along Tropicana.
She looked down to see two rolls of duct tape on the floor—next to a small pile of handcuffs, leg shackles, and even ball gags. “Where did you find those?” she asked, eyebrows raised.
“This is Vegas, baby,” Chilly replied from the passenger seat. “Just be glad I resisted the temptation of getting the full leather catsuit with zippered hood.”
“Where’s Scott?” she asked.
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“We dropped the boss man off at a cash machine.” Chilly grinned. “Dude said we needed more muscle.”
“What’s he bloody well thinking?” Lily wondered.
“No visual on that,” Hot Shot said as he took a left on Koval Lane. “He jumped in an Uber, then shot me an address, and told us to pick him up at thirteen hundred.”
“The man’s a mystery, wrapped in an enigma,” Lily remarked.
“Funny.” Chilly giggled. “That’s what he says about you.”
Hot Shot drove north on Koval for a while, following the nav on his phone. The sidewalks seemed crowded with youngish, geeky-looking, tourists, rather than the usual middle-aged slot-machine addicts. Lily gawked at what looked like the wizards’ kindred souls.
“What’s the deal with these blokes? Is it spring break for science schools?”
“There’s a large hacker conference at the convention center,” Chilly informed her. “Talk about timing.”
“Now, now, Chilly,” Lily admonished, hoping that Dotty would check in sooner rather than later. “You can’t go.”
“Awww,” Chilly exaggeratingly whined.
Hot Shot took a right on South Las Vegas, cruised past Circus Circus, hung a hard left on West Charleston, and pulled to the curb. Across the street was a sloppy jumble of red and blue buildings that looked like a strip mall, with a sign on top that said Johnny Tacco’s and Home of the World Champions.
“What’s this now?” Hot Shot said.
“Hey, eyeball the gloves in the windows, dude,” Chilly snickered. “It’s a boxing gym.”
“That devious man,” Lily said about Scott.
The front door opened, and Scott walked out, sporting a satisfied smile, and was followed by two very large men. One was white with oiled dark hair; the other was black and bald. Both had rippling arms bursting from cutoff sweatshirts above shiny blue workout sweats and high-ankle boxing shoes.
“Boss man’s cray-cray,” Chilly singsonged.
“Like a fox-fox,” Lily added.
“When he said muscle, he wasn’t shittin’,” said Hot Shot.
The trio trotted across the road as Lily popped the side door open and slid to the right as the two hulking pugilists squeezed into the back. Scott climbed in last, settled next to Lily, and closed the door.
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