He’d gone back to his office for a few hours, but at the end of the day she told him everyone was getting together at eight o’clock in the trendy V Bar in the Venetian hotel.
Veronika had not doubted for a minute that he would show up. He entered the bar at eight-fifteen, looking admittedly handsome in a lightweight tan sport coat and jeans, and although he’d sat farther away than the ever-present and always annoying Ralph Baggett, Ryan had soon slipped down a few seats to position himself directly across from her.
Baggett, as he had been for the past two weeks, was doing his best to monopolize Martel’s time, but the French spy handled him deftly. She included Ryan in her conversations and did it in a way that she was certain felt natural to both Baggett and Ryan.
Things were going according to plan for Jack Ryan, Jr. His goal of getting close to Élise Legrand was progressing even quicker and more easily than he’d anticipated. He’d entered her department this morning, spent just the right amount of time with her to show casual interest, and garnered himself an invitation to her going-away party that evening.
As soon as he learned he’d see her again he relaxed, because he knew his objective would be easier to fulfill in a crowd than alone in her office. It was crucial that he get his hands on her phone, since Gavin Biery had decided it to be the most likely device she would employ to remove anything from the NewCorp servers. Jack had been trained in pickpocketing and other sleight-of-hand techniques, so he liked his chances if he could get close enough to the woman in a social environment where others were around.
He and the rest of the team had spent the early evening working out a plan to take a peek at her digital data. Ryan had the phone Gavin had sent him from Alexandria, and to extract the data from her phone and put it on Gavin’s he needed to have her device in his possession for only two to three minutes. He was certain he could do this at some point during the party, but the guys also bandied around other possibilities. Could he actually social-engineer more information out of her? Details on where she was going next, information about her client’s identity — the benefactor paying millions of dollars to the North Koreans? The Campus operatives knew there was likely as much or more crucial data in the head of Élise Legrande as there was on her phone, and the question remained how they could get that data out.
Clark was against Ryan pursuing some sort of physical relationship with the woman. Even when Jack suggested he ask her for an innocuous drink after the party so he could dig a little deeper into her psyche to see if there was an opening there, Clark was less than enthusiastic.
“One question for you, Ryan.”
“Shoot.”
“What happened to the last son of a bitch we watched having a drink with that woman? Have you forgotten about Vietnam?”
Dom had been sitting quietly, listening to the conversation, but he said, “Ouch.”
Ryan shook his head. “I’ve got you guys watching my back.”
“We were watching Hazelton’s back, too,” Clark growled. “Damn lot of good that did him.”
This sank in for a moment. Ultimately, however, a compromise was made in the form of another device Biery had FedExed over from Alexandria. It was a tiny clear earpiece with a half-inch-long dangling battery pack; it looked just like a small hearing aid, but it could attach via Bluetooth like a regular earpiece headset and transmit as well as receive. Unlike the other units the men wore, this one had an external microphone that picked up sounds around the person wearing it. Ryan tested it out, his hair just long enough to cover most of it in his ear, and with it in place the rest of the team could hear him and the conversations of those around him. And more important to Clark, Ryan would be able to hear transmissions and take direction.
Clark gave Ryan the green light to go to the party and do his best to access the Frenchwoman’s phone, and he gave him the yellow light to proceed carefully after that to garner more intel if feasible. That said, Clark was going to be listening in on the entire evening, and he even went along to the Venetian hotel and found a bench in the lobby’s shopping galleria, where he would be just a few seconds away if Ryan ran into trouble. He made it very clear to Ryan he would not hesitate to give the younger man the hook and put the kibosh on the operation if he didn’t think things were working out.
The party, like most after-work company get-togethers, started with work-related chatter, but by the time the second round of drinks had been polished off, the participants loosened up. Except for Élise Legrande. Ryan noted her great skill in deflecting personal conversation, and the almost hawklike way she watched the other people at the table, usually silently. She eyed Ryan most of all, and this was not lost on him. He’d caught her eye a number of times, which wasn’t difficult as they were seated across from each other, but she held his gaze in a way that he found a little off-putting, her incredible beauty notwithstanding.
The table of twelve began thinning out after an hour, as most of the attendees had kids at home, early starts the next morning, or both. A core group of hard-chargers stayed around for a third drink, but by the time the fourth round was dropped by the cocktail waitress, only Ryan, Baggett, and the woman everyone knew as Élise from Quebec City remained.
Ryan had spent the last forty-five minutes waiting for his opportunity to act. He was ready to move around to Élise’s side of the table to make a play for her phone and he had a half-dozen ready-made excuses to make it happen, too, but first he needed to know the location of the device. Was it in a pocket, in her purse, in her hand? Even with his new sleight-of-hand skills, he couldn’t very well sit down next to her and frisk her from head to toe, and because he’d seen no hint of the device in the ninety minutes since he’d arrived, he’d bided his time, waiting for her to reveal it.
The fact he hadn’t seen it so far told him it was probably in her purse, so when she finally picked up her small silver clutch off the table and reached inside, he began moving into action. Just as he stood to head around the table to show Ralph and Élise something on his phone, he eyed her right hand. She held a phone in it and was checking it for text messages. But instantly Ryan realized the phone in her hand wasn’t the one he had seen her with all week at Valley Floor.
Damn it. She’d switched phones. He knew he needed to pull data off the device she’d had at the facility, because that would be the most likely to contain the intel he was looking for.
Where was that phone? In her room?
Jack had no idea where she was staying. She hadn’t offered the information and he’d not seen a natural opportunity to get it out of her. He felt certain she was somewhere on the Vegas Strip — all the other visitors to the NewCorp Valley Floor facility he’d run into had been — but without that knowledge he couldn’t very well send another Campus operative off on a sneak-and-peek.
Jack excused himself to go to the restroom. The team could hear his every word, so he began speaking as soon as he was out of earshot from the table. “Listen up, new sitrep. She’s got a different phone on her.”
“Damn,” Chavez said. “What the hell does that mean?”