“So they were here and didn’t stay long,” Uzi said. He snatched up a fry and glanced at his watch. The patrons were thinning out. “At some point we’re gonna have to get out of here. Fewer people, more we stand out.”
Vail agreed and sent a text back to DeSantos suggesting they get going soon.
But they didn’t have to wait long, because moments later her phone buzzed again: They had another hit, and because of the time — closing in on 2:00 AM — this one had more potential as being a place where the men would be remaining for a while, possibly even where they would be settling in for the night.
They returned to their car and Uzi plugged the address into his phone’s GPS. The flat was in Greenwich, a decent drive away. “Looks like a half hour,” Uzi said. “I’m gonna recon the area while we’re en route.” He pulled a laptop from his satchel and inserted a device into a side port.
“Where’d you get that?” Vail asked, glancing over at the computer.
“In the PX. I configured it on the flight over.”
I was configuring something else. The inside of my eyelids.
“What’s that thing you plugged into it?”
“A satellite internet transceiver.”
“What do you need that for?”
“Uh, the internet? Ever hear of it?”
Vail gave him a look.
“I figured we’d be on the move, so we can’t steal a nearby wireless signal. We needed something that can transmit and receive. The key is connecting to a server that takes satellite downlink and connects to the internet. It goes from my laptop to the satellite, from the satellite downlink to a server, a server to the internet. Got it?”
“I … yeah, of course.” Not a word. Well, that’s not true. I understood “internet.” “How is that going to help us?” she asked as she negotiated a curve.
“I’ll get a view of the area, what’s around, what things we have to be careful of, that type of thing. Less suspicious than two cars driving around looking like we’re looking for someone.”
“And what about that laptop?” She gestured at the screen. “What if — god forbid — we’re caught?”
Uzi was striking the keys, logging into the server. “I’ve got a strong password on the BIOS and the drive’s encrypted with Bit Locker. And I’ve added some other goodies. They won’t be able to crack it.”
“I’ve heard of that Foot Locker thing.”
He glanced at her. “Uh huh.”
Vail watched as Uzi played with the trackpad, zooming and virtually walking down various streets.
“So Greenwich is an interesting place. You’ve heard of the term Greenwich mean time? Or Zulu time?” He got a nod from Vail, so he continued. “It originated here. I seem to remember a street where the meridians meet and the corner store is named ‘The first shop in the world,’ or something like that, because it’s at longitude of zero-zero-zero.”
“I’ll pass. Sounds gimmicky.”
“I wouldn’t take you there anyway. It’s only for intelligent people. Its meridian significance is lost on common folk.”
“Good thing I’m driving or I’d kick you in the balls. Oh, wait, we’re in England. I’d kick you in the bollocks.”
By the time they reached Greenwich, a light rain had begun falling, shifting the overall mood from bleak to bleaker.
“Weather’s interfering with my signal. But I got what I needed — I took a look around the area where the cell call came from. There are several buildings we need to check out.”
Unfortunately, he explained, it was a densely populated neighborhood and the location data provided by the NSA was not as specific as they needed.
“One of the blocks consists of professional and white collar workers in the service, IT, and financial sectors. It’s possible the tangos are blending in, using them as a cover, but I doubt it. The other area is a little lower rent district, so to speak, so that’d be my best guess. I told Santa and Mo to take the upscale townhomes. We’ll take the middle-class apartment building, take a look around, get a lay of the land, make an educated analysis and pick our spots, then stake out the most promising flats.”
“Not quite a needle in a haystack, but …”
“The idea will be to narrow the possibilities down by a process of elimination. But if we can’t, we’ll be stuck looking for that needle.”
They arrived at the apartment building on a court just off Dartmouth Hill, a four-story series of three conjoined brick buildings. DeSantos and Fahad were parked a couple of blocks away.
“Multiple exits,” Uzi said as Vail pulled into the small parking lot. “Those green doors at ten o’clock, eleven, twelve, and one. See?”
“Not really. We need to turn on the wipers. But if we do that—”
“It’ll draw attention to the car. And it’ll look odd that all the cars in the lot have rain-covered windshields except for ours.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” she said, leaning forward and struggling to see out the window.
He pulled out his phone, put it on speaker, and waited the two rings until it was answered. “Santa. Status?”
“It’s raining.”
“No shit.”
“Parked at the end of the block. These are like townhouses. Gotta be twenty units along this street alone. Hard to keep an eye on all of them. Lots of cars in driveways, but there are garages for just about every unit. To do this right we really need two cars, one at each end of the long block.”
“I know,” Uzi said. “But this is what we’ve got, so we’ll make it work. We’ll watch in shifts. Karen’s got the first one here.”
“I do?” she asked, tearing her gaze away from the apartment building.
“Mo’s taking ours,” DeSantos said. “Have a good nap. Out.”
Uzi moved his seat back to a fifty degree angle and shifted his body to get comfortable. He folded his arms and closed his eyes. “Wake me if you see anything.”
Assuming I don’t fall asleep.
36
“Yo, Karen! Wake up. Karen.”
Vail felt a hard shove, then a poke. “Huh? What?” She sat up and opened her eyes. Still dark. What the hell time is it? She found the dashboard clock: 4:30 AM. I’ve only been sleeping twenty-five minutes?
“They’re on the move. Start the car.”
Uzi’s phone buzzed. He answered it as Vail cranked the engine.
“Hold on,” Uzi said, grabbing her right forearm. He listened a moment, then said, “Shut it. We’re going in.”
Her eyes burned and she felt like her head weighed fifty pounds. More like a hundred. Just want to go back to sleep.
“Going in?”
“Santa and Mo are coming around to follow them. We’re gonna check out their flat.”
“Can you do that? I need some sleep.”
Uzi peered out the rain-streaked window, watched two men on foot as they walked about thirty feet from their car and headed toward Dartmouth Hill. Back into the phone: “Okay, I see you coming up the street, headlights off, right? … You got them? They’re leaving the parking lot right now—” He peered out the corner of his right eye, attempting not to turn his head in their direction. “Cool. They’re all yours. Going in. Let you know what we find.”
Vail pulled her exhausted body out of the seat and gently closed her car door. The prickle of cold raindrops made her shiver. She tightened the muffler around her neck. “Why the hell are they on the move at 4:30 in the morning?”