55
Jennifer turned from the computer and said, “Okay, I think we have something. A start.”
I stopped pacing the hotel room and said, “What?”
“The number the flip phone called is dead. Turned off or gone, but it has a history. The guys at the Taskforce triangulated from the cell towers, and it was used most right here.”
She pointed to the computer, showing a section of buildings that looked like everything else in Paris. The usual five-story baroque structure surrounding a courtyard that you saw all over the damn city. I said, “That’s too much terrain. We don’t have days to search.”
Knowing what I was asking, she said, “I . . . I can’t get any closer.”
I said, “Bullshit. There’s something that’ll neck it down. Squeeze over.”
She moved aside, letting me in front of the computer. I switched screens and found myself looking at some geek who was apparently bored to be working the problem. I said, “Hey, you there?”
He snapped to the screen and said, “Yeah. I’m here.”
“That’s the best you can do? Give us a thousand-meter grid square?”
“The phone isn’t on. All we have is historical data. Yeah, that’s the best we can do.”
“Well, that ain’t good enough. I need a miracle. What can I give you for that? What do you need?”
He looked over his shoulder again, and I heard something in the background.
I said, “Pay attention.”
He became truculent, saying, “We’ve got a situation here. Possible casualties. Forgive me if I don’t give you my undivided devotion.”
As if he would feel the death of Knuckles more than me. I said, “Did you get the Prairie Fire alert from the command? For my element?”
“I got a Prairie Fire, yeah, but I don’t think it was for you. I couldn’t find a ‘Grolier Recovery Services’ active as a Taskforce element. You aren’t even authorized to be talking to me. I don’t even know how you have the encryption.”
I couldn’t believe it. I took a deep breath and said, “Listen to me closely. The fact that I have the encryption is proof I can talk to you. My Prairie Fire is real, and you’d better start helping.”
He turned to respond to something said offscreen, and I was losing the fight. I felt the rage grow, compounded by a feeling of impotence. In a low voice, I said, “Mr. Geek, turn back to this computer.”
He heard the tone, the violence leaking through the connection, and he snapped to the screen. I said, “There are lives on the line. If they die, I will come back and find you. When I do, I will replicate whatever happened to the hostages.”
He started to say something smart, then his confidence faltered at the sight of my expression. He said, “Okay. What do you need?”
I said, “You got a geolocation request for a phone that was dead. I want you to juxtapose the Galaxy smartphone locations with the history of that phone. Tell me where they intersect. It’s plugged in right now on this end.”
Thirty seconds later he said, “That phone only made one call on the cell network, and it’s miles from there, in another section of Paris. It has a VOIP application that’s been used, but we can’t trace that.”
“Voice-over-Internet Protocol? Is that what you mean? You can’t trace it because it’s going over the Internet instead of the cell system?”
“Yes.”
I said, “Okay, now give me an IP address search. Find the Wi-Fi nodes the smartphone touched. If he’s using the Internet, it had to touch something.”
He started typing, and the Samsung hooked to our computer lit up, getting probed from over three thousand miles away. He said, “There are quite a few, but one stands out. It spent more than twelve hours at a time hooked to a Wi-Fi node called Linksy 201.”
Because it’s in the bed-down location. I said, “That’s where he’s staying. How can I find that node?”
“You have a Growler? If it’s in that building, you could find the signal.”
“No. I’ve got no equipment.”
He squinted. I knew he was reflecting on the fact that we weren’t in the active lineup, something confirmed by a lack of basic Taskforce equipment.
I said, “I don’t have a support package. It diverted to the crisis site. I need something else.”
The answer seemed to make sense. He said, “Well, I could find the Internet service provider that’s tied to the IP address. I could locate who’s paying the bills for the ISP.”
“Do it.”
We waited ten minutes and he came back on. “It’s an apartment rental service. They provide fully furnished short-term apartments in Paris for international travelers. Unfortunately, they pay for Internet service at all of their apartments. They’re scattered throughout Paris. I know that’s not much.”
It was more help than he understood. “Can you hack into the rental service?”
“Yeah. Probably won’t be too much trouble.”
He started pounding the keys, shouting over his shoulder to another guy, speaking in computer geek code and finally getting into the mission.
I said, “Give me the apartment address Braden McKee is renting. He’s from Ireland.”
They worked a bit, and he said, “Okay, we’re in. The problem is the foreign registrations are logged by passport number and nationality, I guess for privacy purposes. I’ve got twelve apartments in Paris for Irish nationals. I can’t get any better without having the guy’s passport.”
I heard Jennifer start ripping through the knapsack of jewels we’d pulled off Braden. She turned to me, holding the key to the hostages in her hand.
I smiled and said, “Guess what I have?”