They pulled up in front of the hotel about fifteen minutes later, and were quickly checked in. Once again, Moose grabbed the luggage cart and loaded everyone’s bags onto it. They were all on the third floor, and their rooms were close together, so it worked out well. Once everything was put away, they all met in the hallway and rode down the elevator together to go to the restaurant.
Dinner was pleasant, and when it was over, Jefferson pointed out that the restaurant had a very nice bar, then ordered a bottle of wine. He poured a glass for each of them, and held his own high. “To success,” he said, and the others all joined in the toast.
They rode up together again, and this time, they all went to Jefferson’s room. It was also on the third floor, just down the hall from theirs, a slightly bigger room. That was good, since it gave them all room to find a place to sit.
Jefferson picked up what looked like a shoebox, glanced at it, and then passed it to Noah. “Open it up,” he said. “Inside, you’ll find a wallet containing your ID, passport and credit cards for this mission, in the name of John Baker. Mr. Baker is from Chicago, and the wallet trash would lead you to believe that he’s single and probably self-employed. He’s got health insurance with Blue Cross, he’s a member of two different country clubs near Chicago, and he has a couple of pictures of a teenage boy, both of which are marked as being to Uncle John from Bobby. There’s also a Beretta nine millimeter automatic, but you might not want to try carrying that into Mexico. Oh, and you’ll find about five thousand in cash. That’s flash money, you’ll need it.”
Noah was busy examining the wallet, and simply nodded. Jefferson picked up another box and passed it to Sarah. “Your name is Kathy Stratton. There’s a purse inside with all your ID, passports, credit cards, etc., and lots of normal purse-type stuff. Makeup, aspirins, couple different kinds of candy floating around in there, I don’t know what all. However, if you take a look at this end of it, you see this ring?” He pointed at the one he meant. “If anything goes wrong, you pull that ring and a device inside the purse starts transmitting its location, as well as audio so Neil can hear what’s going on. He’ll have the receiver, and a way to pinpoint your location. If at all possible, we’ll get you out of whatever happened.”
Sarah looked at the ring, then up at Jefferson. “You won’t get upset if I prefer to get myself out of jams, will you?” She swung the purse by its strap, feeling its weight. “I could beat four men to death with this thing in the time it would take to pull that ring and yell for help, and I’ll be driving a car with a Hemi engine. I don’t think I’m likely to need much rescuing.”
Jefferson smiled and nodded. “I knew you were likely to feel that way, but our administrator being a lady who doesn’t happen to possess those skills herself, she insists that we always offer a panic alarm like that to our female operatives. Besides, you might run into a situation where there’s more than four men you have to beat to death. Pull that ring, and one of us will try to come and help.”
Sarah gave him a sarcastic smile, and he turned to pick up another box. This one he handed to Moose. “Moose, your name is Billy Scott. ID, passport, everything, just like the others. There’s a Glock forty in your box, I understand that’s one of your favorite weapons. Keep it on you at all times. It’s been specially treated with a film that will keep metal detectors and even gun-sniffing dogs from spotting it, at least until it’s been fired the first time. If you have to carry it across the border, you should be able to do so without being caught.”
Moose looked the weapon over, but didn’t remove it from the holster it was in. It was a clip-on, one that he could snap onto his belt so that it would be covered by a loose shirt. He nodded, and put it back in the box.
The next box went to Neil. “Mr. Blessing,” Jefferson said, “in reading your file, I learned that you were a very active participant in your high school’s drama club, and have a knack for accents. Your name, as you will see you on the ID and passports and credit cards in that box, is Henri Batiste. Mr. Batiste is a French-Canadian who is now a US citizen, but has never shaken his accent.”
“Oui, oui, monsieur,” Neil said with a grin.
“You don’t have to worry about maintaining the accent around the hotel, but make sure you don’t forget when you’re on the phone. Speaking of which…”