“You didn’t know?” asked Bell.
Not wanting to appear so out of the Rook loop, which was becoming increasingly more difficult to do, Nikki shrugged and said, “It’s divide and conquer around here.”
“Nikki’s a captain now,” added Rook. “She can’t be in every conversation, so initiative rules.” Annette, the switchboard operator, came in and handed a folded message slip to Heat. “See?” he said. “Nary a moment to herself.” Nikki unfolded the note. It read, “Zachary Hamner, One PP—3rd call. Insistent.” Only when Annette was sure Nikki had read it did she leave.
“I can see you’re scrambling, so I’ll just share and be on my way,” Bell said. Without notes or hesitation, Agent Bell recited, “Timothy James Maloney, Basic Military Training, Lackland AFB in San Antonio. Following BMT, stationed at Sheppard, also in Texas, for six weeks of occupational training, then transferred to Creech AFB in Nevada.”
“And it’s our understanding,” said Heat, “that Creech is a drone base.”
“Yes. That’s not classified. Creech AFB is a mission site for RPAs—that’s Remotely Piloted Aircraft. The MQ-1 Predators and the MQ-9 Reapers performing recon and tacticals in the Middle East and…Well, the Middle East.”
Rook groaned melodramatically. “O-o-ow, darn. You almost slipped. You were going to tell us where else the drones fly.”
“Was I?” she said with a wink.
Nikki broke up the playfulness. “I’m not that interested in details of our covert ops. Was Maloney trained as a drone operator?”
“No. Maloney was an enlisted specialist in munitions systems. He might have mounted some Hellfires onto drones, but he wasn’t trained to access what the RPA pilots called the Game Room.”
Heat’s earlier excitement over connecting Maloney with drones plunged. But she also knew that any information was good information, even if it wasn’t what she had hoped for.
Rook must have been feeling the same thing. He asked, “But it’s possible he maybe developed an interest in drones.”
“Anything’s possible, Jamie. We know that.” She toasted him with her Americano and took a drink.
“Since you’re here,” said Nikki, “mind if I ask you what you know about Kent Duer and a man named Tangier Swift?” Heat bullet-pointed the facts and events of the double homicide they were working, taking the agent right up to the congressman’s intervention an hour before.
“Interesting,” Bell said, but in a way that Heat felt showed she was masking something. Was Nikki getting better at reading the agent’s tells, or was this just more wishful thinking? “SwiftRageous,” Bell repeated with her eyes closed, as if committing the company name to memory. “I’ll check it out.” Again, this struck Heat as theater, but for now she would have to be happy with that—and for the fact that “Yards” was preparing to leave.
“Appreciate the help,” said Nikki as she and Yardley clasped hands on the sidewalk outside the precinct. “I assume you are here about the cyber attack. What can you tell me about it?”
“Not my area of expertise, but we have an army of people at Langley and Fort Meade chasing their tails on it. If I learn anything, I’ll definitely share it with you.”
Heat chuckled. “Guess by now I should know better than to assume. I thought you were in town because of the hacking.”
“Oh, I wasn’t in town. I was in DC when Jamie called.” Heat could feel color drain from her face and couldn’t do anything about it. Yardley gave Rook’s arm a squeeze. “You know how it is with this guy. Anything I can do. It also helps that the agency had a G-Four sitting at Andrews, fueled and unspoken for.”