The ride back to the hotel took slightly over an hour, but there was no sign of any surveillance by the time they got there. A quick pass through the parking lot didn’t reveal any sign of clandestine observation so they parked and headed up to their rooms. Moose and Neil followed Noah and Sarah into their room, and Neil set up his computer on the table.
“Just on the off chance that anything were to happen to me,” he said to Noah, “I want you to see how this works. I’ve created a bot that will handle the whole trace, and it will generate a report as soon as it begs the location of the originating phone. That report will cause this little red star to flash, so if for any reason I’m not here to read for you, all you need to do is touch that icon to see the report come up.”
Noah laid a hand on his shoulder. “That’s good, but I have no plans on letting you go anywhere.”
Neil grinned up at him. “I was kind of hoping you’d say that,” he said. “Trust me, if you let anything happen to me I can guarantee I will haunt you for the rest of your life!”
“Nothing is going to happen to you, Neil,” Moose said. “You’re our baby brother, anybody who wanted to hurt you would have to go through all of us, first.”
“Got that right,” Sarah said. “We gotta take care of the kid, right, Noah?”
“Of course,” Noah said. “I know we’re all supposed to be expendable, but this team isn’t ever going to leave anyone behind. We stick together and do our jobs, because we’re the best.”
All three of the others looked at him for a moment, but then Sarah grinned. “I’m all for that,” she said. “Nobody gets left behind, and nobody gets killed.”
NINETEEN
“Everything’s set for tomorrow, Boss,” Neil said. “I’ve checked and double checked and triple checked, and even double checked my triple checking. If he actually makes that call, we’re going to know where he’s making it from.”
It was almost ten o’clock and Noah had just announced that they needed to get plenty of rest. While the action would be handled by Delta Force, there would undoubtedly be a lot of after-action issues for the team to handle, and he wanted them to be at their best. Moose grabbed hold of Neil and dragged him out the door, while Sarah announced that she was going to the shower. Noah waited for a moment to see if she would invite him in, but then he decided it didn’t matter and followed her through the door.
Noah awoke five minutes before his alarm was set to go off at six and rolled out of bed as quietly as he could. There was no point in waking Sarah so early, so he sat in one of the chairs and used his phone to check for emails or messages.
There was one email, and Noah’s eyebrows went up when he saw that it was from Allison.
Camelot, it said, I wanted to let you know that I’m still in possession of all my mental faculties and will be returning to my office sometime in the next week or ten days. Dr. Parker has been keeping me updated on what’s going on, and I completely support his decision to let you go after Andropov. I realize that you aren’t one who needs encouragement or back patting, but I think it’s important to let you know that I have the utmost confidence in you to get this job done.
Incidentally, I spoke with the President yesterday (can you believe the son of a bitch actually flew out here and visited me in the hospital? Wonder how they kept that out of the press!) and he let me know that he also supports what you’re doing. As a first-year operative, you were originally designated a Q4, which means that you are expected to remain within mission parameters at all times according to specific orders, but you have shown such initiative and aptitude that he has authorized moving you all the way to Q2. That rating means that you are authorized to go off mission on your own discretion, the American equivalent of James Bond and his “license to kill.” Any action you take will be considered to have been sanctioned by me, or by the government of the United States.
All that said, I want you to know that I expected you would rise quickly, but you’ve outshined even my most imaginative speculations. Good job, Camelot.
“What are you doing?” Sarah asked sleepily. She was peeking at him under half-lidded eyes as she lay there on her belly.
Noah looked up at her. “Got an email from Allison,” he said. “She expects to be back at work next week sometime.”
Sarah’s eyes opened wider and she smiled. “That’s awesome,” she said. “You know, if anyone had ever told me that someone as nice as she is could do the kind of job she does, I would’ve said they were crazy. I mean, I know she has to make decisions on who lives and who dies, and I’m glad she’s strong enough to do it, but in spite of all that she’s a genuinely nice person. I really, really like her.”
“She’s definitely strong,” Noah said. “I think she must have some incredible control over her emotions. Not like me, I know that she actually has emotions because I’ve seen them. She just seems to have the ability to turn off parts of them when necessary.”
Sarah rolled over onto her back and rubbed her eyes. “Are the boys up yet?”