The other three sat quietly for a moment, and then Moose mumbled, “Still sucks. I was hoping to get a couple of bullets into that son of a bitch myself.”
Sarah leaned back against the wall and picked up the TV remote from the nightstand beside her. She pushed the button to turn on the television and began flipping through the channels, looking for something to watch and kill the time. HBO was showing one of the recent Tom Cruise spy movies and Neil asked her to leave it on, so she did.
Noah moved up on the bed beside Sarah while Moose and Neil dragged their chairs to where they could see the TV better. The movie helped to pass the time, and was followed by a romantic comedy. By the time the second one was over, it was almost a quarter to eleven.
“Let’s shut off the TV,” Noah said. “With any luck, Bridger was telling the truth and we’ll have a location to give Captain Hayes and his men within the next half hour or so.”
They moved to the table where Neil’s computer was open and running, and Neil slipped on the headphones that were plugged into it. Twenty silent minutes later, the program on the screen came to life. A call was coming in to Marina Andropov’s phone and the computer was showing frantic activity as it traced the call back to its source.
“It’s an international call,” Neil said excitedly. “A woman, presumably Marina, answered the call and it sounds like Andropov’s voice, but he’s speaking in Russian. Routing through Switzerland—Germany—New York, it’s bouncing through New York—got it, got it, got it, it’s a cell phone, GPS coordinates 32.877586 dash 100.12524! Getting an address, give me a minute—here it is, the address is 2674 North Harrison Street in Arlington!”
Noah quickly punched the address into the SMS app on his phone and sent it to all of the Delta Force teams at once. Seconds later, two messages came through the radio that he had placed on the table.
“Group 8 closest, en route. ETA three minutes.”
“Group 11, backup, ETA four point five.”
“That’s two teams scrambling to get there right now,” Noah said. “Is he still on the phone?”
Neil was nodding frantically. “Yes, yes, he’s just yakking away! This guy acts like he doesn’t have a care in the world, how crazy is that?” His fingers were flying over the keyboard. The monitor on the computer had been split into two screens, one of them still on the phone-monitoring program while the other seemed to be jumping around. “I’m trying to find a traffic camera or something in that area, see if we can maybe watch what happens.”
“Unplug your headphones, and maybe we can hear it,” Moose said. “I’d love to hear that bastard scream in panic, hear the shot that takes him out.”
Neil snatched off the headphones and unplugged them, and they could all hear the conversation, even if they couldn’t understand it. The four of them sat quietly, their attentions focused on the sounds coming through the computer speakers.
Three minutes passed, and then five. The telephone conversation continued and seemed peaceful, almost jovial. The woman’s voice was replaced by that of a child who seemed delighted to be speaking to the caller.
Suddenly the radio crackled to life. “Group 8 is on site, no target, I say again, no target.”
“Group 8, recon,” came Captain Hayes’s voice. “Group 11, report.”
“Group 11 is on site, confirm no target, I say again, confirm no target.”
Noah looked at Neil, his face was ashen. “Boss, that’s the coordinates! He’s got to be there!”
“Group 8, sit rep,” Hayes said through the radio.
“Nobody here but some teenagers, Sir,” came the reply. “My tech is scanning for cell signals on site, wait one.”
“Neil, could he be bouncing the signal through some kind of repeater at that location?” Noah asked.
Neil stared at his computer monitor, his head shaking from side to side. “I guess—yeah, he could. I got the number of the cell phone the call seems to be coming from, let me try tracing it.” His fingers began flying over the keyboard again, and the monitor display began to change. “I can’t—holy crap, that’s what he did! Somewhere at that location is a...”
“Sir,” came the Group 8 voice through the radio, “we found a cell phone wired to some kind of computer. It was hidden under a bush just outside the house.”
Neil was nodding. “Yeah, that’s what I was going to say, he made some kind of a relay setup. Back-tracing from that phone now—nothing, whatever that box is they found is the actual receiver, and it’s pushing the call through that cell phone. I don’t have a number on that box, I can’t trace it.”
Noah cell phone rang and he answered it instantly. “Camelot,” he said.
“This is Hayes, are you monitoring?”