She picked up the can, shook it, and peered into the hole to check how much she’d drank. Nope, it was still three quarters full. There went that idea.
“Zipper, Grizzly. Can you confirm those coordinates for our hostages again?”
“Copy, Grizzly, stand by.” Remi hurried back to the desk and rattled off coordinates from his notepad.
“Fuck,” Gunnar grumbled. “We are at that location, and this place is a ghost town. There’s nothing here but freaking weeds and a couple of birds in the trees. Do we have any known cave systems or tunnels in the area?”
Remi scanned his maps and clicked through some screens so fast Jorja couldn’t keep up. “Negative. If there are, they aren’t on any maps.”
“We’ll have Zombie do a scout. If he finds nothing, we’re headed to our extraction location.”
“Roger.” Remi pulled out his headset again and swore softly. “Shit. I’ve been afraid of that since you asked if the last job and this one was connected to the fucking list.”
“What does all that mean?” She nodded to Remi’s screens. “Most of it sounds like gobbledygook to me. I understand maybe every sentence or two.”
“It means our boys are out there on a wild ass goose chase.” Remi drank deeply from his Monster can, crumbled it in his hand, and tossed it in the trash so hard the trash can wobbled. “Something stinks, and it pisses me off that I don’t know what it is.”
“It’s understandable to feel that way about it,” she reminded him. “He’s your brother, after all.”
“It’s not just because it’s Gunnar. I hate not being able to connect the dots on something. Everything has logic behind it. Everything.” He picked up the headset and put it back on, then sat back down. “Keep hunting. The info is there. We just have to find it.”
“You mean the next dot is there.” She grabbed a tab of stickies and moved to the war-table, bringing the files withher. “I’m just going to try something, which worked before when I was stuck.”
“Go for it.”
She laid out the files on the table, opened both files plus the notes she’d taken on the list’s data sources, and blew out a breath. The way the files were compiled didn’t make much sense to her, but clearly, they worked for Remi and the others in this format. She needed them in chronological order. Tuning out everything else going on in the war-room, she got to work.
Picking up the first sheet from one file, she marked the date it came in and noted what it contained in shorthand, then stuck it to the desk. It took hours, until she had all the stickies in date order laid out on the war-table, but a swarm of butterflies fluttered in her belly when she finally saw something she hoped might be important. She picked up three more stickies, scribbled something on each, and stuck them on the corner of the war-table near her right hand. “I think I might have something you need to look at.”
“One sec,” Remi called over his shoulder. “Affirmative, Grizzly. Orders are bring him back. The Italians will take over from Napoli.” There was a slight pause before Remi continued, “Copy that, bro. See you on the flip side.” He took off the headset, stood, and stretched. “The boys are on a helo out with a prisoner.”
“I thought they were going for hostages.”
“You and me both, sister. You and me both.” The relief at having the team on a helicopter and as safe as they could possibly be for now was etched all over his face. Did the guys realize how much Remi put of himself into keeping them safe? She suspected not, and resolved to tell Gunnar just as soon as he got his pretty self back to Italy.
“What ya got?” Remi studied the stickies. “Lay it out for me. Do you have a system?”
“It’s in my head. I couldn’t explain it if I tried.” She picked up the last three stickies. “Do the names Tovsolta Sultanovich from Tišnov in the Czech Republic, and Arthur L. Brant from Brentwood, New York, mean anything to you?”
“Sultanovich was KGB at one point.” Remi’s forehead furrowed, and he tapped his fingers off his chin. “At least someone of that name was. He was listed as a person of interest in the file for the mission where Gunnar was injured.”
“Correct.”
“I don’t know the name Brant.”
“The VPN all communication for both jobs was built by,” she handed him the third sticky “…Brant’s company, She Town.”
“Still not making the connection. Explain.”
“This email here came from Brant’s VPN, but Sultanovich’s computer IP.” She flipped through one of the folders, kept her finger in the spot to make sure she didn’t lose it, and handed it to him. “Not the DOD as it looks like on the surface. Want to take a guess who has the contract for the DOD’s internet security?”
“That still…” He paused. “I’m going to need some more dots here. That’s a hell of a jump to make.”
“I thought so too.” She took the email back, replaced it in the file, and put it on the table before picking up the other folder. “Until I saw this.” She handed him the second email. “Remember how the second VPN was just a couple of digits off, but the original IP was completely different?”
“Yeah.”
“That’s because this one came from a computer within She Town’s head office in New York.”
