“The only name I could get out of the numbers was Cho,” I said. “I’ve got some other combinations, but nothing that looked familiar.” I slid them across to her. “If you think you can do better, knock yourself out.”
Tara touched my arm softly, Zee cleared her throat, and I shut my mouth.
“Locations,” Lucy mused. “So we’re talking what? City names? Addresses? Map coordinates?”
An image of the map the Big Guys had shown us during our debriefing popped into my mind, and I wondered why I hadn’t thought of the possibility that the numbers were coordinates before now.
“Map coordinates.” Our mighty captain latched onto the last possibility immediately—apparently, I wasn’t the only one who saw the logic. “Computer,” she said loudly, “locate 02-32-43.” She paused for a moment. “North, south, west, or east?” she wondered.
“We’re talking Europe, Asia, or Africa,” Tara said. “Possibly South America, but more likely not.”
“Show grid for 02-32-43 east,” Brooke said.
I paid no attention to her words, as I was caught halfway between berating myself for not thinking of the map coordinates thing (I mean location, duh) and giving in to the itchy feeling in my brain. As a map popped up on the plasma TV, with a vertical region highlighted, I gave in to the itch and let my mind go where it wanted to go.
023243. 024106. I didn’t like that both numbers started with a zero. Why “02” instead of just “2”? I mentally scratched the zeros off the end as Brooke ran a cross-reference analysis of the highlighted portion of the map with the information that may have been compromised on the (not so) secure CIA database.
(0)23243. (0)24106.
I shook my head, completely dissatisfied. It just felt wrong. Going on a whim (I like even numbers better than odd), I threw out the last digits as well, making the numbers (0)2324(3) and (0)2410(6).
“Two degrees, thirty-two minutes, and forty-three seconds east … no matches found.” The computer sounded distinctly peppy, but I barely noticed. Somewhere, in my subconscious, I registered the fact that the coordinates Brooke had tried hadn’t worked. There was no 02-32-43 east, at least not one that mattered.
East.The word echoed in my head, complete with peppy computer voice.East. East. E.
E = 3.
It came to me more like a splash of water in the face than a lightning bolt. On the telephone, the letterEwas on the number 3, and the number 6 was the lettersM, N,andO.
0-23-24 E, 0-24-10 N.
I scribbled the numbers down and handed them to Brooke. “Try these,” I said. Miracle of miracles, she did, and even more remarkably, it actually worked.
“Al Jawf, Libya.”
My eyes went immediately to Tara’s, but she gave no sign of whether this was good news or bad news.
“How many operatives in Al Jawf?” I asked, hoping the answer would be “none” even though I knew in the pit of my stomach that we’d gotten the code right.
“I don’t know,” Brooke admitted, “but I’m getting ready to find out.” She picked up her cell phone and dialed. We couldn’t risk uploading anything to our superiors’ breached database, but a secure phone call was a different beast altogether.
On the other end of the phone line, someone answered, and Brooke didn’t spend any significant amount of time beating around the bush.
“Al Jawf, Libya,” she said clearly. Then she paused, and about fifteen seconds later, she hung up.
“There are three operatives in the area. They’re alerting two of them. The third is in too deep.” Brooke tilted her head slightly and her hair (pulled into a high, glossy ponytail) fell to one side. “The primary assessment is that younger operatives will stand a better chance of moving in undetected, especially since our covers aren’t at risk from the leak.” She paused. “We’ve been authorized to send in a team of post-eighteens.” From her demeanor, she might as well have been talking about a sale on capri pants (still no idea what those were) at the mall.
“I’ll go.” Tara spoke immediately.
“Guess that means I’m in, too,” I said. I wasn’t sure, but I was going to go out on a limb and guess that going to Libya would get me out of Mr. Corkin’s class and cheerleading practice. If I was lucky, it might even get me out of Saturday’s halftime performance. Besides, there was such a thing as loyalty. I wasn’t about to let Tara go it alone.
“No and hell no,” Brooke said, responding to us in order. “Tara, you’re too close to it, and Toby, (a) you’re not eighteen yet and therefore not eligible for any mission designated post-eighteen, and (b) you’re a mess. No offense.”
Why was it that girls like Brooke always said something offensive, and then followed it with the phraseno offense? And what was up with having to wait until I was eighteen to go on any of the really cool missions? I vaguely recalledBrooke saying that at age eighteen we had the option of being promoted to full CIA status, and yeah, I could see the legal benefits to only letting the older, more trained girls go international, but that didn’t mean that I had to be happy about it, and it didn’t mean that I planned to wait another two years before I got in on the action.
“Zee, you’re in,” Brooke said. “So am I. Lucy, we’ll need complete weapons hookup in less than an hour. The Big Guys will have their fastest jet here within the hour, but it’ll still be a ten-hour flight, minimum. Chloe—”
Chloe waited, her arms crossed over her chest.
