“You don’t hack a telecom,” said Crooks. “Every bad actor in the world tries to hack a telecom 24/7/365. It’s the holy grail, isn’t it? Once in a while some punk in Romania manages to siphon off a few million government identification numbers, credit cards, birthdays, but it stops there. Telecoms have moats and firewalls and more moats. Ring after ring of security to stop people like me. The information we want—you and I, here, this morning—we have to get from the inside.”
“A Trojan horse,” suggested Mac.
“Just a Trojan, actually,” said Crooks. “Someone who likes earning a little extra cash. Someone who can help us cross the moat and jump the firewalls. For now, we’re not interested in who Ava called or whocalled her. We’re interested in where she went after your Qatari friends kidnapped her.”
“No telecoms,” said Mac.
“Something better,” said Crooks.
“I’m listening.”
“Every cell phone is like a permanent homing beacon. The handset is constantly pinging cell towers, sending GPS signals to satellites, as well as Bluetooth queries to other devices. You might as well be wearing an animal tracking collar around your throat. That traffic app on your phone is tracking your phone’s location every second of every day. I can’t find Ava at this precise moment, but I can find out where she was yesterday at three p.m. when the abduction occurred.”
“But you said you can’t get into a telecom.”
“Don’t need to. I can access a dozen companies that make it their business to know the location of every man, woman, and child every second of the day.”
“Google?”
“Let’s not name names,” said Crooks. “But them or someone like them. Let’s call it a search engine. A company that sells your location data to other interested parties.”
“Like a traffic app?”
“Traffic, advertisers, marketers. They all want to know where you are 24/7. Money makes the world go round.”
“And privacy?”
“Privacy doesn’t stand a chance.”
“What are you waiting for?”
“Bloody hell,” said Crooks. “I can’t just snap my fingers. Watch some TV. Better yet, take a walk in the garden. Give me thirty minutes.”
Mac stood and stretched. He opened the French doors and wandered into the backyard. Rows of vegetables were planted to the left. A vine of tomatoes, green beans, radishes. There was a trellis and a stone bench and a gurgling fountain. Mac sat, looking up at the blue sky, thinking of Jane and her warning, and ruing her decision to followhim into the intelligence business. And now another chance to make right. A granddaughter that he must raise as his own.
A whistle brought his attention back to the present. He jumped to his feet and rushed inside. “Any luck?”
“Luck has nothing to do with it,” said Crooks. “Draw up a chair. Come close so you can see the screen.”
Mac dropped into a chair and scooted it close to Crooks. On the large curved monitor was a street map centered on the Eiffel Tower. A fat, red dotted line formed a rectangle around the monument, four square blocks in area. Inside the rectangle were numerous slim, white, baton-shaped icons each labeled with a phone number and, beneath the number, a handset ID.
“Behold the geo-fence,” said Crooks, pointing to the map. “It’s an arbitrary digital boundary I constructed that allows me to capture every mobile handset inside its perimeter.”
“But there are hundreds of phones there,” said Mac, eyeing the mishmash of batons stacked atop one another.
“Of course there are. You’re looking at everyone visiting the monument. The fence isn’t three-dimensional. I can’t specify altitude. No worries ... watch.”
Crooks punched in Mac’s and Ava’s cell numbers. Two icons located dead center in the Eiffel Tower lit up blue. Crooks tapped some more keys, and all the other batons vanished. “At 3:06 p.m. both of you were seated in the restaurant. Ava took the call at 3:20, right?”
“Give or take,” said Mac.
Crooks advanced the time signature to 3:20. Ava’s icon didn’t move. “Don’t worry,” he said. “GPS is only accurate to around fifteen feet. You said she stepped into the corridor and it was there that she was drugged. Too small a distance to register. We want to know where she goes after.”
Crooks advanced the time signature in fifteen-second increments. Mac leaned closer, his heart thumping, as he watched Ava’s icon jump to the right, then jump again. By 3:24, she had left the restaurant.By 3:28, she was standing at the south side of the monument, at the Avenue Gustave Eiffel.
“Now let’s see who’s with her.” Crooks tapped a few keys. The screen came alive with hundreds of batons. He zoomed in on Ava. Two batons were stacked atop hers.
“Two other people are with her,” said Mac, pointing.
