Morgan looked at him. The guilt was still there, raw and visible. But underneath it, something harder was forming.
“Pull up the Denver information,” Morgan said. “The dates for that location are coming up the soonest.”
Lincoln isolated the Denver coordinate. The facility information populated his screen—location, classification level, the sparse details from the leaked database.
“Thirty-two hours from now. Give or take.”
Thirty-two hours.
“We have to make a move against Randall now,” Lincoln said. “While we still have the advantage.”
“Do we have an advantage?” Morgan’s voice was careful. “What about Montana and facial recognition software? If Randall’s people identified you?—”
“They didn’t.” Lincoln gestured at his tertiary monitor. “I’ve had trip wires running since we got back. If anyone had run my face through recognition databases, I’d know. There’s been nothing. No alerts. No flags.”
Morgan studied the silent monitor. “So he doesn’t know who you are.”
“He doesn’t know you’re with me, he doesn’t know we’ve cracked his coding system, and he doesn’t know we’ll be coming for him in Denver for that next job you justmentioned.” Lincoln turned back to the main screen. “That’s three distinct advantages we didn’t have an hour ago. But the Denver job happens in thirty-two hours, whether we’re ready or not.”
“So, what’s the plan?”
“First, I dig up anything I can about Randall himself, given the breakthrough we had today. There are a lot of new directions I can look now.”
“But we have to catch him in person.” She started pacing back and forth.
“Yes, that’s why Denver comes back into play. We have to do this all as soon as possible. And we can’t tip off law enforcement. Even if they believed us about Randall and they ignored how we got this info, even if you weren’t on their wanted list—we don’t know if Randall has people inside federal agencies.”
She paused. “If we tell them what we’re doing, we might be handing him a warning.”
“And I can’t stop the operation remotely. These facilities are air-gapped. No external network access. Whatever Randall’s people do when they go in, it’s physical. Hands on evidence.” Lincoln pulled up a map, zooming in on the Denver coordinates. “Which means we have to be there. Set up surveillance on the facility. Document who goes in, what they do, how the operation works. Get footage that proves what’s happening.”
“And then?”
“Then we have evidence that exposes the whole thing. Something concrete enough that it doesn’t matter who Randall has inside the agencies. Something that forces action.” He turned to face her. “We catch them in the act, and we make sure the right people see it.”
Morgan was quiet. Lincoln watched her gaze drop to the scars on her forearms—the ones Randall had put there.Denver. She was going to have to go back to the city where she’d gotten them.
“Surveillance on a facility we’ve never seen,” she said slowly. “In the city where Randall runs his operation. In thirty-two hours.” She met his eyes. “That’s a thesis statement, not a full essay.”
“No,” he admitted. “It’s not. Not yet.” He turned back to his screens, pulling up the Denver facility data again. “But we have thirty-two hours to write one.”
Thirty-two hours to build a plan, get to Denver, and take down an operation that had been running for years.
Lincoln had built empires in less time. He could do this too.
Chapter 24
One year ago:
Mercury: Do you play chess?
Binary: I learned the rules. Found it inefficient.
Mercury: Inefficient, how?
Binary: Too many variables left to chance. I prefer systems where preparation guarantees outcomes.
Mercury: That’s not how chess works. That’s not how anything works.
