Rahman chuckled, and Marley continued, “I’ll bring a bucket of Kentucky fried chicken if you want my company. How does that sound?”
Rahman nodded and said, “And a six-pack of coke.”
Marley grinned and said, “For a second I thought you were going to ask for a six-pack of beer.”
Rahman smiled and said, “I may be in prison, but I don’t have to act like an infidel just yet. I’ll save that for when I’m out, walking the streets of America.”
That brought a genuine laugh from Marley, the warden having no idea of the double entendre Rahman was conveying.
Chapter 5
Incredulous—and I have to admit, a little fascinated—I watched the two thieves continue ripping through our “terrorist” room, searching every item we’d carefully placed inside. Maps, notebooks, clothes, passports, they went through it all, making me wonder if what they found would give them pause, because what they were seeing most definitely wasn’t from a typical tourist. I thought the map with false bomb locations would at least cause them to think twice.
It did not.
Veep said, “You want me to call the front desk? Get security up there?”
If it had been my personal room—or the room of someone on my team—I would have immediately done that, but in this case I didn’t want to involve the authorities. If any of those props entered into an investigation, we’d have some serious explaining to do, because it all lined up to terrorist activity. Granted, it was fake terrorist activity that Creed’s team was supposed to uncover, but the authorities wouldn’t know that. If that happened, I couldn’t come right out and confess it was all a fake, because then I’d have to somehow explain why an upstanding archaeological firm in Charleston was practicing for terrorist activity.
On a real exercise completely sanctioned by the Taskforce, I would be able to fall back on some official cover explanation and a few high-powered individuals in DC to pull off the local authorities, but I’d convinced Wolffe none of that was needed.
Of course, if it had been my or my teammates’ room, we wouldn’t havea camera inside at all and we wouldn’t be seeing the crime in real time. Explaining the security feed alone would be a problem.
I said, “No. No security. We’ll end up in more trouble than the damn thieves.”
Knuckles glanced between his monitor and mine, saying, “What, we’re just going to let them walk out with that computer?”
I turned to Creed and said, “Hey, Amena’s about to pass your man the Grail. Does he know how to use it?”
Creed said, “Yeah? Why?”
I went to Knuckles and said, “Give me your headset. Veep, get some screenshots of both guys and pass it to Amena on her phone.”
Knuckles pulled off his headset and handed it to me, saying, “What are you about to do?”
“We’re going to do the exercise, but on a live target.”
The “terrorist safe house” was in the Embassy Suites right next to Marion Square, an expansive green space full of college students throwing Frisbees, dog walkers, and tourists out for a stroll. It was also where Amena was about to conduct a personal meet with one of the candidates. Her original purpose was to pass him an electronic surveillance device we called a Grail, as in the Holy Grail.
It looked like an oversized smartphone or mini tablet, with a body that was about twice as thick, and its purpose was to penetrate any device connected to the outside world via Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, NFC, or the cell network—which was just about every device on earth now—and inject malware that would allow us to track it by slaving every cell phone nearby.
It worked exactly like Find My on Apple or Tile devices on Android, but it could leverage any cell phone that came within range, slaving the unsuspecting handset for communication. That cell phone would in turn—unknown to the owner—report back to our own servers the original device’s location.
Smartwatches, cell phones, tablets, or computers, if it talked to the outside world, we could attack it. The Grail was still in a bit of a testing phase, which was why it was chosen for the exercise. It wasn’t 100 percent againstall targets, depending on the device it attacked, but the computer we were going to test it against—the fake “terrorist” computer—was purposely designed to be found. The Grail most certainly would work against it.
I put on the headset and turned to Knuckles’ monitor, seeing what Amena was seeing. She was wearing a pair of sunglasses with a built-in camera not unlike Meta’s smart glasses, scanning the open lawn for her contact. She knew what the candidate looked like, but Knuckles was going to give her an assist if he saw the guy before she did.
Throwing on a backpack, Knuckles said, “I’ll get over there.”
I said, “You’ll never make it in time. It’s at least thirty minutes from here to downtown.”
He said, “So, what, you’re going to use one of Creed’s guys for a real-world clandestine operation? That’s insane. They aren’t ready.”
“Yeah, that would be insane, and I’m not going to do it. I’m going to use Amena. She’s ready.”
His mouth dropped open and I said, “Veep, pictures?”
He said, “On the way.”
