The Ghost said, “Butsomeonecame to your room. Someone took your computer, and it wasn’t the police. Khalil was the link. If they got to his body after the shoot-out, they might have found his hotel key. It also means they got his cell phone. Everyone here needs to change out their SIM cards—especially if Khalil has called you.”
Omar said, “That’s exactly why I changed mine, because I was on the phone with him when he died, but we might be good on that. Earlier, whenhe dropped me off at the airport, he’d told me he’d changed his own SIM card.”
The Ghost said, “I was with him when he did it. It was right before we tested the detonating phone in the diversion. His phone has that number in its history and there’s no way to change it now.”
The Ghost began pacing the room, thinking, and Omar let him, remaining silent. Eventually, the Ghost said, “I think Khalil was right. The woman he saw probably was in Iguazú, and more than likely was following him. She was the one asking about the credit cards at the flea market. The one who defeated your drug connection. She managed to track the van and gleaned Khalil’s hotel reservations, but also I think you may be correct. She’s following the individual threads she has but can’t see the clothes they belong to.”
He stopped pacing and said, “I don’t think they have any idea what we have planned. I’m willing to continue if you are.”
Omar said, “Of course I am. I finalized the aircraft today. Khalil wasn’t on the manifest, so his loss doesn’t matter. I’ll be ready to take off just as we planned.”
The Ghost shook his head, saying, “You don’t understand. Khalil was the driver and he’s no longer with us.Youwill be the driver now.”
Omar’s eyes went wide and he said, “I’m needed on the plane. What about Ramzi? Can’t he do it? He’s with you on the camera crew.”
Sitting on one of the bunk beds, wearing one of his ubiquitous ill-fitting suits, Ramzi remained as stoic as he had in the past, not raising an objection.
The Ghost said, “No. Precisely because Ramzi is coming into the devil’s den with me. He has the press credentials. He can’t drive and do that.”
Omar stood up and pointed at the remaining Hezbollah contacts, saying, “What about Yassir? Or better yet, Fatima? They would never suspect a woman.”
The Ghost said, “You did the reconnaissance today. You know the route. I need them for the diversion.” He turned to Yassir and Fatima, saying, “I’m assuming you are still willing to continue.”
Fatima snarled, “Let me be the instrument of revenge. I will gladly kill for Khalil.”
More measured, Yassir nodded, saying, “We just need to be told where to park and when to initiate. Our mission is easy. Once we’re done, we’ll make our own way back north.”
The Ghost said, “Omar, you can tell them that, correct? Youdiddo the reconnaissance, right?”
Omar said, “Yes... I suppose so, but that was Khalil’s job.”
“Khalil’s dead. You said the mission is still worthy of attempting. Was that only as long as someone else was executing it?”
Indignant, Omar said, “I’m responsible for the exfiltration. Iamexecuting it. We all have our parts to play.”
The Ghost advanced on him. He came within inches of Omar’s face and whispered, “You may very well die tomorrow, but at least it will be for a cause you deemed worthy a few seconds ago. The alternative is you will die tonight. A coward’s death.”
Omar recoiled, saying, “Okay, okay. I can drive.”
The Ghost smiled and said, “Good. Now that we have that settled, we have a lot of work and only one night to accomplish it. First, we need a new vehicle, then we need to take it to the hotel and get our equipment.”
Now fully in charge, the team gathered around the Ghost and he began giving out instructions.
Chapter 59
At thirty minutes before midnight I entered the TOC, finding Brett staring at two laptops connected by an umbilical cord.
I said, “Anything new?”
“Yeah. Creed’s found an encrypted sack buried on the hard drive, but he still hasn’t cracked it.”
“Well, that’s better than we had before. At least it proves he’s got something to hide. Any word from Veep?”
“Yeah. He’s left the pilots and they’re working their end. He should be back any minute.”
I’d called a meeting at 9 p.m., giving Creed six hours with both the phone we’d found on the body in the park and the computer we’d taken from the hotel room, but when the meeting time had arrived, Creed was still working on the computer. He’d told us that the phone’s SIM was relatively new, had been purchased in Argentina, and only had four numbers in it from previous contacts. Unfortunately, while all four numbers were active, every one of them were unresponsive from the cell network, which meant one of two things: either the phones were turned off, or these guys were switching SIM cards like candy.
I was betting on the latter, but even so, I’d decided to get the Rock Star Bird into play. It had a much more powerful version of the Growler built into its fuselage, one that could range a hell of a lot more than a city block. With its altitude, it could find those phones in a larger footprint of the city, and it also had a pass-through feature, meaning while it could lock thephones, it would also allow them to connect to a real cell tower so coverage wouldn’t be interrupted and possibly spook the target—or worse, create a thousand angry calls to the cell providers, causing them to investigate the outages.
