Page 55 of One Knight Stand

I hadn’t had a lot of time to think it through, but time was a luxury at this point, so I had to think off the top of my head. I was getting my first taste of operational planning on the fly.

“First, we have to figure out who’s talking to Remington and how,” I said. “Then we need to know when they talk, or if they have a way of being alerted when they have to communicate. Then we have to intercept those communications.”

“That sounds simple, sort of, but how do we do that?” Bo asked.

“Bug them, and I mean electronically. Their houses, their cars, their phones. We need information on them, and we need it now.”

“Whoa.” Wally held up his hands in a time-out sign. “Let’s back up. I’m going to remind everyone that we’re talking about physically surveilling and bugging high-placed executives of the NSA, one of the most secret, and electronically sophisticated, organizations in the world, not to mention one of the sponsors of UTOP? If we get caught, we could be in serious trouble.”

“So, we don’t get caught,” Jax said easily.

“Wally, your concern is legit,” I said. “I know it’s dangerous. But this is my mother’s life we’re talking about.”

“Then let’s get planning,” Frankie said. “We know it’s dangerous, and we know who we’re up against. Now we need to know what the mission is and who to surveil. After that comes mission planning and preparation, and finally the fun stuff.”

“The fun stuff?” Hala asked her.

A smile crossed Frankie’s face. “Mission execution. Maybe there’ll be another chance for me to drive.”

Chapter Twenty-Six

ANGEL SINCLAIR

“It’s time to talk,” I announced.

We’d all caught a few hours of sleep after I insisted everyone go to bed. It wasn’t enough to do us much good, but better than nothing. I’d caught less than that because I’d stayed up creating the mission plans. I’d finally fallen asleep, only to be woken at eight a.m. by my dad’s burner cell. I quickly passed him the information we’d collected on Ghat and Sampson, then obtained one-time-use-only information on where to send him the NSA directory.

He’d promised to call me soon with an update and reminded me to stay out of things. I hadn’t responded.

I’d woken everyone shortly thereafter. Now everyone was present, I began outlining the mission plans.

“We’re going to work in pairs today,” I said. “Hala and Bo, you’ll be assigned to surveil Remington. Jax and Frankie, you’re assigned to Ghat. Mike and Kira, you take Sampson. Wally and I will set up the communication center here and try to get the necessary equipment needed for the operation. As you know, typically, surveillance takes days. Unfortunately, we don’t have that luxury. We’re going to have one day. So try to note everything you can about your target that might help us. We’re going to have to hope we get lucky. Keep your eyes open for the littlest detail. No telling what might be important.”

Everyone took the files I provided on the subjects and drove off, while Wally and I set up virtual drops and gathered more intelligence. At some point, Wally took a trip to a local electronics shop to purchase some additional items we were going to need for the actual operation.

The group rendezvoused back at the farmhouse around six p.m. We crowded around the dining table, laptops open, drinking tea, water, and soda, while eating pieces of a couple of frozen pizzas Kira had heated for us. That, and some sliced oranges, served as our dinner for the evening.

Hala provided the report on Isaac Remington. “We arrived at Remington’s residence a little after ten a.m. The neighborhood is quiet and suburban. He was already awake. We could see him through the kitchen window. About eleven o’clock, he left his residence and got into his car. Since it’s Sunday morning, there weren’t a lot of cars on the road, so we hung pretty far back. He made two stops—one at the gas station and the other at a nearby Target. Bo waited in the car while I went inside with him at Target. I observed the subject purchasing two burner phones at the electronics counter. No security tail of any kind.”

“Budget cuts,” Wally confirmed.

“After that, Remington sat in the car for an additional ten minutes, apparently activating one of the burner phones and using it right there in the car,” Bo continued. “Then he drove home, where he stayed for the rest of the day. We were able to observe him moving around in his house, but that’s it. There is one security camera by the front door, but we didn’t see any on the side doors as we drove by. We couldn’t see the backyard from our vantage point. There was a security company sign, and we got the name.”

“Excellent.” I tapped notes on my laptop between bites of pizza. “Jax and Frankie, what did you get?”

Jax spoke for his team. “We surveilled Ghat. After church, he and his wife made a late-morning trip to the hardware store and the grocery store. We had to be careful, because Ghat seemed to be constantly on the lookout for a tail, but that could just be inherent training. Frankie actually went into the grocery store and chatted up his wife in the pharmacy section, where she was gathering supplies for an upcoming vacation. Frankie learned they’re going on a weeklong vacation in the Caribbean tomorrow, so being involved in a kidnapping doesn’t seem likely.”

“Could be to throw us off the trail,” Wally said.

“It could be, but I didn’t get that vibe at all,” Frankie said. “Just a gut feeling. The wife was genuine, and they’re going to be away for a week. It doesn’t fit.”

I trusted Frankie’s gut feelings, especially about people, so her observations carried significant weight with me. “Okay, Mike and Kira, talk to me.”

“We followed Glen Sampson,” Mike said. “He didn’t leave his condo until after one o’clock. He went straight to the gym. Kira went inside the gym after him to work out. She signed up for a guest membership and was able to maintain eyes-on surveillance from a distance, as we weren’t sure if he had seen her from their surveillance of you, Angel. The guy worked out for about two and a half hours. A total gym rat for sure.”

Kira nodded. “Afterward, he went through a fast food drive-through and then headed back home, most likely to watch the football game. We waited until about five thirty, but he didn’t come out.”

“Other than that, neither of us saw him talking on a burner phone or doing anything out of the ordinary,” Mike added.

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