Page 10 of Astrid
“First thing Monday morning we should finish putting them up,” Chuck said as he continued to eat, then he frowned at John. “How’s your day going so far?” He had to cover his smirk when the J’s and A’s laughed, and John scowled at everyone.
“Good so far, I’ll be able to go out and help you guys with the cement trucks when they arrive.”
“Not me,” Alan spoke up then, and grinned when everyone turned to stare at him. “I put my flyer up around town, and got a call late last night about someone wanting me to make them some shelves. That’s all they said, I have no clue what it all entails.”
Astrid held up her hand, waving it around. When everyone frowned at her, she finished the mouthful of food she’d just taken, and took a quick sip of her juice to wash it down. “Don’t take you own cell phone with you.”
“Excuse me?” John frowned at her. “Why wouldn’t he want to take his cell phone?”
“Because, we don’t know if the people we’re after know that you guys are associated with us.” She pointed to Ava and Joyce. “From what I gather, they know about Justin, because he was in court with Ava.”
“Shit,” Alex said as he stared at her in shock. “They know about me, too.”
“How?” Astrid frowned at him.
“When Joyce brought me home from the hospital,” Alex said, and proceeded to tell Astrid what had happened when the big black truck that had chased Joyce had followed them also.
“Okay,” Astrid nodded, and continued to eat.
“What aren’t you saying?” John asked.
“After breakfast, I’ll hook Alan up with a secure cell phone. It came in those packages that were sent by your uncle. There are five phones. When I talked to him earlier, I faxed him a list, and requested at least two dozen more.” She held up her hand and shook her head when it looked like he would argue.
“Trust me,” she sighed, then looked at Ava. “What happened when you were kidnapped on your last mission as an EWM?”
Ava nodded, and answered honestly, “At one time, when I came to, and they didn’t know I was awake, I saw them going through my phone, and copying phone numbers I had in there.”
“Why?” John scowled as he asked, “What could they possibly want with the numbers stored in your phone?”
“You’d be surprised,” Ava said, and scrubbed her face. She finished her can of Cola, then sighed heavily as she leaned back and studied everyone at the table. “People like that would and will try everything to get to you. If I had real numbers in that phone, then they could have researched them and come after me, through the people those phone numbers were attached to once I was back here in the States. Don’t let what you hear on the news fool you, those people over there are smart. They do everything in their power to take down people from other countries. I’m sure Astrid could give you a number of what you’d classify as burner phones out to operatives before they went out on a mission.”
“Hundreds,” Astrid said. “And they were returned after each mission, and us in the comms department reprogrammed them for the next time a group went out. I’ll have enough to continue doing that when you guys go out on your missions here.”
“Will a number for here be programmed into them?” Alan asked. “Not that I anticipate any trouble, but if something happens, I don’t want anyone to get our location here and come after us.”
“What time do you have to meet with this person?” Astrid asked as she looked at the watch on her wrist.
“One o’clock.”
“Perfect. That’ll give me plenty of time to come up with something. Does this place have a landline?”
“Yes,” several of them answered, and only shook their heads at her grin. No one said anything else as they finished breakfast, and as the men cleaned up, Astrid headed back to her office and began to get organized. Her first order of business was to get one of the secure phones charged, and programmed with the house number into it. Once that was done, she worked on the home phone to not only ring like a normal phone, but it would be recorded into a secure laptop that would automatically trace the call when one came in, just in case they needed to have whatever information that came in. If not, it would be deleted.
At lunch, Astrid gave Alan the phone, and explained what it would all do. She could tell by his expression that he was skeptical, but he handed her his regular cell and took the one she gave him. “Might as well give you mine, in case I forget to use this one. Though I don’t know if anything will come of it, but I’ll trust you for now.”
“Are you taking anyone with you?” Astrid asked, and looked around the table, and saw that her question had shocked him. She didn’t know if she liked it that no one automatically spoke up. “Fine, I’ll go with you.”
“Why?” Alan frowned at her.
“Two sets of eyes are better than one,” Astrid said, and Ava and Joyce agreed with her. As soon as they finished eating, Astrid went up to her room, and grabbed her sidearm and made sure it was in her purse, then she also grabbed another cell phone that she’d programmed that morning.
“Ready,” she said as she came down the stairs to the others all standing around.
“What if the people wanting to hire Alan ask why you’re there?” John asked. “I’m assuming you’re armed, and I don’t have a problem with that, but why would you want to go?”
“Because, Alan needs someone to have his six, and I can always say I’m his assistant. I’ll grill him on what he does on the way there. I can also take pictures if I feel it’s warranted.”
“Oh,” John sighed, then went over and actually shocked both him and Astrid when he hugged her. He whispered for her ears only, “Be careful.” Then, he quickly stepped back.
