No Fortunate Son (Pike Logan, #7)(64)

She saw my grin and said, “What? Why is that stupid?”

“It’s not. But that’s way too much work when we have a monkey.”

She heard the words and said, “Whoa. Wait. It’s raining cats and dogs outside. I can’t climb in this weather.”

Jennifer was a former Cirque du Soleil performer and about the best climber I had ever seen. She could scale a marble wall and had used that skill on a number of occasions to pull my ass out of the fire.

I said, “Rain is in our favor. Nobody will see. We try to fake a maintenance crew and we’re only good until someone asks me a question, regardless of our uniforms. And we don’t have the time to prep for that. It would take a couple of days.”

She looked at Dunkin, who stared at his shoes, not wanting to be drawn into the conversation. Disgusted, she said, “You’re really going to put all this on my shoulders?”

“No. You get in, then get to the laundry room in the garage. Unlock the door. Then we’ll both be in. Behind the security.”

She looked at the ceiling, breathing through her nose, containing her aggravation. She said, “What do I do if I’m caught on the side of the building?”

“Show them your wet blouse.”

Her head snapped to me, the glare like white-hot lava, and I held up my hands, laughing. “I’ll be there. I’ll handle anything from the ground. You won’t have to worry about that.”

We’d spent the next ten minutes synchronizing the encryption for the slave device with Dunkin’s kit and got a quick class on using it, then I’d sent Dunkin on his way. Now we had about five hours before we executed.

Jennifer flipped the channel, getting another news station we couldn’t understand. She said, “You sure this risk is worth it? I don’t mean because I’m worried about doing the climb. I mean, it’s a hell of a big risk for something that may not pay off at all.”

I said, “It’s all we’ve got. Those Serbs in London were tied to both Braden and Kylie. I know I can’t prove it, but they were. All we need to find is a connection to Braden. Maybe he’s staying in one of the rooms. We find that, then crack some skulls.”

She exhaled. “Maybe we should wait for Nung. Get more than just you and me. Let this sit.”

“He can’t get here for another day, and that’s a day more for Kylie. I can’t wait, and neither can she. We find an edge, and we can use Nung for the endgame.” I squeezed her hand and said, “I’ll climb that wall if you don’t want to. You don’t feel comfortable, I’ll do it myself. You can pull security. But . . .” I lapsed off, not wanting to admit something.

She said, “But what?”

I looked at her, then forced it out. “But you’re better at this than me. You can do it in half the time. I can’t get up to that window like you can.”

Her eyes widened a smidgen, then she smiled, “Boy, I’ll bet that was hard to get out.”

I muttered, “You’ll never know.”

She said, “What?”

“Nothing. We should get some sleep. We’re going to need it.”






44




After seeing the text, Braden’s first thought was, We missed the business day. He called Seamus, making sure it wasn’t a mistake.

“You want me to launch the Snapchat now? At this time of night?”

“Yeah. Get them moving across the pond. I’m sure they’ve got forces in place over here, but they’ll need to be redirected to Paris.”

“Seamus, even given the time change it’s dark over there. Nobody’s working. I’m afraid it’ll be missed. Best case, this’ll sit until morning.”

He heard his brother chuckle. “Braden, they’ve probably got twelve people staring at a computer screen waiting on our contact. Trust me, they’ll get it. You have the Bitcoin address?”

“Yeah. I got that.”

“Read it back to me. I need to know it’s correct.”

“You know they’re not going to pay up front, right? Who in their right mind would pay just because of a video? I mean, you’ve put me in a serious problem with the Serbs, and we’re not getting anything out of it. Tell me you’ve got this wired. Seamus, tell me you know what you’re doing.”

“Braden, calm down. I know what I’m doing. I’ve met Ali. He’s set to go. I’ve given him the cache location for the explosive, and he’s now fire and forget. The hostages are secure, and the plan is working fine.”

Braden soaked up the confidence coming from the handset. Something he needed. Something that allowed him to continue. He said, “Okay, Seamus, okay. I’m ready to go here.” He read out the Bitcoin address and asked, “You want me to send that at the same time as the Snapchat? Or wait?”

“Same time. You send the Snapchat, then send the message on the White House page. You need to tell me when you do it. Send me a text. As soon as that’s done, I’m giving them an address for direct chat that Kevin’s created. A way for real-time communication that’s autonomous.”

“So you think they’ll pay? Just because they see the video?”

“No. You’re right about that. No way will they pay at first. They’ll try to drag it out, try to get clues to our location so they can send in a rescue force. Which is where your diversion comes in. They’ll be talking to me but hunting you. We set off that trap, and then I hit them with the chat. They’ll be in a panic over the deaths. Stricken by our ability to be one step ahead. Then they’ll pay. We keep the prize, and they’ll pay.”