“Whatever you do, Jarrett, remember that’s my woman in there,” Snow reiterated.
“I know, brother. It’s was a poorly-timed attempt at humor. Sorry. I promise ya we won’t do anythin’ to jeopardize their lives. They’re precious to both of us,” Jarrett said.
“Lincoln,” Thayne began. “Sarah’s smart and very capable. I’ve known her for over eleven years. She knows what to say and do and with Dev’s life on the line, she isn’t going to take any chances. She’ll be ready when we get in there. Don’t doubt that.”
“What if she’s…” Lincoln’s voice broke and Jarrett could hear Jose murmuring comforting words to their friend, though he couldn’t make any of them out.
“Trust us, Lincoln, yeah?” Jarrett asked.
“Yeah. Yeah. I do, Jarrett. I trust both of you,” Snow said.
“Gonna sign off now. We need to talk a bit.”
“Best of luck, guys,” Jose said. “Our prayers are with you.”
“He’s not kidding. He has a rosary in his hand,” Lincoln said.
Jarrett smiled at Thayne, remembering his reaction to the bobble head Madonna on the hearse’s dashboard.
“Thanks, guys.”
****
Mac stayed on guard duty, standing in the corridor just outside the office Nico worked in while Archer remained in the inner office doing who knew what. Standing and doing nothing was exhausting. When Archer got up to use the bathroom, Mac appreciated the change of scenery as he followed him in, even if it was a urinal. They finally went to the mess at 1600 and ate a meal. Whoever their cook was, they did good work. Mac stuffed down a steak and potatoes with all the trimmings. It was cooked to perfection. He’d been allowed to sit at Archer’s table rather than stand guard over him. The man didn’t speak a whole lot except to ask where he’d worked while in the military. Mac kept his answers short and to the point, offering as little information as he could as he stuck to the script the FBI had given him.
After a short while, he watched Nico come into the mess and close on his heels, the man they now knew as Adael Dayan. He was a little surprised when Dayan got his food and then walked over to Nico’s table and sat down with him. A streak of jealousy shot through Mac. He didn’t like the way the Mossad operative smiled at Nico at all or the way Nico smiled back at him. When Archer’s throat cleared loudly, Mac turned to look at him. He realized he’d been concentrating on his lover and Dayan rather than watching out for Archer’s safety. That was a dangerous business especially when there were so many mercenaries in the room. He seriously doubted any of them would try to hurt the boss, but he was there for a reason. Maybe something had happened to Archer in the past.
“Are you with me, Black? You seem distracted,” Archer said, frowning at Mac.
“Sorry, sir. I was just looking around, trying to see if there’s anyone in the room who I might have served with.”
That seemed to be an acceptable answer because Archer nodded. “Good. Well, we do have a lot of personnel who’ve worked where you have so there’s a good chance you’ll run into someone you know sooner or later.”
Yeah, wouldn’t that be fantastic? Mac hadn’t even thought that through. None of them probably had. During his time in the Army, Mac had served in a lot of theaters. Special Forces were generally tapped for all kinds of delicate missions that required teams like his Green Berets and Mac had worked on several continents doing that type of work. He was bound to run into someone in the building with his skills eventually. The last thing he needed was to have his cover blown by someone who recognized him. He knew not all of the men he’d served with would turn down mercenary work. In between wars and conflicts around the world, there wasn’t much for men with their kind of skills to do. If they were no longer working for Uncle Sam, they often found work through Soldier of Fortune Magazine ads like the one the FBI had answered for him to get hired at Stryker-Dunn. Most military contractors found their personnel this way.
“Yes, sir.” Mac was still distracted and it was driving him crazy. He really hoped Nico’s time in Archer’s computer system had given him some idea where to look for those Minnow disks. While he was in Archer’s office, he hadn’t seen a Minnow disk reader on his desk or anywhere else. The only thing in there was his desktop computer and a shit ton of record albums. That meant that the reader was probably located in the server room down the hall which meant that even if they found the disks somewhere, the cameras would pick Nico up when he went in there to read them. They were well and truly screwed. This whole thing had been a bad idea and neither of them had expected to be detained within the building until the shipment Archer was waiting for was received. They weren’t going to do any good here unless Nico figured out how to first find the disks, and then read and memorize them. How fucked were they?
Archer stood up and glanced at Mac. “We’d better get back to work, Black. I have work to do.”
Mac stood as well. “Yes, sir.” A man in fatigues came by and took their trays and Mac gave one final glance at Nico and Dayan before following Drake Archer out of the mess hall.
****
Nico watched Mac leave the mess out of the corner of his eye. Mac gave him a glance and Nico forced himself not to acknowledge his presence. He turned back to the Israeli who was closely watching him with a smug smile on his face.
“You hitting that?” Dayan asked, picking up his lemonade and giving Nico a knowing glance.
Nico lifted his chin, feeling a blush creep over his face. “Mac? Yeah, as a matter of fact, I am.”
The Israeli smirked. “I thought so.” He took a sip of his lemonade. “He was shooting daggers at us earlier and you stare at him like you want to eat him alive.” He was quiet for a few seconds, then asked, “So, how is he?”
Nico thinned his lips, extraordinarily put out by the question and pissed at himself for being so transparent. He seriously didn’t like this man and he still wondered what in the hell he was going to tell Jarrett that had to be said privately in the middle of an operation.
“That’s none of your fucking business, Dayan. Besides, you’re here to do a job, right? Or is it more important that you know details of my sex life?”
Dayan laughed. “Just curious. He’s a big boy. No offense meant by the question. If I had any idea it was that serious, I wouldn’t have asked. Now, in answer to your query, yes, I’m here to do a job.”
“Good, then let’s talk about that. You know I’m here to find those Minnow disks. Do you have any idea where the hell they are? He says they’re no longer in his vault.”
The Israeli frowned. “I didn’t know that. He actually told you that?”
Nico nodded. “Yeah. When I sat down with him he thanked me for the idea of putting all operational and company files on the disks but that he’d also hidden them. He was paranoid, acting like he suspected someone in the company was going to go looking for them to get the information they contain. The thing is, there’s no reader in his office which means it has to be in the server room. I looked around when we had our little tour of the facilities, but I didn’t see a place where they could be stored. There are tons of servers in there but there’s no desk or filing cabinet to put the disks.”
“No, he’d want to keep them closer,” Dayan agreed.
Nico thought long and hard about that and an idea slowly formed. “He has tons of LPs all over his office. They are alphabetized by band or artist. I did quick calculations and I’m guessing there are over fifteen thousand albums in there. A Minnow disk would fit inside a dust cover of an album, wouldn’t it?”
Dayan nodded slowly. “The same thought occurred to me but there have to be a lot of disks. Each disk only holds eighty kilobytes of data. He couldn’t hide them in only one dust cover. They have to be split up among a couple hundred albums or more. Finding them is going to be nearly impossible in a short period of time. Besides that, every corner of his office is connected to cameras so how would we even begin to look for them if we wanted to?”
“So
, you think he’s hidden the disks among several albums?” Nico asked.
Dayan nodded. “Depending on how many disks he has, he would split them up, putting one disk in each dust cover so that if the stash were found, he’d only lose one disk rather than the whole lot.”
“I’ll bet he has the locations written down somewhere,” Nico said.
“He could just as easily have memorized a list of the albums where he hid the disks,” the Israeli speculated.
Nico shook his head. “Not if there are that many disks. The human brain isn’t designed to memorize long lists unless it’s something that they’re trained to do.”
“It sounds like there’s something scientific behind that statement. Why couldn’t he remember a list of album names?” Adael asked, raising an inquisitive eyebrow.
Nico nodded vigorously. “Well, if you want to be accurate about it, they’re not lists of album names. They are names of Archer’s social circle. He can’t memorize them all and he will have to write them down once there get to be more than 147.8.”
“147.8? Names? How do you get .8 of a name?” The Israeli laughed. “And wait a minute. Did you just say the record albums are his “social circle”?” He was mocking him outright. Dayan leaned forward, lowering his voice as he narrowed his eyes. “The fuck are you talking about, man? That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard of.” He shook his head and chuckled again. “Fucking Americans.”
“Yeah, well fuck you too, Dayan,” Nico said, also lowering his voice as he glared at him. He wanted to make his point because it was really important. “Laugh all you want.” He frowned, knowing it wasn’t the Israeli’s fault that he’d failed to keep up with what he was trying to get across to him. In Nico’s awkward way, he just wasn’t able to express it in easy enough terms for Dayan to understand. He thought about how to explain it for a few seconds.
“Here… I’ll break it down. Let me give you an example. In the 1990s, a professor of evolutionary psychology by the name of Robin Dunbar was studying primates and their social groups. When looking at the macaca sinica…” He hesitated when Dayan’s eyes began to lose focus and then tried again. “When he studied monkeys, Dunbar determined that the typical social grouping was seventeen individuals or what we would consider to be his close friends. When he applied that formula to humans, he determined that the typical social group size is 147.8 people that a human can maintain a stable relationship with.”
“You think he’s maintaining a relationship with his albums?” Adael stated, looking incredulous.
Nico sighed deeply and leaned closer. “Can you at least try to follow me? We are talking about a list of names of albums where he hides the disks. Bottom line. He has a list. You have to trust me on this.”
“I guess…” Adael drawled sounding like he wasn’t buying any of it.
Nico really wanted to make his point. It reminded him of when he was in school. Other kids never believed what he said because he was younger and more intelligent than everyone else. He was growing downright frustrated, plus, the way he had to strain to keep his voice low enough for the monitors not to pick up what he was saying and loud enough to be heard over the crowd in the lunchroom, was hurting his throat. He tried one last time to make the point about the list.
“If Archer has more than 147.8…” he stopped and sighed, starting again. “If he has more than 148 disks, trust me, he has a list.”
Dayan nodded. “Fine. If you say so.”
The Israeli was quiet for a few moments, appearing to study Nico. He finally began to squirm.
“What?” Nico asked, irritably.
“Do you really think he has the locations written down somewhere?”
“If I were to hazard a guess, I’d say they are on the computer in his office.”
“Okay, how are you going to search it? There’s no way for you to access his computer without someone in the control center noticing you on camera,” Dayan said.
“We need to cut off the camera feed for his office, long enough for me to look through his computer to find the list and then the albums. Is that possible?” Nico asked hopefully.
Dayan nodded slowly. “It’s possible but risky. It’s better that we loop in footage.” He hesitated, staring at Nico. Finally, he sighed. “I can do it. I’ll need clean camera footage of his empty dark office, though. That means I need to get into the control center for at least ten minutes to copy it and set it up. This whole exercise is predicated upon the off chance that we’re right about him hiding the disks in the LPs. We may be completely off base and find nothing at all.”
“Let’s set it up after you return from your meeting tonight. Archer will be asleep. It all has to be timed precisely. Once I get the locations, I need to pull the disks, run them down to the server room and read them, memorizing what’s on them.”
“Wait a minute. What?” Adael asked, looking completely confused. “Read them? I thought you were just going to steal them.”
“And get them out of the building how? No, the FBI sent me in undercover because I have an eidetic memory and I can read 20,000 words a minute,” Nico said.
“That’s… okay, whatever. Of course the ATF would have their very own Spencer Reid. Look, to do this, you’re going to need plenty of time, then. That could take an hour or more.”
“Yeah. You think you can keep the control center occupied long enough?”
“I think so. There’s a skeleton crew on overnight—generally only one person—and that person happens to be… a friend,” Dayan said, hesitantly.
Nico narrowed his eyes, staring at him for a long time. “That person happens to be your screw, you mean.”
“Yes.”
“Who is she? Another Mossad spy?”
Dayan laughed bitterly. “She’s a he and no, just a hot screw.” His gaze traveled down Nico’s chest. “I bet you’re a hot screw too.”
“I really don’t like you, Israeli,” Nico said. He could feel the frown on his own face at the moment.
“I bet you say that to all the guys,” Dayan replied.
“No. Just douchebags.”
Chapter Twelve
Jarrett and Thayne were picked up by the local FBI who were waiting for them in a field where Jarrett set the Sikorsky down. They’d received updated reports on the status of negotiations while they were en route, and they were both itching to get to the prison. During the nearly one-hour trip up north counting the time they’d left the federal building in Los Angeles and their drive to the prison, they’d learned nothing new about how negotiations were going. Thayne was pretty sure they were going to face a nasty warden and an FBI negotiator who was expecting miracles from them since they’d been made to wait before doing anything. Thayne felt helpless just knowing that Sarah and Dev were at the mercy of so many depraved killers. He knew Sarah was smart and from what he’d seen of Dev, she was very qualified as well, but they were sheep among the wolves inside that hellhole and he was terrified on their behalf.
The overwhelming police presence was insane once they got through the mobs of news crews who were shoving microphones at the car windows as they entered the gates of the prison. Word of the breakout had gotten around fast because he could already see the monikers of CNN, Fox News, Telemundo, and MSNBC as well as the local affiliates. Everybody loved a story filled with blood and gore and Thayne could only guess that the guards were being tortured inside the prison. It always happened in riots. He wasn’t squeamish but he prayed harder than he ever had in his life that the women were safe and unharmed.
They were greeted by the FBI and prison warden as soon as they stepped out of the car. After introductions were made, Warden Jones filled them in on the prisoners’ demands.
“They want two million dollars apiece. That’s twenty-four million dollars in small bills to be divided into twelve backpacks and transportation out of the US to Praia.”
“Cape Verde?” Jarrett asked, glancing at Thayne. “Good choice. Tropical beaches, great food. It’s laid-back, mu
lti-ethnic, and pretty much democratic. If I had to pick a non-extradition country, Cape Verde is a hell of a lot better than Kuwait or Afghanistan.”
Thayne snorted. “Someone inside the prison has been doing their homework. Who’s the leader? The man you’ve been talking to?”
“A convicted killer named Robert Rios. He’s a nasty son of a bitch,” Warden Jones said, frowning.
“Yeah, that’s the man our agents went in to talk to,” Thayne said.
“I hope they’re still alive. We haven’t seen them,” the FBI SAC said.
Thayne frowned at him.
“So, how are you planning to get them out?” Warden Jones asked. “I figure we were told to wait because you have some special negotiation skills that we don’t possess.” He was a huge man, almost three hundred pounds if Thayne had to make a guess. He seemed angry but there was no telling. Nevertheless, he wasn’t giving them the stink-eye the way the FBI field supervisor from San Francisco seemed to be doing. Special Agent in Charge Louis Weston didn’t like them. The vibe the guy was giving off felt like he wanted to tell them to stay off his turf. He obviously considered them interlopers even though they hadn’t heard more than a few sentences out of the guy’s mouth since they arrived.
“We’re going to ask them to release the hostages as an act of good faith,” Jarrett said.
“I know you were sent here from LA to get your colleagues out of there but I have eight guards in there who are just as much at risk as those women are,” the warden said.
“I said we’re going to ask them to release the hostages… all of them. I never said the women, though that would be ideal. I can imagine the inmates haven’t seen a woman in a long time,” Jarrett said. “You know what that means.” He was practically growling at the warden.
“I know what it means, special agent,” Jones replied, grimly. “I’ll ask them for a show of good faith.” He hefted the bullhorn hanging from a cord around his wrist.
Endings and Beginnings (Death and Destruction Book 8) Page 18
