Page 44 of Acting on Instinct
“You have to have a computer face match? I know. The photos we had didn’t pull up anyone’s face in our search. And the only flight we have record of them taking was to Morocco, so perhaps that’s why.”
“So it’s us? We get to go?” Ty asked.
“Yes. Langly would like to ask these six men some questions. And the White House would like Echo to ensure the CIA has that opportunity. The French government is amenable to turning a blind eye, but none of its citizens should feel the need to call the police. You will look normal,” White said.
“Which is fine for me,” Havoc said. “But Nitro and Jeopardy are on the team, and we can’t leave them behind just because a foreign government insists on normal-looking.”
“How do you see this rolling out?” T-Rex asked.
“We abandon this mess and walk over the hill where I have a vehicle parked. I'll drive you to your locker to grab what you need for Rory. I have everything you need for the mission on the plane,” White said.
“When we land, will we have any trouble with the border?” T-Rex asked.
“We’re going in on diplomatic credentials. We have DGSE assurances that we’ll be left to our own devices. No one will board our plane, and no one will observe our exit. I’ll have transportation waiting in Paris.”
“So we’re not flying commercial,” Nitro said. “Private jet? Fancy.”
“The next stop is the airstrip where I have the Color Code jet waiting. We get on and use the trip over as planning time. Wehave a safe house for you to catch up on your sleep, and then I'll let you loose. Quick and clean. Silent. We pull them out. I hand them off to an interrogation team, and we fly home. Bing. Bam. Boom.”
“We need to pack,” Nitro said.
“No, thank you.” White smiled.
“White likes to go shopping for clothes, so we have the right look for her plan,” Ty said, throwing quotation fingers around the “look.” “If she’s as good as she was last time—she had me out on a mission and handed me a wardrobe labeled with sticky notes, mind you—at least everything will fit. She even washed my briefs a few times, so they were soft on my ass.”
“That’s right, gentlemen, no chaffed heinies on my watch. Ty is right, though. I’ve got you covered.” White looked down at her feet as she jackhammered her heel on the ground. She calmed her foot and lifted her gaze. “Listen, we need this win. Geo-politically, right now, this little sleeper cell is one among many. But they are already in motion. The others out there around the world have just been roused for duty by current events. They’ll need a hot minute before they can effectively strike.”
“First, they have to plot,” Jeopardy said. “It gives us a chance to find them and neutralize the threats.”
“In this case, we have to get there before they move their plans forward,” White said, “since we don’t know which target they’re aiming at, and we don’t know what will happen when they push the go button.”
Chapter Fourteen
Ty
“All right,” T-Rex said. “We can roll out tonight. But I think we need to sift through some information beforehand. I need a good idea of what to pack in my jump bag besides a passport and Rory’s plane meds.” He turned to where Rory lay belly up, his lips pulled back, making whimpering noises in his sleep.
“Here’s the tricky thing. I’ll show you the pictures and go into more detail on the plane, but we have observed the men getting dressed and undressed in their bathrooms.”
“Quite the kink, White.”
“Shut it, Jeopardy,” T-Rex growled.
“At first, we thought that these might be sacred shirts, similar, for example, to those worn as Mormon Temple Garments. They don’t seem to wash them or have a second one, and they wear them all the time except when they shower. They shower, use deodorant, and put on the shirt. I sent a picture of it to Iniquus.”
“Iniquus?” Ty leaned forward to scritch Rory and calm the dream.
“My colleague Grey was on a mission with Strike Force. They were all wearing uniform shirts that sent biofeedback to their tactical operations center. Their TOC manager, Deep, kept telling them to drink water because they were dehydrated. When I showed Deep the picture of the shirt, he thought it might be similar to the garments that DARPA had sent to its teams for field testing. Their command has ties to DARPA, and they are often given prototypes to test. Much like one of the automatonstart-ups that just deployed battle-droids to Ukraine to test their capacity to carry things on a real-world battlefield. It allows them to put the prototype through rigorous field testing with solid data before it goes into costly production and training cycles.”
“Those automatons can shoot, too,” Havoc said. “So watch your six, White, if you’re in Ukraine and see a bot running around.”
“What’s your concern about the biometric shirt?” Ty asked.
“If these men have biometric shirts, that might be how they activate an alarm between the players. A working theory: They take off the shirt for a stipulated amount of time so they can shower. Then the shirt is back in place within a given timeframe.”
“Just showering? Not for sex?” Havoc asked.
“I haven’t got any data that shows them engaging in sex with each other, and they have no other outreach in the community,” White said. “No friends.”
