My cell phone vibrated with a single word: JACKPOT.
I dialed Decoy’s phone. “Hey, man, you can’t simply send a text like that. What do you have?”
“The phone grid was right on. It’s his. He’s sitting in a white-panel van outside a small indoor shopping area. No movement. Doesn’t appear to be doing anything in the van. Just sitting.”
I thought about what Lucas could be doing. “What’s in the shopping center? Can you tell?”
“Looks like electronics. Cell phones, cameras, that sort of thing. He’s got a local in the driver’s seat, but they’re not talking.”
So he has help. I didn’t want to talk too much on an open cell phone, and let the rest of my questions drift away. We’d left our concealed radios and other kit in Lebanon, and until we could get more, I was stuck with a standard cell phone. Knuckles, Decoy, and Brett had their Taskforce phones, which allowed them to communicate together in real time, but I could only go point-to-point, which was going to be a pain in the ass as surveillance chief.
We’d gotten the go-ahead to launch to Dubai last night. It was a little bit of good news/bad news for me. I’d told Kurt we had a lead, then how we’d found it. Saying he was a little pissed was putting it mildly. He’d about ripped the computer apart in front of him. In the end, I’d convinced him that I’d used my judgment, just like I was paid to do, and we’d found a solid anchor for Lucas. I knew he’d calm down, because he was smart enough to know there was no sense yelling about it now. What’s done is done.
He’d spent a little more time chewing my ass, then ran out of steam, turning back to the operation. He almost grudgingly ran the cell number we’d located, and it had pinged as active in Dubai. Even better, he’d already launched our equipment bundle to Europe the day before, and it was due to hit a drop zone in the desert south of Dubai later this afternoon.
We’d landed midmorning and established a base of operations in a local hotel, getting connectivity with the Taskforce via a VPN. We got a current grid to the cell phone and had immediately established a surveillance box to start tracking Lucas.
My phone vibrated with another call. “He’s moving. Headed north to the Sheikh Zayed Road.”
“Did he ever get out?”
“Not that we saw. He could have earlier.”
“Okay. Remember, loose follow. Lose him instead of compromise.”
I was a little bit hamstrung because Lucas knew what Jennifer and I looked like-we were both targets he had tried very hard to kill in the past-which really left me with a three-man surveillance element. Even that was sketchy, because Knuckles had been with me when we captured Lucas the first time. Lucas would have seen him only briefly, if at all, because bullets and fists had been flying. I was willing to risk using him mainly because even a three-man surveillance effort was not nearly enough manpower to conduct a proper follow. Two men would be a bigger risk, and if it came down to it, we could afford to lose him instead of getting compromised because we had his phone to fall back on. The problem was the phone would show us a location on a map, but not what Lucas was doing. We needed eyes on for that.
I got both Knuckles and Brett moving ahead of the van on the other side of the creek on Sheikh Zayed Road, positioned to pick it up and allow Decoy to roll off.
I decided to cross the creek myself, staying far back from the pack, not wanting to accidentally run into Lucas. Acting as the surveillance controller with just a cell phone was proving to be a challenge, since I couldn’t hear what was going on with the team. I knew Knuckles, Decoy, and Brett were talking because they had Taskforce phones, but they wouldn’t call me unless it was necessary, so I had no situational awareness.
My phone buzzed, and I snatched it up, seeing it was Jennifer. I felt a prick of disappointment and a flood of relief at the same time.
When we’d gotten the grid to the drop zone, I’d decided to send Jennifer on the recovery mission. I didn’t want to send one of the clean guys, depleting my already small surveillance capability, since Lucas knew Jennifer on sight. I was a little worried about launching her out into the desert by herself, not because she was a woman, but because nobody should go out in such a harsh environment as a singleton. If she got stuck in the sand, or had any other issues, there wouldn’t be anyone to rescue her.
She’d seemed pretty confident, and I’d given her plenty of four-wheel-drive training last year. She was no slouch at vehicle recovery. I’d decided to let her go after she’d given a pretty thorough brief-back on her route in and out. She’d rented a Nissan 4?4 from one of the adventure travel services that dotted Dubai and headed out. Hearing her voice meant she was back in cell range and safe.
“No issues with the equipment. Got everything we asked for.”
“No issues with the drop?”
“Well…no, not really.”
I smiled. Something had happened. “What’s that mean?”
“The drop was off by about a thousand meters. Idiots never waited for me to initiate before tossing it out of the plane. No signals, no commo, nothing. Like they had someplace else more important to be.”
“And?”
“And I got stuck in the sand. Okay? I’m still sweating like a hog from digging out.”
I started to rib her just for fun when my phone buzzed from an incoming call. “Gotta go. Brett’s on the other line. Go take a shower. See you tonight.”
Brett said, “He was just dropped off at the Financial Centre metro station. I’m on him, Knuckles is off.”
“Okay. See if he’s meeting anyone on the train and give us a call when he gets off. We’ll parallel on Sheikh Zayed Road.”
I confirmed instructions to Decoy and Knuckles, trying to piece together what Lucas was doing. Why leave his vehicle on a major thoroughfare and take the metro? What’s he up to?
Brett called twenty minutes later. “He’s off at the Internet City stop. Talking on a cell phone. He did nothing but ride. I see his van approaching. Knuckles is coming to get me.”
What the hell?
“Stay on him. Something’s up.”
We lost him for about ten minutes, forced to conduct a lost-contact drill of trolling the neighborhood he had last been seen entering. The next call came from Decoy and did nothing but muddy the waters even more.
“I got him. He’s parked in a section of hardware stores, just sitting still. Like he was at the electronics store. Isn’t getting out.”
He gave his location, and I asked, “How long was he unsighted? Could he have gone inside?”
“I don’t know. I suppose he had time to get out and purchase something.”
It was Brett who broke the code on the strange activities. “I see him. Got him from the north. He’s looking through binos at a store entrance.”
He’s following someone else.