The coordinates from the Spanish-language transmissions dribbled in slowly, sent immediately from the first mobile team as soon as the coordinates had been identified. When the first few pinged on Herrin's screen, and Burden's, too, as he waited in the second mobile unit, Burden was immediately speaking into Herrin's earpiece.
“What are the stats on your new program? ”he asked.
“It'll pull us into a target area of about a one-hundredmeter radius, ”Herrin said, focused on the screen.
“Good. Let's just see if we can eliminate anything outright. Maybe a retail site, a law firm, law enforcement. Something that might have a legitimate need for encryption. We're going to be interested in residential. Leased property, most likely.”
Herrin stayed at the computer for nearly two hours before all the transmissions had been scanned by Burden's mobile unit. When the Spanish-language transmissions had been pulled out of the list of 112 encrypted calls, the list had shrunk to only 14. He had called Burden back.
“Okay, ”Burden said. “The Beechcraft will be in position again in fifteen minutes. So what have we got?”
Herrin brought up the summary on both screens.
“Of the fourteen encrypted Spanishlanguage transmissions, ”Herrin said, “two originated in a country club, one in a real estate office, three in lawyers’offices, and two were APD Chicano squad transmissions.”
He rubbed his face and then leaned on his elbows and stared at the screen. He was sitting in the path of one of the airconditioning vents in the guest house, and the chilled air was welcome.
“That leaves only six transmissions to look at, ”Herrin continued. “Three originated on this side of the lake, three on the other side. The ones on the other side are known addresses. The ones on this side were mobile. But we still don't have any content.”
“They said the encryption's tricky, ”Burden said. “It didn't take much to find out if they were English or Spanish, but the actual translations themselves are another thing.”
“Any guesses?”
“No. But I'm hoping the mobile ones go back to one of the houses on the other side, ”Burden said. “If they do, then I'm hoping we'd have their base and their surveillance unit.”
Herrin stared at the screen and unwrapped the clear cellophane from a cube of taffy candy and popped it into his mouth.
“We've got just this one more shot, ”Burden said. “That plane's scheduled for a job in Maracaibo beginning tomorrow. ”Herrin was sucking nervously on the taffy, sucking on the taffy, thinking, thinking, and then he bit into it and chewed it up in a couple of bites.
“I'm going to call the plane, ”Burden said. “I'm going to tell them to stay with those six channels, and go ahead and scan as many of the new ones as they can during the two-hour flight.”
Herrin waited, eyes fixed on his screen, one leg bouncing on the ball of his foot as if he were a manic adolescent. Running live operations made him forget to be laid-back.
“Damn, ”Burden said into Herrin's earpiece, “this isn't much. If they just happen not to be transmitting during these four hours… ”Pause. Silence. Then he said, “But I have a hunch that their timing's good. On the first flight the Beechcraft was in position and operating within only a couple of minutes of Cain's e-mail to Luquin. If Luquin was going to react quickly, and he always does, he should've been making encrypted calls within the time frame of that first flight. He just has to be in one of those three houses.”