Weston Ochse - Age of Blood

“But we knew that already,” Laws pointed out.

“We did,” Holmes said, nodding, “but I wanted to check out how far they went with it.”

“All the way to blacklist, looks like.” Laws put his head in his hands.

“So what now?” Walker asked. He hated being cooped up in the hotel room. There had to be something they could do.

“We can do two things. Waiting for someone to contact us is a possibility. The problem with that is they have no way to do that. Cell phones are dumped so we can’t be tracked. If YaYa wanted to reach out and contact us, say in the event he came to his senses, he couldn’t even do that.”

“I’m hoping it wasn’t something he planned,” Walker said, encouraging the others to come to his friend’s rescue. “I mean, we all know it wasn’t YaYa who did this, right?”

Yank looked at Walker and shook his head. “Sure looked like the same crazy motherfucker.”

“But that must mean that thing must still be inside him.”

“Then why didn’t you feel it, Mr. Radar?” Laws asked, his voice angry.

“It must have hid from me. It must have—”

“Stow it.” Holmes stood and went to the window. “We’ll worry about guilt or innocence when we have the senator back safe and sound. Until then, let God sort it out.” He turned back to the men and women in the room and folded his hands behind his back. He stared at them for a long moment.

It was Laws who spoke first. “You have a plan.”

Holmes nodded and allowed himself a small smile.

“And you have an ace in the hole,” Laws added.

Holmes nodded again, ever so slightly. His smile remained in place.

Laws high-fived Walker, who wasn’t sure what he was high-fiving. Then he turned back. “So give. What’s the plan?”

Holmes checked his watch; then he raised his chin. “Hey, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, you able to hack into the police database?”

Goran and Patrick both grinned. “If it’s a Linux system it’ll be easy enough.”

“Wait, do you speak Spanish?” Jen looked from one to the other. “I didn’t know you spoke Spanish.”

Goran explained, “We don’t have to know Spanish. Linux is written in English for all intents and purposes. If we can get in, then we vector the information through Google Translate or another third-party program.”

Jen wasn’t convinced. “I still think we should have someone who speaks Spanish. Do we have anyone?”

Laws raised his hand.

“What don’t you speak?” she asked.

“Swahili. It’s all those pops and clicks that confuse me,” he said.

Jen addressed Holmes. “So if they get inside, what do you want them to find?”

“Any reports of vehicles stolen from the airport during a two-hour period starting an hour before the senator’s plane landed and ending an hour after he was taken. I need to know if he was working alone or with help. If he had help, then we’re probably lost because whoever met him brought the vehicle with them.”

“They could have stolen it from the airport,” Walker offered.

Holmes shook his head. “We’re not going to be that lucky, but we’ll check. Of course, if YaYa was working alone or if he had to obtain his own transportation, then there should be a record of the missing vehicle.”

“What if it was taken from the long-term lot?” Guildenstern asked. “You might never find it then.”

“I doubt YaYa would be able to get that far carrying the senator. My guess is that he found the nearest vehicle he could get his hands on. Based on the layout of the airport, something nearer the private terminal.”

“And once we find the vehicle, we can insert an all-points bulletin for the car into the system,” Jen said. Her eyes were wide as she stood and began consulting with her two techs.

“What about us?” Yank asked. “What if we find him? All we have are P229s. As much as I like them, I think we need bigger guns.”

As if on cue, someone knocked on the door.

Yank and Walker pulled their weapons free and aimed at the door while Holmes moved to check it. Seeing what he wanted to see through the peephole, he waved for the two SEALs to put down their weapons and he opened the door.

Navarre walked inside. When the door was closed, he and Holmes embraced.

“Tough day, amigo,” Navarre said. “This is not a good situation.”

“An understatement,” Holmes said flatly.

“I’ve been told to report to headquarters. They want a full account of my assistance to you and your team about… how do you say it, boon dangle?”

“Boondoggle, sure. Our government wants plausible deniability.” Holmes punched his left palm with his right fist. “But I understand. You need to take care of you and your own.”

“I’ve taken care of you first, old friend. That shit on the border with the ’cabras has been bothering me. I want to make it up.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a keycard from the same hotel. “Room 333. It’s a suite. Your gear is in there.”

Yank, Laws, and Walker all began talking at once, but Holmes made a chopping motion with his left arm that shut them up. He embraced Navarre once more, then closed the door behind the Mexican after he left. Holmes didn’t say anything. Walker wanted nothing more than to hear in detail what was happening, but he had to wait for Holmes. Finally their leader spoke.

“It turns out the C-130 can’t be a crime scene and that the State Department had no right to impound it.”

“How’s that?” Jen asked.

“It was a Mexican military craft on Mexican soil. No way were they going to turn it over to the Americans. The crew chief ordered it airborne. They landed it at a military base nearby and unloaded all of our gear, which is now sitting in Room 303.”

“No shit?” Walker asked, more than a little stunned.

“No shit,” Holmes answered. Then he pointed at Walker and Yank. “You two get cleaned up and get down to 303. Yank, I want a complete inventory list in thirty mikes. Walker, find out what Rosencrantz and Guildenstern want from their stuff and bring it to them. Now that they have access to their high-speed techie magic crap, I expect they’ll be very happy.” He glanced at the techs, who were all smiles.

“Finally,” Laws said with more than a little joy in his voice. “We got a fucking plan.”

Holmes smiled tightly. “The world works better with one. Now get over here and let’s talk courses of action.”

Walker went into the other room to clean up, leaving the two senior members of Triple Six to plan. He had to admit that knowing they had their stuff back made more difference than he’d thought it would. It gave him back the confidence he hadn’t realized he’d lost.

Jen spent the next ten minutes in the bathroom, staring into the mirror, her hands trembling as she splashed cold water on her face. She couldn’t get out of her mind the insanity in YaYa’s eyes as he’d fired his pistol point blank into Pete Musso’s stomach. Why had Pete tried to save them? He’d never showed any sense of valor before. Not that in suburban San Diego he’d had the chance, but Pete was an analyst. Her eyes filled with tears again as she relived the moment over and over, the worst part being the agony and fear on Pete’s face as he’d fallen to the deck of the plane, his hands clutching at his stomach as blood pulsed out of him.

She shook her head to get rid of the image. Dwelling on this wasn’t helping. Maybe Walker had been right. Maybe she should never have come. Maybe analysts weren’t needed on the scene.

She gave herself five minutes, then wiped her face, washed her hands, and left the bathroom. She passed Goran and Patrick, who had set up their systems and settled on the sofa by the window. Alexis Billings was already sitting there, too, leaning on her left side, her hand supporting her head. She stared off into space.