Which was deflating.
I said, “So what’s that mean? You can’t do anything?”
And he smiled, which was his way of showing that he was smarter than everyone else. Every single time I leveraged him, he would draw out what he could do, like he was reading a play for the climax. It was trying, but because he was so good, I lived with it. Up to a point.
He said, “I didn’t say that. The one thing I did find was an Xbox connected to the Wi-Fi.”
“And? So what? Did they post their plan on a Call of Duty map or something?”
“No. But they’re online with it.”
At that point, I exploded. I leaned into the computer camera until I was sure he only saw eyeballs and said, “You’d better cut to the chase, or I’m flying home to rip your balls off.”
I saw him recoil from the screen and Jennifer leaned into the camera, pushing me aside, saying, “Creed, ignore that. What do you have?” I tried to get back on the screen and she bumped my body away, glaring at me and saying, “Give it a rest, Neanderthal.”
I stomped in a circle for a minute, and then acquiesced. Knuckles said, “Jesus Christ. You guys are a reality show in the making.”
I said nothing, taking a seat. Creed stuttered, “The Xbox is connected to Wi-Fi. They use it for online games. And they use headsets.”
Behind Jennifer, I said, “So?”
“So the headsets have microphones. They talk to people online. And because of it, I can hear everything in the room. They never turned off the box.”
Holy shit. The mother lode.
I said, “And did you get something? Did you record it?”
He now returned to his smug look, saying, “I did. Unfortunately, they weren’t speaking English in the room. But I got it.”
I said, “Was it Arabic?”
“No. Definitely not Arabic. I don’t know what it was, but I have it.”
I said, “It’s Bosnian. Get a Bosnian terp and get it translated ASAP. I mean within the next ten minutes. Something is going down soon here, and we need to know immediately.”
Chapter 32
That had been an hour ago, and now I was waiting on the results. The VPN finally connected, asking me if I wanted to use my camera, like I was a college student on a Zoom call. I clicked yes, waiting to see who was on the other end.
It was Creed yet again, not Wolffe. I internally had a little sight of relief, but I knew sooner or later it would be my boss.
He said, “Hey, Pike.”
I said, “So was it Bosnian?”
“No. It wasn’t.”
What the hell?
I immediately went to level eleven. “So we still don’t know what was said in that room? Are you saying we can’t figure out a language? We’re the damn Taskforce. You’re in DC. Go play it through a speaker on Embassy Row and ask someone to identify it.”
He smiled his little infuriating smile and said, “We know the language. It was Croatian.”
Croatian? Why did the earlier messages say the guy was a Bosniak?
I said, “You’re sure about that? It’s Croatian?”
He said, “Yeah, I’m sure. We have the transcript. There was a guy in the room talking to someone else. We don’t know what any of it means, but here’s the meat of it.”
He messed with his keyboard and a paragraph appeared on my screen next to his face.
The target is taking a small delegation out to dinner at 1900 tonight, at a restaurant called Rodeo Bahrain. Apparently, it’s an American-themed restaurant, and his guests are foreign. The contact that gave us the itinerary said it was a little bit of a tradition since he took command. As for me, I already have my ticket out for tomorrow morning. I’ll make sure it works, and then bug out.
I read it and knew we were now under the clock. The hit was tonight. I said, “Anything else? Did they give a name? Is there anyone we can alert?”
At that, Creed deflated, saying, “No. That’s it, Pike.”
I knew that wasn’t fair, because he’d really come through with the penetration. I said, “Don’t worry about it. Get me George Wolffe. Is he in the building? It’s five p.m. here. It’s like ten a.m. there, right? I’ve got two hours.”
He said, “Let me check,” and disappeared.
With the team around me looking at the screen, I said, “Okay, we know the location of the hit, and we know the time. But we still don’t know the target.”
Brett said, “Gotta be an American.”
“Why? Why do you think that?”
“He’s taking a foreign entourage to a place called ‘Rodeo Bahrain’? A distinctly American restaurant. The only person who would do that would be an American.”
I said, “Yeah, but the message says his guests are foreign, meaning he is not. If he was American, he’d be foreign as well.”
Shoshana said, “They aren’t going to target a Sunni Arab. The guy isn’t talking about someone living here.”
I said, “Maybe they are. Maybe this is the plan. Iran’s now attacking the monarchy here. We don’t know what the scope of this thing is. They’ve killed Israelis, Americans, and now maybe the Shiites are taking it to the Sunnis.”
Shoshana said, “I don’t believe this is Iran. It’s someone else, and it’s not about the Shia/Sunni divide.”
“But you don’t know that. We need to operate here with what we know.”
Jennifer said, “There’s that one line about this being a tradition since he ‘took command.’ That sounds like the Navy base. An American who took command on the Navy base and traditionally takes his foreign counterparts to dinner when they visit.”
The computer bleeped and Creed came back on, looking flustered. He said, “Wolffe’s not here. He’s at the White House. Won’t be back for hours.”
Shit.
I looked at my watch, seeing we had a little less than two hours to stop this thing. I said, “Okay, tell him I’m initiating an in-extremis Omega operation. It’s not against my original target the Oversight Council gave me authority for. It’s to stop this hit. If it goes bad, and we can get out, tell him we’re flying out of here to Aviano Air Base in Italy. He’ll have to bail us out from there.”
Creed looked a little sick at the words. He said, “Pike, I think that’s something you should tell him yourself.”
“I don’t have the time. Tell him I’m on the thread, but someone’s going to die tonight if I sit on my hands. I gotta go. Thanks for the help.”
He said, “Pike, I really—” and I disconnected.
I turned to Jennifer and Shoshana, saying, “I think you’re right. It’s an American, and we have about one hour to make a plan to prevent the killing.”
Chapter 33
Vice Admiral Gregory Stiles saw he wasn’t going to have time to return home before his dinner tonight. He stuck his head out of his office door and said, “Megan, can you call my wife and tell her I’m not coming home first? Tell her I got caught up and am going to have to just leave from here.”
His secretary nodded with a smile. Getting “caught up” was a regular occurrence. Admiral Stiles wore so many hats he could be a haberdashery salesman, and the job was so punishing, the commander from two years ago had committed suicide.