It’s something the technical conglomerates imbed in their phones to assist in providing all manner of location services for their customers. Not only does it help influencers, friends, and families tag their locations on social media, but it also allows all the various apps to give directions to virtually any place in the world or to offer up any nearby restaurants, hotels, gas stations; pretty much anything a person might want. It does that because the phone always knows exactly where it is in the world.
Integrally connected to our digital footprint, nothing is ever truly private.
But geo-tagging can be turned off. It’s relatively simple, although buried deep in the general settings of our phones.
“Exactly.” Mitzy gives a nod like her dumbass student finally paid attention.
I love Mitzy to death. We all owe her our lives, in one fashion or another, but sometimes her superior attitude challenges my patience.
“Exactly, what?” I lean forward, waiting for her to spill. “I’d be pretty surprised if the men taking those photos failed to turn off that fancy little feature.”
“They did, of course, but it’s never really turned off.” She cocks a hip forward, looking impressed with herself. “Or at least, the data is always there. It’s a simple matter of turning it back on.”
“Then why do you need me to get her kidnappers to take a picture outside? Just wave your magic wand and tell me where she is.”
“That’s what we want to do, but the geolocation is only so accurate. I want to match up what we have with Google Street View to get the most precise location possible.”
“More precise than Columbia, I hope.”
“Much more precise, asshole. Evelyn Deverough is being held in Colombia. We’ve stripped that much data from the metadata of the photos, but you want precise. Right?”
“Of course, I want precise.” It amazes me how little privacy remains in the world. This is one bit of trivia I know. “But we’re not making that request.” I stand by my earlier decision.
“Why not?”
“It puts our target at risk.”
Mitzy is wonderful, but she lives in a bubble. Intellectually, she understands we deal with some of the worst humanity has to offer, but that’s where it stops. Her belief in human decency hasn’t been shattered like the rest of us. It makes a difference in how we approach everything.
“I agree with Max.” Knox shifts in his seat beside me, finally backing me up. “We’re not going anywhere near that.”
He’s been quiet, listening, as Mitzy and I rile each other up. From the way Mitzy keeps yanking on her psychedelic hair, her frustration meter is pegging pretty damn high. That means, I’m in the lead.
“I agree with Knox.” Sam leans back and taps the top of the table with his index finger. “If your intel is good enough, it makes more sense to get boots on the ground and eyes in the sky. We can do local recon.”
“I need an outside view.” Like a dog with a bone, Mitzy’s not giving up.
“Why?” Sam asks.
Mitzy glances down. “There’s this organization who can do exactly what we need.”
“Do what?” I’m interested. Despite my difficult relationship with technology, I’m interested.
“They can pinpoint any location where a photograph was taken.”
“That’s a pretty bold claim and rather specific.” I lean back and cross my arms. I’d like to see something like that in action. As if reading my mind, Mitzy pops up a picture on the screen.
“In this picture, they took the shape of the ridge in the background, coupled with the declination of the sun to locate this building in Madrid. That, along with the vegetation and that bird in the upper left of the photograph…”
“A bird?” Knox snorts beside me. “They used a bird to narrow it down?”
“You’d be surprised what you can do with the right equipment.” Mitzy gives a little snort of indignation, not that Knox said anything that should twist her panties in a wad. “Anyway, the bird, along with that foliage, combined with street view cams and a bunch of fancy tech, which combines the date this was taken with the location of the sun, and…”
“Whatever.” I’m tired of the tech talk. “You don’t have that in any of the other photos? No outside views?”
“We don’t.”
“No declination of the sun?”
“No.”
“Well, there’s no way we’re giving directives to these people without raising their suspicions.” I look to Sam for support.
“You’ve got to work with what you have so far, Mitzy.” Sam leans forward. The leather cushion of his chair creaks. “Put Max and the rest of the team as close as you can get. Send one of your dragons in the air, and we’ll locate it the good old fashioned way.”
“And what way is that?”
“Boots on the ground, babe.” He gives her a wolfish grin, as if he maneuvered her into that answer.
“Don’t call me babe.” Her eyes pinch with irritation.
Mitzy’s not happy, but she’s not one to dismiss what we have to say. As tiresome as she can be, she listens to the input of the entire team. “I’ll send what we have to my guys. See if there’s anything more they can pin down.”
“I know you’ll be able to narrow it down further. In the meantime, I’d like to take a look at the photos.”
“Okay.” The way she elongates the word makes me bristle.
Not that I’m going to explain myself. In my experience, people often overlook the obvious when they’re laser-focused on a particular goal.
“Tell me about Carson Deverough.” Something isn’t sitting right.
Five
Eve
2 Weeks Ago
I am not enslaved—yet.
I am not chained in a cage—yet.
I have not been beaten into submission—yet.
These words are my mantra, reminding me how tenuous my existence is and how quickly it can change. My confident steps abandon me as that sinks in. Abject terror, my constant companion, whispers in my ear and erodes any hope that I’ll be rescued.
My fate is here, which leaves me to make some difficult decisions. Survival is my goal. It’s all that matters.
Summoned again to Benefield’s side, I brace myself to face whatever he has planned. It’ll be cruel, despicable, and inhuman. That is the holy triad upon which his existence rests.
Emotionally, and psychologically, I’ve experienced tragedy. I learned how to survive, how to endure, and to do it all with a gracious smile plastered on my face.
Etiquette training, in my family, was more important than regular education. I’ve been groomed to become one of society’s powerful elite from when I was a little girl. I’m polished, sophisticated, and can carry on a conversation with a rock if I have to.
As for surviving, I’m not belittling the lives of others. I grew up with privilege and never wanted for physical things. My mother adored me, but there was no one there to comfort me after she took her life.
Many people would say I’ve lived an idyllic life, but to a child, the emotional vacuum I fell into after my mother’s suicide crippled me.