I saw her eyes grow wet and she said, “I made fun of you in the aircraft because of your protection of Jennifer. I . . . wish . . . someone cared. . . .”

I felt such profound sadness at her words I didn’t know what to say. She was convinced she was only a tool. Something to be discarded when the weapon was no longer useful.

I started to say something, and my earpiece clicked. “Pike, Pike, this is Retro. I’ve got Taskforce on the line, and Rashid’s on a box, right now.”

I leaned forward, eyes on Shoshana, saying, “We’ve been here the whole time, and he never entered.”

She flicked her eyes to the street, looking for a ghost. Retro said, “Yeah, yeah, you’re right. The Taskforce did a malware inject via email. Long story short, he’s online right this second, and it ain’t your café.”

55

Omar trudged up the stone path into Tirana Park, eyes downcast and avoiding contact with anyone. Dressed like a local, with his red hair and blue eyes, he didn’t look at all like a fanatical follower of Islam. The only indication would be the bulky left side of his coat, drooping low, as if he were carrying a bunch of lead weights in it. Had someone searched him, they would have found a Czech CZ 75 pistol in his coat pocket, chambered in 9mm. Definitely not useful for a late-afternoon stroll.

He passed a couple pushing a newborn in a carriage and smiled, then took a left on a footpath. Unmarked, nothing but dirt well worn through the grass, it led steadily uphill. He reached the top, hitting another flagstone path, this one much bigger. To the left was a monument for historical figures in the life of Albania. To the right was a restaurant. He went right, climbing again. He passed a man incongruously selling chances to shoot a small rifle at a target, the proprietor listlessly sitting next to the weapon and smoking a cigarette. Omar passed him, amazed. The man hadn’t been here when he’d conducted reconnaissance the day before, and he found it incredible that someone could sell chances at shooting a target on top of a mountaintop full of parents and strollers. He wouldn’t have allowed that even in Syria.

He crested the hill and saw the amphitheater to the left, the artificial lake of Tirana beyond, the area blanketed with families out enjoying the fading sunshine. He paused a beat, trying to spot his Georgian friends. He could not, but assumed they were near. He left the path, heading downhill toward the amphitheater.

Created when Albania was a member of the defunct Soviet empire, it was built to resemble a smaller version of one of the great coliseums from the Roman Empire. The difference was that instead of being carved from granite and limestone, it had been created on the cheap, poured from concrete, with cement chairs and a slab of a stage, all of which had seen the ravages of time much, much more than the ancient structures it supposedly represented.

Covered in graffiti, it looked a lot like a section of the burned-out city of Kobani, Syria. At the top, on squat cement blocks, was a square concrete building, used for lights or other artificial help for the stage below. A set of metal stairs led up to a single steel door, looking like the entrance to a prison cell.

The meeting site.

He walked up the steps, the rust flaking off the railing. He reached the landing and banged on the door. It was opened by a man with a prominent nose and a threadbare woolen blazer. He simply stared at Omar.

Omar said, “This place reminds me of Aleppo. Have you been there?”

The man smiled, showing rotting, gapped teeth, and said, “No, but I can help you get it back.”

He swung the door open, and Omar entered, seeing a barren concrete room. Another man, standing in front of a table, moved forward and held out his hand.

“It is good to meet you. We’ve heard of your success, and support you.”

Omar knew they were working for money alone, their only real contribution being the security they afforded as Muslims. That, and the enormous amount of cash they were being paid, money gathered by Islamic State kidnapping and extortion, something the men in the room understood very well. The difference was every penny of the Islamic State’s income went to develop the caliphate, whereas their income went to their own satisfaction.

A fact Omar had no intention of forgetting. The meeting here was set up with the Islamic State, but it was facilitated by Jabhat al-Nusra. Men he’d tried to kill in the past. Men who were now in the upper echelons of power. A higher bidder, Muslim or otherwise, could cause his downfall.

He shook the man’s hand and saw artifacts on the table. Strange cases the size of cigarette packs, and a smartphone.

*   *   *

Shoshana saw my face and knew something had gone terribly wrong. She said, “What? What happened?”

She’d heard my end of the conversation, but not what Retro had said. While we could outfit the Israelis with mechanical things like beacons and weapons, the classified capabilities of the Taskforce smartphone were something beyond what I was able to transfer, even if I wanted to. Each one was configured for the specific team using it before deployment, including biometrics for security to prevent unauthorized access, so it would have done no good to give her one. I had spares, but unless she could duplicate some seriously technical aspects of the team’s biometric profile—voice recognition and fingerprint scans—the phone would simply shut down, reformatting itself.

Which meant Aaron and Shoshana were relegated to simple cell phone contact.

I ignored Shoshana, saying, “Retro, give me a grid. Break, break—”

He came back. “Already did. It’s in a section called Blloku. About a quarter of a mile away.”

I said again, “Great. BREAK, BREAK, nobody interrupt. Koko, you on?”

“Yeah, I got you. I heard. We’re outside the soccer stadium. I got the location from Retro. What’s the call?”

“Get to the target. Get Aaron inside. See if he can beacon the guy. Everyone else, box the area and stand by.”

Knuckles said, “Moving.”

Brett broke in. “Copy, copy. We don’t know what the guy looks like. Get a picture.”

I said, “I know, I know. Koko, you copy?”

She said, “Yeah, got it. We’re two minutes out. Dropping Aaron as a Foxtrot. He won’t have commo.”

Foxtrot meant Aaron was going on foot. I stood up, nonchalantly throwing bills on the table. “I got it. I understand. Just get a fix. Give him instructions, and get a Dragontooth on the guy.”

The Dragontooth was a Bluetooth beacon about the size of an SD card with a pretty cool adhesive on the back. It could be placed against all manner of material and persistently stick, which was the extent of its NASA capabilities. As far as beacon work went, all it did was throw out a signal that we could pick up if we were in range. Which was about seventy meters.

Like a lot of Taskforce equipment, the R&D section had scoured the commercial sector and had found a unique device designed to locate lost items. You placed the device, called Tile, on whatever was prone to being lost, and it linked to a smartphone via Bluetooth, allowing you to find it if you were in range. The cool thing was that anyone who used Tile became part of an ecosystem, so that their phone, working in the background, would register your device and alert you. Lose your keys in a bar? If someone else entered and had the app, it would tell you where they were. It was crowdfunded surveillance, and the Taskforce had taken notice.

The Dragontooth operated the same way, only the Taskforce had an app that was implanted through malware into a host nation’s phone service, whereby our system was completely in the background. Basically, we hoped to turn the entire population—at least anyone with a smartphone—into unwitting surveillance drones. It was still in beta testing, but showed promise. Right now, the only devices with the app would be the Taskforce smartphones, but that was better than nothing.