Retro said, “But this hotel has nothing to do with the name Justin.”

She said, “Yes, it does. I think it was a bad translation from the Taskforce. The Tirana Castle is really no longer a castle. It’s just called that for the tourists. It’s a single wall, and it’s called the Justinian Wall by locals. That’s what he wrote down. I’m sure of it. With the digital extrapolation, and then the translation from Cyrillic, I think they gave us a bad name.”

Nobody moved, wanting to believe but fearing the consequences. Aaron broke the silence. And the fear.

He looked at her in amazement and said, “What on earth led you to that? How did you know the history?”

Knuckles patted Jennifer on the back and said, “Because she’s a pencil-necked professor at heart, that’s how. Retro, load up and let’s get over there. Check it out.”

Retro left the desk, starting to repack his hacking kit, and Knuckles looked at Jennifer. “Saved by your useless history trivia.”

He shouldered his ruck and turned to the door, saying, “This pans out, and you can forget about that bad call in Jordan. You’re back in hero land.”

She grinned as if it was just a joke, but I could tell what Knuckles had said meant a great deal to her. I knew he meant it too, because, well, he was Knuckles. Make no mistake, he’d done the same with me a few times.

Aaron said, “It’ll pan out. I can feel it. She’s there.”

That had been twenty minutes ago, and now we were all sitting around staring at the phone, waiting on it to ring. It did.

“Yeah, what do you have?”

“I got nothing yet, but when we checked in they said I had to pay if I wanted to use Internet. They don’t have Wi-Fi—only Ethernet from, like, 1998. We’re in the room, and Retro’s getting set up.” He paused, then said, “The chair Retro’s sitting in is just like the one in the video.” I could hear the excitement coming through the phone. “Pike, I think this is it.”

I said, “Crack the system. Find the computer. Get me a room.”

He acknowledged, and I gave out the good news. Everyone began hustling at that point, me giving instructions on what to pack, and Aaron asking how far we were willing to go. I said, “As far as it takes, I promise.”

He gave me a grim smile, and the phone rang again. I snatched it up, expecting to hear more good news. It was Showboat, and it most definitely wasn’t good.

“Pike, I’ve got an abort on your current mission profile. I’m sorry.”

“What the hell are you talking about? What about Omar? You said the director of the CIA thought he was the find of the century.”

“He did. Does. But we’ve got the further interrogation results from Rashid, and it’s grim. The Lost Boys are on the warpath. They’re real. Rashid says they’re going to be passed specialized explosives through some other cell—things that can evade conventional detection. He’s holding out on what the target is, or doesn’t know it, but the Council is looking at a real threat. Omar isn’t an Omega mission right now. The Lost Boys are.”

Aaron had stopped moving, looking at me, knowing something bad was happening. I said, “Sir, we’ve found the bed-down. Give me tonight. Please.”

“You have a pinpoint location?”

“No, not yet. But I will in another couple of hours. I’m sure of it.”

“Pike, that’s not good enough. Shoshana’s an Israeli problem. She’s not Taskforce. I can’t do anything about it.”

Jennifer and Brett had both stopped packing kit, warily watching me. I looked into the computer screen at the still video image, seeing Shoshana’s eyes. Hearing her words in the American Bar.

I said, “I’m sorry, sir. I’m not leaving tonight. Tell Kurt this is a Prairie Fire. Shoshana may not be Taskforce, but she’s on my team. My call.”

Instead of indignation or anger, I actually heard relief, and knew why: According to our charter, a team leader making that call got absolute support, and Showboat didn’t like leaving her either. Shoshana wasn’t officially Taskforce, but it would be enough to buy me a night. He said, “You’re calling Prairie Fire? For Shoshana?”

I said, “Yes. Relay that to Kurt. For tonight, I have control.”

He said, “Get her back, Pike. It’s the only thing that will mitigate delay on the Lost Boys.”

I nodded at Aaron, and he slowly began packing again, eyes on me. I said, “Sir, don’t worry about those juvenile delinquents. They’ll keep. There’s no way they’re doing any attack in Venice.”

67

Jacob watched the sun drop, absently drinking his beer as Devon and the three targets slowly went through the entire minibar. He caught Devon’s eye, telling him to slow down. They had a lot of work in the next twelve hours, and, while Devon’s primary role was babysitter, Jacob didn’t want him so drunk he couldn’t control the situation.

One of the kids—even though they were only a year or two younger than Jacob, he couldn’t help but think of them that way—let rip a horrendous expulsion of flatulence, causing all of them to laugh. Jacob stood, saying, “I’m out.”

He grabbed his phone, hearing the fart boy say, “What’s his problem?”

He entered the hallway, not waiting for Devon’s answer, thinking, Fart Boy is first.

He couldn’t kill all three at the same time, especially since they had only knives, so he’d decided to take them one at a time.

After last night’s failure with the woman, Carlos and Jacob had returned to the hotel, waiting on Devon. He’d been out with the boys all day long, calling intermittently, then had finally given them the answer they’d waited on: He was sleeping in his new friend’s room.

Jacob and Carlos had gone to bed, woken up early, packed up their bags, and cleaned out their room. They had it for three more days, but that had been done intentionally.

They’d entered the Best Western hallway, dragging Devon’s bag with them, when Jacob had stopped. Carlos had said, “What?”

Jacob had returned to the small minibar, saying, “Make sure the do not disturb sign is out.” He opened the minibar, sweeping all of the small bottles, candy bars, and soft drinks into his carry-on. Carlos had stared and Jacob had said, “Let the Islamic State pay for it.”

They’d left the hotel for the last time, walking out of the back door so the desk didn’t see their bags. Making small talk, ignoring the mission and what they were about to do, they’d walked to the targets’ hotel, where Devon was waiting.

They’d avoided the front desk and walked up the stairs to the chaperone’s room, dumped the bags, then gone down to the room that Devon was in. Jacob had banged on the door, and Devon had finally awakened. They pushed in, shouting and yelling as if they were ready for some fun. The boy, eyes red-rimmed from two days of drinking, acted game, then had sprinted to his bathroom, throwing up.

Soon enough, they had all three targets in the room, talking about what they were going to do for the day, Devon introducing Jacob and Carlos as another youth group also free from their chaperone.

They’d gone to lunch, then had traipsed around Piazza San Marco, just another group of tourists annoying the locals. During that time, Jacob had planted the seed for the night, teasing the boys’ sense of adventure. They’d returned to the room at four in the afternoon, with Carlos breaking free for his part of the mission.

During the entire day, there had been only two spikes, both from the nascent leader of the group—Fart Boy.

After lunch, he’d mentioned that they should let the chaperone know what they were doing, worried that they’d get in trouble. The other boys, under Devon’s lead, had drowned him out, calling him a mama’s boy. Later, once they were back in the room, he’d said he was going upstairs to send a message to his parents from the chaperone’s computer. Once again, Devon had taken the lead, giving him a minibottle of wine and challenging him to drink it.