Two, the minibar had been cleaned out, empty of all liquor and candy bars. It was something a juvenile would do if he were vacating early.

The Lost Boys still had another two days on their reservation, and the credit card used was valid, so put together, it told me they had moved somewhere else. The fact that their passport trail ended here, along with the two extra days on the hotel reservation, caused a disconcerting feeling, reminding me of a last covered and concealed location before an assault: a last clean staging area before going underground, and quite possibly the final spot before an attack. I prayed that wasn’t the case.

The third thing they found was a ticket stub for the Doge’s Palace museum with Jacob Driscoll’s name on the tag. It was a really weak link, and may have been nothing more than a way for Jacob to waste some time, but it was all we had. I’d directed Retro to get with the Taskforce and hack into the surveillance cameras while Jennifer and I went to check it out in person. That had proven of little value, other than the history lesson of the Council of Ten.

Exiting into Piazza San Marco, Jennifer could sense a little desperation leaking out. Worry that my decision on Shoshana may end up costing much more than saving a single life.

She took my arm and said, “Hey, you made the right call. No matter what happens. We can’t always be the ones on the X. We do what we can, and in this case, we did right.”

I said, “Tell that to whoever feels the wrath of the Lost Boys. I’ll be willing to bet they’d disagree.”

“Shoshana wouldn’t.”

I turned to her and said, “You sure? Because I’m afraid to ask that question.”

She said nothing, knowing, like I did, that while Shoshana was certainly happy to be alive, she would never want to be the reason for a terrorist strike succeeding.

I’d made my decision, and could do nothing to alter the past. All I could do was my best to prevent a specific future. The one the Lost Boys had planned.

74

We wound our way through the alleys, reaching the small bed-and-breakfast we’d rented for our op center, situated right on a canal full of gondolas. Like that was anything fancy. Having a canal location in Venice was about as special as a Motel 6 next to a McDonald’s in the States.

We’d rented rooms in several different hotels to disperse our footprint, and we’d decided on this one for a TOC due to its central location. That and the fact that it had a room that was bigger than a pizza box.

I entered and found Retro banging away on a keyboard, Knuckles behind him on a phone saying, “We need a name. Can’t you guys figure that out?”

Aaron and Shoshana were off to a side, sitting patiently. Brett was nowhere to be found.

I closed the door and waited for Knuckles to hang up the phone. He did, looking at me with a question. I said, “Nothing. Not sure what I expected to find, but it’s just a damn museum. No signs saying ‘Secret Islamic State Mission’ or anything like that.”

He nodded and said, “Well, we’ve got something. It’s a thread, but we can’t find the end to pull it.”

“What?”

Retro leaned back and said, “Take a look. Taskforce ran all the surveillance footage on the date stamp of the ticket through a facial recognition suite. They found the Lost Boy called Jacob.”

Jennifer and I leaned over, seeing his laptop screen split into four sections, a different camera view in each. In one, the subject was turned, facing the camera head-on. It was grainy, but I could make out Jacob from his mug shot. Even with the pixilated image, he gave off an evil vibe. He just looked bad, reminding me of a pus-filled wound.

I said, “And? You’ve got his entire visit?”

“Yeah.”

“So where’s the secret dead drop? What was he doing there?”

“Nothing at the museum. That wasn’t his focus. He was following someone.”

“Who?”

Retro manipulated the screen, flipping through a dozen camera feeds until he found the recording he wanted. He hit play and a man and woman walked across the marble floor, arm in arm, jerking in grainy black and white. “These two. No idea why, but he sticks with them the entire time. At first we thought it might just be a coincidence—you know, one tourist following the path of another—but he took pictures. He used his camera probably fifteen times, and not once did he take a picture of something artsy-fartsy or old in a room. Every time, he took it of those two.”

I leaned in closer to the screen, as if that would help me ascertain what was going on. Jennifer said, “Who are they?”

Knuckles said, “Don’t know. We got nothing on the man. He’s a dead end. He bought his ticket from the booth out front and showed no ID. The girl we have a slim lead on. She presented a ticket purchased from a package tourism site in a hotel, printed out from a computer. We have the hotel, but no names. Assuming one or both are staying there, we’re working to neck it down now. Brett’s at the hotel.”

I said, “What is Jacob doing? Why the follow? I’m assuming they aren’t important?”

“Not that we can see. I mean, they have no overt personal security, and appeared to be skulking around like secret lovers—which they might be. The man showed up after the woman, and they met inside. Also, like I said before, they bought their tickets from different locations. It was coordinated, but not enough to be what normal tourists would do. Why not meet outside and go in together? Why buy tickets from different places? It doesn’t make any sense.”

“To us. I promise it makes sense to Jacob. So what do we have on the woman?”

“Making some assumptions—the biggest one being she’s staying in that hotel—we came up with four possible names.”

Knuckles interjected, saying, “I told Retro to focus on single American women. I know that may be way off, but it’s a start. Out of that four, Brett’s checking with the hotel to see if we can get it down to one.”

“With what?”

Knuckles sheepishly looked at Retro, then Jennifer. “Ahh . . . boob size.”

Stupidly, I said, “What?”

Jennifer rolled her eyes and said, “Tell me the world’s foremost counterterrorism team isn’t really tracking someone by the size of their breasts.”

Knuckles held up his hands and said, “It was Shoshana’s idea. She watched the tapes. And she’s right. The chick has really big tits. I’m not kidding. Retro, pull up that one—”

Jennifer cut him off, saying, “I don’t need to see it. Shoshana?”

Shoshana was grinning, leaning forward with her hands under her chin, elbows on knees, thoroughly enjoying the conversation. Aaron seemed a little amused himself.

She said, “Jennifer, have you seen a female concierge here?”

“No.”

“And what happened at your hotel? When you checked in?”

I saw where she was going, because I’d witnessed the jerk’s actions at the concierge desk. I said, “He burned a hole in her ass.”

Shoshana nodded, breaking into a smile. “Very good, little Jedi. Same thing happened to me.”

I said, “It’s ‘young Jedi,’ if you’re going to use an American reference.”

She ignored me and said, “Jennifer, did you look at the picture?”

Jennifer shook her head with disdain. “No. I don’t need to see another woman’s breasts.”

“Hey, me either. At least that’s what I tell Aaron. Take a look. No way will any concierge miss them. Trust me. This is the quickest way.”

Everyone was grinning at that point, really enjoying the subject matter. Knuckles pulled up the picture in question, one where she was leaning over to offer her ticket, her scarf falling away, and I’ll be damned if Shoshana wasn’t right. She looked like she was schlepping around a couple of volleyballs, and she wasn’t afraid of showing them off.