Stress wreaked havoc on Sam’s stomach as she prowled the hotel room, spat curses, and thought of vile punishments for the assholes who had dragged Brock into the morass.
But between fantasies of inflicting pain on the suits at the Justice Department and her own supervisors at Homeland, an occasional rational thought broke through. To wit: going home was a terrible idea. It was hard as hell to be a fugitive in America, especially the kind of high-profile fugitive she had become. What could she really hope to accomplish while trying to stay out of custody?
Brock was a big boy, a veteran of several wars, supervisor of a hundred highly capable personnel, and he was more than able to take care of himself. Other than turning herself in, what could she possibly do to help his situation? He would undoubtedly call Digger Donaldson, an old F-16 buddy from Korea who had hung up his G-suit to become a lawyer (and never lived it down). Digger was tenacious and a little bit ruthless, and he would have Brock out of jail in no time.
Which meant she must go home. Because she must see him. It was suddenly the most important thing in the world. Everything else suddenly turned to nothing at all. She had just spent the loneliest week of her life, ostracized and pursued by the society she served, cut off from her best friend and lover. The prospect of burying herself in Brock’s embrace warmed the center of her. It was suddenly a need, like oxygen.
They would figure out what was going on with the Doberman thing together. They would clear her name together. It wouldn’t just be her any longer, trying to stand up under the weight of it all by herself. He would be back in her life, back from whatever godawful cesspool atop an oil deposit he’d been sent to “protect.”
She felt a gentle touch on her shoulder. “I’m sorry,” Hayward said, “but I need to know what the hell to do next. I need your guy to work his magic.”
Sam was instantly embarrassed. At the first mention of Brock’s name, she’d forgotten all about Joao and Katrin Ferdinand-Xavier, about the Doberman group and ChemEspaña and Hayward’s situation altogether. “Shit. Let me call him back,” she said.
Dan immediately thought of the same two possibilities to explain how the Agency had thwarted Hayward’s ploy to discover Katrin and Joao’s location. If CIA had used a radio relay, there would be no way for Dan to help. There were more than enough signal-gathering satellites in orbit to pinpoint even the weakest of radio signals, but Sardinia was one of the sleepiest spots on the planet. Not one of the spy satellites would be pointed anywhere near Cagliari.
But the other possibility was much more promising. Perhaps the Agency goons had bounced the video off a couple of communications satellites. Homeland didn’t monitor that kind of thing, but the NSA sure did, and Dan had a friend inside the big box at Fort Meade.
They discussed their options and formed a plan, which turned out to be remarkably easy and quick to execute. Hayward had taken careful notes on the times he received the video transmissions of Joao and Katrin reciting the odd phrase he’d concocted to trip the NSA’s terrorism filters. Dan’s contact inside the NSA—an affable young genius named Alonzo—located the data on Hayward’s videos with almost no effort. The videos were “hits” on the worldwide computerized anti-terrorism dragnet, which made them hard to miss.
Alonzo compared the transmission length and content with all the satellite signals near Cagliari that the NSA had collected during the timeframe in question. It took less than a minute for Alonzo’s computer to find a match. From there, it was just a matter of following the signal’s route in reverse, which turned out to be even simpler than it sounded.
Neither Sam nor Hayward were surprised by the results. The signal originated in northern Virginia, Alonzo said, home to a few dozen CIA safe houses. The Agency goons had shackled Katrin and Joao and flown them to the Land of the Free, where the CIA could bring all manner of grisly techniques and resources to bear with impunity.
“Piece of cake,” Sam said glumly. “All we have to do now is figure out how the hell to get home without being arrested or murdered.”
Hayward smiled. “Leave that to me.”