Chapter 10 #3
“Okay, Mr. Bond.” Lena teasingly used her best English accent. “Are you finally going to tell me where it is you plan to take me?”
“I will in just a moment.” He tapped the screen on his dash. “And your accent leaves much to be desired.”
Her chuckle came softly as his cell automatically connected to the car’s hands-free system. Rafe tapped Derek West’s name, and two rings later, the former SEAL answered.
“I was beginning to wonder if you changed your mind,” West drawled.
Rafe fired up the engine and shifted into drive. “Lena and I are in the car.”
“You’re headed south, right?”
“We will be once we reach the highway,” the man beside her confirmed. “Though I still don’t know where you’re sending us from here.”
Lena shot Rafe a look. “You don’t know where we’re going?”
“I believe Derek is about to fill us in on that part of the plan.” He winked.
And why did she find the playful gesture so damn sexy?
Focus.
“Owens and I didn’t have a lot of time to talk when I called him earlier,” West chimed back in. “So I told him to call me back from the road.”
“I knew to go south,” Rafe explained. “But that’s all.”
“What’s south?” Lena spoke to the man they couldn’t see.
“Sunset, South Carolina. There’s a cabin tucked away between Sunset and the Jocassee Gorges Wilderness Area, which is next to Jocassee Lake.”
Okaaaay . . .
“And what’s in this cabin?”
Rafe adjusted his grip on the leather steering wheel. “West tracked down Pascal and your old boss,” he answered first.
“Damien and Roger?” Lena’s chest grew tight.
It was Derek who answered.
“When my system alerted me,” he began, “I ran a deep dive into the address. When it didn’t produce any known connection to either man, I decided to follow a hunch.”
“What kind of hunch?” She listened closely.
“You ever hear of SafeHS?”
Lena looked at Rafe with a nod. “It’s an encrypted app designed exclusively for certain members of federal law enforcement.
Basically, when federal crime is committed, its location is automatically entered into the system.
The address is then assigned a numerical link, with its last four digits signifying the date it was uploaded. ”
“Now tell him the coolest part,” West’s Texas drawl returned.
Her lips twitched because he was right. It was pretty cool.
“The CIA purposely implanted a couple hundred dummy addresses into the system that are actually federal government safe houses,” Lena explained.
“The links to each of those locations all end in some combination of those same four digits. Those links are then given special coded instructions. These prevent any current or future links from being assigned any possible combinations of those same four digits.”
“Makes sense.” Rafe brought the car to a stop when they reached the far edge of the trees. “That way someone like you can easily spot the safe houses within the CIA’s network among the others.”
He looked both ways to ensure no other cars were in sight before pulling them into the otherwise abandoned highway’s southbound lane.
“That was the thought behind it.” Derek concurred. “Any CIA officer with the proper clearance can run a search of those four specific digits, and the app provides a list of every Agency black site in the system. They either show a status of ‘released’ or ‘in-use’.”
“Let me guess.” Rafe looked to her. “If it’s been released, that particular location was available for agents to use?”
Lena nodded. “It makes sense that Damien would use a place like that.” A flood of relief had her falling back against the seat’s smooth leather. “Roger must have used the app to track him down, and they’ve been holed up together in the woods ever since.”
What Derek revealed next all but confirmed it.
“That would explain why the two phones I pinged there went dark shortly after the signals were activated.”
The revelation gave her pause. “They both stopped using their phones the same day?”
“At the exact same time.” West was more specific.
Lena’s wide eyes shot to Rafe’s. “We have to go there.”
“I know.” His deep voice was calm. “Why do you think we’re headed south?”
South. Right.
Her eyes fell shut as she filled her lungs with a cleansing breath. She listened as the conversation between the two men continued.
“Y’all need backup?” West asked next. “I can grab a couple of my guys and be in the air within the hour.”
“If we do, my team will only be a couple of hours away. But I appreciate the offer.”
“No problem. Sending you the cabin’s address now. You’ve got my number if anything changes.”
“Thanks, Derek. I’ll be in touch.”
“Good luck.”
Rafe tapped the screen and ended the call. His phone dinged with the incoming text. With his left hand expertly maneuvering the wheel, he used his right to enter the address into the car’s navigation system.
The next few miles passed in silence as they each became lost in their own thoughts. When the quiet finally broke, it was Rafe who spoke with his rumbling timbre.
“We’ll find your friends,” he promised.
Lena abandoned the blurred scenery and turned her head his way. “I know.” The corners of her lips curved.
She prayed like hell they weren’t already too late.