Chapter 26
Chapter 26
“I nteresting.” Ariel nodded. “Now fast-forward through time-lapse and watch what mystery man does. By the time you exit in the Zodiac, only you knew Frank was dead. News had not reached the outside world. Or had it?” The perspective switched from me in the Zodiac back to the megayacht, which had motored south, while the beautiful sailboat had tacked, turned, and now paralleled the island. “Here he is, sitting in the lounge, one leg crossed over the other. Judging from the angle of his arms, he’s reading documents. He’s calm, controlled. Anything but animated. Then his phone rings. He answers, stands up, paces, and his arm movement suggests he grows excited. After thirty-seven seconds, he ends the call, walks to the handrail, and what’s the first thing he does? He slings that very phone like a Frisbee out across the water. But he’s not finished. This man, who again won’t come out from underneath the canopy because he knows some eye in the sky is watching him, can’t get the watch off fast enough and, without a second’s hesitation, ceremoniously pitches it in the water. See that splash? Then, as if he’s made a game-winning three-pointer at the buzzer, he raises his hands in exuberance. In freedom. Frank hasn’t been dead ten minutes and this guy rids all technology that could tether him to his master. But wait, he’s not done. He’s so elated that he walks to the bar, the bartender pours a glass, and then the man raises the glass and downs it.” A pause. “He’s toasting Frank’s death. Good riddance.” Ariel paused for effect.
“At this point, he thinks he’s free of Frank.” Ariel looked at me. “Given what you know of Frank, do you think he’s free?”
I shook my head. “Not a chance. Frank allowed no room for error. Too paranoid.”
Ariel nodded. “That’s our theory as well.”
He looked at me. “Let me ask another theoretical. Do you think it’s possible for Frank to command permanent absolute allegiance in his generals with only video evidence of their crimes?”
“Depends on the graphic nature of the evidence and the amount of it.”
“But would you chance that?”
I shook my head. “No, I would not.”
He returned to the video. “Who would so quickly toast Frank’s demise?”
“You mean other than me?”
Ariel bowed slightly, acknowledging and paying silent respect to what the video did not show—my and Bones’s struggle with Frank in the tunnels. And the fact that Bones had just died.
I tried not to think about it, and Ariel was making logical sense. I continued, “Someone controlled by Frank.”
Camp pointed at the man. “So how did he know? Who called?”
Ariel lasered the monastery. “We think he had someone inside.”
Camp again. “Somebody who worked for Frank?”
I nodded. “Somebody playing both sides. Hedging their bets.”
“Why do you say that?” Camp asked.
“Frank would anticipate this. He would never limit himself to one fail-safe.” The conversation with Ashley replayed in my mind, along with the thought: If Ashley inserted a passive chip into his girls to protect them from bad guys who wished them harm, then why wouldn’t Frank insert one in his henchmen to protect and ensure him against their escape?
Ariel continued, “There is a technology today. A passive chip. Contains no batteries. No need to recharge. It’s invisible to scanners. You’d need an X-ray or CT scan to see it. It’s similar to the chip on your debit or credit card, and it triggers a reaction when swiped. When ‘read.’ The civilian version, made popular in Sweden and now spreading across Europe, is something about the size of a grain of rice. Inserted primarily into the hand. Those who have it claim you can’t feel it. Most commonly it contains personal and financial data, but it can contain whatever you want. Including location.”
Clay spoke to himself but loud enough to be heard. “The mark of the beast.”
“Possibly,” Ariel admitted. “It’s triggered whenever they swipe their hand. What most don’t know is that it can also trigger a ‘reading’ when they’re within a certain distance. Give or take five feet.”
I picked up on his thoughts. “For instance, someone with this grain of rice in their body can drive out of a parking deck with a rental car and get scanned without knowing it.”
Ariel added, “Or a hotel elevator or room requiring a key card.”
Camp chimed in, “Or a gym membership.”
Ariel nodded. “The possibilities are endless.”
Clay was nodding his head. “So if this thing is in you, you can trigger fifteen different scanners just going to the grocery store, gas station, and ATM.”
Ariel nodded. “More advanced military chips trigger multiple reactions—including a phone’s camera. When the camera takes a picture it triggers a signal, or something like a homing beacon, indicating the location of the person scanned by the camera. Some of them even send the picture.”
Camp nodded. “You could unknowingly give away your location and send a picture of yourself at that location—”
I finished his sentence for him. “Every time you take a selfie.” I didn’t voice it, but I wondered if Underwood knew about Ashley’s daughters’ chips.
Ariel continued, “The problem is simple. Each chip contains an encrypted identification number. Hard-coded into the chip. Know the number, track the chip. Don’t know the number, you might as well be spitting into the wind in the middle of a hurricane. The chip doesn’t tell you who’s carrying it. Only that they are.”
Clay again. “So theoretically, you can follow someone anywhere in the world.”
Ariel considered this. “All of our financial, cellular, and social media companies do it now. They keep track of us. Much closer than we think. As long as we’re buying, calling, or posting, they can pinpoint us within a few feet.”
Camp spoke next. “The difference here is these chips trigger any scanner within a certain physical distance, and yet the person carrying the chip has no idea.”
“Exactly,” Ariel said.
I added my two cents based on what I knew of Frank. “This would fit Frank’s MO. He would have had insurance in the event one of his generals thumbed his nose and trashed the watch. Possibly more than one.”
Ariel circled the guy on the screen with his laser. “Which he just did.”
Clay stood there shaking his head. “But he don’t know that Frank, or somebody, can still track him ’cause he don’t know the thing is inside him.”
“ If it’s in him.” Ariel emphasized the word if . “Again, it’s a theory.”
Camp chimed in, the sarcasm thick. “And here I was thinking all of our personal financial data was safe.”
Clay pointed his cane at the guy on the screen. “But if it’s in there, how’d Frank get it in there?”
“Yeah, how do you insert something like that, subcutaneous, without them knowing it?” Camp asked.
Ariel explained, “We’ve been amazed at what otherwise law-abiding doctors will do for a couple million dollars. Not to mention the fact that inserting the chip is harmless to the person.”
“So,” I said, finishing Ariel’s thought, “they can insert the chip and theoretically continue to ‘do no harm.’”