Chapter 15
Harbinger squeezed Ysabel’s hand before releasing it at the juncture of the hallway, where he watched her until she entered the kitchen. He glowered at the camera as he headed into the second bedroom, shutting and locking the door behind him. Ysabel didn’t need to know about the comm room.
Con turned as he walked in. “Sorry, man. Don’t unalive me. But I missed breakfast.”
Harbinger stopped. “Unalive you? What’s that supposed to mean?” Con was a smart techie, but he was also a bit annoying.
“That’s online speak for don’t kill him,” Jewell said from the monitor where the others were called up.
“I wouldn’t mind if you unalived him,” Joseph said quite calmly.
“Joseph.” Archangel sighed.
“Just saying.” Joseph spread out his hands in front of him. “Wouldn’t bother me.”
“I’m not killing anyone right now, but I really want to strangle Ysabel’s father.” Harbinger sat down in the chair in front of the camera. “I don’t trust a thing he said. For the most part, my gut was telling me he was acting. I’m sure he’s a psychopath, and he’s damn good at cloaking it. I wasn’t looking for it before, but I can tell you everything I saw and heard is telling me Pierre doesn’t give a shit about Ysabel. He was pissed the violin was missing.”
“Because the one she uses cost him over one point five million euros,” Jewell said. “There was a big article in a Parisian magazine about him buying it. Nothing about him giving it to his daughter or, for that matter, that he had a daughter, just the fact that he now owned it. It isn’t the rarest out there, but it’s mid to high level. But that isn’t what I keyed in on. The Nutcracker.” Jewell stared at the camera, seeming to age in front of him. “If Nadia has that program, she’ll be able to get the electronic version of the fobs. The nutcracker wasn’t made to break the electronic keychain, just firewalls. That’s why she’d need Pierre to break the passcode for crypto.”
“That program all flows back to Dean Kowalski.” Jacob King tossed his pen down on the desk in front of him and leaned back. “The Kowalskis are a gift that keeps on giving, aren’t they?”
Harbinger leaned forward. “Kowalski, as in the Guardian traitor?”
Archangel nodded. “The perp here is actually his cousin, but yeah, same family.”
“We have the list of names. We can try to find where the crypto is being held …” Con rubbed his forehead. “But what do we do, say, hey, you’re being targeted by the Russian mob, which isn’t true, just the rogue daughter of a Russian oligarch who would kill you and your family rather than look at you?”
“He really does talk just to hear the noise.” Joseph sighed.
Archangel leaned on his elbows. “We don’t know for a fact she has a copy of the program or that she has people who know how to use it. Her intent to access the money isn’t a crime.”
“Actually, stealing it is, and it is actionable. So, when we take her down, we find out if she used the program. If she did, we can leverage that information in an interrogation to get the names of those who gave it to her and who currently have it,” Jared King said from the bottom right-hand corner of the screen. Harbinger had only seen him a couple of times, and that was usually if the criminal he was tracking was involved in crimes in the United States. The man was in charge of Domestic Operations.
“She’s not a US citizen. How are we going to interrogate her?” Con frowned at the screen. Joseph chuckled evilly, and Con’s eyebrows shot up. “Oh. Never mind.”
“With permission from the government of the country where she’ll be arrested. Guardian has agreements in place.” Archangel chuckled. “Nothing as nefarious as Fury would have you believe. So, where are we with a geographic location for the heist?”
“We’re down to three buildings. One really doesn’t fit the needs because it’s small and doesn’t have the power output or comm structure for a supercomputer connection, but it could depend on how many programmers Pierre hires.”
“How many would you need?” Jacob King asked.
“Five,” Con and Jewell said at the same time, laughing.
“So, concentrate on the other areas. Fury, send Jinx to both locations and find out what he can see.”
“Done. Button, send me the locations.” Fury leaned forward as he spoke.
“Rog-O,” Jewell replied.
“I need to get Ysabel out of here,” Harbinger said. She could wait for him in the States.
“I take it you want to remain to wrap this up?” Archangel asked.
“You couldn’t get me out of this op if you held a gun to my head,” Harbinger confirmed.
Archangel sighed and leaned forward. “All right. We need to get Smith and Val home. He’s threatening to check himself out of the hospital, but our doctor is gravely concerned about an infection he’s developed. They caught it quickly, but the doc wants to treat it at the hospital before he’s air-evacuated home. Val will be with him, as will the Guardian doctor. We can take Ysabel out on the same aircraft. I don’t feel comfortable using public transportation with the Corsican Mafia still watching your building. That’s a card that hasn’t been turned over, and we don’t know its purpose. I won’t take chances with one of ours.”
Harbinger blinked and then smiled. “Thank you for that.”
Archangel frowned. “Of course, the second you brought your intentions with Ysabel to Smoke, she became ours.”
“Remind me to kick Smoke, will you?” Fury said.
“Why?” Harbinger asked. “He’s my mentor, and I kept him advised.”
Fury growled, “Because I happen to be your boss, not him. I should throttle the little shit.”
“You’re pretty murderous; you know that, right?” Con flipped the question to Fury.
“And yet you keep forgetting it,” Fury snapped.
“And enough of that. Con, have you made any progress on the documents in the ring?” Archangel stopped the exchange.
“I’m waiting on a delivery. I have almost everything I need, but according to what I’ve read, the magnification needed to be able to read the plate is beyond anything I could get commercially. Jewell was able to order the lens I needed from an optical maker in Barcelona. I’ll be able to take a photo of the documents and feed it into the computer to compile a digitized version. Depending on how much is on the plate, it could take a hot minute to complete.”
“Have you removed it from the stone?” Jared King asked. “From what my forensics team told me, that could damage the plate if not done properly.”
Con nodded. “I was able to order the solution my research on the dark web indicated was the best to loosen the plate from the resin. It will melt the resin but not hurt the laser etching.”
“I confirmed the solution’s adequacy with our contacts,” Jewell added.
“H, are you good with keeping Ysabel at your residence, or do you need to use a safe house?”
“No. She’s safe here.” He wouldn’t let a fucking thing happen to her; that was for sure.
“Then we have our tasks. I want everyone copied on the location where we expect Pierre to work. I want it covered and monitored for activity. Jacob, use one of your teams to provide that security, but they aren’t to be seen.”
“Not a problem,” Jacob acknowledged.
“Let’s get to work. Archangel out.”
Con cleared the screen. He turned to Harbinger and, with the goofiest look on his face, asked, “Do you think lunch is ready?”
He rolled his eyes. “I’ll go see.”