Chapter 51
I grew tired of walking and pointed at an indoor-outdoor café called Las Petunias, saying, “Can we just pick one? I’m starving.”
Our hotel was located in a multicultural area of Buenos Aires called Palermo, comprised of blocks and blocks of shopping and
quaint eateries. I’d let the team go grab an early lunch while I conducted a live SITREP with Wolffe, and now it was my turn
to eat. Of course, I didn’t want to eat alone, so I’d forced Jennifer to wait with me while I talked with Wolffe.
Jennifer went to the hostess stand, then returned, saying, “Inside or out?”
I pointed at a table in the rear of the outdoor patio, against the wall and said, “Outside, so we can talk.”
While it was winter here and the weather was brisk, it was not unduly cold, so sitting outside didn’t appear that strange.
Jennifer looked torn, but followed the hostess to the table I’d pointed out, and we took a seat next to a heater mounted on
the brick wall.
The hostess said, “I’ll turn that on if you get too cold.”
I thanked her, took the menu, and waited on her to walk away before saying, “Did you want to go inside?”
Jennifer shook her head, saying, “My jacket’s warm enough, and I want to hear what Wolffe said.”
The waitress arrived and we both ordered.
Once she was out of earshot I said, “Not a whole lot to help us here, but there are snippets. The female who rented the room is one of the Hezbollah folks that Aaron and Shoshana were tracking in Iguazú, so we were definitely on the right track. The male is an unknown, but since his passport was Brazilian as well, we can assume they were working together.”
“What about the videos? Did they get anything from those?”
We’d collated every video we could find of the failed police raid—and there were a lot on social media from locals—sending
them all to the Taskforce intel cell to see if they could glean anything from them, but so far there was little of value.
“They got the van, and facial recognition of the guy and gal who rented the hotel rooms loading up, but they couldn’t see
the driver and there was no Ghost. He was probably either at the restaurant where we saw him or coming home when he called
to warn them.”
“But the van’s license plate should help, right?”
“Yeah, if it ever appears again. It’s like the rental car we found through the credit card use. We have the description and
a license, but that doesn’t do any good unless the police down here are looking for it, and I’m not sure they are.”
“What about that other credit card?”
I looked at her a little sharply, because I hadn’t mentioned another card, but I’d talked about it with Wolffe. I said, “What,
were you eavesdropping?”
She squinted her eyes slightly at me, giving me her disapproving teacher glare, and said, “No. I just came back into the suite
before you were done. I hung back in the little living room instead of barging into the bedroom and interrupting. I heard
you saying it was important, and Wolffe saying it wasn’t. Forget about my eavesdropping, are you trying to hide something
from the team?”
I wasn’t technically hiding anything, but I didn’t want to broach the subject to the team in Argentina, because Wolffe had
denied my request and I wanted them focused on the problem set here.
I sighed and said, “You remember that credit card and bank account we found from the dead guy in Iguazú? The guy that Knuckles
killed?”
“Yeah. It hadn’t been used and was a dead end. The assessment was it was a set of clean cards for him to leverage for exfiltration off the continent.”
I toyed with the condensation my water had made on the table, saying, “Yeah, I still believe that, but another card tied to
that same bank account was used yesterday in the United States.”
I looked up at her and said, “Someone rented a vehicle with it in Tucson, then withdrew a bunch of money at ATMs all over
the city. I think that someone is part of this, and whatever is being planned down here isn’t the only attack coming. I was
trying to get Wolffe to see that, but I was shot down.”
“How did they figure this out?”
“I don’t know. Creed had some black magic set up. He had a trigger on the bank account use. I don’t know how, but it set off
an alarm when a credit card tied to that account was used. Whoever has those cards is most definitely tied into that guy that
Knuckles killed. Which means it’s tied into the Iran Quds Force.”
“And Wolffe didn’t think that was a five-alarm fire?”
“No, no, he does. He just didn’t want me worrying about it, telling me to focus on the Ghost. He thinks they can solve it
with conventional assets like the FBI, now that they know it’s out there.”
“And you don’t?”
“Not really. I told him I wanted to launch Knuckles home with either Brett or Veep to start the hunt, but he said it was just
smoke at this point, and they had no indication of any type of attack planning on US soil, and for us to remain focused down
here.”
“Well, if they have the rental car, he’s probably correct. They’ll roll that guy up with a traffic stop.”
I said, “I don’t think so. These guys are really good. We’ve already contacted the rental car agency to get a fix with their
GPS so we could snag him, but he disabled it. He’s in the wind.”
She took that in, then said, “But we have everything else, right? License plate, rental agreement, all that?”
“Yep. Just like we do here. Meaning we’ve got nothing.”
My phone dinged with a special tone and I picked it up, seeing a message from the Taskforce. I read it, then said, “Tell the
waitress we need that food to go.”
“Why?”
“Creed’s got something he wants to talk about right now.”