Chapter 53
Jennifer and I made it back into our suite in record time, speedwalking down the alleys like we were about to miss our bus,
my hunger now forgotten. I saw Veep behind the laptop and said, “What’s up?”
“Creed’s got some kind of traction here. He hasn’t told me because he just got called away. He’ll be back in a second.”
He stood up and I took his seat, saying, “Get the team ready. Kit up, low-vis only.”
He nodded and started to leave when I stopped him and said, “Don’t forget Aaron and Shoshana. This might be nothing, but if
it’s something, I want to roll with the entire force.”
He left the room and I sat behind the computer, waiting. Eventually, Creed appeared on the screen, looking winded.
He said, “We got more on that unsub in Tucson. I accessed the databases of every local police department that feeds into an
ALPR database—you wouldn’t believe how many there are—and I got a hit.”
Confused, I said, “What’s an ALPR?”
“Automated license plate reader. Big Brother is out there collecting all the time. All I had to do was type in the rental
agency license plate, and bing, it appeared like magic, all the way across the United States. Well, almost all the way. The
car left Tucson and I tracked it to Nashville. From there, it disappeared again.”
“So this is about the unknown guy in the United States? Why are you telling me? Can you do that here, to locate the van?”
Creed was a little ADHD when it came to focusing on something, and in this case, he was excited about the next shiny object, but I didn’t see the connection to my problem set.
He seemed to just now realize who he was talking to and did a little head shake, like he was reordering his brain cells. He
said, “Sorry, no. That’s why I was called away just now, but not why I called. Buenos Aires might use ALPRs but I don’t have
any way to access that data.”
Growing irritated, I said, “Okay, then, why?”
“I did a deep dive on that van that was in the video. It’s a Mercedes Sprinter van, and I tracked the license plate to a VIN.
It was built there in Argentina, and it has fleet capabilities with Mercedes PRO installed, something similar to OnStar.”
“So you can find it right now? Give me a GPS location?”
“No, I can’t. While it has the hardware installed, it wasn’t activated because it’s not a fleet vehicle. Somebody has to pay
for the service, and whoever bought that van isn’t doing so, but it has the hardware on board for future service if a new
owner wants to do it.”
“So how does that help us?”
“Well, I think I can turn it on with an over-the-air command, getting it to talk to a tower.”
Growing more irritated by the second, I said, “So you can locate it?”
“Not like Mercedes PRO. I can’t get the GPS running and all that. All I can do is get it to talk to the cell network, but
depending on where it’s located, that could get you within a city block—especially if it’s in a dense cellular network.”
That was better than nothing. I said, “Well, what are you waiting for? Why don’t you already have the city block for me to
search?”
“Two things: one, the van has to be running, which means someone has to be behind the wheel, and two, when I do this there’s
a fifty-fifty shot that something will pop up on the infotainment screen. Some warning about it being turned on. May not matter
at all, but if they’re paranoid and they know what they’re looking at, they’ll know someone’s screwing with their van.”
Hmmmm . . . I could see now why he waited for me to pull the trigger.
“You can’t do it with the vehicle off? You’re sure?”
“Yeah. It’s got to have power running to the unit. I mean, the engine doesn’t have to be running, but the ignition at least
must be turned on.”
Risks versus reward. This was a tough one, because even if we were successful, we’d only get a general location, the size
of a city block. If we could get an actual, real time GPS grid down to the meter, the decision would be a lot easier, as even
if they suspected something, I’d be converging faster than they could react. A city block didn’t really give us much to work
with, as I’d be searching the area while they were reacting, using sight alone.
Jennifer said, “Once it’s talking, it’s like any other cell phone, correct?”
“Essentially, yeah.”
“So if you gave us the city block, couldn’t we use Growlers to locate it?”
I thought, Well, of course we could. Why didn’t I think of that? Actually, since it was right in Creed’s wheelhouse, he should have thought of it before he even turned on his laptop. The
Growler was a small piece of kit that acted like a cell tower, tricking phones into connecting to it as the “strongest” signal
and thereby trapping the handset and allowing us to refine its location. It would suck in every phone in the area for a split
second, then kick all of them out back to the real cellular infrastructure, only stopping when it hit the one it was looking
for. It was a disturbance in the cellular force, as it were, and would cause some dropped calls, but it was effective.
I said, “That would work, wouldn’t it?”
Creed looked a little embarrassed. He said, “Well, yes, it would. I was going to mention it, but you have to be pretty close
for that to work. The Growler is a dismounted tracking device. It won’t work citywide.”
Jennifer said, “What about the Rock Star Bird? It’s got one built in, and we could range a lot more than a city block.”
I shut that down right away, saying, “We can’t get air clearance to have the Rock Star Bird punching holes in the sky above
Buenos Aires for half a day. We’d have to lay that groundwork beforehand about a maintenance flight or something.”
I returned to the screen and said, “But a ground-based system will be able to lock on within a city block, right?”
“Yes, it will. Do you want me to do it?”
I thought about the risks and rewards. We only had another twenty-four hours until the Israeli prime minister and the secretary
of state arrived, so I was pretty much out of options, short of hoping to spot the van on our dinner run tonight. I looked
at Jennifer and said, “What do you think?”
She said, “I think it’s worth it. It’s a fifty-fifty chance that it’ll even alert in the vehicle, and we don’t even know if
they’ll notice.”
I turned back around and said, “Go ahead and do it. We’re standing by. Get George Wolffe in there while you’re working. I
need to talk to him.”
He left the screen and I said to Jennifer, “Give the team a warning order. Search teams will be you with Aaron and me with
Shoshana. They know everyone who went to the mosque in Brazil on sight, and can confirm the target. Knuckles is in charge
of the assault element, same as he was at the hotel. I want him ready to roll as soon as I call, either to the van or to whatever
we find when we get to the van.”
She left the room in a hurry, and I heard someone speak from the computer. I saw Wolffe on camera and said, “We’re going to
try something tricky here. I just wanted you to be aware.”
I gave him a rundown of everything we’d just discussed and when I was done, he nodded and said, “Sounds like a solid plan.
Let me know what you find.”
Which is why I loved him. Anybody else would have wanted to put a beacon up my ass and a UAV overhead before beginning to
execute, but he acted like I’d just described my plan for making dinner and was just going to wait to eat when it was ready.
I said, “Thanks, sir, but there’s something else.”
I saw him exhale and he said, “There always is with you. What is it, you might have to blow up a police station to get to
them?”
“No, no, not here. I was just talking to Creed about that other spike. The one in the United States. He tells me he tracked
the vehicle to Nashville, but then it disappeared again.”
“Yes, that’s correct, but we have people on it.”
“Sir, you know that means one of two things: either there’s no license plate readers east of Nashville, or he’s switched plates.”
“We get that. You aren’t the only smart guy in the room.”
“Sir, if he didn’t switch the plates in Tucson, but did after he got to Nashville, it means he’s learned somewhere along the
way that we’re tracking him. He’s no longer using the credit cards for the same reason. We can’t just sit back and wait for
him to appear, because he’s not going to. Have you looked at the route from Tucson to Nashville? He’s making a beeline to
the East Coast. He’s headed to a target. Maybe New York City, Baltimore, Philadelphia, or Washington, DC.”
“Pike, I get it. The Oversight Council gets it. The National Command Authority gets it. Nobody’s treating this as nothing
to worry about.”
“They may all get it, but none of those people know how to stop it. I do. Let me send Knuckles and Brett and get some expertise on this. It’s what we do.”
“You need the team there. That’s your mission right now.”
“I have Aaron and Shoshana here right now, so I have extra manpower. I can spare some expertise.”
He said, “Pike, there’s no way I’m getting authority for Taskforce operations on US soil. It’s just not going to happen. It’s
strictly forbidden by the charter, and for good reason.”
While the need for Project Prometheus had become apparent after 9/11, when it was originally created there had been a fear
of it turning into some sort of American Gestapo force, since it was already operating outside the bounds of the US Constitution.
The remedy had been simple: by our charter, we were forbidden from operating CONUS.
I said, “Yeah, yeah, I know. But you know we’ve done it before.”
He said, “Those had been extraordinary circumstances. We aren’t there yet. We have the entire intelligence and federal law
enforcement community focused on this right now.”
Which really meant a bunch of feds were paying lip service to it because they were pissed they’d been redirected from whatever
they were doing before—something they probably thought was more important.
I said, “Well, at least let me send Knuckles to give advice and assistance to whoever’s looking. He knows the problem set.”
I heard the door open behind me and saw the team file in. Wolffe said, “Creed’s done. I’m giving him back to you. I’ll think
about what you said, but focus on your own mission down there. We’ll continue to work it up here. Good hunting.”
Creed sat back behind the computer and said, “It worked. I have a location on the van.”