The Insider Threat

Two, the minibar had been cleaned out, empty of all liquor and candy bars. It was something a juvenile would do if he were vacating early.

The Lost Boys still had another two days on their reservation, and the credit card used was valid, so put together, it told me they had moved somewhere else. The fact that their passport trail ended here, along with the two extra days on the hotel reservation, caused a disconcerting feeling, reminding me of a last covered and concealed location before an assault: a last clean staging area before going underground, and quite possibly the final spot before an attack. I prayed that wasn’t the case.

The third thing they found was a ticket stub for the Doge’s Palace museum with Jacob Driscoll’s name on the tag. It was a really weak link, and may have been nothing more than a way for Jacob to waste some time, but it was all we had. I’d directed Retro to get with the Taskforce and hack into the surveillance cameras while Je

Exiting into Piazza San Marco, Je

She took my arm and said, “Hey, you made the right call. No matter what happens. We can’t always be the ones on the X. We do what we can, and in this case, we did right.”

I said, “Tell that to whoever feels the wrath of the Lost Boys. I’ll be willing to bet they’d disagree.”

“Shoshana wouldn’t.”

I turned to her and said, “You sure? Because I’m afraid to ask that question.”

She said nothing, knowing, like I did, that while Shoshana was certainly happy to be alive, she would never want to be the reason for a terrorist strike succeeding.

I’d made my decision, and could do nothing to alter the past. All I could do was my best to prevent a specific future. The one the Lost Boys had pla

74

We wound our way through the alleys, reaching the small bed-and-breakfast we’d rented for our op center, situated right on a canal full of gondolas. Like that was anything fancy. Having a canal location in Venice was about as special as a Motel 6 next to a McDonald’s in the States.

We’d rented rooms in several different hotels to disperse our footprint, and we’d decided on this one for a TOC due to its central location. That and the fact that it had a room that was bigger than a pizza box.

I entered and found Retro banging away on a keyboard, Knuckles behind him on a phone saying, “We need a name. Can’t you guys figure that out?”

Aaron and Shoshana were off to a side, sitting patiently. Brett was nowhere to be found.

I closed the door and waited for Knuckles to hang up the phone. He did, looking at me with a question. I said, “Nothing. Not sure what I expected to find, but it’s just a damn museum. No signs saying ‘Secret Islamic State Mission’ or anything like that.”

He nodded and said, “Well, we’ve got something. It’s a thread, but we can’t find the end to pull it.”

“What?”

Retro leaned back and said, “Take a look. Taskforce ran all the surveillance footage on the date stamp of the ticket through a facial recognition suite. They found the Lost Boy called Jacob.”

Je

I said, “And? You’ve got his entire visit?”

“Yeah.”

“So where’s the secret dead drop? What was he doing there?”

“Nothing at the museum. That wasn’t his focus. He was following someone.”

“Who?”

Retro manipulated the screen, flipping through a dozen camera feeds until he found the recording he wanted. He hit play and a man and woman walked across the marble floor, arm in arm, jerking in grainy black and white. “These two. No idea why, but he sticks with them the entire time. At first we thought it might just be a coincidence—you know, one tourist following the path of another—but he took pictures. He used his camera probably fifteen times, and not once did he take a picture of something artsy-fartsy or old in a room. Every time, he took it of those two.”

I leaned in closer to the screen, as if that would help me ascertain what was going on. Je

Knuckles said, “Don’t know. We got nothing on the man. He’s a dead end. He bought his ticket from the booth out front and showed no ID. The girl we have a slim lead on. She presented a ticket purchased from a package tourism site in a hotel, printed out from a computer. We have the hotel, but no names. Assuming one or both are staying there, we’re working to neck it down now. Brett’s at the hotel.”

I said, “What is Jacob doing? Why the follow? I’m assuming they aren’t important?”

“Not that we can see. I mean, they have no overt personal security, and appeared to be skulking around like secret lovers—which they might be. The man showed up after the woman, and they met inside. Also, like I said before, they bought their tickets from different locations. It was coordinated, but not enough to be what normal tourists would do. Why not meet outside and go in together? Why buy tickets from different places? It doesn’t make any sense.”

“To us. I promise it makes sense to Jacob. So what do we have on the woman?”

“Making some assumptions—the biggest one being she’s staying in that hotel—we came up with four possible names.”

Knuckles interjected, saying, “I told Retro to focus on single American women. I know that may be way off, but it’s a start. Out of that four, Brett’s checking with the hotel to see if we can get it down to one.”

“With what?”

Knuckles sheepishly looked at Retro, then Je

Stupidly, I said, “What?”

Je

Knuckles held up his hands and said, “It was Shoshana’s idea. She watched the tapes. And she’s right. The chick has really big tits. I’m not kidding. Retro, pull up that one—”

Je

Shoshana was gri

She said, “Je

“No.”

“And what happened at your hotel? When you checked in?”

I saw where she was going, because I’d witnessed the jerk’s actions at the concierge desk. I said, “He burned a hole in her ass.”

Shoshana nodded, breaking into a smile. “Very good, little Jedi. Same thing happened to me.”

I said, “It’s ‘young Jedi,’ if you’re going to use an American reference.”

She ignored me and said, “Je

Je

“Hey, me either. At least that’s what I tell Aaron. Take a look. No way will any concierge miss them. Trust me. This is the quickest way.”

Everyone was gri