7
BYI Dallas, TX
BOBBY JUMPED FOR the other phone when it rang and clenched and unclenched his fists as Steve answered. He held a hand over the receiver. “It’s him,” he mouthed.
He punched a button and put Roger on speaker. “Go for Bobby.”
Roger’s voice seemed overly joyous as he spoke. “Hey, I just wanted to touch base and let you guys know I’m liable to be a bit late checking in. I stopped in Oklahoma City to see an old friend and…well, I think I’m going to take a personal day.” The group could hear a female voice in the background and they turned to give Bobby a questioning stare. Bridger simply shrugged.
“Agent Wallace, any chance you could transmit the data on the case we discussed prior to your checking in?” Steve asked, trying to keep the conversation vague in the event of prying ears.
“Oh, yeah. Of course.” They heard the phone muffle and Roger spoke to someone.
As he uncovered the phone; the same female voice could be heard again. “Sure, take your time. I’m going to freshen up.”
A moment later Roger returned to the line and he spoke hurriedly in hushed tones. “Dammit. I ran into her as I was leaving. I think she expects me to sleep with her.”
The men of the group stifled snorts and Bobby leaned closer to the phone to speak. “I appreciate you taking one for the team, Roger. But we need whatever you could find.”
“Oh, I found quite a bit. You’re definitely not going to like it. Give me a minute. I’ll have to send it via my phone—”
“Negative!” Gregg yelled. “Belay that. Find a secure connection and transmit.”
“I’m sort of in a bind here fellas. We stopped for coffee across from a hotel and she’s wanting us to rent a room for the night. For. The. Night!”
“I have no doubt you can handle her, Agent Wallace,” Jay stated flatly. “You are a trained FBI agent, are you not?”
“Yeah, well so is she.” Roger lowered his voice and sighed into the phone. “What other options are there? It’s not like I can rig up a secure line.”
Bobby held his hand up to get the others’ attention. “Will it make a difference if they realize we’re on to them?”
Jay scratched at his goatee in thought then shook his head. “Worst case scenario is they speed up their timeline.” He gave Bobby a concerned stare. “We may not be able to stop whatever bombing they have planned.”
“It’s not a bombing,” Roger interjected. “Most of it is encrypted but I can still make out some of the documents. You need this info pronto.”
Jay sighed and turned to Bobby. “Up to you, man. This is your life we’re playing with.”
Bobby groaned and nodded. “Send it.”
“Roger, I’m sending you a text for one of our satellite phones. We can scramble its location to prying eyes, but we can’t scramble the data.”
“Understood.” A moment later Roger replied, “Got it. I’ll transmit immediately.”
Gregg entered a code into his satellite phone and connected his computer to the mini USB built into the bottom. “Receiving. I’ll get this printed out immediately.”
“Shit, she’s coming back. I gotta go.” Roger lowered his voice and with added malice declared, “You owe me BIG, Bobby Bridger.”
“Copy that.”
“THIS ISN’T GOOD.” Gregg stared at the computer screen, his face scrunched.
Bobby edged in closer to Gregg and earned a dirty look. “What is it?”
Gregg pushed in closer and pointed to the screen. “They have a whole case against you and whatever it is that is supposed to happen, hasn’t happened yet.” He clicked between documents and enlarged them. “Even though most of this is encrypted, the stuff I can open has been backdated to look like they were watching you for months.”
He punched up one of the older surveillance documents and enlarged it. Typing commands into his computer, another screen popped open and Gregg browsed the metadata. “Bob, this was generated days ago, but they’ve got date stamps that go back almost seven months.”
Jay stepped in and nodded to Gregg. “Hard copy all of it. Put an electronic copy on our server.”
“On it. But know that this encrypted shit will take a while.” Gregg turned back to the computer and Jay pulled Bobby away from the workstation.
“We need to figure out their target.” His voice was low and serious.
“No shit, but how do we do that?” Bobby paced just outside the desks. “And why the hell did they pick me?”
Jay shrugged. “Any number of reasons. Your skill set, your history with them, the fact that you’re so paranoid now…it probably all plays into the bad guy they need to sell to the public.”
Bobby turned on him. “You think I’m the only one? There are dozens…maybe hundreds of ex-operators that fit that description.”
Deric raised his voice to be heard. “I bet I know.” He stood and approached the pair. “You were working for the Bureau, right? What exactly were you doing?”
Bobby shook his head. “Just gathering intel on these wannabes. They get in these chatrooms and Roger said they couldn’t track them with the programs they have. They had agents infiltrate but most were either sniffed out or turned sympathetic.”
“But you were taking an active role?” Deric asked. “Playing along with them, getting them to open up, that sort of thing?”
“Yeah. But it was nothing anybody else hadn’t done before.”
Deric smirked at Jay who slumped his shoulders. “Somehow it caused you to pop up on their watch list. They chose to smack the nail that stuck up the highest and this time it just happened to be you.”
Bobby threw his hands up in disgust. “Great. Try to do the right thing and it bites me in the ass.”
“We still need to discover the targets.” Jay scratched at his goatee as he thought. “What’s their end game?”
Bobby stepped to the nearest desk and sat down, his head in his hands. “It could be anything. A church, a school…hell, it could be something really bad–like poisoning
