Edric held a finger to his lips, and the group waited while Lyle conducted a ten-minute sweep of the suite, then returned and offered a nod. “It’s clean.”
“Very good,” Edric said, walking to the minibar and pouring himself a glass of brandy. “Go ahead and unpack.”
Lyle was already setting up computers on the table in the middle of the room, arraying laptops around himself and connecting them with wires. Wolfgang recognized some of Lyle’s gadgets from previous missions, but conspicuously missing were Lyle’s big screens, heavy-duty listening and communicating equipment, and boxes of “special purpose” gadgetry.
Wolfgang settled beside Lyle and watched as he input passwords into the computers, instantly converting them from innocent bankers’ laptops into custom-programmed espionage processors.
“Do you use the hotel Wi-Fi?” Wolfgang asked.
Lyle chewed the tip of his tongue. “Any network I link into can be used to track our location, so I piggyback onto cellular networks, which is actually more difficult to pinpoint since the devices are made to be mobile. With a little IP scrambling, we can stay hidden to the casual observer.”
“What about the intentional observer?”
Lyle shrugged. “Best way to hide from a bloodhound is not to wake him up.”
Wolfgang wasn’t exactly sure what that meant, but decided not to press. Lyle needed to focus. Instead, he got up and walked to the window, pushing aside the curtain and staring out at the streets of Moscow. They stretched away as far as he could see into the Russian horizon.
Megan stepped up beside him, a drink in one hand. She pointed directly ahead. “There’s the Kremlin. You can’t see it at night, but it’s just on the other side of those buildings.”
“It’s crazy,” Wolfgang said, “to be this close.”
“Russia isn’t the Soviet Union. A lot has changed. And a lot hasn’t, I guess.” She took a sip of her drink, then turned away, leaving Wolfgang standing alone.
“We’ll sleep in shifts tonight,” Edric said. “Just to be safe. Wolfgang, you’ll take the first—”
“Guys!” Lyle called from the computer, his voice an uncharacteristic shout. “We’ve got a problem.”
Wolfgang and the others rushed back to the table, where Lyle leaned close to his primary computer screen.
“I logged into the secure server, just to check, and there’s an email from the CIA. Sparrow wants to meet . . . right now.”
Edric scanned the screen, and his brow furrowed into a frown.
“What do you mean, right now?” Kevin asked. “The meeting was supposed to be tomorrow morning.”
“Something went wrong,” Edric said. “Sparrow moved up the timeline. Lyle, are there any other messages?”
“That’s the only one. We can reply, but there’s no guarantee anybody will see it before Sparrow’s deadline.”
“Shit,” Edric muttered. He stepped away from the computer and took a sip of his brandy.
The room fell silent as everybody watched the tension play across his face.
“We can’t go,” Kevin said. “If the five of us leave now, we’re certain to attract attention.”
“Not only that,” Megan chimed in, “we don’t have enough intelligence. If the CIA is going to move it up on us like this, they owe us more details. I say we email them back, then wait for a response.”
Edric scratched his cheek, then checked his watch. “No. We can’t afford to wait. If Sparrow is under pressure, that probably means Koslov is under pressure, also. The CIA may not have additional details. The only way to be certain is to talk to Sparrow.”
“It could be a trap,” Wolfgang said. “What if the Russians busted Sparrow and now they’re setting us up?”
“That’s doubtful,” Edric said. “Sparrow would have some kind of coded passkey—a word or an expression used to let the CIA know everything was kosher. Something he wouldn’t have used if he were under duress.”
“What if the Russians flipped him?” Lyle asked.
“If they flipped him, there would be no reason for him to advance the meeting and spook us,” Edric said. “He’d just wait until tomorrow.”
Everyone exchanged looks, then Edric set down his glass. “Wolfgang, you’re coming with me. The rest of you stay put. Lyle, we need some coms.”
Edric moved to his suitcase and stripped out of his business suit, quickly changing into a warmer and more flexible outfit suitable for an evening surfing the Moscow bars.
Wolfgang and Megan moved toward him as Lyle shuffled through his bags to find the communications gear.
“I don’t like this,” Megan said, lowering her voice. “We’re going in blind. We need to wait.”
Edric shook his head. “We can’t afford to wait. If Sparrow is in trouble and we miss him tonight, we may not make contact tomorrow. If that happens, we have zero chance of completing our objective.”
“I realize that, but—”
Edric held up a hand. “I’ve made my call. You, Kevin, and Lyle remain here. Wolfgang will be my backup. Two of us leaving the hotel shouldn’t raise much attention.”
Edric pulled a heavy overcoat around his shoulders, nodded to the onlooking Charlie Team, then turned to Wolfgang. “You ready, Sunshine?”
Wolfgang followed Edric into the blustering Moscow night, walking two blocks before Edric hailed a cab and told the driver in broken Russian to take them to the Red October district. Wolfgang flashed him a curious glance, but Edric waved him off. The cab driver took off, bolting into traffic and yanking them through turns between sips from a water bottle. Wolfgang caught a whiff and guessed that whatever the driver was drinking, it wasn’t water.
Fifteen minutes and two near-death experiences later, the cab slid to a stop, and the driver muttered something in Russian. Edric handed him three one-thousand-ruble banknotes and
