get their own eyes on the command server location.
They rented a nondescript Toyota four-door and drove it to Miami Beach, where they found a cheap one- and-a-half-star motel. Dominic rented two rooms for two nights and paid cash for them while Ryan waited in the car. They found their adjoining rooms, tossed their overnight bags onto their beds, and headed back out to the Toyota in the parking lot. Within thirty minutes of checking in they were walking down Collins Avenue on foot, making their way through the throngs of beachgoers and weekend tourists. They headed two blocks over to Ocean Drive and sat down at the first bar they saw, which, like most nightspots on a Friday night in Miami, had an impressive amount of beautiful women.
When each man had drained a mojito and ordered a second, they talked about their plan for the weekend.
“First thing in the morning we head down to Coral Gables,” Dom said.
“A daylight drive-by?” asked Jack.
“Sure. Just a soft recon. We’re not going to get away with much else on this trip. You saw the street on Google Maps, there’s not going to be an opportunity to disappear around there, so we’ll have to stay mobile, either on foot or in the car.”
“Sure you don’t want to go by there right now?”
Dominic looked around the bar at the beautiful women. “Cuz,
Ryan laughed. “I’m still single. I’m just not looking at the moment.”
“Right. I see how you melt when she calls. Hell, dude, your voice goes up half an octave when you talk to her.”
Jack groaned. “No. Please tell me it doesn’t.”
“Sorry. She’s got you whipped.”
Jack was still reacting to the possibility that guys in the office could tell when he was talking to Melanie on the phone. But he sighed, then said, “I got lucky with this one.”
“It’s not luck. You’re a good guy. You deserve her.”
They sat in silence for a few minutes while they sipped their drinks. Ryan was bored; he checked his phone for any texts from Melanie, while Dom eyed a Colombian beauty at the bar. She smiled back, but a few seconds later her boyfriend appeared, kissed her, and sat down at the bar stool next to her. He looked like a linebacker for the Dolphins. Caruso shook his head with a chuckle, then finished his mojito with a slurp.
“Fuck it, cuz. Let’s go check out the command server.”
Ryan had a pair of twenties out of his wallet a second later. He tossed them on the table and they headed back to get their rental.
It was almost midnight by the time they found the address.
They drove past the building slowly, both men eyeing the parking lot and the entrance. The sign said BriteWeb was a data-hosting company for individuals as well as small businesses. There were a few lights on inside the two-story building, and a few cars in the small lot.
They turned the corner and looked into a small, lighted breezeway that went through the middle of the building.
Instantly Jack felt the hair stand up on the back of his neck.
Dominic just whistled. He said, “Those don’t look like computer nerds.”
Two young men stood by the door in the breezeway, smoking cigarettes. Both men wore tight-fitting T-shirts and khaki cargo pants; they were well over six feet tall and muscular. They had dirty-blond hair, square jaws, and wide, Slavic noses.
“Did those guys look Russian to you?”
“Yeah,” said Jack. “But I doubt either one of those guys is Dmitri Oransky, the owner of the place. They looked like security.”
Dom said, “Might be Russian mob. They are all over South Florida.”
“Whoever they are, they are going to see us if we keep rolling by here at this time of night. Let’s come back in the a.m.”
“Good call.”
“How ’bout we both pick up two new vehicles, just to make sure we don’t get compromised? Different makes and models. This is South Florida, so we’ll have tinted glass, which will help. With two cars it will double our time on target without raising any red flags with the goons watching the street. We need to get pictures of everyone coming and going.”
“Roger that.”
Nine thousand miles away, in a fourteen-story building in Guangzhou, a twenty-three-year-old woman leaned forward to check an image on her monitor. Five seconds later she tapped a button on her keyboard, and she heard a short, low beep in her headset.
She sat quietly, watching the real-time image from Miami while she waited for Center to accept her videoconference. She had seen Center walking by a few minutes earlier, so he might well have been in the conference room and not in his office. If so, he would take the call on his VOIP headset instead of on the videoconference feature on his computer. Even though he might have been here in the room, she did not call out to him. If everyone did that the room would sound like the trading floor of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange.
The image of Dr. Tong appeared on her computer monitor next to the image in Coral Gables.
He looked up from his desk. “Center.”
“Center, desk thirty-four.”
“Yes?”
“Target Hendley Associates, Maryland, United States. Personality Jack Ryan, Junior, and personality Dominic Caruso.”
“Have they arrived in Florida?”
“Affirmative. They are conducting surveillance on the command server at the location there. I have them in real time in a rented vehicle just a block from the BriteWeb location.”
“Alert local assets. Notify them that an unknown force has compromised the command server. Give them their hotel information, vehicle identification, and descriptions. Do not reveal identities of personalities to local assets. Instruct local assets to terminate the targets. We have allowed this to continue long enough.”
“Understood.”
“Then tell Data Logistics to divert data flow from the Miami command server. That operation is closed as of now. With the death of Jack Ryan, Junior, there will be close scrutiny of the incident, and we must not leave any trackbacks to the Ghost Ship.”
“Yes, Center.”
“Data Logistics can route through the Detroit command server until they can find a permanent solution.”
“Yes, Center.”
The twenty-three-year-old controller disconnected the call and then opened the Cryptogram application on one of her monitors. In seconds she was patched through to a computer in Kendall, Florida. It was owned by a thirty-five-year-old Russian national living in the U.S. on an expired student visa.
Twelve minutes and thirty seconds after Center spoke to his desk officer, a cell phone rang in the pocket of a Russian U.S. citizen at a nightclub in Hollywood Beach, Florida.
“Yuri, it’s Dmitri.”
“Yes, sir?”
“We have a situation. Are the boys with you?”
“Yes.”
“Grab a pen and write down this address. You guys get to have some serious fun tonight.”
Jack and Dom made it back to the fleabag motel and drank a beer together on the tiny back patio adjacent to Ryan’s room. At about one-thirty they finished their beers, and Dom started to head to his room but decided he’d go
