Читать книгу Death List - Don Pendleton - Страница 12

5

Bolan climbed back into the Lincoln with a plastic bag in one hand. Pierce pulled away from the curb, checking his mirrors and side-eyeing Bolan. When the big gold boat was moving down the road once more, Pierce finally jerked a thumb at the bag.

“So?” he asked. “What was so important we had to drive to three different electronics stores?”

“This,” Bolan said. He produced a small electronic device from the bag. He also had a battery pack and adapter.

“What is it?”

“Cell phone jammer.”

“Those aren’t legal,” Pierce said. “How’d you buy one over the counter?”

“I didn’t. I dropped enough comments about hating obnoxious cell phone users until I caught somebody’s attention. A guy at the third store sold me this out of the back room.”

“Amazing how common crime is these days,” Pierce said, as if he meant it. Bolan shot him a look and the enforcer grinned.

They drove in silence for a while, circling in wide loops around the neighborhood. They were waiting for Bolan’s phone to vibrate.

The search of Morelli’s car had revealed a GPS unit. Bolan had told Pierce he had certain contacts who might be able to help. Leaving the mobster in the car, he’d gone off to make an encrypted call from his secure phone.

The smartphone was the only device he carried that had not been Vincent Harmon’s and it was carefully password-protected to prevent unauthorized access. Externally, it was indistinguishable from a popular commercial model. It was a vital piece of mission equipment, giving Bolan a direct link to the support team at Stony Man Farm. There were ways for him to contact the Farm through an unsecured channel, such as from a pay phone or even a prepaid burner phone, but they required security protocols and took longer to establish.

Transmitting photos of the GPS unit’s serial number to the Farm was all that had been necessary for Bolan to get what he’d need...eventually. A member of the cyber team at Stony Man, led by Aaron “The Bear” Kurtzman, would trace his or her way through the unit’s network and GPS satellite data to connect the dots. The question Bolan needed an answer to was a simple one: where had Mike Morelli been?

While they’d waited for the trace to come back, and with nothing else useful to do, Bolan had done what he did best: look for a way to stack the deck in his favor. Bolan was an honorable man, but this was war. It was a war against terror. It was a war against crime. It was a war against society’s predators. And in such a war, there was no such thing as a “fair fight.” The Executioner would always take every advantage he could.

Given the lack of intelligence on the Torettos’ stronghold, he’d decided he needed a cell phone jammer. In the old days, before the days of smartphones, a Mob outfit would typically equip its soldiers guarding a hardsite with two-way radios. These days, with everyone toting a phone in their pockets, it was more likely they’d rely on prepaid burner phones for communication. Jamming the cell signals would put the Torettos at a disadvantage unless they had, and were prepared to deploy, radio communications. More importantly, if there were reinforcements available at another location, the jammer would prevent the Torettos from summoning help.

First, though, Bolan needed an address.

As if on psychic cue, Bolan’s phone began to vibrate. He thumbed it, put it to his ear and answered, “Harmon.” That would let Barbara Price, the Farm’s mission controller, know that Bolan was not alone and would be overheard.

“Understood,” Price said

“Do you have an address for me?” Bolan asked.

“We traced all of the repeat locations in the GPS,” Price told him. “Most are strip clubs, bars and so on. One is an address owned by a holding company that belongs to the Toretto crime family, if indirectly. We figure that’s Morelli’s house, given that he stops there almost every night. The only other repeat address is an isolated estate in a wealthy suburb of the city. We can’t get a solid lead on its ownership, but it correlates with some database traffic from the Organized Crime Task Force.” She recited the address. Bolan repeated it a few times silently to himself.