Rogue Commander, Leo Maloney [classic books for 11 year olds TXT] 📗

three minutes to snarf that up.”

“Okay.” Chilly wagged his head. “Then what?”

“Battle stations.”

“Cool!”

They did it in two. Five minutes later, Chilly and Hot Shot were in the aft section of the cabin, hunkered side by side on a black leather sofa. They both wore Bose headsets with boom mikes, and faced a chrome worktable arrayed with identical Alienware laptops, Logitech ball mice, digital stylus pads, Bluetooth toggles, a single-side-band high-power transceiver, and, last but not least, quart-size silver thermos mugs filled with coffee. Clearly they weren’t going anywhere, and if Scott had arranged for diapers, he would have had them wear those too.

Lily had taken a seat across from the boys, with her juice and coffee perched on a pop-up table, where Susan had arrayed a white ceramic bowl of fresh fruit, napkins, and silverware. She’d lost her ear comm in China, but a blinking Bluetooth perched in her auricle, and her cell sat next to her spoon. Scott slowly paced between his paramour and his hyped-up wizards.

“Okay, boys,” he said as he walked. “Priority one is a manhunt. Lily?”

“Russian-affiliated arms merchant and all around bad-boy slime,” Lily said. “Name is Enver Lukacs.” She spelled it out as Chilly and Hot Shot pecked it into their keyboards like a piano duo. “Now on American soil.”

“But we don’t know when, where, or how,” Scott said as he raised a finger. “And most likely not under that name.”

Chilly and Hot Shot both looked up and said, “Oh.”

Scott turned to Lily. “Lily, get Shepard on the line and tell him you need the very best, recent still image he can produce of Lukacs. Probably from your surveillance vids at that club in Seoul.”

She looked up at him and blinked. “How do know about that?”

Scott smiled. “Shepard and I have become close.”

“Good Lord,” she whispered, and she made the call.

“Is that you, Mata Hari?” Shepard said in her ear. He was clearly pleased and relieved.

“The very she,” she said.

“My day’s already made,” said Shepard. “What’s your twenty?”

“Airborne, and let’s just say I’m being thoroughly spoiled.”

“Then you must be with Scott.”

“Jeez.” She rolled her eyes and told him what she wanted. After a minute her cell phone dinged, and Shepard said, “It’s up.”

Without polite preamble, Scott took her cell and handed it to Chilly. She watched his body language, a commanding demeanor she’d never seen before, and she somehow felt both thrilled and terribly off-balance.

“All right,” Scott said to Chilly. “Take that image, enhance it, three-D it, invert it, then go deep net, and get me matches. And we’re not talking Google Images.”

“Hoppin’ on it!” Chilly said with glee.

“He means ‘roger,’ sir,” Hot Shot said to Scott.

“Yeah, that too!” Chilly said as he hammered away.

After a minute Chilly squinted at his Alienware. “Okeydokey, I got five good ones, and he’s a gnarly-lookin’ dude.”

Scott didn’t bother to look at the monitor. Instead, he spoke to his jet. “Aircraft, get me Homeland Security, Washington D.C., Deputy Director Operations.”

The Bombardier’s female voice filled the cabin. “Ringing.” And shortly after that, a woman answered.

“Homeland Security, Deputy DOPS.”

“May I please have Deputy Director Grogan? Tell him it’s Scott Renard.”

“One moment, sir,” she said, and then a deep, gravelly voice came over.

“Scott! I was going to call you today. That software of yours is a great piece of ass.”

Scott laughed. “Careful there, Charlie. You’re on speaker.”

“Oh, oh. Sorry, ma’am, whoever you are.”

Lily looked at the aircraft’s ceiling. “That’s all right. I’m not the software, so I take no offense.”

“Wow,” Chilly whispered. “Boss got some juice!”

“That surprises you?” Hot Shot hissed. “Shut up.”

“Charlie,” Scott said. “I need you to use that software to run someone through your data. Let’s call it a national security issue.”

“Well, you’ve got TS clearance, so no worries there.”

Lily stared at Scott. Top secret clearance? If she’d been standing up she would have put her fists on her hips.

“Okay,” Scott said. “This guy’s a foreign national, probably hit passport control somewhere during the last seventy-two hours. But you might want to bracket that further back.”

“Coastal points of entry? Or central too?”

“No idea,” said Scott.

“Well, that’s about two million crossings or so.” If Lily expected Scott to look crestfallen at that, she was disappointed, especially after Charlie Grogan continued. “Take about five minutes. Send it to the secure portal, and I’ll call you back.”

“Much appreciated,” Scott said and disconnected the call.

Hot Shot raised a finger. “Boss, can I hit the head?”

“Knew I should have ordered diapers for you guys,” Scott said. “Pee fast.” Hot Shot slid out from his seat and hustled to the rear.

“Me too!” Chilly said.

“Take turns,” Scott said. He scrolled through his cell and showed Chilly an IP address with an access code. Chilly made quick work of sending Lukacs over to D.C. Then Hot Shot came back, and Chilly raced to the lav.

Scott took the opportunity to sit down in the seat across from Lily. The way she was looking at him, he almost laughed, but reached out and took her hand instead.

“I’m not sure I should let you touch me,” she pouted disingenuously.

“Well, think it over,” he suggested. “Then we can discuss it in side-by-side hammocks somewhere in the Virgin Islands, sipping tropical drinks.”

“With those little umbrellas in them?” Lily asked.

“With those little umbrellas in them.”

“Touch me.” She grinned and rubbed his fingers.

The wizards were back in their seats when Charles Grogan’s voice popped up in the cabin again.

“Okay, Scott. Day before yesterday at fourteen hundred, your guy hit LAX from Seoul, under the name Werner Siebolt, German national. After that, no record of any domestic flight.”

“Outstanding!” Scott said. “Charlie, you’re best.”

“Always a pleasure,” said Grogan. “Need anything else?”

“Nope, I think we can hack it.”

Grogan laughed. “Pun intended?”

“Plead the fifth.”

“Call me if you need me.” Grogan hung up.

Scott released Lily’s hand and got up again. He paced in front of Chilly and Hot Shot, then stopped, and faced them with his eyes shut.

“All right, boys,” he said as he opened his eyes and shot a finger down at his wizards. “My guess is