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He studied the dark ripples on the water, his shoe just a few inches away from the edge. “How are we monitoring her?”

“Obviously, we can’t monitor her while she’s in UTOP. But I doubt she’s doing any serious hacking there. She’s not stupid. She knows everything electronic will be filtered. But there has been an interesting development.”

“Which is?”

“She contacted Maria Lando.”

Isaac turned toward Sampson.“What?”

“She made a call yesterday while they were in town on their Saturday break. We weren’t able to tap the call, but when we traced the number from her cell phone, that’s where it went. Her name is Maria Gonzalez now. She’s remarried.”

“How in the world did the girl put that together?”

“I have no idea. She’s smart. Or maybe her father is feeding her info inside UTOP.”

“No. That would be way too risky. He’d never put her in harm’s way like that. Somehow, she’s putting it together herself.”

“Perhaps. But the trail will lead to us.”

Isaac reached down and picked up a flat pebble. He ran his thumb over the cool, smooth surface. “So what? She’s a child. What would she do with it?” But there was one potentially troubling aspect. “Do you know if she’s had any contact with her mentor, Lexi Carmichael?”

“Carmichael? Why does that name sounds familiar?”

“She’s the significant other of the director of IAD. Slash has been sniffing around, and I don’t want him involved in this, even peripherally.”

“No contact with either, as far as we know.”

“Good. Hopefully she’ll wash out and we can put our plan into motion. And if she doesn’t, I have something else in mind to get the Avenger’s attention.”

“Such as?”

“Snatch her. All of the UTOP candidates go into town on Saturday, correct?”

“Correct. We’ve been closely observing her on Saturdays, as requested. She usually calls her mom or sister as soon as she gets into town, but yesterday she called Lando’s wife instead. After talking on the phone, she typically goes to a local bookstore café and works on her laptop. Just so you know, we tried spoofing her to log on to our fake wireless hot spot from the café, but she’s been careful and avoided them. She’s avoiding any hacking, and when she uses the internet, she tunnels out using a secure and encrypted VPN. We haven’t been able to crack it yet.”

“Well, if she were to disappear, Saturday would be the day for it to happen.”

There was a long pause. “Define disappear.”

Now was the time to judge the commitment of the group. He took the rock from between his fingers and skipped it across the water. The stone bounced five times before finally sinking. “That depends on the Avenger. Regardless, this ends soon…one way or the other.”

“Better sooner than later, in my opinion.”

Isaac nodded. “Agreed.”

“How’s the other part of the plan going?”

“Exactly as planned. The terrorists abandoned their plan and disappeared, along with Sinclair’s authenticity.”

“You tipped off the terrorists?”

He could hear the unease in Sampson’s voice, which irritated him. Was he the only one in the entire agency to have long-term vision? “Yes, but by doing so, I actually saved lives. Whatever they were planning, it isn’t going to happen now. Then, once we get our hands on the back door, we’ll take them down our way. No harm, no foul.”

Sampson didn’t say anything, but he reluctantly nodded his head. Isaac took careful note. Sampson was squeamish, and he didn’t like it. That wouldn’t work well with what he had planned for the NSA. At some point Sampson would have to be reassigned or shuffled out.

“I’ve got a meeting with the director tomorrow to argue against moving forward with Sinclair,” he said. “If all goes well, we’ll move on to the next stage. If I run into trouble, we always have the girl to fall back on. Report back to the core that all is proceeding as planned.”

“I will,” Sampson said. “We’ll all be glad when this is settled.”