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“What did you have in mind?” Hala asked.

I deposited Mr. Toodles on the floor and went to stand next to Wally. “We’re going to surveil Remington’s henchmen and hope one of them leads us to my mom.”

Mike’s eyes widened as he whistled. “Ambitious plan. We’re going to stalk the stalkers?”

“Exactly,” I said.

“Not to point out the obvious, but these guys are top personnel in the NSA,” Kira said. “How are we going to do that?”

“Very carefully,” I replied. “Since they’re trained operatives, we’re going to have to go by the book. If we want to be successful, we’ll have to follow the five phases of an active espionage mission. First is detection and surveillance. Second is mission planning, followed by mission preparation. Fourth is execution, and fifth is recovery.”

“Can we do a brief review of those steps?” Mike asked.

“Sure,” I said. “Let’s start with number one, since at the moment, that’s our critical next step. Mission detection involves determining who are likely focal points of the operation and why. In this case, it would be determining who the bad guys are. At this point we know they’re likely Remington’s deputies or closest colleagues. We need to figure out what they want and what their motivations are. The motivation piece is important, because if that isn’t obvious, then this becomes a key goal of the mission surveillance phase.”

“Don’t forget, their motivations can help us determine how the targets are likely to act in response to the various aspects of the mission and may also reveal their weaknesses or soft points for coercion,” Jax added.

“Good point,” I said.

“The mission is to discover who has Angel’s mom and where she’s being held,” Hala answered. “Right?”

“Not only,” I added. “Endgame is recovery—or bringing her home safely.” Just remembering that caused my heart to beat uncomfortably. So much rode on my ability to figure this out and execute a rescue. My mom’s life was at stake if I messed up. It was a lot of pressure, but I couldn’t fail her. Iwouldn’tfail her.

All eyes were on me, which meant I had to put up a confident facade. This was my show, and I was the team leader, so I needed to act like one.

“Here’s what I know so far. Our main opponent is an extremely powerful man in the NSA by the name of Isaac Remington. He’s the director of research and was my dad’s and J. P. Lando’s boss while they were working on a top-secret project at King’s Security. That project happened to be the creation of a back door into the common encryption standard that permitted the NSA to view any email encrypted with that standard. The purpose of the back door was to surveil terrorist organizations intent on causing harm to the US and her allies.”

“Wow,” Jax said, straightening in the chair and leaning forward. “Seriously?”

“Seriously. About a year after they created the back door, Mr. Lando discovered the NSA was using it to spy on US citizens with impunity. He told my father, then reported it to his boss, Isaac Remington. A week later he was dead in a so-called boating accident.”

“So is Remington or the NSA responsible?” Bo asked.

“That’s where it gets tricky,” I said. “At the time, my dad thought it came from the top in the NSA, and he figured he’d be next, especially if Mr. Lando had been interrogated before his death.”

“But…?” Jax prompted.

“But…later, he wasn’t so sure. He became more convinced that a faction in the NSA, led by Remington, had been using it for spying without the upper echelon knowing.”

“Wow,” Hala said, shaking her head. “This is dangerous stuff.”

“Very,” I agreed. “Who’s in Remington’s pocket is unknown right now, so for the time being, we can’t trust anyone. My dad thinks Remington ordered the kidnapping on me and my mom, although he wouldn’t have actually been involved and will certainly have an alibi. That means it has to be someone he trusts to take care of something that…delicate.”

“What about the guy who was arrested trying to kidnap you?” Kira said. “Did he ever flip?”

“He hasn’t talked, or at least, he says he doesn’t know who hired him. I suspect the latter is true.”

“Why can’t we just tell Slash?” Frankie asked. “We can trust him. He would help us.”

“As much as I trust him, we can’t tellanyoneat the NSA,” I said. “That comes straight from my dad. Besides, Slash is out the country at the moment.” I looked around the room. “Anyway, my dad says the list of names and the information we’ve compiled from the directory is a good place to start our surveillance. My dad was able to eliminate one of the names. At this point, we need to narrow down the list and focus our attention on one or two of the most important suspects. We need more personal information and activities so we can track them and hope that someone acts suspicious.”

I went to my laptop and pulled up the electronic version of the list I had handed my dad. “We have to start with Remington, that’s a given. And we must assume that at least one of his most trusted colleagues is still close to him. If we focus exclusively on his deputy directors, there are two. One is named Charles Ghat, and the other is Glen Sampson. I think those two are our top contenders for the moment. Let’s divide up and drill down on those two to see if anything pops.”

Everyone headed to their computers, and for the next hour, the only sound was the quiet tapping of keys on laptops.

After one hour, we had a decent profile of the men in question once we combined our information.

“Okay, here’s what we have on Ghat,” I said. “He graduated from the University of Washington with a degree in engineering. He got an MBA from Stanford and joined the NSA about twenty-one years ago.”