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I glanced around the group. “So, who’s ready to get started?”

Chapter Thirty-Six

ANGEL SINCLAIR

Operation Burner Phone was underway.

Fortunately, Remington had generic tastes in burner phones. This was one of the first true breaks we had gotten. Jax bought two burner phones from an all-night Quick Mart. Mike disabled one while Wally loaded the Trojan software into the other one. They’d run several tests before assuring me it was working. I sent them to sleep and woke Frankie, who carefully repackaged the phones, using a special glue and markers to make sure the phones appeared unopened.

Kira had also awakened and started to get ready. She’d altered her look using makeup and fake tattoos. Frankie gave her a red T-shirt and a passable Target name badge she’d created using her laptop and portable color printer.

Wally and I dug deep on Candace Kim before Wally caught some shut-eye. While he slept, I reviewed the information we’d gleaned on her.

Fourteen years ago, when my dad had gone missing, Candace Kim had been a midlevel agent. Now she was the director of the NSA’s National Operations Security Center, or NSOC for short. She was a director like Isaac Remington, but of a different directorate. Did that make them friends or rivals?

It was hard to say, except I’d heard the disgust in Remington’s voice when he said Candace’s name. Plus, he thought she was stonewalling him. I was leaning toward rivals, which was a good thing if my dad was thinking about trusting her.

Wally and I had obtained photos of Candace, as well. She was tall, athletic, and apparently quite smart, with an undergraduate degree at Harvard and a graduate degree from the University of Chicago. She was a black belt in tae kwon do and had run in several marathons. She wasn’t married and had no children. Her parents lived in New York City, and she had a younger sister who was a doctor with three kids and a private practice in Maine. I could find no overt connection between her and Remington, other than the fact that they had joined the NSA within thirteen months of each other and had both worked their way up to leading a directorate.

Wally pulled up all the hard data on Candace. That included where she’d lived for the past five years (Maryland), her driver’s license, her passport number (she’d traveled to Italy and France in the past five years), her security system (it was better than Remington’s), her medical info (she was remarkably healthy), and whether she had any outstanding debts (she didn’t). She seemed completely on the up-and-up, which in reality, didn’t mean much these days. I felt uncomfortable researching all her personal stuff. I’d done that before, and it hadn’t turned out well for me, but my mother’s life was at stake, so I ignored the twinges of conscience.

“Who are you, Candace?” I murmured, staring at a photo of her. “Was my dad right to trust you? Can I trust you?”

I figured my dad had all this information, too, and a lot more. For some reason, he’d decided to trust her, but I wasn’t sure if I should. He hadn’t contacted me for nearly forty-eight hours, so I worried.

Had she betrayed him? Was he safe? Remington hadn’t been able to reach him, so what did that mean? I wished he’d call me, if for no other reason than to check in.

Bo put a hand on my shoulder, jolting me from my thoughts. “You ready, Angel?”

I glanced at my watch. It was nearly seven o’clock, and the cool November dawn sky was showing orange and purple streaks. He and Frankie had risen about thirty minutes prior and had been discussing their plan to distract the electronics associate.

I closed my laptop and stretched. “Is everyone awake?”

“Awake and ready to roll.”

We gathered in the living room and did a quick comm check before deciding we were good to go.

We split into three cars. Bo and Frankie took Bo’s car. Jax took Hala and Kira. Wally, Mike, and I rode in Wally’s car. We got there a little after seven thirty. Mike checked the GPS tracker on Remington’s car, confirming it was still parked at the house.

Kira went into the store first. She wanted to figure out where to place the phones so Remington would see them. She wore a coat over the red T-shirt and badge, and would keep it on until we notified her that Remington was in the store and Bo and Frankie had lured away the real electronics associate.

Hala went in next, followed by Frankie and Bo about ten minutes later.

Mike alerted us that Remington was on the move just after eight o’clock. “His car is in motion, and I have the listening device on.”

I spoke to the team. “The target is in motion.”

“Roger,” Bo replied.

“Is Remington driving this way?” Wally asked Mike.

“It’s the normal way he goes to work, so yes,” Mike replied, watching his laptop. “Whether he’ll stop here is the real question. We should find out in about three minutes.”

I locked eyes with Wally. We’d reached the moment of truth. Either this would work, or I’d have to scramble to figure out something new.

There was no more time.

The three of us watched the movement of Remington’s car on Mike’s laptop. I bit my lip so hard, it started to bleed.