Page 60 of Tangled

Jesus, that was close.

An unidentified number showed on the screen. “Hello?”

“This is Magnus Jensen of Rogue Security. A Mary Varvara Bell has designated this phone number as a contact point. To whom do I have the pleasure of speaking?”

The man’s accent was European of some sort. Not German or French. Swiss or Dutch, maybe? Tristan had never been as good at placing accents as some of the other guys at Le Rosey. “This is Tristan King.”

The man’s already deep voice dropped. “Excellent. The initial contact phone number is correct. That’s an auspicious way to start the operation. I hear that we have a hostage extraction. I need every bit of information possible about the targets, the bad guys, and the location.”

Tristan told Magnus Jensen everything he could—names, dates, the address, the room number—and answered questions as they arose.

Yes, the primary attack and current location was the Presidential Suite at The Boulders. Because Tristan had stayed there the previous week whilst he was doing GameShack reconnaissance, he could confirm that there was an elevator and enclosed hallway leading to the main door. The open balcony was directly below the roofline on the west side that overlooked the Valley because the sunsets had been like an orange laser show blasting through the floor-to-ceiling glass windows.

Yes, there were two hostages, and he had names and descriptions.

Yes, there had been a proof of life just an hour before, and he texted the photo of Jian and Anjali to Magnus Jensen.

Tristan told him, “And I have real-time audio and video surveillance inside the location.”

Magnus Jensen asked,“Wait,you havewhat?”

Tristan described how he’d hacked Jian’s phone to transmit audio and visual signals.

Magnus chuckled. “That’s an interesting piece of software. A friend of mine might like to take a look at that. I could knock a percentage off our fee.”

“I’m not paying the bill for this operation,” Tristan told him, except with his blood and soul.

“Then we could discuss licensing the intellectual property from you, but that’s a conversation for another day. Is there any way I can get access to the live feed?”

“Unfortunately not, but I would like to be a part of the operation. I can bring my phone with me.”

“We don’t work with amateurs.”

“I’ll stay back and wait until the location is secured, but I want to make sure I see Jian and Anjali get out safely.”

Magnus Jensen sighed. “All right, but you’re not carrying a firearm. The best militaries in the world have trained our operators. Most of them are US or other special forces. We are not walking into a dangerous operation with armed amateurs.”

“Understood. When is the operation planned for?”

“We’ll study the situation for the rest of the day while our operators arrive in the Phoenix area. I anticipate a call time of midnight, local time, and a go-time of oh-two-hundred hours. I will text the locations for each. We try to keep communications to a minimum.”

“Midnight. Okay. I’ll wait for your text and be there.”

They had just hung up as Colleen bounced back into the room, holding two large brown paper bags. “Mission accomplished!”

He looked up at her and forced a big grin on his face. “Excellent. I’m famished.”

And that was how Tristan ended up choking down anuclear-hot burrito smothered in green sauce that could only be described in mega-units ofhellfirewith tears streaming down his face whilst smiling and giving Colleen the thumbs-up.“It’s delicious.”

She smiled back at him. “Uh-huh. Yeah. The menu says that the green is hotter than the red.”

Yeah, she’d tried to warn him, but he’d been so preoccupied with getting her out of the room that he hadn’t listened. Served him right.

Now he just needed to figure out how to sneak out of the hotel at midnight without her.

33

Lying