Black Flag: A Taskforce Story by Brad Taylor Page B

and I wouldn’t stand out. I got a couple of glasses of hot tea, and by the time I had returned to the table, Jennifer said, “Pedro’s at the door.”
    I casually glanced that way and saw him, our linkage target. He was swarthy, with a full head of chestnut hair and a red beard that looked like a briar patch. Dressed in a striped shirt, the sleeves rolled up to the elbows and the tails hanging out over a pair of black slacks made of rough cloth, he looked like every other regular. He glanced around, locked on something, then began walking toward our three o’clock. I followed his line of march and saw a single man sitting at a table smoking a cigarette.
Bingo.
    “Jennifer, you see where he’s headed?”
    “Yeah, yeah, I got him.”
    “It’ll be your camera.”
    We each had a covert digital setup embedded in our clothing—me in the upper shoulder of my jacket, and Jennifer in a brooch on her chest, the battery pack, brains, and Bluetooth transmitter hidden in our clothing. We’d purposely sat at ninety degrees to each other to give us complete coverage of the room. If he had gone toward the nine o’clock, I’d have been getting the picture.
    The cameras were digital marvels controlled by our smartphones. They had limited optical zoom but a very, very good digital zoom complete with digital stabilization. The hard part had been getting the things to line up naturally to what we wanted to see, as my jacket kept shifting when I sat down, and Jennifer, believe it or not, couldn’t get the thing to aim level because of the swell of her breast. After screwing around with them for a while, we’d managed to figure it out.
    Jennifer brought out her phone and began working it, the image from the camera fed to it via Bluetooth. I waited to confirm the man was Pedro’s contact, then began relaying to Knuckles as a backup to the photo.
    “Knuckles, Pike. Zulu One located. Prepare to copy description.”
    After a few seconds, I heard, “Send it.”
    “Dark top, black, possibly blue. Long-sleeve, button-front. No jacket. Sleeves rolled completely down. Youngish, twenty-five to thirty. Hawklike face, long nose. Swarthy—looks Saudi. Long hair down to his collar, but well kept. Looks long on purpose, not because he can’t afford a barber. Small mustache but clean chin. No outstanding identifying marks. Sort of looks like Jake Gyllenhaal in
Prince of Persia
.”
    Jennifer, working the digital zoom, looked up and said, “He doesn’t look anything like Jake Gyllenhaal. What an insult.”
    I keyed my radio. “Correction. Apparently Jake is much, much more attractive. Stand by for photo.”
    Jennifer fiddled with her phone for a second longer, then nodded at me.
    My radio crackled to life and I heard, “This guy doesn’t look a damn thing like Jake Gyllenhaal, except for the hair.”
    Jennifer grinned, and I said, “Sue me. You guys collapse in?”
    “Yeah, we’re set.”
    I saw Jennifer scrunch her eyebrows, still looking at her phone. I glanced at Jake and Pedro, but they weren’t doing anything suspicious.
    “What’s up?”
    “My phone just picked up a signal. I have a missed call and a voice mail.”
    “Who in the world is calling you in Turkmenistan?”
    “Jack. My brother Jack.”

5
    The desk clerk, a trembling, rail-thin man of about sixty, was brought in and slammed into the wall next to Jack. Behind him a dapper man in a business suit entered, taking a seat. The original hard-asses both remained standing. All four were of Hispanic origin.
    The gunslingers stayed mute. In Spanish, the dapper man said, “Who do you work for?”
    Jack feigned ignorance again, saying, “I don’t speak Spanish.”
    In English, the dapper man said, “You may call me Carlos. Please, tell me why you are here.”
    Holding nothing back, knowing it might help him survive, Jack said, “I’m a reporter for the
Dallas Morning Star
. My editor knows where I am and will be looking for me. It does you more harm than good to hurt a