Trudy shook her head. It wont matter. The past eight hours of footage from every single traffic camera in Maryland and Virginia has been outsourced to a company in India. Right now, four hundred people in Delhi are watching videotaped traffic with one task: look at every white van, and find the one with orange New York license plates that say 10G-4PQ. Bonuses for the workers, and the company, are triggered by how fast they find it, and not by how many hours they put in. Someone is going to spot that van very soon, and once they do, itll be a simple matter to track every single street light it passes until it stops.

Whoever is in that van is going to be desperate, Luke said. Theyve already lost two of their guys. If they get the sense were closing in, theyre likely to blow themselves up. When someone finds that van, I want us, meaning SRT, on the scene. We need to take those people alive.

Were going to do the best we can, Trudy said. But we had to open it up. There are fifty police forces with this information, and a dozen intelligence agencies. If we kept it to ourselves, the danger is we would never find it.

I understand that, Luke said. But if we take the Little Bird, we can be anywhere and land almost anywhere pretty quickly. Just give us some warning.

Will do, she said.

Now what about Ali Nassar?

For that, you need to talk to Swann.

Trudy disappeared and Mark Swanns face appeared. Luke, we sent a three-man team up to extract Nassar from his apartment. Unfortunately, they got there a few minutes late. When they arrived Nassar was already leaving with a security contingent from the Iranian mission. They were armed, showing their weapons. We didnt want to risk a shoot-out on the street, and frankly, our guys were out-numbered and out-gunned.

Where did they go?

This was before the White House was attacked, so street traffic was pretty open. They came downtown and brought Nassar inside the Iranian mission on Third Avenue. The place is locked up tight. It would take an army, plus some casualties, to get in there and bring him out. Short of a declaration of war, were not going to do it, and even if we did, wed probably find him dead.

Shit, Luke said.

Never fret, Swann said. CIA has managed to plant more than two hundred listening devices in that building over the years. Eleven of them are still active. Its a big building, but Nassars voice was captured on at least two of the devices. There was a lot of arguing going on when they brought him in. Its all in Farsi, so it doesnt do us much good, but CIA has translators, and my Langley connection, gave me the scoop on what was being said. Theyre going to smuggle him out of the country, possibly as early as today.