“Yeah, well . . . ”

“You’re not going to tell me the sender’s phone doesn’t have GPS on it, are you?” Tesla said.

“I’m sure it does, but every time I get a lock on it, it moves from Belize to Japan to Mali to Denmark to wherever. He’s using software that’s bouncing his location all over the place and making it impossible to get a fix on him. Locking in on his transmission signal isn’t giving me any better results. He’s only sending text messages as far as I can tell. That usually shouldn’t be a problem, but the origin of the messages is being immediately obscured the moment they’re sent.”

“So there’s no way we can get a lock on his location?” Tesla asked.

“I didn’t say that,” Wiki said.

Tesla couldn’t tell, but it almost looked like Wiki was smiling.

“What have you got?”

“Well, if we can’t follow a message out, then I thought we’d just have to follow a message in. I’ve rigged it so I can send a text to Archer directly from my computer that he’ll think is coming from the phone you have there. It’ll be carrying a tracer packet to follow that’ll send me back a location just as it arrives.”

Tesla’s eyes widened. “So why haven’t you texted him already?”

“Do you really want me to write the text to him? I mean, what would I say?”

Tesla started to laugh, but stopped abruptly as her shoulder started to bark in pain. Instead she gave Chang a smile, then told him what to send.

Archer had been expecting a text from Sanam for almost 24 hours. It was almost a disappointment that it had taken the Pakistani so long to figure out there was a problem. But no matter, the contact had been made, the meeting set.

Archer chose a remote spot a kilometer and a half north of an old Hindu shrine that had fallen into neglect.

While Sanam would be traveling by car, Archer would be arriving via helicopter. This would give him the opportunity to scan the area around the meeting point for any heat signatures that might indicate a possible trap.

It wasn’t that he thought Sanam would try to pull something. The Pakistani was blinded by the belief they were working toward the same goal, but it was just a good practice to be cautious. As his father had taught him, there was no such thing as paranoia in their world.

As he had expected, the only heat signature within a kilometer of the location was that of Sanam. He was standing near his car, exactly where Archer had told him to be.

Satisfied, Archer gave the pilot permission to set them down.