Missed Check In

“As you know, Ms. Meyers-Jimenez went undercover with El Dominio. During her time undercover, she was supposed to report to us every eight hours by dispatching one of Ms. Reinder’s bugs with a beacon. That beacon would activate twenty minutes later and send us both GPS coordinates and an optional text message.

“The last time Ms. Meyers-Jimenez sent a beacon was yesterday, at thirteen-o-eight hours, based on the twenty minute delay. She missed both the twenty-one-hundred check in and the o-five-hundred check in.”

I checked my phone and noticed that it was five-fifty and selfishly wished that I had coffee.

Carter asked the question I was thinking, “What’s your procedure for missed contact?”

“Now that Ms. Reinder’s here, we’re going to use her bugs to fly a camera over their expected position and see if there’s anything visible from outside. If not, we’ll have the bug enter the building and begin searching for Ms. Meyers-Jimenez.”

“Ma’am, I’m sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but don’t El Dominio use jammers in their bases?”

“If that’s the case, we’ll program the camera to take a video and return it to us.”

“If necessary, will we be going in to extract her?” Carter asked.

“No. If it comes to that, we don’t have the numbers to **** El Dominio. If that becomes necessary, we’ll be calling this in to the Mexican National Guard.”

Badger added, “Maria, let’s put the M4s in the back of the SUVs, just in case.”

She scowled, but gave in, “Yes, that’s fine. Just remember that we are not equipped for a fight. This is an information gathering mission so that we can determine our next course of action.”