Dark Debt (Chicagoland Vampires 11)

“New toy?” I asked.

“A little multifunctional device I’ve been working on. Does a little of this, a little of that. A little telephony, among other things.”

After a moment, the box turned black again, and the tray popped open. At the same time, the Ops Room’s wall screen filled with graphs and charts.

“And there we go.” Jeff popped the card out, put it back in Morgan’s phone, returned the phone to him.

“I’ve borrowed your telemetry data,” Jeff said, spinning his chair around to look at the screen, bringing one chart to the center.

“All right,” he murmured. “I’m going to eliminate any calls that came from the same number more than once, and any that match your contact list.” That left a handful of plotted points on the screen. “You recognize any of those?”

Morgan eliminated a few numbers, leaving four on-screen.

“Those are burn phones’ prefixes,” Jeff said, gaze scanning the screen. “All different numbers. No apparent connection between them, and the calls all pinged different towers.”

“They’re very careful,” Jacobs said.

My grandfather nodded. “That’s how they’ve stayed in business so long. They are a remarkably careful group.”

“So the number you have will probably be another burner phone,” Jeff said. “When they’ve called you, how long does each call last?”

“They’re short. A minute, maybe?”

Jeff nodded. “Probably too short to trace, but we can at least determine which tower they’re using. So, when everybody’s ready, you’ll place a call to the number you’ve got, and I’ll do what I can to nail it down.”

“How do I play this?” Morgan asked, looking around the table.

“We’ve got two goals,” Jacobs said. “Addressing the situation with your House and, if possible, acquiring enough information to identify the Circle’s key players and shut them down.”

“The latter being the only real way to ensure that the former happens.”

“Frankly, yes.”

“When they call back, you’ll be matter-of-fact, but polite. In their minds, Navarre owes them a substantial debt, and they want to collect. They’ll have a demand, and you want to know what it is. You don’t have to negotiate with them, argue with them. You just need to know what they want. There’s a chance they won’t want to make that demand on the phone. That’s fine, and we can cross that bridge when we come to it. The key is to engage them in communication so we can move forward.”

Jeff looked at Luc. “Can we use your earbuds? I can dial them in so we can all hear the call.”

Luc nodded, pulled the box of earbuds from a locked desk drawer, lest his vampires should steal the tiny plastic nubbins.

Juliet beat me to the teasing. “You afraid we’re going to borrow those without asking, Dad?”

“You take my car, you stay out after curfew, you don’t call your mother regular,” Luc said in his best Chicago accent. “Bet your ass I’m locking up the silver.”

Luc passed the box around the room, and we took earbuds, slipped them in.

“We work long hours,” Luc said to Morgan. “Many of them are hard. We try to keep the tone light—but that’s no reflection on the work quality.”

Morgan nodded, but there was weariness in his gaze. Too many nights spent worrying, instead of commiserating with his vampires, his Novitiates and staff. And now those vampires were spread across the city like cottonwood seeds in the wind.

“We’re ready if you are, Morgan.”

He nodded, pulled a slip of paper from his pocket, tapped in the numbers, lifted the phone to his ear.

The room went silent.

“Gold star,” Morgan said after a moment, and then hung up the phone again.

“Gold star?” Ethan asked.