Page 94 of Tango

“Dancing lipsticks and dollar signs. Pound signs, right?” Mike asked. “Half of them are from London?”

“Then I throw the locks,” Jay said. “Then we terrify them into submission.”

“How?” Ben asked.

“Cornstarch? Citric acid?”

Vivian rolled her eyes. “Seriously, Jay?”

“We put it in the vent systems. It billows out and fills the room with white powder. In the confusion, our guys with medical masks stick their guns into the guests’ ribs and fleece them.”

“Piper?” Vivian asked.

“Wade holds a gun to her head, and she does what she’s told to do like a good girl,” Jay said.

“Everyone pulls out their phones, and SWAT descends,” Vivian said. “Jay is the only one who belongs there, and he’s blacked out with a cover story. I’m trying to save Ben, not get him tossed in the prison system. We’re another day closer to Yuri’s wrath.”

“‘Yuri’s wrath’ is what we’re calling it now?” Ben asked.

Jay looked over at Mike. “Do you want to address that?”

“Sure, so we capture all the Wi-Fi channels. I can route them through my system like a waystation on the path to the cell tower. That way I can monitor everyone’s communications that night, including the security guards. And stop the ones I don’t like.”

“What about radios?” Vivian asked.

“I have a localized jammer,” Mike said. “It’s pretty technical. And there’s no point in explaining it. But no one’s getting a call out. It’s the same thing I did at the Tifton bridal shower to stop the biddies from calling the cops in any which way until we were gone, only this time it’s on a bigger, more comprehensive scale.”

“Where are you during all this?” Vivian's brow was furrowed as she focused hard on the plan. “Don’t the drones need radio waves to function?”

“I’m set up across the Potomac, managing the drones. I’ll fly them out of range of the jammer. No problem. It’s all automatic from the computer. The drones will do their distraction dance. It’s going to be a short show, ten to fifteen minutes, because it’s illegal to fly so close to the airport, right? I send the drones over. I get the thumbs up—via laser pulse—that Boz’s guys corralled people into one spot for gathering the goods. Then I fly the drones back to my side of the river and pack them up. If someone reports me, the cops are coming. I want them packaged up before I see flashing lights. But I’ll still work the airwaves.”

“The perfect time to start the show is when Piper goes down to the lab to freak out before her speech,” Jay said.

“You think that’s what she’ll do?” Vivian asked.

“She seems pretty levelheaded. Maybe she doesn’t get nervous speaking in front of people. But she’s a nerd girl. She’ll want to be the first one down there so the laypeople aren’t looking around the lab, touching things.”

“True. Okay. Good. You know what time her speech is?” Vivian asked.

“I do.”

“Ben, we’re going to need your darts again,” Jay said. “Owen will be watching porn on the third floor. I don’t want the other security—Gator and Jack—walking around. Do you have another dart gun?”

“It’s a good thing you told me to wipe everything down for fingerprints in case it got away from me. I wouldn’t have thought of it, and they’d know who was up there.”

“They wouldn’t,” Mike said. “They’d know your gun was up there. There’s a difference. Reasonable doubt.”

Ben shot him a look of incredulity. “I have a massive dog bite.”

“Yeah. Ben’s right. His bird would have been roasted.” Wade lifted his beer bottle Ben’s way, then took a sip.

“You have another one?” Jay asked.

“Dart gun?” Ben asked. “Yes.”

“And they’re generic? Vivian asked.

Ben visibly swallowed. “Generic to my field, yeah, I guess.”