Page 59 of Cyn
He inclined his head in agreement. “But whoever it is needs to be stopped. If he or she is involved in helping people like McElroy, and has talents like these”—he gestured to the phone—“they are just as dangerous as someone wielding a bomb. Now, what do the two files say?”
Cyn clicked on the first, and it was a picture of an old building. He didn’t recognize it, but that was no surprise. Assuming McElroy was focused on Boston, Joe knew very little about the city other than its role in the Revolutionary War. “Do you recognize that building?”
Cyn nodded. “It’s the African Meeting House in Boston. Built in the early 1800s. Played a big role in the Civil War.”
“An obvious choice for a potential target?”
Cyn hesitated, then nodded. “I’ve been in that building, though, many times, and don’t recall ever seeing a room that fit the rough diagram we have.”
“So maybe an early possibility, then,” he suggested. “What’s the next file?”
Cyn clicked on the word document and a list popped up. Both of them leaned forward as they read.
“It’s the same list as the one you found in the apartment, isn’t it?” he asked.
“Everything is in a different order, but it looks the same.” She pulled out her phone and pulled up the image she’d taken the day before. Together, they went through each item and confirmed it was identical.
When they finished, Joe leaned back in his chair. “It will be interesting to see what else we find once everything is decrypted. My guess is that we’ll find a lot more pictures of potential targets, but probably not much more on the means.”
“We have two instances of the list of chemicals showing up,” Cyn said, gesturing to the two images. “In some ways, it’s oddly reassuring to see consistency in at least one area. Although, I’m not sure I’d go so far as to count on this being their complete list.”
“Do you think he’ll have anything about Al-Shabaab on there?” he asked.
Cyn grew thoughtful at the question. They were fairly confident that McElroy had hoped to learn recruiting techniques from the extremist group, but they hadn’t discovered if he’d been successful in that. Had the group killed him because he’d been an annoyance or because he’d actually learned something? If he’d learned something, they needed to pass that along to Beni.
“If I were to place a wager, I’d say yes,” Cyn said. “Although I’m not sure what. The picture we opened had a time stamp from two years ago, which was before he enlisted. If the remaining pictures are that old, I’m not sure he’d risk keeping a phone to hold on to them. The chemical list is there, but Waters and his crew had it, too. So again, no need for him to keep it. If he was going to the risk of keeping an unauthorized phone, the only real reason would be for communication around new developments.”
“Which could include anything he might have learned about or from Al-Shabaab.”
Cyn nodded. “Or the plans of the attack they are plotting.”
“Did you check the call log?” It was an obvious first thing to look at, but he hadn’t asked yet.
“Yes, that and his texts,” she confirmed. “All have been wiped, but not sure if that was done by McElroy or the military.”
“Will Lucy be able to tell?”
Cyn wagged her head. “I would imagine so, yes.”
Joe stared at the computer screen for a beat, then let out a sigh. “I think tomorrow is going to be a long Sunday. Why don’t you get that stuff over to Lucy, and we can let her and your computer work their magic while we get a little rest?” Cyn hesitated, and he saw the indecision in her expression.
“Or we can stay up and stare at each file as it’s decrypted,” he offered. One thing he’d learned in the military was to grab sleep when he could, but he had no problems admitting that in something like this, Cyn had more experience.
“Or maybe we compromise and take two-hour shifts?” Cyn suggested.
He didn’t love the idea of them only catching snatches of sleep, especially not if there was something imminent coming up, but he nodded. “You want the first shift?”
“I’ll take it,” she replied. “That way, I can also get everything bundled up and sent to Lucy.”
He leaned forward and pulled her into a kiss. “You’ll come get me if something important crops up?”
“Of course, that goes without saying for both of us while we’re on shift.”
He smiled, and her eyes dropped to his dimple. He’d always hated it and thought it made him look younger than his years, but Cyn seemed to like it.
“Deal,” he said, and when her eyes met his again, he dropped one more kiss on her lips, then rose from his seat. Walking away was harder than it should have been—he was only going down one floor and was less than thirty seconds away, but still…
He paused at the landing, hesitating.
