Текст книги "The Insider Threat"

Автор книги: Brad Taylor

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Текущая страница: 24 (всего у книги 30 страниц)

73

I leaned in closer to the plaque, intrigued by the write-up. I said, “Jennifer, come here. Take a look at this: Venice had an Oversight Council.”

She turned from the ornate wooden throne she’d been studying and walked over to see what I was reading, our inspection of the premises just about over.

We’d come to the famed Doge’s Palace in Venice to investigate why the Lost Boy named Jacob Driscoll had toured it, but so far had come up with nothing. The museum offered little beyond showcasing the old rulers of Venice—known as the doges—and appeared to hold nothing that would inspire an Islamic State attack.

Jennifer saw the plaque and smiled, saying, “Wait, you actually like the history here? You’re not bored out of your mind wandering around this dusty palace?”

I said, “Not with stuff like this. They had a body called the Council of Ten. It was formed after an attack on one of the doges, and was in charge of state security. It was supposed to be temporary, and it operated in secret. Sound familiar?”

Jennifer said, “Let’s hope not. The Council of Ten ended up pretty much ruling the Republic of Venice, sticking their fingers into everything from diplomacy to taxes.”

I should have known she would have more historical knowledge than the museum plaque. She possessed an encyclopedic mind for ancient stuff, constantly reading dull archeological magazines that made National Geographic look as exciting as Playboy. And I don’t mean that because of the half-naked pictures. The National Geographic ones, that is.

I said, “Yeah, well, it looks like it started the same way our own Oversight Council did. Protection of the state from an external threat, and operating in secret. Something to think about.”

She said, “So you finally admit history has something to teach us about the future.”

In mock surprise I said, “Of course I do. I love it when we go look at fossilized poop and pottery shards.”

She gave me her disapproving-teacher glare and I said, “Let’s head back to the hotel. See if the guys found anything from the surveillance cameras. We’re getting nothing from this place in person, and I’d really like to know if Jacob’s history here has anything to do with the future he’s planning.”

We’d hit the ground late last night and gone straight into action, trying to make up for the lost time we’d spent rescuing Shoshana. I didn’t regret that decision at all, but it was a Solomon’s choice, and Kurt had made it clear that the Oversight Council felt it was a mistake, especially if saving her had taken away our ability to stop an Islamic State attack.

Initially I didn’t really worry about what they thought, because choices always had to be made in this line of work, and I had been convinced that the Lost Boys could wait. After our investigations last night, my confidence was starting to evaporate.

The Lost Boys were using their true passports, and the Taskforce had given us a hotel they were using, which had made necking down the room they were in child’s play. Retro had repeated the actions he’d taken in Tirana, penetrating the hotel servers of a Best Western, and had identified a lone room. Aaron and Shoshana had done the breaking in.

Using them may have seemed counterintuitive, but a B&E wasn’t risk-free, and I wanted a throwaway team in case they were burned and no longer useful for surveillance. They were exploiting Venice as nothing more than a clean break from Tirana, and would be gone tomorrow. I decided to keep my team fresh, with a heat state at zero.

Having them here at all had been a little bit of a fight. I’d had a debate with Kurt on their exfiltration, wanting them to fly with me instead of taking commercial transport, and, after much back-and-forth, he’d finally agreed. They needed to vacate Tirana as quickly as we did, and I didn’t want them getting stopped by Albanian gestapo trying to board some broken-down aircraft in Tirana. The only other option had been going out with Showboat and the support crew, which—given they were transporting Rashid to Taskforce detainee operations—wasn’t really an option. Kurt had said they could fly with me to Venice, but were to break free from there. He hadn’t given me a time, so I figured using them for a final op was okay.

They’d done the B&E, first using a RadarScope—a motion detector that could see through walls—to determine the room was empty, then an ingenious device made of coiled wire and a metal rod that slipped under the door and manipulated the door handle from the inside. Since hotel room doors were designed to prevent someone from locking themselves in, they always opened when pulled from the inside, regardless of the locks in place. We could have hacked the key-card, but such access left a digital trail in the database at reception, something we wanted to avoid.

They’d spent less than five minutes in the room and had found three interesting things, the first two telling me my decision in Tirana may have caused mission failure on finding the Lost Boys in time.

One, the room had no luggage. It still had a DO NOT DISTURB sign on the door handle, and a sleeping pallet on the floor, along with a mussed bed and dirty towels, but no clothes, toothbrushes, or anything else.

Two, the minibar had been cleaned out, empty of all liquor and candy bars. It was something a juvenile would do if he were vacating early.

The Lost Boys still had another two days on their reservation, and the credit card used was valid, so put together, it told me they had moved somewhere else. The fact that their passport trail ended here, along with the two extra days on the hotel reservation, caused a disconcerting feeling, reminding me of a last covered and concealed location before an assault: a last clean staging area before going underground, and quite possibly the final spot before an attack. I prayed that wasn’t the case.

The third thing they found was a ticket stub for the Doge’s Palace museum with Jacob Driscoll’s name on the tag. It was a really weak link, and may have been nothing more than a way for Jacob to waste some time, but it was all we had. I’d directed Retro to get with the Taskforce and hack into the surveillance cameras while Jennifer and I went to check it out in person. That had proven of little value, other than the history lesson of the Council of Ten.

Exiting into Piazza San Marco, Jennifer could sense a little desperation leaking out. Worry that my decision on Shoshana may end up costing much more than saving a single life.

She took my arm and said, “Hey, you made the right call. No matter what happens. We can’t always be the ones on the X. We do what we can, and in this case, we did right.”

I said, “Tell that to whoever feels the wrath of the Lost Boys. I’ll be willing to bet they’d disagree.”

“Shoshana wouldn’t.”

I turned to her and said, “You sure? Because I’m afraid to ask that question.”

She said nothing, knowing, like I did, that while Shoshana was certainly happy to be alive, she would never want to be the reason for a terrorist strike succeeding.

I’d made my decision, and could do nothing to alter the past. All I could do was my best to prevent a specific future. The one the Lost Boys had planned.

74

We wound our way through the alleys, reaching the small bed-and-breakfast we’d rented for our op center, situated right on a canal full of gondolas. Like that was anything fancy. Having a canal location in Venice was about as special as a Motel 6 next to a McDonald’s in the States.

We’d rented rooms in several different hotels to disperse our footprint, and we’d decided on this one for a TOC due to its central location. That and the fact that it had a room that was bigger than a pizza box.

I entered and found Retro banging away on a keyboard, Knuckles behind him on a phone saying, “We need a name. Can’t you guys figure that out?”

Aaron and Shoshana were off to a side, sitting patiently. Brett was nowhere to be found.

I closed the door and waited for Knuckles to hang up the phone. He did, looking at me with a question. I said, “Nothing. Not sure what I expected to find, but it’s just a damn museum. No signs saying ‘Secret Islamic State Mission’ or anything like that.”

He nodded and said, “Well, we’ve got something. It’s a thread, but we can’t find the end to pull it.”

“What?”

Retro leaned back and said, “Take a look. Taskforce ran all the surveillance footage on the date stamp of the ticket through a facial recognition suite. They found the Lost Boy called Jacob.”

Jennifer and I leaned over, seeing his laptop screen split into four sections, a different camera view in each. In one, the subject was turned, facing the camera head-on. It was grainy, but I could make out Jacob from his mug shot. Even with the pixilated image, he gave off an evil vibe. He just looked bad, reminding me of a pus-filled wound.

I said, “And? You’ve got his entire visit?”

“Yeah.”

“So where’s the secret dead drop? What was he doing there?”

“Nothing at the museum. That wasn’t his focus. He was following someone.”

“Who?”

Retro manipulated the screen, flipping through a dozen camera feeds until he found the recording he wanted. He hit play and a man and woman walked across the marble floor, arm in arm, jerking in grainy black and white. “These two. No idea why, but he sticks with them the entire time. At first we thought it might just be a coincidence—you know, one tourist following the path of another—but he took pictures. He used his camera probably fifteen times, and not once did he take a picture of something artsy-fartsy or old in a room. Every time, he took it of those two.”

I leaned in closer to the screen, as if that would help me ascertain what was going on. Jennifer said, “Who are they?”

Knuckles said, “Don’t know. We got nothing on the man. He’s a dead end. He bought his ticket from the booth out front and showed no ID. The girl we have a slim lead on. She presented a ticket purchased from a package tourism site in a hotel, printed out from a computer. We have the hotel, but no names. Assuming one or both are staying there, we’re working to neck it down now. Brett’s at the hotel.”

I said, “What is Jacob doing? Why the follow? I’m assuming they aren’t important?”

“Not that we can see. I mean, they have no overt personal security, and appeared to be skulking around like secret lovers—which they might be. The man showed up after the woman, and they met inside. Also, like I said before, they bought their tickets from different locations. It was coordinated, but not enough to be what normal tourists would do. Why not meet outside and go in together? Why buy tickets from different places? It doesn’t make any sense.”

“To us. I promise it makes sense to Jacob. So what do we have on the woman?”

“Making some assumptions—the biggest one being she’s staying in that hotel—we came up with four possible names.”

Knuckles interjected, saying, “I told Retro to focus on single American women. I know that may be way off, but it’s a start. Out of that four, Brett’s checking with the hotel to see if we can get it down to one.”

“With what?”

Knuckles sheepishly looked at Retro, then Jennifer. “Ahh . . . boob size.”

Stupidly, I said, “What?”

Jennifer rolled her eyes and said, “Tell me the world’s foremost counterterrorism team isn’t really tracking someone by the size of their breasts.”

Knuckles held up his hands and said, “It was Shoshana’s idea. She watched the tapes. And she’s right. The chick has really big tits. I’m not kidding. Retro, pull up that one—”

Jennifer cut him off, saying, “I don’t need to see it. Shoshana?”

Shoshana was grinning, leaning forward with her hands under her chin, elbows on knees, thoroughly enjoying the conversation. Aaron seemed a little amused himself.

She said, “Jennifer, have you seen a female concierge here?”

“No.”

“And what happened at your hotel? When you checked in?”

I saw where she was going, because I’d witnessed the jerk’s actions at the concierge desk. I said, “He burned a hole in her ass.”

Shoshana nodded, breaking into a smile. “Very good, little Jedi. Same thing happened to me.”

I said, “It’s ‘young Jedi,’ if you’re going to use an American reference.”

She ignored me and said, “Jennifer, did you look at the picture?”

Jennifer shook her head with disdain. “No. I don’t need to see another woman’s breasts.”

“Hey, me either. At least that’s what I tell Aaron. Take a look. No way will any concierge miss them. Trust me. This is the quickest way.”

Everyone was grinning at that point, really enjoying the subject matter. Knuckles pulled up the picture in question, one where she was leaning over to offer her ticket, her scarf falling away, and I’ll be damned if Shoshana wasn’t right. She looked like she was schlepping around a couple of volleyballs, and she wasn’t afraid of showing them off.

I said, “So we have a biometric identifier, and Brett’s running it to ground.”

Jennifer said, “Wow. Like we’re tracking DNA.”

Shoshana said, “Jennifer, it’s just as real as a fingerprint. Want me to show you?”

Jennifer bristled, aggravated at the sexual harassment, but not knowing what to do with it, coming from a female. The guys felt it too, now uncomfortable themselves. The joke fell flat, as often happened with that little devil woman. I started to say something, and Shoshana stood up, speaking first.

She ignored all the men in the room, focusing on Jennifer. “I apologize. After your sacrifice, that was callous. I know why I’m walking the earth. I owe you my life, and I will never forget that. The Lost Boys will not succeed. I promise.”

Now it was really awkward. I said, “Shoshana, stop that. We did what anyone would have done. Don’t make this into something it’s not. I don’t need some death wish from you to repay a nonexistent favor.”

She said, “I have seen the mission profile. I know my life has now put others in jeopardy. You have it whether you want it or not.”

The comment made me realize where she was going. The chips she was stacking in my corner, waiting to be repaid. I didn’t need that here. I said, “Shoshana, you and Aaron are out. Done. You can’t continue on with me.”

She simply smiled. I looked at Aaron and said, “Hey, man, you guys have to get out of here. Get back to the kibbutz or whatever else you guys do in Israel. No more with me. I’ll get my ass kicked for using you here in the first place.”

He said, “Pike, I know. We will leave. But Shoshana may make me go where you go.”

“Screw that. Jesus. Go home. Or wherever you top secret Mossad types go. Scandinavia. Paris. I don’t care.”

Aaron said, “I need a vacation. Maybe we’ll stay in Italy. Maybe Tuscany or Rome.”

Aaron looked at Shoshana, and she nodded. I could smell the connection coming off of them. Weirdest thing in the world. A lesbian and a straight guy, both paid assassins in the employ of Israel. I couldn’t make it up if I tried.

I said, “That’s perfect. Get on the train to Rome.”

The door to the room opened, and Brett entered, all triumphant. “Got her! Big tits and all!”

The witticism didn’t work like he wanted. He saw the somber mood and said, “What’s going on?”

I said, “Nothing. What do you have?”

“Her name is Christine Spalding, and she’s done with Venice. I have no idea what she has to do with the Lost Boys, but it’s definitely her.”

“What do you mean she’s done with Venice?”

“According to the front desk—who remembers her very well—she bought a train ticket. She’s out of here.”

“Where’s she going?”

“Rome. And she’s not ‘going.’ She left. An hour ago.”

I glared at Shoshana, wondering how the hell she’d known what was going to happen. She took Aaron’s hand in her own and squeezed it, then gave me her disembodied stare. He looked at me with pity.

She said, “I had no idea where this was leading, but I’m not changing my vacation destination. Someone is going to pay for me being alive. You know it and I know it. It will not be a stranger I’ve never met. And it will not be you, Nephilim Logan. It will never be you again.”

75

From the back of the cabin, Jacob Driscoll watched the woman get on the train. Watched her load her luggage. Watched her fiddle around, getting comfortable, and wondered if she knew none of that mattered. She was dead.

He actually felt a little sorry for her. She hadn’t done anything to deserve this. All she owned was a large set of breasts, and she’d plied them into a vacation in Venice. Unfortunately, those same assets she’d flashed at countless nightclubs, gaining nothing more than a free drink for a grope, were now going to cause her death.

He wished she’d taken a different path. All she had to do was go back to America, taking her lumps of rejection with her. The flight alone would have been long enough to ensure the success of his mission. Instead, she’d purchased a ticket to Rome.

He had no doubt she would attempt to make contact with Chris, and in so doing, she sealed her fate.

He’d spent the night in Chris’s room, conducting online checkout and tidying up various email contacts through Chris’s computer, informing the church and his family that he’d dropped his phone in a toilet and it no longer functioned. A partial truth.

Jacob had made sure that Carlos and Devon were on the first train leaving for Rome, using the forged passports and tickets from the boys, then spent the morning sitting in the lobby. Watching and waiting.

He’d decided that if she didn’t show, he would leave tonight, assuming she’d given up. Just before noon, she’d approached the front desk, and he saw she wasn’t the bimbo she appeared to be. She was both determined and smart, using guile, subterfuge, and an ample showing of cleavage to the concierge at Chris’s hotel. Without disclosing why she was asking, camouflaging her important questions in the cloak of those less meaningful, she’d learned that Chris had “checked out,” and had discovered the partner hotel in Rome where the church group had their next reservation. A reservation that would never be used.

He’d followed her from there, tracing her back to her hotel, where she’d purchased a ticket through her own concierge. To Rome.

She had no idea Chris was dead. And no idea that she was as well.

Sitting four seats behind her, Jacob wanted more than anything to kill her on the train, but he couldn’t. He would have to wait for a better chance, and knew time wasn’t on his side. He would have only a small window before she caused trouble.

He settled back into his seat and closed his eyes.

*   *   *

Omar knocked on the door and heard shuffling inside. He waited, letting Jacob use the peephole. The door opened, and he found himself looking at Carlos. Instantly suspicious, he said, “Where’s Jacob?”

“Still in Venice.” Carlos handed him a letter. “He told me to give you this.”

Omar opened it, saying, “Get my bags. Careful with the last two.”

Carlos shouted at Devon, then went into the hallway, lugging in a large, hard-sided suitcase. Devon followed with another. Omar pretended to read the note, but in reality assessed the pair of shahid. They showed no outward signs of deception, displaying fawning grins and gangly struggles with the bags. He turned to the note.

It was short and to the point. Jacob was tracking a woman connected to the identity of the man Omar was to assume. According to Jacob, she was a potential threat to the mission with a determination to find out what had happened to the church leader, and he was going to ensure she was eliminated. At the end of the note was a new cell phone number, purchased courtesy of the church leader’s credit card. A clean one.

Omar crumpled the paper, wondering if it was real. Carlos came back to the door, bounced from one foot to the other, eyes downcast, then said, “We had no trouble getting in. The envelope was in the locker you said it would be.”

Omar said, “And the guns? Were they here?”

“Yes. Two pistols and a sawed-off shotgun. Some bullets. Nothing more.”

“That’s fine. We shouldn’t need them anyway. Those suitcases have the real weapons.”

He pushed inside, getting off the cobblestone street and surveying his new home. Spartan, with a threadbare couch, a wooden kitchen table, one bedroom upstairs and one down. It would do.

Omar had coordinated for a contact in Georgia to rent an apartment from a service called AirBnB. Really just a clearinghouse on the web for people who wished to rent whatever space they had available, it listed everything from a tree house in Spain to a castle in Croatia. Anyone who wanted to list a room, no matter how small or strange, could do so. His contact had found a first-floor flat in the Trastevere area of Rome, south of Vatican City and just west of the Tiber River. He’d rented it for a month, placing the weapons in a closet and the keys to the flat in a locker in the train station. With no maid service or other bothersome intrusions, the apartment would work perfectly for the rehearsals they needed to conduct. But first, they had a more specific rehearsal.

Omar closed the door and said, “My identification? Do you have it?”

Devon appeared, holding an American passport. Omar opened it, seeing the name Chris Fulbright next to his picture. Looking closely, he could ascertain the damage to the passport, but it was slight. Something that might be noticed by a close examination, but he didn’t expect that. The bigger issue was that the name wouldn’t match his accent in any way whatsoever. He would have to hope for the blessed ignorance of the United States citizen, something he’d find out in the next thirty minutes.

Carlos said, “You want to clean up from your trip? We have hot water. It’s not much, but it’ll work for a single shower.”

Omar said, “That can wait. We have to be at a rehearsal in twenty minutes. Are you two ready?”

They both nodded. Puppy dogs wanting to please the master. He said, “Put on a button-up shirt and slacks. It’s time to start acting like altar boys.”

Twenty minutes later they had taken a cab to Vatican City. They passed by the entrance to Piazza San Pietro, Saint Peter’s Basilica off in the distance, and Omar saw the chairs being placed in the square. The preparations for the ceremony, and the Lost Boys’ rendezvous with destiny. It made him smile.

The cab continued on, stopping in front of what looked like a small theater, the doors out front solid and large, but the paint old. A line of young men milled about in front.

Omar waited until the driver had pulled away before saying, “You know the church, correct? You can speak like a Catholic?”

Carlos said, “Yes, yes. We’ve memorized the mass. We know when to cross ourselves and when to kneel. We’ve memorized all of the canonical rites.”

“Well, don’t try to prove you’re a genius at it. Just follow along. And whatever you do, let me speak. Don’t try to outdo anybody. We’re from a small parish in Florida. Act like that.”

Devon said, “What about Jacob? What will we say?”

“He’s at the hotel, sick. Let me handle that.”

They crossed the street and Omar walked up to the first adult he could find, a priest with a clipboard shouting names. Omar introduced himself as Chris Fulbright, and the priest looked at his clipboard, confused. He went down it, then said, “Florida? Sacred Heart? That Chris Fulbright?”

“Yes. That’s us.”

The priest smiled, saying, “Sorry. You don’t sound like you’re from Florida.”

Omar matched his grin, hoping it came out sincere. “I’m from Russia, but I’m an American citizen now.”

“No worries. We weren’t sure you guys were coming.” He stuck out his hand, “Father Patrick Brimm, from New York. I’m the guy who’s been put in charge of the American representatives for the ceremony, and we couldn’t get you on the phone. You were supposed to check in yesterday. Almost scratched you. I’ve got twelve different parishes represented, and didn’t have time to track you down.”

Omar said, “I apologize. I dropped my cell phone into the water in Venice. I bought a new one, but didn’t know I needed to pass the number. The schedule I had said today was the first day. We could have cut short our trip there if I’d have known.”

Father Brimm waved his hand, dismissing the problem. “You aren’t the only one. I’m still missing Alabama and Connecticut. They don’t make this rehearsal, and their church paid for a trip to Italy for nothing.”

Omar said, “So what do we need to do to catch up?”

“I need the passports for you and your boys. Need a photocopy of the page so Vatican security can run a background check.”

“That’s easy. There a copy machine around?”

“One inside.”

Omar turned to go, then snapped his fingers. “Father, one of my boys is sick. He’s in bed right now, at our hotel. I don’t have his passport and didn’t know you needed it.”

“He’s a no-go, then. Sorry. Security is an absolute. Crazies have threatened the Holy Father on a number of occasions. They won’t bend the rules. This ceremony has people coming from all over the world, even members from the Archdiocese of Kirkuk in Iraq and parishes from Jordan and Lebanon. You can see why the security would be harsh.”

Omar said, “You just need his information, right? You don’t need an actual photocopy, do you? I can call him. I can get the information and give it to you with our photocopies. Please. He’s traveled a long way. This is a special mission for him.”

Father Brimm pursed his lips for a moment. He said, “If he’s not here for the rehearsal, he can’t go anyway. My rules. It wouldn’t be fair to the others.”

“We’re here. How hard can it be? They conduct the ceremony, then we go single file up to the basilica, right? I could see if you had no one from the parish here, but we’ll put him in between my other boys. Monkey see, monkey do.”

Father Brimm relented, “Okay, okay. Stay for the rehearsal. If you get me the information before we leave today, I’ll turn it in, but I can’t promise they’ll grant him approval. I don’t know if the copy of the passport is a necessary requirement.”

Omar let out his breath in relief. “Thank you. Venice was fun, but tomorrow’s ceremony is the only reason he came.”

Father Brimm smiled and said, “I don’t suppose they’ll be too afraid of an American from Florida. He hasn’t been to Syria in the past six months, has he?”

Omar laughed and clapped the priest on the back. “Not that his passport shows.”