Текст книги "Splinter Cell (2004)"

Автор книги: David Michaels

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Текущая страница: 3 (всего у книги 18 страниц)

Unlike the color belt system used by other martial arts systems, Krav Maga is broken down into levels. When you progress through the system, you move up in level until you reach 3B, the most advanced class that Katia teaches. That's the one I'm in, as well as "Fight Class," where we have the opportunity to spar while wearing protective gear. In 3B we work on weapons defenses, grappling, joint locks, spinning heel, and slap kicks, and other advanced combatives.

When the hour's up, everyone is in a major sweat. I can't wait to get home and hit the shower. As folks are leaving, I wipe my face and neck with a towel and catch my breath. Katia comes over to me and says, "Sam, you should be teaching this class, not me."

"You do a great job, Katia," I say.

"I'm serious. You've been doing this a long time, haven't you? I mean, I knew you were good, but today you showed me a thing or two. Where did you study before? Are you from Israel?"

I shake my head. "Nope. Born and raised here in the States."

"You're not Jewish, are you?"

I smile. "Charlie Chaplin was once asked that question," I say. "He replied, 'I don't have that honor, sorry.' "

She laughs. "Well, you're damned good. I'd really hate to fight you for real."

I don't know what to say, so I shrug and mumble, "Thanks."

"You have to rush off?" she asks. "You want to go get a coffee? Or something cold to drink? We can go to the little diner next door."

Oh, brother. This is all I need. Damn. Part of me wants to go with her and the rest of me wants to run like hell. I just can't get close to a woman. I know it doesn't work. I've been there, done that.

"I don't know. . . ." I start to say.

"Oh, come on. I'm not going to bite you. I might kick you in the groin if you don't, but I won't bite."

"We're all sweaty."

She rolls her eyes. "What is this? You looking for every excuse you can think of? We'll sit in the corner and no one will smell us."

Damn, she is cute.

"All right," I say.

She shakes her head as if to say, "I just don't get you." She grabs her stuff, I take mine, and we go out the door to the diner.

Katia buys a medium coffee, black. I opt for decaf. I don't like to have to depend on stuff like caffeine. If you get too used to coffee to keep you alert, you have no business being a Splinter Cell.

Now comes the hard part. She's probably going to ask me a lot of personal questions and I'm going to have to lie. I keep a catalog of cover stories for situations like this. The usual "What do you do for a living?" and "Where did you go to school?" and "Have you ever been married?" questions.

We sit at a table and she grins at me. "So. Here we are. See, this isn't so bad."

"Nope," I reply. Maybe if I keep my end of the conversation monosyllabic, she'll get bored.

"Now tell me again about your business. You get to travel a lot?"

"It's nothing cool," I say. "I sell ball bearings. I travel to other countries and sell ball bearings. It's realexciting."

She laughs. "I'll bet it's better than you say. Just the traveling part would interest me."

"It's all right at first, but you soon get tired of the early mornings, the crowded airports, the hassles of security these days, and the jet lag. Believe me, it's not as exotic as it seems."

"All right, what do you do for fun?"

"When I'm in another country?"

"No, here, silly. What do you do besides take Krav Maga classes?"

I look away. Sometimes the shy act turns off women and sometimes it makes them more interested. I'm hoping it'll discourage her since she's such an outgoing lass. "I don't know," I mutter. "Nothing much. I live alone. I'm not much of a socialite."

"Oh, sure," she counters. "A great-looking guy like you? You must have a dozen girlfriends."

I shake my head. "I'm afraid not."

"Really?"

"Really."

Uh-oh. She looks heartened. Maybe I should have told her I had six girlfriends that live with me. Damn, this is hard.

"Well, I know you're not gay, so what is it? Bad marriage or something?"

"How do you know I'm not gay?"

She smirks. "Come on, a girl can tell."

"What about you? You're not married, are you?"

"I asked you first. But no, I'm not. I was married for four years when I was just out of college. Big mistake. Haven't looked back. You?"

I don't like to talk about that part of my life. "Yeah, I was married once. She died."

Katia's smile falls. That sure put a damper on things. Maybe I should just tell the truth more often. "Oh, I'm sorry," she says. "What happened?"

"Cancer," I answer.

"That's awful. How long were you married?"

"A little more than three years."

"Kids?"

I'm not sure if I want to reveal this or not, but I do. "Yeah, one. I have a daughter going to college in Illinois."

"Oh, wow," Katia says. "Do you see her much?"

"Not often enough," I say truthfully.

"Hey, you like to eat?" she asks, sensing that she should change the subject.

I shrug. "I guess. Doesn't everyone?"

"I like to cook. You want to try one of Katia Loenstern's specials some night?" she asks.

I don't want to tell her that I like to cook, too. That would just give us something in common.

"Oh, I don't think so," I say. It pains me to have to tell her this.

She looks as if I'd just slapped her. "Really?" she asks. "You'd be missing something, I tell you."

"I believe you. Thanks, really. But I just can't do that. I'm sorry."

"What's the matter? I said I don't bite."

"It's not that," I mutter. I try to put on the introverted, scared-of-women act to dissuade her.

"Don't you find me attractive?"

There's my opening. "No," I say.

I really thought that would do the trick, but instead she says, "Bullshit! You think I'm gorgeous. I can tell. Come on, what is it with you?"

I laugh and say, "Look, Katia, you're my instructor. I don't . . . I can't get involved, all right? Let's just be friends."

She shakes her head but keeps smiling. "Boy, I can't tell you how many times I've heard that one. Fine. Look, we all have pasts we want to hide. Don't worry about it. We'll be friends if that's what you want."

By now we're done with our coffees. I look at the time and say, "Well, I guess I'd better be going. I have some, uhm, sales reports to do this afternoon."

She sighs and says, "Okay, Sam. Will you be at the next class?"

"I should be. You never know, though, in my job."

We walk out of the diner together and she holds out her hand. I take it and give it a light squeeze.

"Okay, friend," she says. "I'll see you next time."

"Okay," I reply. And then we separate. She goes back to the studio and I begin the walk home, cursing at myself for being such a shit.

WHENI get back to the house, I hear the phone ringing. I keep a regular unlisted home phone line. There's an extension in the kitchen, on the middle level, right when you walk into the house.

I pick up the receiver and I hear Sarah's sweet voice.

"Hi, Dad, it's me!"

"Sarah honey! I'm happy to hear from you," I say. I honestly get a warm, fuzzy feeling when I talk to her.

"Just wanted to let you know that Rivka and I are about to leave for the airport. We're soexcited."

I tense up and say, "Whoa, hold on. The airport? Where are you going?"

"Jerusalem, Dad. Remember? We've been planning this for–"

"Sarah, we discussed this at length! I told you that you couldn't go."

"Dad! Come on, you didn't come right out and say I couldn't go. You didn't wantme to go, but you didn't say I couldn'tgo."

"Well, you can't go. Israel's just too volatile right now. With the state of things in the world with respect to Americans, I'm just not comfortable with it."

Naturally, she sounds upset. "Oh, come on, Dad! I'm twenty years old! You can't stop me now! We're on our wayto the airport as we speak! I have my tickets and everything!"

Aw, hell. What am I supposed to do about this?

"Sarah, I wish we'd talked more about this." I try to control my anger.

"Look, I'll call you when we get to Jerusalem. I'll try to figure out what the time difference is and not call you in the middle of the night. I gotta go."

I couldn't think of anything to say except, "Be careful. I love you." But she had already hung up. Damn it.

I guess I had forgotten all about her plans. Sarah wanted to go with her friend Rivka to Israel over spring break. I had told her I wasn't too crazy about her going to such a dangerous location but I guess I wasn't forceful enough. What can I do? Technically, she's an adult.

Sarah's a student at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, just north of Chicago. She's a junior. I think. Sometimes I forget how long she's been in college. Rivka is her best friend and she happens to be from Israel. They're supposedly going to stay with Rivka's family in Jerusalem for a little less than a week.

I glance at the photo of Sarah that's stuck on the refrigerator with a magnet. She's the spitting image of her mother. Beautiful and smart. A class act all the way. The only thing she inherited from me was my stubbornness.

The memory of Regan giving birth flashes through my mind. It was a difficult labor and being on a U.S. military base in Germany didn't help. I was in the CIA at the time, working in Eastern Europe. Regan had a job as a cryptanalyst for the NSA. We met in Georgia, of all places. Not Georgia, USA, but the former Soviet state. We had a stormy affair and Regan got pregnant. The wedding was a small, quiet one on the base in Germany, and that's where Sarah was born.

I don't like to reflect on the three years Regan and I were together. It wasn't a happy time. I loved Regan and she loved me, but our professions interfered. It was a distant, difficult marriage. Regan eventually went back to the States and took Sarah with her. She reclaimed her maiden name, Burns, and had Sarah's legally changed. As for me, I dedicated myself entirely to the work, operating extensively in Germany, Afghanistan, and the Soviet satellites in the years leading up to the collapse of the USSR. Needless to say, I became estranged from Regan and Sarah.

I think Sarah was fifteen when Regan died. That was so goddamned hard. I hadn't spoken to Regan in years, and I tried my best to have a reconciliation with her when I learned that she had less than a year to live. Fucking ovarian cancer. It doesn't take a trained psychologist to figure out why I'm afraid of commitment now. Living with the guilt of not being there while Sarah was growing up and then facing the fact that the woman you love is dying will turn anyone off from relationships.

I became Sarah's legal guardian, and that's when I took the bureaucratic job with the CIA in the States, hoping I could settle into a suburban life and focus more on her upbringing. Unfortunately, I have enough trouble being comfortable around human beings in general, much less a teenage girl. It was an awkward, difficult time. I suppose, though, that it's turned out okay. After she graduated from high school, Sarah seemed to come around and appreciate me more. I've read that all teenagers go through the same thing. Once they leave the nest, they become your friend. Thank goodness that's what happened with us.

I wish I could see her more often.

I hear myself sigh as I force these thoughts out of my head. I walk downstairs to the office so I can check my otheranswering machine. My line to the NSA isn't a phone at all. It's really more of a pager embedded in a paperweight on my desk. If the pin light is on, that means I need to contact Lambert from a secure line outside the house. I don't ever call on my home line.

The pin light is on.

4

POLICE Constable Robert Perkins disliked his beat with a passion. Every night it was the same thing, except on Sundays when the theater was dark. Even days were bad because of matinees.

As the officer in charge of the area surrounding the National Theatre in London, PC Perkins felt that supervising traffic was below his station. Nevertheless, he did it without complaint. He didn't actually have to directtraffic–thank God for that–except in the case of an emergency, a royal event, or if some idiot did something to cause an accident. Perkins had walked this beat for the last twenty-two years and would probably be doing it for at least the next ten. Perkins could always put in for a transfer, but his superiors always frowned upon such requests. At age forty-three, he felt, he was becoming a bit long in the tooth for this type of work.

On weekday evenings traffic was even worse because of the business day rush hour. Waterloo Bridge loomed overhead, running from northwest to southeast across the Thames to the South Bank. The mass of vehicles traversing that particular road never let up. At rush hour, before the theater's evening performance, it was at its worst. The "congestion charge" of PS5 over and above the parking fee didn't dissuade drivers from attempting to use the theater's small car park. Perkins wondered why more people didn't just take the tube and walk. Certainly it was simpler and less annoying.

Perkins usually stood at the intersection of Theatre Avenue and Upper Ground because the only place coaches could let off passengers was on Upper Ground at the back of the theater. Thus, he was practically directly beneath Waterloo Bridge and had to deal with the noise of the traffic above him. It gave him a daily headache.

It was now 6:30 and the bulk of the evening traffic was at its peak. Perkins stood at the crossroad and watched as irritable coach drivers continued to stop, then move, stop, then move. Civilian and taxi drivers moving along Theatre Avenue had even worse tempers. They expected the world to stop so that they could see the latest Shakespearean production.

Perkins had lived in London his entire life and had never been inside the National Theatre except to investigate reports of theft, sick patrons, or the occasional belligerent guest. Not once had he sat in one of the three theaters to watch something. He didn't really care to. He wasn't into "high brow" entertainment. When he had told his wife that, she'd replied that back in Shakespeare's day the plays were considered entertainment for the lower and middle classes. Perkins had nothing to say to that.

A blast of car horns on Theatre Avenue pulled his attention away from a density of taxis on Upper Ground. He squinted in that direction and was aghast at what he saw moving slowly along the street and eventually stopping on double red lines, halting traffic.

It was a large lorry pulling a flatbed covered with theater scenery. Three "actors" were performing on it for the benefit of pedestrians and cars trying to go around the lorry. Perkins had never seen anything like this in all his many years on the South Bank. For one thing, lorries weren't allowed on that particular road.

Perkins grabbed the radio from his belt and contacted his second-in-command, PC Blake, who was stationed on the other side of the theater.

"Yes, sir?"

"Blake, have you seen the lorry over here on Theatre Avenue?"

"What lorry?"

"There's a bloody lorry with actors on the back of it. They're doing some kind of show. It's causing all kinds of problems over here."

"I don't know nothin' about it, sir."

"Get on to the box office and ask them if this belongs to the theater."

"Will do."

Blake signed off and Perkins strode toward the lorry, preparing to give someone hell. He had to stop, though, and direct a number of cars around the lorry and then run back to the intersection to unclog a maze of taxis that formed in less than ten seconds. Perkins cursed and slapped the bonnet of one of the taxis, telling the driver to hurry around and lay off the horn.

Blake came back on the radio.

"Perkins here."

"Sir, the theater people don't know anything about it. They didn't provide this so-called entertainment."

"Right. That does it. Thank you, Blake."

Perkins replaced the radio and took a deep breath. He was angry now and he pitied the poor soul he was about to berate. He left the chaos at the intersection and walked with purpose to the lorry.

The actors were dressed in medieval attire and speaking lines that no one could hear due to the traffic on the bridge overhead. What was the bloody point? Perkins wondered.

The driver sat in the cab bobbing his upper body in a strange fashion. He appeared to be Middle Eastern–he had a dark complexion and black facial hair.

Perkins stepped up to the window and rapped loudly on it.

"Listen here! You've got to move! You're not supposed to be here!" Perkins shouted.

The driver didn't look at him. He continued to bob back and forth, muttering something to himself.

"Sir! Please lower your window! I'm speaking to you!"

Perkins rapped the window once more and then he understood what the driver was doing.

He was praying.

As soon as the realization hit him, Perkins's heart nearly stopped. He gasped and stepped back from the lorry, but it was too late.

The explosives were so powerful that they obliterated the lorry and its troupe of suicide "actors," eight vehicles on Theatre Avenue, and caused a section of Waterloo Bridge to collapse. Fourteen motorcars fell off the bridge, causing a massive, burning pileup. The side of the theater facing the blast was singed and several windows were broken. Sixty-two people were killed and nearly a hundred and fifty were injured.

Constable Perkins never had to supervise traffic at the National Theatre again.

EACHmajor broadcast network covered the disaster in the U.K., but it was BBC-2 that featured an exclusive interview with a Turkish terrorism expert that happened to be in London on business. A bright female reporter caught Namik Basaran as the fifty-two-year-old man rushed out of the Ritz Hotel to travel to Embankment and view the scene personally. Close beside him was his bodyguard, a broad-shouldered man wearing a turban.

"Mr. Basaran, can you tell us what your visit to London entails?" the reporter asked.

Basaran, a swarthy man with a noticeable skin condition, spoke to the camera. "I am the head of a not-for-profit charity organization in Turkey called Tirma. For the four years of our existence we have provided relief aid to victims of terrorist attacks all over the world. The United Kingdom is no exception. I hope to authorize the release of several thousand pounds to help the victims of this horrible tragedy."

"It is said that you're an expert on terrorism. Could you elaborate on this?"

Basaran shook his head. "No one is an 'expert' on terrorism. That is nonsense. Terrorism is fluid. It changes daily. Terrorism used to be hijacking an aircraft and forcing the pilot to take it to another location. This evolved into holding hostages aboard the craft to force governments to do something. Now we have hijackers willing to die on an airplane and kill every passenger along with them. Terrorists have become more desperate and bold."

A label identifying him appeared on the screen–"Namik Basaran, president and CEO, Akdabar Enterprises–Chairman, Tirma."

"Is it true that you're a victim of terrorism yourself?"

Basaran lightly touched the skin on his face. Had it been grafted? "That's a very painful subject for me and I'd rather not go into it here on television. Suffice it to say that I've experienced tragedy in my life and have dedicated the personal profits I make from my legitimate company, Akdabar Enterprises, to benefit Tirma. I have spent years studying the terrorist situation in the Middle East and other parts of the world and have made contacts that are beneficial for those of us who want to stamp out terrorism."

"Do you have any idea who was behind what happened on the South Bank this evening?"

Basaran's eyes flared as he said, "It's too early to say for certain, but I wouldn't be surprised if tomorrow the British government receives a message from the Shadows claiming responsibility."

"Sir, do you think the Shadows are the most dangerous terrorist network in the world? Some say that they have surpassed the prominence formerly held by such groups as al Qaeda and Hizballah."

"I'm afraid I have to agree that this is true. The Shadows are becoming more powerful every day. They are a force that the governments of the world will soon be reckoning with on a major scale. That's all, I must hurry. I want to see the site firsthand so I can make a report to our board of ambassadors back in Turkey. Thank you. Come along, Farid."

The bodyguard led Basaran out of the way of the camera, and they both got into the back of a limousine.

The reporter addressed the camera: "That was Namik Basaran, chairman of a victim-relief charity organization based in Turkey. If what Mr. Basaran says is correct, then the Shadows have struck again. To date this mysterious group of terrorists has claimed responsibility for several recent attacks in the Middle East, Asia, and Europe, the most recent one being the tragedy two weeks ago in Nice, France. This is Susan Harp for BBC-2."

5

I drive a 2002 Jeep Grand Cherokee when I'm at home in Maryland. It's one of the Overland models, a rugged 4x4 with a potent 265-horsepower V8. For the city, it's way too much car, but there are times when I like to take it over more rugged territory. I recently had an assignment for Third Echelon tracking down a suspected terrorist who was hiding out in Las Vegas. I drove my Cherokee cross-country and it was a blast. I happen to enjoy road trips. Anyway, I ended up taking the Jeep off-road several times during that mission. The car serves me well.

On the way down from Towson I listen to NPR and hear about a suicide bombing in London. It has just occurred on the South Bank and part of Waterloo Bridge was destroyed. They don't know how many people were killed or injured. It sounds pretty bad. I wonder if my meeting with Lambert has anything to do with this.

Lambert and I usually find a public place to meet. I avoid the government agency buildings in and around D.C. just in case someone's tailing me. Seeing me enter the NSA or the CIA buildings would certainly be a tip-off that I work for the Feds. Lambert and I vary the locations, but we usually meet in shopping malls. He knows I hate shopping malls, so I think he picks them on purpose just to annoy me. Lambert has a sick sense of humor.

Today I drive down to D.C. on I-95 and then swing west toward Silver Spring. I follow the directions to City Place Mall on Colesville Road, park the Jeep, and go inside. The Food Court is easy to find, and there's Lambert waiting for me at one of the tables. Today he's dressed in a short-sleeved knit golf shirt and khaki pants. He never wears his uniform when we meet in public. It looks like he's got himself a Big Mac Combo Meal and is actually enjoying it. I nod at him and approach one of the fast-food rackets to pick up something for myself. Since it's the middle of the afternoon and I'm not particularly hungry, I end up buying a slice of pizza from Sbarro's. How come every mall in America has the exact same combination of fast-food restaurants? It's one of the mysteries of the universe.

I may be a little older than Lambert, but I look younger. He reminds me of the actor Danny Glover. His curly hair has grayed completely, and the bags under his eyes show the strain of being in charge of a major intelligence department for the U.S. government. Don't get me wrong–he's a very energetic guy. He's ambitious and smart, and I'm not sure if he ever sleeps. He drinks more coffee than he sucks air. Lambert's the kind of guy who's always busy and never relaxes. He has a funny habit of rubbing the top of his crew-cut head when he's nervous.

Colonel Lambert has been in the Intel business since he was a young man. I know he had a lot of responsibility during the Gulf War. Today he's very well connected in Washington, although I get the impression that he's minimally trusted. He's never been acknowledged publicly, but I believe he prefers it that way.

Third Echelon is an organization no one is supposed to know about. The NSA–the National Security Agency–is the nation's cryptologic establishment. It coordinates, directs, and performs highly specialized activities to protect U.S. information systems and produce foreign intelligence reports. Since it's on the edge of communications and data processing, the NSA is naturally a very high-tech operation. For decades the NSA engaged in what I call "passive" collection of moving data by intercepting communications en route. The First Echelon was a worldwide network of international intelligence agencies and interceptors that seized communications signals and routed them back to the NSA for analysis. It was a network vital to the United States' efforts during the Cold War. As the Soviet Union disintegrated and communications evolved, high technology became the name of the game. The NSA created Second Echelon, which focused entirely on this new breed of communications technology. Unfortunately, the immense volume of information combined with the accelerated pace of developing technology and encryption overwhelmed Second Echelon. NSA experienced its first system-wide crash. As communications became more digital and sophisticated encryption more expansive, passive collection was simply no longer efficient. So the NSA launched a top-secret initiative–Third Echelon–to return to more, shall we say, "classical" methods of espionage powered by the latest technology for the aggressivecollection of stored data. In other words, it was back to the nitty-gritty world of human spies out there in the field, risking their lives for the sake of taking a photograph or recording a conversation or copying a computer hard drive. Third Echelon agents are called Splinter Cells, and I was the very first one. We physically infiltrate dangerous and sensitive enemy locations to gather the required intelligence by whatever means necessary. Our prime directive, in a nutshell, is to do our jobs while remaining invisible to the public eye. We're authorized to work outside the boundaries of international treaties, but the U.S. will neither acknowledge nor support our operations.

Thus, Third Echelon, a sub-agency of the NSA, consists of an elite team of strategists, hackers, and field operatives. We respond to crises of information warfare–a war that is hidden from the media and the ordinary man on the street. You're not going to see our battles on CNN. At least I hope not. If you do, then we've failed.

"How's it going, Sam?" Lambert asks, chewing a bite of burger.

"Can't complain, Colonel," I reply, sitting at one of the plastic tables across from him. He once told me to call him "Irv," but I just can't bring myself to do that. "Colonel" is fine with me. It always strikes me as incongruous, us meeting like this. Here we are, two innocuous middle-aged men meeting in a shopping mall for fast food–yet we're about to discuss things that might affect the security of the United States.

Lambert gets right to the point. "Sam, another Splinter Cell has been assassinated," he says, looking me in the eyes.

I wait for him to continue.

"Rick Benton. Stationed in Iraq, but it happened in Brussels."

"I've heard of him. Never met him," I say.

"No, of course not. We keep you guys apart for a reason."

"What happened? Do we know?" I ask.

Lambert shakes his head. "Details are still coming in. The Belgian police are all over it, so we have to get the information through ordinary diplomatic channels, and you know how slow that can be. But we're getting cooperation from the Belgian Military Intelligence and Security Service. One of their guys was killed with Benton."

"What dowe know?"

"Benton was in the process of obtaining some sensitive information from his contact in Brussels, an intelligence officer named Dirk Verbaken. Unknown assassins murdered both men in Benton's hotel room during the lunch hour. Apparently Benton and Verbaken got together for a face-to-face, but someone else knew about it. They were both shot, and there's every reason to believe that it's the same MO as what happened in Macau to Dan Lee. Same ballistics–caliber and so forth."

"You think it's the Shop?"

"It has to be. I can't think of another enemy organization that has an inkling that we exist. The Shop has been on notice for over a year now, and they know the NSA is on to them. Whether or not they're completely aware of Third Echelon and what we do is anyone's guess. Mine is that they areaware of us. How else would they be able to target two Splinter Cells in a three-month period?"

I shrug and venture, "They've tapped into our personnel records? Maybe they have talented hackers, too."

"Our firewall is impenetrable," Lambert replies. "Carly's too good at that stuff. We'd know if we were being hacked."

"There was the security breach that occurred nine months ago."

Lambert nods. "I've thought of that. It's a possibility. A remote one, but yeah, you're right. Carly and I discussed this and there's about a one-in-three-hundred chance that someone got in. Improbable but not impossible."

"So what were Benton and this Belgian guy meeting about? What was his name?"

"Verbaken. The last report I received from Benton indicated he was investigating a possible connection between the Shop and 'something in Belgium.' He told me he was going to Brussels to meet with an intelligence contact there and that he would report in as soon as he was done. For months he was in the process of tracking a major Shop arms supply line coming into Iraq from the north. The customers are the various insurgents and terrorist factions that have been hounding our allies, the new Iraqi government, and usever since the president declared that the war in Iraq was over. I know Benton was getting close to finding out some truths about those guys." Lambert took a long slurp of soda. "I'm afraid Benton turned out to be careless. It cost him his life."

"Is Belgium giving us any info on their guy? What was heworking on?"

"Well, we have a clue. Benton's OPSAT was recovered from the hotel room. It was smashed to hell, but upon examination of the device our people were able to extract a minimum number of files that hadn't been transmitted to us. One was a shot of a page from a file belonging to Verbaken. When Belgian Intelligence saw the photo, they confirmed that it was from a missing file that detailed the activities of Gerard Bull."