Текст книги "Conviction (2009)"

Автор книги: David Michaels

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Текущая страница: 12 (всего у книги 18 страниц)

Goggles still on and set to night vision, Fisher started toward the conduits in a slow breaststroke, and with each passing foot his sense of deja vu increased until finally the cause popped out of his subconscious: another mission, another place. The Burj al Arab hotel in Dubai. Another set of water intakes,Fisher thought. Of course, the Burj al Arab's conduits had been monstrous, driven by battleship-sized screws. Then again, he'd known what to expect there; here, he knew nothing.

Less thinking, more doing,he commanded himself.

When he was twenty feet from the conduits, he felt the first tug of current, gentle at first, then more insistent as it drew him into a counterclockwise spin. He made one revolution of the conduits, then two. On the third he reached out and touched the closest conduit and was rewarded by an immediate slowing. He reached up with his opposite arm and snagged one of the brackets that joined the conduits. His body came to a halt and he hung still for a moment, feeling the undertow on his legs. Through the corrugated walls came the rhythmic thrumming of the pumps. The tempo seemed muted, as though the system was operating at nominal power. He pressed his ear to the metal. The rising water sounded hollow and spasmodic.

He extended his right leg, straining, until his toes found the lip of the conduit's mouth. There was no protective grating in place. Bad for unwary fish but good for him. From here on it was pure guesswork. If the pumps were strong enough to lift him, he would end up pulped on a propeller or pinned against a filter grate until the power was either decreased, which would drop him back down the conduit, or increased, which would drown him.

Fisher took a deep breath, released the bracket, and knifed beneath the surface. He immediately curled himself into a ball, waited until he felt himself slip into the mouth of the conduit, then straightened and spread his arms above his head. His right hand touched something hard, a protrusion–a ladder rung. Maintenance ladder.He latched onto it, twisted his torso, and slapped his left hand onto the rung. Water rushed past his body in fits and starts; over the whoosh he could hear the pumps straining to clear the obstruction. He chinned himself up, found the next rung, and climbed until his feet found purchase. He pressed himself against the wall. The pump smoothed out and returned to normal.

He started climbing.

INthe cascade both his night vision and headlamp were useless, so he relied on his sense of touch, taking the rungs carefully and slowly until he felt the conduit turn inward on its forty-five-degree angle. Now on a near-horizontal plane, the water flowed along the bottom, occupying half the conduit's volume. Fisher crawled forward, arms braced against the rungs as the river rushed past his legs.

He reached a left-hand juncture. He followed it, and after another four or five feet came to a manhole-sized butterfly valve. He pressed his hand to the valve and felt nothing. He pressed his ear against it. Nothing. He turned around, rolled onto his back, and pressed his feet against the valve, slowly increasing the pressure until it flipped open. He flipped himself around again and wriggled headfirst through the opening. Another five feet brought him to the neighboring conduit. There, no water was flowing. He flipped on his headlamp, turned right, and kept crawling. After forty or fifty feet his headlamp picked out a short, vertical ladder leading to a hatch. Knees braced against the ladder's uprights and one arm curled around a rung, he snaked the head of the flexicam through one of the hatch's airholes. The fish-eye lens revealed pipes, stanchions, a concrete floor. . . . It was the pump room. Fisher retrieved the flexicam, then gently lifted the hatch and climbed through.

26

THOUGHmuch of his view was obscured my machinery, piping, lighted control panels, and stanchions, it appeared that the room ran the length and breadth of the laboratory above; the banks of gray metal storage cabinets along the walls told him it also served as a storage area. Aside from sporadic blinking lights from the control panels, the space was dark. The only sound came from the throbbing of the pumps.

With just his head jutting from the hatch, he scanned the room, pausing first on the most likely spots for sensors and cameras before checking the rest. He spotted twelve cameras–one in each corner and two spaced along each wall. All were fixed and, judging from the Tridents' EM, nonoperational.

Curiouser and curiouser,Fisher thought. Privately run or not, this facility dealt with arguably the most sophisticated technology of the twenty-first century, and yet he'd seen not a single active security measure. If Lucchesi was calling the shots, why would he decline to protect his life's work? The special operator's part of Fisher's brain whispered trap, but he discounted it. An ambush, to what end? And why wait until he'd penetrated the facility?

Fisher climbed out of the hatch, closed it behind him, and moved among the pipes and stanchions until he reached a steel door set into the wall. A quick check with the flexicam revealed an alcove and a set of stairs leading upward. He could see a wall-mounted camera on the next landing–it, too, was dead. He opened the door, crossed the alcove, and started up the steps until he reached what he assumed was the first floor landing. Here the door was made of reinforced steel, with shielded hinges and a biometric keypad lock. Fisher was reaching for his OPSAT when he stopped and, on impulse, pressed down on the door handle. It clicked open. He eased the handle back to its original position. He checked the jamb. There wasn't enough space for the flexicam. He gave the door an EM/ IR scan. Nothing. He pressed his ear to the door. Silence.

Too much good news,Fisher thought, and drew his SC pistol.

He pressed himself against the wall on the door's knob side, eased the door open an inch, and braced it with his foot. He raised the SC to chest height, aimed the muzzle at the gap. He waited. Ten seconds. Thirty. A full minute.

No ambush, no shots, no rushing of armed security personnel through the door.

The hell with it.

Fisher swung the door open, peeked around the corner, and found himself staring into a dark, cavernous space.

HEflipped on his night vision and looked around. The lab was in fact six stories tall but contained no floors, at least not in the traditional sense, but rather concentric, spiraling catwalks connected by narrow gantries. The slit windows cast stripes of pale light over the walls and catwalks and floors, leaving Fisher with the sensation that he'd stepped into a giant colander.

Hulking pieces of equipment dominated the floor, some of them tall and narrow, rising thirty and forty feet; others squat and featureless save a few control panels and LED displays. Clear acrylic tubes crisscrossed the space, entering and exiting the machinery at odd angles. Nothing looked familiar to Fisher, but he was unsurprised. The manufacture of molecule-sized devices would of course require specialized equipment and procedures.

After performing his now token NV/EM/IR scans, and once again coming up with nothing, he began moving through the space until, finally, he found a raised platform of white Lexan tiles in the northeast corner. Measuring roughly thirty feet square, the platform was surrounded on three sides by railing, while the wall side was dominated by a row of computer workstations. In the center was a rectangular chrome-and-glass conference table. Fisher was about move to ahead when his subconscious spoke up again: Complacency.He stopped, backed into the shadows beside one of the machines, and flipped on the night vision.

A lone figure was sitting in a chair before one of the workstations. The broad shoulders and height told Fisher it was a man. He sat hunched over, elbows resting on his knees, face cupped in his hands. SC raised and extended, Fisher crept ahead to the platform steps, then stopped.

"Don't move," Fisher whispered. "I'm pointing a gun at you."

The man obeyed, save for a slight lifting of his head so he could see who was talking.

"Who are you?" the man said in Italian.

"I was going to ask you the same thing."

"I am Terzo Lucchesi," he muttered halfheartedly.

"You don't sound sure."

"He sent you to kill me. So kill me."

"No one sent me to kill you."

Lucchesi sat up in his chair. Light from one of the slit windows reflected off wire-rimmed glasses. "You're American." Lucchesi switched to English. "Why did he send an American? Were you cheaper?"

"Raise your hands above your head," Fisher ordered. None of this felt right.

With a fatalistic shrug, Lucchesi raised his hands. "Are you a good shot? Please tell me you're a good shot."

"For the last time, I didn't come here to kill you. Ask me about it one more time and I'll start rethinking my plan."

"I don't understand, then. Who are you? Why are you here?"

"Let's get some lights on," Fisher said, taking a little of the edge from his voice. "Anything goes wrong, I'll shoot you in the kneecap."

"All right," Lucchesi said hesitantly, and reached his hand toward one of the monitors.

"Wait." Fisher mounted the platform steps and sidestepped around Lucchesi until his back was facing the wall and he could see the rest of the facility. He knelt down, making himself a smaller target. He flexed his rear foot, readying himself to spin should targets present themselves. "Go ahead. Carefully."

Lucchesi tapped a series of buttons on the keyboard and, above, a series of halogen pendant lights glowed to life, illuminating the platform like a stage; then slowly more lights came on throughout the space until it was bright as daylight.

Lucchesi took in Fisher's tac-suit, Trident goggles, face half covered in his balaclava, and tilted his head to one side as though he'd just seen a dodo bird. "My, you must have been expensive."

Fisher sighed and lifted the SC, taking aim on Lucchesi's forehead. The Italian raised his hands and nodded apologetically. "Sorry, sorry . . ."

"What's going on here?" Fisher asked. "Why are you shut down? Where is everyone?"

"In order," Lucchesi replied, "absolutely nothingis going on, we are shut down because we are broke, and everyone has gone home."

"Explain."

"My funding has been revoked."

"The military?"

"My father."

"Say again?"

"My father decided–and I quote–'you've wasted enough time on your invisible robots and bugs.' That was just his excuse, though."

"Who's your father?"

"You have heard of Graziani Motors, yes?"

Fisher nodded. Since the early 1950s Graziani Motors had specialized in custom-made sports cars. Special-order Graziani coupes began at eight hundred thousand dollars. At the age of seventeen Calvino Graziani started the company in his garage in what was then the village of Sassari; now seventy-four, Graziani remained at the company's helm. Conservative estimates put his net worth at 14.2 billion.

Before Fisher could ask the next obvious question, Lucchesi said, "When my parents divorced, I was a teenager. I took my mother's maiden name in protest."

Fisher was running on instinct now, having decided against simply demanding the Ajax code from Lucchesi. Perhaps it was the vulnerability Fisher saw in the man, or genuine sympathy, or both, but his gut told him there might be a better way of skinning this cat.

"You said something about your father's excuse. . . ."

Lucchesi gave another shrug. "It doesn't matter."

"Tell me anyway."

He studied Fisher for a moment. "I think you Americans call this the 'bartender effect.' You know, you tell your secrets to a complete stranger who happens to be serving you drinks. Or holding a gun on you."

Fisher lowered the SC to a forty-five degree angle but kept it pointed in Lucchesi's general direction.

"I should have expected that my father wasn't helping me out of the goodness of his heart," Lucchesi said. "He has none of that. He gave me just enough money to build this place, hire the best people, and make some progress before springing his trap. I was to start making nanotech-based weapons for his new start-up company. Father wanted to become an arms dealer, you see. Evidently, fourteen billion dollars isn't enough."

"So you refused."

Lucchesi shrugged. "We argued. I tried to stall, I tried to compromise, and then a couple of days ago he pulled the plug, as you say. I came back from Milan and found this." He swept his hand across the expanse of the laboratory. "Everything shut down. My staff gone. Every scrap of data removed from the mainframe. They pulled every hard drive, took every CD and USB flash drive."

"Why didn't you just go along–give him something so you could keep working on your own projects?" Fisher thought he knew the answer to this question, but he wanted Lucchesi to verbalize it so the man's moral compass snapped back into focus.

"I got into the nanotech field to help people. To help the world. I inherited that weakness from my mother–if you listen to my father, that is. A soft bleeding heart with his head in the clouds."

There it is,Fisher thought. "What if I told you I might be able to help?"

"You? Hah! I'm a dreamer, not an idiot. Anyone who dresses like that and carries the weapons you carry is more like my father than me."

"You should know better than to make broad assumptions, Doctor. Sometimes you have to do a little bad to do a lot of good. Hear me out."

Lucchesi wagged his head from side to side, thinking, then said, "Why not?"

LEAVINGout names and places and the specifics of 738 Arsenal, Fisher outlined his goal: help stop a massive arms deal from taking place and round up some of the world's most dangerous terrorists. "It's probably not quite what you had in mind," Fisher said, "but as you're fond of Americanisms, what you've got here is lemons."

Lucchesi smiled. "So I should make lemonade."

Fisher nodded.

"How do I know you're not lying to me?"

Fisher made a snap decision. He holstered his SC, took off his Trident goggles, and removed his balaclava. He looked Lucchesi in the eye. "I'm not lying."

Lucchesi held his gaze for a long ten seconds. "No, you're not, are you?"

"The kind of people you're worried about would've stopped talking a long time ago."

"I will trust your word on that. So these weapons . . . They are bad?"

"Very. And the people who want them are worse."

Lucchesi considered this for a few moments, then stood up, ran his hands through his disheveled hair, and said, "What do you need?"

"AJAX?"Lucchesi said after Fisher explained what he needed. "I abandoned that months ago."

"We didn't."

"Too many bugs. We couldn't get it to work with enough chipset brands."

"Define 'work.' "

"There were too many variables in the maintenance protocols. The bots would find their way to the correct location, then get stuck in a feedback loop. Even the simplest maintenance tasks crashed them."

"What if they only had one task?"

"Wait a moment. . . . You said, 'We didn't.' What does that mean?"

"We built our own version of Ajax. But we ran into a problem."

Lucchesi smiled. "Ah, the fail-safe code. That's what you came here for. They refuse any execute commands you give them?"

"Right."

"What is this one task you want them to do?"

"Use whatever internal communication hardware and software they come across to send out a burst transmission."

"Like GPS coordinates, perhaps?" Lucchesi was smiling more often now, warming to his new task. At Fisher's nod, he rubbed his hands together. "Interesting . . . So you essentially want them to phone home. What kinds of hardware?"

"Laptops, desktops, cell phones, PDAs, GPS devices–anything that communicates electronically."

"Which is everything nowadays, yes? Oh, this is wonderful!" Lucchesi shook his finger at Fisher. "You see, this is the problem with scientists. We tend to overthink problems. Often, instead of reducing, we add. . . . You have schematics for me? Code?"

"I can get it. But that doesn't solve our problem–the line of code we need was confiscated along with everything else."

"Hah! One line of code–what was it, six or seven thousand characters long?"

"Four."

"Four!" Lucchesi waved his hand dismissively. "I can write that in a few hours. Come on, come on. Get me the data. I want to play!"

ITtook several exchanges on the OPSAT before Grimsdottir accepted the unusual course Fisher had chosen and acquiesced. When the schematics and code finally appeared in the OPSAT's download folder, attached was a note from Grim:You're mellowing in your old age.

While Fisher had been communicating with Grim, Lucchesi had trotted off to a nearby file cabinet, retrieved a fifteen-inch MacBook Pro, and returned to the platform's central conference table.

Fisher asked, "I thought you said–"

"They found it. There's not a file left on it, but we don't need those, do we? What media does that gadget accept?" Lucchesi asked.

"You name it."

Lucchesi fished into his pants pocket, pulled out a 16 GB microSD card, and tossed it to Fisher, who inserted it into the OPSAT's multiport and began the download process. Fisher sat down at the conference table.

"So you took quite a risk, yes?" Lucchesi asked.

"How so?"

"I assume men in your business aren't encouraged to askfor anything. Plus, you've shown yourself to me. I could identify you–I won't, of course, but I could."

Fisher found himself liking Lucchesi. The man was a pure scientist, a man without guise or ulterior motive. Fisher rarely met such people in his line of work. Outside his own environment Lucchesi was probably socially maladroit. In his element he was perceptive and amiable.

"I know you won't," Fisher replied, keeping any inflection from his voice.

"So these weapons and these men . . . What happens once you've tracked them?"

"Bad things."

"Ah, the good kind of bad things."

"Right."

The OPSAT beeped. Fisher removed the microSD card and handed it to Lucchesi, who plugged it into an adaptor, and then into the MacBook's USB port.

For ten minutes Lucchesi stared at the screen, scrolling, pausing, typing random notes, until finally he looked up. "Very elegant. Your people did this?"

"More or less."

"I'm impressed. And they got the bots to work–all but the execute command?"

"Yes."

"I'll need one more thing. That person you were talking to on the other end of your device . . . They have access to databases? The Internet?"

Fisher smiled. "You have no idea."

ONits face, Lucchesi's request was daunting: He needed the specifications of every piece of hardware that matched their parameters and had been manufactured in the last decade. When Fisher put the question to Grimsdottir, she simply typed back:What format?

Fisher put the question to Lucchesi.

"XML spreadsheet should do nicely."

An hour later the OPSAT chimed again. Fisher read the screen, then looked up at Lucchesi. "Done."

"You're joking with me."

"No. Give me the card."

Grimsdottir's data took up two gigabytes of space on the microSD card. Lucchesi spent a few minutes scanning the spreadsheet, then shook his head in wonder. "Amazing. You have a powerful friend there. Okay, I'll get started. There's a break room off the second-tier catwalk. Would you mind terribly much making coffee?"

"Twist my arm," Fisher said, then got up.

LUCCHESIwas as good as his word. Three hours after he started, he gave the keyboard a final, definitive tap, then pushed away from the conference table with a heavy sigh. "Done. Can your people run the simulation?"

While Lucchesi went to the bathroom, Fisher plugged the microSD card into the OPSAT and uploaded the code to Grimsdottir. She replied:Team already called in; standby. Ninety minutes to run sim.

Fisher and Lucchesi passed the time talking. It was, Fisher decided, one of the most surreal missions he'd conducted: He infiltrates a high-tech nanotechnology laboratory, finds it abandoned except for the chief scientist, who is sitting alone in the dark, dejected after being financially cut off by Daddy, and now they are sitting together, like old friends, over coffee.

The OPSAT chimed again. Fisher read the screen, smiled, then turned it so Lucchesi could see the message:Sims complete. Green across the boards.

Lucchesi clapped his hands once, stood up, did a victory lap around the conference table, then shook Fisher's hand and sat down again. He leaned across the table, his eyes wide. "So what now?"

"I go do my job and you . . . You're broke?"

"Broke?" Lucchesi chuckled. "No, no. I sold a few patents here and there–Apple, HP, Kodak . . . Miniaturization processes. Very rudimentary, but profitable."

"Enough to restart–"

"No, not enough for that. But enough that I can take some time and gather my thoughts. Can you at least let me know whether Ajax worked as designed?"

"That I can do."

"I have a villa in Tuscany. I can give you the address." Lucchesi stopped and smiled. "I don't suppose you people need addresses, do you?"

Fisher smiled back. "We'll find you."

27

ATHENS, GREECE

"YOUtook a hell of a chance," Grimsdottir said on the LCD screen.

"I disagree," Fisher replied. "In essence, it was agent recruitment. Lucchesi had vulnerability and I recognized it. And he struck me as a decent guy in a bad situation. Grim, that's what case officers do."

"But he saw your face. He knows–"

"You're going to have to trust me on this. It isn't a problem."

Soon after leaving the laboratory–through the front door, with a departing wave from Lucchesi–Fisher had walked the half mile cross-country to the farmhouse, gotten in his car, and driven back to his hotel in Olbia. En route, a message from Grimsdottir appeared on the OPSAT:Athens. 754 Afroditis, apartment 14.

Fisher boarded the first available flight the next morning and arrived at the safe house in the early afternoon.

Grimsdottir shrugged. "I trust you. With age comes wisdom, I suppose."

Fisher smiled. "Go to hell. What's the latest with Aariz Qaderi?"

"Still in Grozny, but he's moving somewhere. His entourage is there, extra bodyguards. . . . It fits his pattern."

"As soon as you can get me the updated bots–"

"They're already headed your way."

"How?"

Grimsdottir chuckled. "FedEx, if you can believe it."

The shipment method did in fact seem incommensurate with the nature of the package, but aside from sending a Third Echelon courier with the proverbial handcuff-equipped briefcase, Grimsdottir's choice made the most sense.

"Be there tomorrow morning," Grimsdottir added.

"Where are you with Kovac?"

"He's pushing. The German rescue workers found your car in the Rhine, but, of course, no body. Evidently most floaters in that area of the river eventually surface in the same general area. The fact that your corpse hasn't yet has got them scratching their heads."

"How much time can you buy me?"

"Two, maybe three days."

Fisher considered this. "I'll find a way to get Hansen and his team back in the field. If I do it right, it'll keep Kovac off your back and solve another problem for us."

"Such as?"

"I'll let you know when it works. Ifit works."

CUTTINGthe timing very close, Grimsdottir's package arrived an hour before Fisher was to depart for the airport. He had just enough time to inspect the contents. Grimsdottir's techs had installed the bots into six reengineered gas-grenade cartridges–two equipped with aerogel parachutes and a CO _{dispersal system, and two with the standard impact actuators–and eight SC pistol darts. In stacked pairs, the larger bots fit neatly into three miniature, partially functional cans of shaving cream, the darts into a large-barrel ballpoint pen. Satisfied, he stuffed one can of the shaving cream into his carry-on bag and two into his checked bag. The pen went into his jacket pocket. He ran down to the waiting cab.}

Thirty minutes later, as the driver pulled up to the departure level's curb, Fisher's iPhone chimed. He checked the screen. A text message from Grimsdottir:Grozny airport mortared this a.m. Closed to all traffic.Our friend headed Tbilisi via ground transport.ETA three hours. Attempting to locate destination. Will advise.

"Damn," Fisher muttered.

"Eh?" asked the driver.

Fisher glanced at the meter, gave the driver the fare plus a tip, then told him, "Circle around."

As they pulled out, Fisher used the iPhone's browser to check the Lufthansa website. He punched his search–flights from Athens to Tbilisi–and got more bad news: The shortest flight was nearly eight hours and didn't depart for five hours. Aariz Qaderi would likely be long gone before Fisher even reached Tbilisi.

After three more circuits of the airport, and three more tips, Fisher got another text message from Grim:Friend had to book Tbilisi departure with known account.Leaving Tbilisi at 1325 hours on Turkish Airlines flight 1381 for Bucharest, Romania. Arriving Henri Coanda International Airport 1815 local.Stand by.

Two minutes later:

Olympic Airlines flight 386 leaving Athens 1610, arriving Bucharest 1720.

With luck, he'd touch down fifty-five minutes before Qaderi. He texted back:At airport. Heading Bucharest. Keep advised.

"Attagirl, Grim," Fisher murmured.

"Eh?" said the driver. "Again?"

"No, pull over."

INSIDEthe terminal he walked straight to the Olympic desk and booked the second-to-last seat on flight 386, then checked his bag, went through security, and found his gate. He sat down in a quiet corner, set his alarm for 3:20, then pulled his cap over his eyes and went to sleep.

ATthree his iPhone trilled; the screen read UNKNOWN. He answered. Grimsdottir said, "It's me."

"Where are you?"

"Don't laugh, but I'm at a pay phone."

Fisher didn't laugh, but the image was amusing: Anna Grimsdottir of the NSA and Third Echelon reduced to using a pay phone to make a secure call.

"Did you dry-clean yourself?" Fisher asked, only half seriously.

"Yes."

"Tell me about the bots."

"The six grenades will have the same range as a regular gas grenade and same hang time as an ASE. They'll either disperse on impact or thirty seconds after the aerogel chute deploys. The darts are disperse-on-impact, too. They all rely on kinetic energy, so you have to hit a hard surface."

"Range?"

"Variable. Remember, the Ajax bots gravitate to strong EM sources, so you're aiming for hardware, not people. For the grenades, dispersal range is twelve to fifteen feet; for the darts, about half that. They need to be airborne for full effectiveness. Depending on the surface, when the bots hit the ground, friction will negate their EM homing: rough surfaces completely; smooth surfaces . . . it's hard to say."

"I'm going to need equipment. What do we have in Romania?"

"A cache in Pitesti and one in Sibiu."

"Both too far for me to go there and get back before Qaderi lands."

"In that at least we caught a break," Grimsdottir replied. "I happen to have Vesa Hytonen in Budapest doing an errand for me. He should be boarding a flight to Craiova in about ten minutes. If he hauls ass, he can get to the cache and reach Bucharest about the same time you're touching down. I'm texting you his toss-away-cell number."

"Been thinking about Qaderi. This can't be his destination."

"I agree. If he's on his way to the auction, Bucharest is going to be a waypoint. Whoever's running the get together would make sure the guests are clean coming in."

"And if he never leaves the airport?" The chances of Fisher getting even the SC pistol through security were nil. He might have more luck with a dart, but without the kinetic energy supplied by the SC, would the bots disperse?

"That's the other piece of good news. When he had to reroute from Grozny to Tbilisi, Qaderi used a different credit card to book the ticket–an account number we hacked about four months ago. He's booked a rental car at the Bucharest airport–Europcar. We can't count on our luck beyond that, though. He'll change cards."

"Then I'd better not lose him," Fisher replied.

FISHER'Splane was ten minutes late taking off, but it caught a tailwind and made up five minutes in the air. He landed at 5:25. As soon as he was clear of the jetway he dialed Vesa Hytonen's phone. It rang eight times but no one answered. Fisher waited five minutes, then tried again. This time Vesa picked up on the third ring.

"Is that you?" he asked Fisher.

"It's me." It occurred to Fisher that, in all their meetings, Vesa had never once used Fisher's name, neither his first nor his alias surname. Another of Vesa's idiosyncrasies. "Where are you?" Fisher asked.

"On the E70 heading south. I'll arrive at the airport in roughly fifty minutes."

"Hold on." Fisher found an arrivals/departures board. Turkish Airlines flight 1381 was on time. Fisher checked his watch. Vesa would arrive ten minutes after Qaderi touched down. Fisher did the mental math: three to five minutes to deplane; five minutes to reach the Europcar desk. . . . It was unlikely Qaderi had checked baggage. Fisher asked Vesa, "Do you know where the Europcar exit is?"

"No, but I'm confident I can find it."

"Do that. Call me when you're here."

FISHERspent the next forty minutes familiarizing himself with the airport, making sure he knew, backward and forward, the routes Qaderi could take from the gate to the Europcar desk. He was stopped twice by airport security, which checked his passport and boarding pass. He explained that his friend was late picking him up. At 6:20 Fisher found an arrivals board and checked flight 1381; its status read "at gate." He strolled over to the ground-transportation area and waited.

Ten minutes later Qaderi appeared, coming down an escalator with a bodyguard in the lead and one in tow. All three were dressed in conservative blue suits: executives traveling on business. The bodyguards were good, scanning ahead, to the sides, and behind with an economy of motion that told Fisher they were muscle with brains. This was good in one respect alone: They would react in predictably professional ways.

As the group moved toward the Europcar desk, Fisher's phone trilled and he answered. "Go ahead, Vesa."

"I'm here. The attendants are urging me to move on, however."

Fisher checked his watch. "Drive once around, then park and lift your hood. "Tell them you're having car trouble."