Deathbyte, p.19
DeathByte, page 19
part #2 of Spies Lie Series
The silence went on and on. “I’m not alone.”
“Ah, well, give my best to Lily then.”
An even longer silence. “Hold on for a second.” Footsteps on William’s side of the phone. “I have to take this, sweet. Just be a minute.” More footsteps. “Okay, I’m on the terrace. Alone. It’s not Lily. And I’m not at home. So what’s so damn important? Why does he want me?”
Jon thought, silent for a few seconds. William hadn’t heard from Mother and Mother couldn’t find him. What did Mother want? “I’m trying to figure it out. I thought it must be urgent for him to farm it off to me.”
“Shit. I think I know what it’s all about. Jon, you can’t tell him where I am. Not again. Ever. I’m also in trouble with my father.”
“Who’s your father?” Jon’s head was spinning.
“Director of the Ministry of Security in Beijing. He runs a big chunk of CSIS, and all the 6000s. Jon, I’m pretty sure the Ministry just stole the contents of my computers. They have Bug-Lok. Oh, shit, oh shit. Mother must know. Do they have moles in the Chinese government?”
Jon’s jaw moved but he couldn’t make a sound. His father, a senior official in the Chinese Government, and now hunted by two of the world’s foremost intelligence services? Holy shit! It’s better I don’t know where he is.
* * *
Tariq Houmaz woke to the sound of gunfire and heavy munitions. He was out of his makeshift bed and dressed in seconds. He sprinted from the cave near the old Taliban headquarters in the Tora Bora mountains of Afghanistan and saw the training exercises in progress. He’d overslept. When he was younger, jet lag never affected him. The last two years, he found global travel tiring. He walked back to his cave and washed up. Taking a prayer rug from the small trunk, he knelt on it and prayed.
When he finished, he checked his email to see if his brother had found Cassandra Sashakovich. The bitch is overdue for her appointment with Allah. He tried and failed to keep himself from obsessing about the millions she’d stolen from the family’s bank account at the Bank of Trade, along with a computer copy of their encrypted plans to set off a nuclear device in Washington, DC. She’s a hacker. Does she realize what she stole? Has she found a way to decrypt the plans?
Nothing from Pesi. He frowned. Next, on to the Al Jazeera news site to see if there was anything about tactical military movements of the Afghan government’s army in northeast Nangarhar province which should worry him. Nothing new here either.
It was then he saw it. A report that the Antron SA weapons development facility had been blown up. He opened the attached video clip. The newscaster said, “It appears to be a work of terrorism. And in what may or may not be a related story, Stillwater Technologies, another weapons development facility, also lost its manufacturing facility to a bombing. Interpol is now investigating the frightening ‘coincidence.’”
Houmaz was sure it was no coincidence. His left hand held his chin as he thought. First, contact Pesi. He pulled the secure satellite phone from the trunk and punched in his brother’s number. There was no answer, and he paced with worry. What if Pesi died in the explosion?
He pondered the alternatives. An easy decision. He thought of a plan, a hopeless plan. But Allah could make such a plan work.
He paced, calculating the odds of success, the consequences of failure.
It took him an hour to shave his beard and don western clothes. He found his driver and gave orders to drive him to the airfield in Jalalabad, near Nahr-e Shahi.
PART III
CHAPTER 28
Room 30907, Mandarin Oriental Hotel, Singapore
August 3, 11:52 a.m.
Alone on the terrace of their hotel room, William Wing shivered in the heat. He dropped his cell phone into the pocket of the plush white bathrobe. His vacation had the potential to become a dangerous expedition, without the protection of Jon and Avram and their weapons.
He looked into the room, where Betsy lay sleeping on the king bed. Two hours of repeated sex had exhausted her. Finally. He smiled, but it was just for a moment.
He needed a plan. Worse, he needed a team. Jon worked for the man who was now his enemy. Can’t use Jon. Avram had returned to some god forsaken place to kill militant extremists. Not available.
He wondered if he should tell Betsy. She hated danger as much as he did. If they stayed together, She’d be in danger. Perhaps it would be best for her if he disappeared. His heart wrenched. He’d lose his soul mate.
He stared into the skyline around him. His hands clenched the balcony so hard he felt pain. I owe it to her to tell her. She stirred when he opened the terrace door.
She smiled at him. “More sex. Now. I’m still horny.”
He nodded and sat at the edge of the bed. “Sure. But first, I have to tell you something.”
The moment had burst like a bubble in a champagne glass. Her amused stare dissolved into concern as she stared at him. “What?”
He swallowed hard. “I just found out I may be in some serious trouble. My father runs state security in China. I used to do work for him. The man you helped last year, Jon, works for the Mossad. He’s a close friend and I recently did some work for them, too. For years, I’ve tried to keep all my clients from knowing about the others, but I just found out I failed. My father and the Mossad may both have sent teams to find and detain me. The worst of it is, I haven’t had the time to find out the truth of this. If you are afraid, you may want to leave now. But, Betsy, I want you to be with me. Never leave.”
Her face was a study in contradictions. Her eyes glared, but then her mouth softened and she reached her arms to him. In a hug, she whispered, “Oh, shit, Willy. I kinda knew this was too good to be true. You’re a slave to danger. I’ve known that for a while. I’m staying with you.”
He felt his heartbeat accelerate.
She pushed him back. “So what do we do? What’s your plan?”
I have no plan. It took him a few seconds in thought before a real plan became obvious. “I need to hack the Chinese CSIS and the Mossad. Both. I need to find out what really happened before I can develop the next steps of a plan. Worst case, I disappear. Best case, I prove I’m not dangerous to either of them.”
She nodded. “Good. It’s a hacker challenge. Who can find the information first, the Butterfly or CryptoMonger?”
He felt relief. “We’ll need to find a safe place to access the Internet.”
She pulled him against her. “Uh-huh. But first, I need you to relax. I want you to forget everything for a little while. Forget everything except me.” She pulled the robe off him. “Do me, Little Wing.”
He nudged the blanket off her and wedged his head between her thighs.
* * *
William sipped his espresso at the Starbucks in the lobby of one of the hotels near the Mandarin. He’d just cracked the first level of security at the Chinese CSIS system and he hunched over the keyboard, thinking of the best method to attack the next level beyond their firewall. The Butterfly sat working at the table next to his.
His fingers flew across the keyboard, screens pausing for a moment before flashing to the next in the sequence. He entered the most secure area and found his way to his father’s file folders. The correspondence was extensive, and there were multiple reports attached to most of the emails. He thought about initiating a copy program and then coming back to collect its product in a few minutes, but there were two documents that caught his attention.
The first one showed that his father ordered Lieutenant Benjamin Chan, the man he’d met last year in Beijing, to follow Sashakovich’s movements. The lieutenant had worked for William when he’d been a major attached to the Chinese cyberwar office at CSIS. He scanned status reports and found his father’s government had no connection to Sashakovich. Why is she being followed? Do they know about Bug-Lok? Of course they do.
The second one was more personal. Its author was also Lieutenant Chan. He scanned the document and found Chan’s report to his father about William. Rats!
He picked up the tiny cup but couldn’t move it to his lips. I did this to myself!
* * *
The Butterfly sniffed the air as she completed bypassing the security screens of the Mossad’s distributed mainframe network. It was obvious she needed a shower but she wanted to best William more than she ever had. Comfort could wait. She sat at the table next to William’s, closer to the aroma emanating from the espresso machine at the Starbucks. She looked up and watched William’s fingers flying across the keyboard of his notebook computer. He was smiling. Drat!
She searched through folders for information on the list of items William had given her:
Bug-Lok
Mother
Yigdal Ben-Levy
Jon Sommers
Cassandra Sashakovich
Lisa Gabriel
Aviva Bushovsky
Gilbert Greenfield
Bob Gault
Tariq Houmaz
Pesi Houmaz
She hadn’t any idea of what and who all these people were but she searched one folder after another, logging off and then back on every three or four minutes to keep the security routines from discovering her. It took her less than two rounds, four minutes, to discover all she needed about Bug-Lok. Holy orgasmitron!
“Mother” drew almost four thousand entries, and she copied a sampling before logging out. Her next penetration brought her to understand that Yigdal Ben-Levy was Mother.
She logged out and sat thinking, her fingers tapping on the table so hard her latte shimmered to the beat. She read entries from oldest to most recent and saw one that related to the termination of Aviva Bushovsky, whose cover name was Lisa Gabriel. The woman was a Mossad field officer and her termination was done by…the Mossad! Holy crap!
She rose and carried her notebook computer in one hand and the latte in the other. She sat opposite William. “Why did you want me to hack the name ‘Lisa Gabriel’?”
William looked up from the screen. He frowned in thought. “Jon Sommers’s fiancée.”
She nodded. “Was her real name Aviva Bushovsky?”
William’s eyes bulged. “Yeah. Tariq Houmaz murdered her with a car bomb in Herzliyya.”
Butterfly shook her head. “Willy, whoever told you that was pushing a load of shit.”
She waited as his face reformed, eyes hooded. He pushed back in his chair. “What the fuck did you find out?”
She thought, I have to take my time to be sure he gets this. “Okay. It appears someone named Yigdal Ben-Levy, also called Mother, ordered the assassination of Jon’s fiancée, who also has two names. The hit was authorized by the Israeli prime minister, who only has one name. Or does he? Does everyone in the Israel have two names?”
She expected him to smile.
He didn’t. His eyes got smaller, as if they’d turned inward. “Rats!”
“What do rodents have to do with the murder of a young woman?”
He stared at her. “You’re sure about this?”
She nodded and handed her notebook computer to him. She watched his brows arch as he read the thread of documents.
“This stinks.” He pointed at one of the smaller documents. “Mother lied to Jon. He used those lies to drag Jon into hunting for Tariq Houmaz. The hunt almost ended Jon’s life. What do I do with this? What should I tell Jon?”
“If you tell him what I found, I know what I would do.” She touched his shoulder, trying to comfort him.
“Yeah. He’ll try to murder Mother. If he tries that, the Mossad will kill him, whether or not he succeeds.”
She nodded. “It’s obvious, you can’t tell your friend.”
William thought, friends and secrets forever. God, what a motto.
CHAPTER 29
Innere Enge, Engestrasse 54,
Bern, Switzerland
August 3, 2:25 p.m.
Less than a kilometer from the railway station, the Innere Enge Hotel gave Tariq Houmaz everything he needed with a minimum of risk. He found his room spacious and filled with antiques, and one of those, an ancient desk, had a convenient hidden drawer for him to hide his 9mm Beretta. The hotel contained only twenty-six rooms, too intimate for his taste, forcing him to maintain his cover. He’d chosen to be a businessman. As he unpacked his suitcase, he saw the Alps peeking out the window from behind the old town. Yes, this would be perfect.
There was a bus stop right in front of the hotel. He wouldn’t have to rent a car. There was a restaurant in the hotel’s lobby. When he completed the task before him and returned back to the hotel, he’d not have to leave town until he was ready for the next phase of his mission. There was even a music club, Marian’s Jazz Room, claiming to be one of the best jazz clubs in the world. Tariq had never listened to jazz before. Is there any music more infidel than jazz? He was tempted to go to the club and listen.
He passed the front desk and walked to the bus stop. He could hear the river nearby and its rushing sound obscured the other noises that might indicate trackers. He waited without stirring, trying to focus on anything dangerous nearby.
The bus came promptly, but what else could he expect in Switzerland? Two transfers and almost an hour brought him to the Interpol office. It was ancient, just like the hotel, a squat mixture of wood and stucco. He exited at the stop and smoothed his suit.
There was a receptionist in the lobby. His first test. He smiled and pulled his forged identification card from his pocket. “I need to see the files from the Antron fire.”
The receptionist scanned the plastic badge. She examined the photo. “What business does the NSA have with an accident in Switzerland?”
He tilted his head. “According to your public statements, you have a team looking into the fire and explosion with regard to a similar one in Northern California. It’s why I’m here. Please let me speak with the investigator in charge.”
The receptionist shrugged and punched a number into the desk phone. “Herr Basil Fishbine will be with you in a moment. Please have a seat.”
He found the lack of a security gate with a scanner in this tiny fringe office refreshing. Houmaz scanned his wristwatch. Minutes passed. Five. Ten. He worried. Was he screwed?
A portly middle-aged man appeared from behind a door and walked toward him. “Special Agent Asher Samawat?”
Houmaz extended his hand. “That’s me, Herr Fishbine.”
“Before we admit you, I’ll have to clear you with your superior. What’s the name?”
“Here. He’s ready for your call.” Houmaz handed a typed letter to Fishbine. It was on plain paper, just the name, position, and phone number of his mole at Gilbert Greenfield’s unnamed intelligence agency in Washington. He’d alerted the mole while en route using a burner cell phone.
It took Fishbine several minutes to complete the security check.
“Follow me through security, please.”
Houmaz walked to the door the man had just come through and the man flashed his ID badge against a hidden reader within the doorknob. The door popped and both men walked through. “What if I were carrying a weapon?”
Herr Fishbine shrugged. “Sirens and a focused taser. Please follow me to a conference room where we can talk.”
He was there for a half hour. Fishbine provided access to the tapes, every tape he asked for. The faces of most people were unknowns. But there was one, a woman who stood straighter and walked with more purpose than anyone else. She was surrounded by a group of men who managed to keep their faces off the cameras’ focus points. She tried to do this also but failed for three seconds as she entered a conference room with her team. He wondered, is she the one? Nothing else provoked his interest.
“Do you mind if I get a still of this one?” He pointed to the woman.
Fishbine shrugged and pressed a button on the projector. In less than a minute, a clerk entered the room and gave him an 8 x 10 black-and-white and an SD card. He handed them to Houmaz. “Anything else?”
Houmaz shook his head and thanked the man. A few minutes later he was waiting for the bus.
His next stop would be San Jose, California. But first he examined the photo of the badge of the Interpol officer he’d taken with his cell. With the mere replacement of the Interpol officer’s name to that of his cover, he could have a cobbler there craft an new ID badge for the next phase in his mission.
* * *
Under the fluorescent lighting of her cubicle at Dreitsbank, Gunda Schlein watched the stream of one-off electronic funds transfers incoming from the SWIFT system. Her queue of errors was below threshold. She munched on a bratwurst and sauerkraut sandwich. When the queue fattened, she routed several to a clerk whose workload was low. Such was the punishment for efficiency.
A stale transfer crossed the screen, almost a week old. From a bank in Riyadh to one in Bern, for more than four hundred thousand dollars US. She scanned the accountholder’s name: Sigmund Tahir. She copied the details and sent them on to the cell phone of the man she knew as Herr Friedrich Stamphil. In twenty minutes there was another, this one for today, recalling the funds from the receiving account of the first transfer. Now most of those funds were being routed to a bank in San Jose, California. She sent the details of these to Stamphil as well.
Schlein wondered if the transfers were related to terrorist activities. But Herr Stamphil had given her orders, and he was helping to save her brother. Orders were orders. She took another bite of the sandwich and smacked her lips.
* * *
Jon’s cell buzzed. He pulled his head off Ruth’s torso and scanned the screen. In a second, his mouth was back, sucking one of her nipples.
“Who?” Her voice was a hiss.
He raised his head. “A text from Gunda Schlein.”
“Whozatt?”
“Tell you later. First, we do you, then on to business.” He pushed himself on top of her and their lips met. In seconds they were grinding against one another in a building rhythm.
Twenty minutes later, each was holding a mug of hot black coffee in his bed.
Ruth tapped her forefinger against the mug.
Jon read the worried expression on her face. “What?”
“Ah, well, give my best to Lily then.”
An even longer silence. “Hold on for a second.” Footsteps on William’s side of the phone. “I have to take this, sweet. Just be a minute.” More footsteps. “Okay, I’m on the terrace. Alone. It’s not Lily. And I’m not at home. So what’s so damn important? Why does he want me?”
Jon thought, silent for a few seconds. William hadn’t heard from Mother and Mother couldn’t find him. What did Mother want? “I’m trying to figure it out. I thought it must be urgent for him to farm it off to me.”
“Shit. I think I know what it’s all about. Jon, you can’t tell him where I am. Not again. Ever. I’m also in trouble with my father.”
“Who’s your father?” Jon’s head was spinning.
“Director of the Ministry of Security in Beijing. He runs a big chunk of CSIS, and all the 6000s. Jon, I’m pretty sure the Ministry just stole the contents of my computers. They have Bug-Lok. Oh, shit, oh shit. Mother must know. Do they have moles in the Chinese government?”
Jon’s jaw moved but he couldn’t make a sound. His father, a senior official in the Chinese Government, and now hunted by two of the world’s foremost intelligence services? Holy shit! It’s better I don’t know where he is.
* * *
Tariq Houmaz woke to the sound of gunfire and heavy munitions. He was out of his makeshift bed and dressed in seconds. He sprinted from the cave near the old Taliban headquarters in the Tora Bora mountains of Afghanistan and saw the training exercises in progress. He’d overslept. When he was younger, jet lag never affected him. The last two years, he found global travel tiring. He walked back to his cave and washed up. Taking a prayer rug from the small trunk, he knelt on it and prayed.
When he finished, he checked his email to see if his brother had found Cassandra Sashakovich. The bitch is overdue for her appointment with Allah. He tried and failed to keep himself from obsessing about the millions she’d stolen from the family’s bank account at the Bank of Trade, along with a computer copy of their encrypted plans to set off a nuclear device in Washington, DC. She’s a hacker. Does she realize what she stole? Has she found a way to decrypt the plans?
Nothing from Pesi. He frowned. Next, on to the Al Jazeera news site to see if there was anything about tactical military movements of the Afghan government’s army in northeast Nangarhar province which should worry him. Nothing new here either.
It was then he saw it. A report that the Antron SA weapons development facility had been blown up. He opened the attached video clip. The newscaster said, “It appears to be a work of terrorism. And in what may or may not be a related story, Stillwater Technologies, another weapons development facility, also lost its manufacturing facility to a bombing. Interpol is now investigating the frightening ‘coincidence.’”
Houmaz was sure it was no coincidence. His left hand held his chin as he thought. First, contact Pesi. He pulled the secure satellite phone from the trunk and punched in his brother’s number. There was no answer, and he paced with worry. What if Pesi died in the explosion?
He pondered the alternatives. An easy decision. He thought of a plan, a hopeless plan. But Allah could make such a plan work.
He paced, calculating the odds of success, the consequences of failure.
It took him an hour to shave his beard and don western clothes. He found his driver and gave orders to drive him to the airfield in Jalalabad, near Nahr-e Shahi.
PART III
CHAPTER 28
Room 30907, Mandarin Oriental Hotel, Singapore
August 3, 11:52 a.m.
Alone on the terrace of their hotel room, William Wing shivered in the heat. He dropped his cell phone into the pocket of the plush white bathrobe. His vacation had the potential to become a dangerous expedition, without the protection of Jon and Avram and their weapons.
He looked into the room, where Betsy lay sleeping on the king bed. Two hours of repeated sex had exhausted her. Finally. He smiled, but it was just for a moment.
He needed a plan. Worse, he needed a team. Jon worked for the man who was now his enemy. Can’t use Jon. Avram had returned to some god forsaken place to kill militant extremists. Not available.
He wondered if he should tell Betsy. She hated danger as much as he did. If they stayed together, She’d be in danger. Perhaps it would be best for her if he disappeared. His heart wrenched. He’d lose his soul mate.
He stared into the skyline around him. His hands clenched the balcony so hard he felt pain. I owe it to her to tell her. She stirred when he opened the terrace door.
She smiled at him. “More sex. Now. I’m still horny.”
He nodded and sat at the edge of the bed. “Sure. But first, I have to tell you something.”
The moment had burst like a bubble in a champagne glass. Her amused stare dissolved into concern as she stared at him. “What?”
He swallowed hard. “I just found out I may be in some serious trouble. My father runs state security in China. I used to do work for him. The man you helped last year, Jon, works for the Mossad. He’s a close friend and I recently did some work for them, too. For years, I’ve tried to keep all my clients from knowing about the others, but I just found out I failed. My father and the Mossad may both have sent teams to find and detain me. The worst of it is, I haven’t had the time to find out the truth of this. If you are afraid, you may want to leave now. But, Betsy, I want you to be with me. Never leave.”
Her face was a study in contradictions. Her eyes glared, but then her mouth softened and she reached her arms to him. In a hug, she whispered, “Oh, shit, Willy. I kinda knew this was too good to be true. You’re a slave to danger. I’ve known that for a while. I’m staying with you.”
He felt his heartbeat accelerate.
She pushed him back. “So what do we do? What’s your plan?”
I have no plan. It took him a few seconds in thought before a real plan became obvious. “I need to hack the Chinese CSIS and the Mossad. Both. I need to find out what really happened before I can develop the next steps of a plan. Worst case, I disappear. Best case, I prove I’m not dangerous to either of them.”
She nodded. “Good. It’s a hacker challenge. Who can find the information first, the Butterfly or CryptoMonger?”
He felt relief. “We’ll need to find a safe place to access the Internet.”
She pulled him against her. “Uh-huh. But first, I need you to relax. I want you to forget everything for a little while. Forget everything except me.” She pulled the robe off him. “Do me, Little Wing.”
He nudged the blanket off her and wedged his head between her thighs.
* * *
William sipped his espresso at the Starbucks in the lobby of one of the hotels near the Mandarin. He’d just cracked the first level of security at the Chinese CSIS system and he hunched over the keyboard, thinking of the best method to attack the next level beyond their firewall. The Butterfly sat working at the table next to his.
His fingers flew across the keyboard, screens pausing for a moment before flashing to the next in the sequence. He entered the most secure area and found his way to his father’s file folders. The correspondence was extensive, and there were multiple reports attached to most of the emails. He thought about initiating a copy program and then coming back to collect its product in a few minutes, but there were two documents that caught his attention.
The first one showed that his father ordered Lieutenant Benjamin Chan, the man he’d met last year in Beijing, to follow Sashakovich’s movements. The lieutenant had worked for William when he’d been a major attached to the Chinese cyberwar office at CSIS. He scanned status reports and found his father’s government had no connection to Sashakovich. Why is she being followed? Do they know about Bug-Lok? Of course they do.
The second one was more personal. Its author was also Lieutenant Chan. He scanned the document and found Chan’s report to his father about William. Rats!
He picked up the tiny cup but couldn’t move it to his lips. I did this to myself!
* * *
The Butterfly sniffed the air as she completed bypassing the security screens of the Mossad’s distributed mainframe network. It was obvious she needed a shower but she wanted to best William more than she ever had. Comfort could wait. She sat at the table next to William’s, closer to the aroma emanating from the espresso machine at the Starbucks. She looked up and watched William’s fingers flying across the keyboard of his notebook computer. He was smiling. Drat!
She searched through folders for information on the list of items William had given her:
Bug-Lok
Mother
Yigdal Ben-Levy
Jon Sommers
Cassandra Sashakovich
Lisa Gabriel
Aviva Bushovsky
Gilbert Greenfield
Bob Gault
Tariq Houmaz
Pesi Houmaz
She hadn’t any idea of what and who all these people were but she searched one folder after another, logging off and then back on every three or four minutes to keep the security routines from discovering her. It took her less than two rounds, four minutes, to discover all she needed about Bug-Lok. Holy orgasmitron!
“Mother” drew almost four thousand entries, and she copied a sampling before logging out. Her next penetration brought her to understand that Yigdal Ben-Levy was Mother.
She logged out and sat thinking, her fingers tapping on the table so hard her latte shimmered to the beat. She read entries from oldest to most recent and saw one that related to the termination of Aviva Bushovsky, whose cover name was Lisa Gabriel. The woman was a Mossad field officer and her termination was done by…the Mossad! Holy crap!
She rose and carried her notebook computer in one hand and the latte in the other. She sat opposite William. “Why did you want me to hack the name ‘Lisa Gabriel’?”
William looked up from the screen. He frowned in thought. “Jon Sommers’s fiancée.”
She nodded. “Was her real name Aviva Bushovsky?”
William’s eyes bulged. “Yeah. Tariq Houmaz murdered her with a car bomb in Herzliyya.”
Butterfly shook her head. “Willy, whoever told you that was pushing a load of shit.”
She waited as his face reformed, eyes hooded. He pushed back in his chair. “What the fuck did you find out?”
She thought, I have to take my time to be sure he gets this. “Okay. It appears someone named Yigdal Ben-Levy, also called Mother, ordered the assassination of Jon’s fiancée, who also has two names. The hit was authorized by the Israeli prime minister, who only has one name. Or does he? Does everyone in the Israel have two names?”
She expected him to smile.
He didn’t. His eyes got smaller, as if they’d turned inward. “Rats!”
“What do rodents have to do with the murder of a young woman?”
He stared at her. “You’re sure about this?”
She nodded and handed her notebook computer to him. She watched his brows arch as he read the thread of documents.
“This stinks.” He pointed at one of the smaller documents. “Mother lied to Jon. He used those lies to drag Jon into hunting for Tariq Houmaz. The hunt almost ended Jon’s life. What do I do with this? What should I tell Jon?”
“If you tell him what I found, I know what I would do.” She touched his shoulder, trying to comfort him.
“Yeah. He’ll try to murder Mother. If he tries that, the Mossad will kill him, whether or not he succeeds.”
She nodded. “It’s obvious, you can’t tell your friend.”
William thought, friends and secrets forever. God, what a motto.
CHAPTER 29
Innere Enge, Engestrasse 54,
Bern, Switzerland
August 3, 2:25 p.m.
Less than a kilometer from the railway station, the Innere Enge Hotel gave Tariq Houmaz everything he needed with a minimum of risk. He found his room spacious and filled with antiques, and one of those, an ancient desk, had a convenient hidden drawer for him to hide his 9mm Beretta. The hotel contained only twenty-six rooms, too intimate for his taste, forcing him to maintain his cover. He’d chosen to be a businessman. As he unpacked his suitcase, he saw the Alps peeking out the window from behind the old town. Yes, this would be perfect.
There was a bus stop right in front of the hotel. He wouldn’t have to rent a car. There was a restaurant in the hotel’s lobby. When he completed the task before him and returned back to the hotel, he’d not have to leave town until he was ready for the next phase of his mission. There was even a music club, Marian’s Jazz Room, claiming to be one of the best jazz clubs in the world. Tariq had never listened to jazz before. Is there any music more infidel than jazz? He was tempted to go to the club and listen.
He passed the front desk and walked to the bus stop. He could hear the river nearby and its rushing sound obscured the other noises that might indicate trackers. He waited without stirring, trying to focus on anything dangerous nearby.
The bus came promptly, but what else could he expect in Switzerland? Two transfers and almost an hour brought him to the Interpol office. It was ancient, just like the hotel, a squat mixture of wood and stucco. He exited at the stop and smoothed his suit.
There was a receptionist in the lobby. His first test. He smiled and pulled his forged identification card from his pocket. “I need to see the files from the Antron fire.”
The receptionist scanned the plastic badge. She examined the photo. “What business does the NSA have with an accident in Switzerland?”
He tilted his head. “According to your public statements, you have a team looking into the fire and explosion with regard to a similar one in Northern California. It’s why I’m here. Please let me speak with the investigator in charge.”
The receptionist shrugged and punched a number into the desk phone. “Herr Basil Fishbine will be with you in a moment. Please have a seat.”
He found the lack of a security gate with a scanner in this tiny fringe office refreshing. Houmaz scanned his wristwatch. Minutes passed. Five. Ten. He worried. Was he screwed?
A portly middle-aged man appeared from behind a door and walked toward him. “Special Agent Asher Samawat?”
Houmaz extended his hand. “That’s me, Herr Fishbine.”
“Before we admit you, I’ll have to clear you with your superior. What’s the name?”
“Here. He’s ready for your call.” Houmaz handed a typed letter to Fishbine. It was on plain paper, just the name, position, and phone number of his mole at Gilbert Greenfield’s unnamed intelligence agency in Washington. He’d alerted the mole while en route using a burner cell phone.
It took Fishbine several minutes to complete the security check.
“Follow me through security, please.”
Houmaz walked to the door the man had just come through and the man flashed his ID badge against a hidden reader within the doorknob. The door popped and both men walked through. “What if I were carrying a weapon?”
Herr Fishbine shrugged. “Sirens and a focused taser. Please follow me to a conference room where we can talk.”
He was there for a half hour. Fishbine provided access to the tapes, every tape he asked for. The faces of most people were unknowns. But there was one, a woman who stood straighter and walked with more purpose than anyone else. She was surrounded by a group of men who managed to keep their faces off the cameras’ focus points. She tried to do this also but failed for three seconds as she entered a conference room with her team. He wondered, is she the one? Nothing else provoked his interest.
“Do you mind if I get a still of this one?” He pointed to the woman.
Fishbine shrugged and pressed a button on the projector. In less than a minute, a clerk entered the room and gave him an 8 x 10 black-and-white and an SD card. He handed them to Houmaz. “Anything else?”
Houmaz shook his head and thanked the man. A few minutes later he was waiting for the bus.
His next stop would be San Jose, California. But first he examined the photo of the badge of the Interpol officer he’d taken with his cell. With the mere replacement of the Interpol officer’s name to that of his cover, he could have a cobbler there craft an new ID badge for the next phase in his mission.
* * *
Under the fluorescent lighting of her cubicle at Dreitsbank, Gunda Schlein watched the stream of one-off electronic funds transfers incoming from the SWIFT system. Her queue of errors was below threshold. She munched on a bratwurst and sauerkraut sandwich. When the queue fattened, she routed several to a clerk whose workload was low. Such was the punishment for efficiency.
A stale transfer crossed the screen, almost a week old. From a bank in Riyadh to one in Bern, for more than four hundred thousand dollars US. She scanned the accountholder’s name: Sigmund Tahir. She copied the details and sent them on to the cell phone of the man she knew as Herr Friedrich Stamphil. In twenty minutes there was another, this one for today, recalling the funds from the receiving account of the first transfer. Now most of those funds were being routed to a bank in San Jose, California. She sent the details of these to Stamphil as well.
Schlein wondered if the transfers were related to terrorist activities. But Herr Stamphil had given her orders, and he was helping to save her brother. Orders were orders. She took another bite of the sandwich and smacked her lips.
* * *
Jon’s cell buzzed. He pulled his head off Ruth’s torso and scanned the screen. In a second, his mouth was back, sucking one of her nipples.
“Who?” Her voice was a hiss.
He raised his head. “A text from Gunda Schlein.”
“Whozatt?”
“Tell you later. First, we do you, then on to business.” He pushed himself on top of her and their lips met. In seconds they were grinding against one another in a building rhythm.
Twenty minutes later, each was holding a mug of hot black coffee in his bed.
Ruth tapped her forefinger against the mug.
Jon read the worried expression on her face. “What?”
