A Deceit to Die For (44 page)

Gilbert clicked on the Skype window. Gary had already signed into his account. It had no identifying information. His location was shown as Celestial City in the US Virgin Islands. He had only $1.87 worth of credit left, but since it only cost three cents per minute that was sixty-two minutes. He punched McIntosh’s direct number in using the onscreen keypad and waited for him to pick up.

“McIntosh.”

“This is Gilbert O’Brien. I need you to get someone up to our room right away. Make sure they’re armed and ready for trouble.”

“What are you talking about?”

“There is no time to explain. All you need to know is that there is an armed man in our room right now and he’s connected with the murder of our father. If you want to find the perpetrators, then you need to apprehend this man.”

“You aren’t in the hotel? I don’t understand” . . .

“Sir, you don’t have much time. The deadbolt is drawn. You will have to blow the door. We’ll be in touch.”

He clicked the red dot to disconnect the call. They turned their attention back to the screen. The man was now tidying the room and repacking their belongings. Gary prodded Gilbert and pointed to the small window in the upper left corner of the screen. Characters were popping up on the screen.

Good. Got it. Don’t forget to leave the computer at the drop. Dosyayi aldik. simdi gönderiyorum size. Biri sifreli. Kirma islemine basliyoruz.

Gary gave his brother the thumbs up. It had worked. Thirty seconds later, another stream of characters began to appear in a second column.

“What is that, Gilbert?” asked Gary.

“That, my friend, is the key-logger installed on a second computer.”

Package at sea yet?. Confirm and send ETA
.

Back in the first column, they read.

Augustinerlesesaal reservasyonu tamamdir. Rahip Luigi Franchini adina. 4 gün sonra.

Gary quickly translated the Turkish for Gilbert.

“So, they’re going to try and break the code. Good. I didn’t get the part about the priest though.”

“Yeah, I don’t understand it either. A reservation has been made in the name of Father Luigi Franchini four days from now at Augustinerlesessal, whatever that is.”

Now, both columns were beginning to fill up with data. They turned their attention back to the webcam in the hotel room. The man was sitting on the bed, obviously waiting for further instructions. Several minutes passed without any change. Then, Gary pointed to the inbox icon, which showed that there was one new message. It was from the email address Gwyn said she was using. He clicked on it.

A ten lira coin minted in 1982.
Ok. Z. says chat is fine but avoid kywrds because of open-source monitoring. Open the chat whenever you are ready
.

They looked back to the webcam window. The phone the man held in his hand rang. He answered it, but again he was too far away for them to make out what he was saying. Suddenly, he turned and stared at the computer, said something to the person on the phone and started walking towards them. His body had just filled the screen when they heard the explosion. The webcam resolution and connection speed were too slow to follow the action. Everything was a blur. The room was filled with smoke and dust. There was shouting and then two gunshots.

><><><
 

C
AIRO
 
 
Jabbar had been uneasy from the moment their man had reported the room empty. It made no sense with the Blackberry in the room. Something wasn’t right, but he hadn’t been able to put his finger on it. Now, he sat looking at the screen in horror. It was so simple. How had they missed it?

“Ahmet!” he shouted. “Get our man out of there. These files were created just a few hours ago. They can’t be from Ian. This is a trap.”

Ahmet dialed the number on his desk phone to contact the man in the field directly. Normally, he would have asked Salih’s team to do it, but there was no time.

“Hello.”

“The code is St. George,” said Ahmet. “Listen, you need to get out of there. We think this could be a trap. The files you sent were created today. They’re not what the message said they were.”

Ahmet was just about to say there was no need to worry about the computer when the explosion happened. Ahmet couldn’t believe what he was hearing. There were voices shouting, “Down! Get down!” Then, there were two gunshots. He kept the line open, hoping that his man would come back on and tell him that the threat was eliminated. Instead, he heard scuffling, groans and then another man shouting, “Where did you get this uniform, you son of a bitch?” That was enough for Ahmet. He disconnected the phone and turned back to his team.

“The police just took out our man in the hotel room. Find out what happened in there and how we were compromised. I want a full report in one hour and keep me apprised of any pertinent information in real time. Cancel the Seattle operation. That’s a diversion. Jabbar, can I see you in my office?”

Ahmet turned and walked to the glass door that separated his office from the long, rectangular operations room. The shades were open so that he could see everything that was going on. Jabbar closed the door behind him. Ahmet was pacing the room.

“What is your assessment?”

“You want the truth?”

“Of course, I do,” he said with conviction, but he could tell from the apprehensive look on Jabbar’s face and the tone of his voice, he wasn’t going to like it.

“If he weren’t your friend, I would say Salih needed to be relieved of his duties. It may sound ironic, but we are talking about criminal negligence here. I’ve been following standard protocol since you put our team on the case. The gaps are appalling. Why didn’t we at least spot check his threat assessments? You should’ve had someone here double-check the backgrounds he was working up on these people. He took too much at face value, assuming Ian was a simple professor and his sons were normal, working-class peons. I’ve looked at his record. This is very out of character. Is he under some pressure?”

“I suppose you could say he was trying to release some pressure.”

“I’m sorry. I don’t understand.”

“Forget it. What do you have?”

“Well, Ian was probably just a professor, but it would be wrong to call him a simple professor. He was a genius and his sons are even smarter.”

“What are you driving at?” Ahmet asked impatiently.

“First of all, Gary had scholarship offers from just about every Ivy League school in the States. He actually accepted a scholarship to Georgetown but never enrolled. He has travelled extensively and has connections with several clandestine, albeit peaceful organizations whose mission is to alleviate poverty and oppression. He was in Istanbul teaching English when he got the news that his father had died. He doesn’t seem to have been involved with anyone in Turkey, but in India, he worked for several years with a group of social radicals educating the poor and teaching them to reject exploitive jobs, pool their labor and beat the system by creating their own.

“He organized a charity network that not only provided micro-loans with money donated by a wide variety of philanthropic groups, but he also had dozens of educational books translated into local languages. He worked on a variety of radical projects, including a translation of the
Injil
. This upset the local elite, and he had to go underground. For over two years, he received death threats and was constantly on the run. Finally, he realized there was no choice but death or flight. That was when he came to Istanbul.”

“How did you find all this?” asked Ahmet curiously.

“I did the research Salih should have done,” said Jabbar dryly. “Once I knew he had been in India, I contacted our resources there. Salih would have known he was in India just from his passport records.”

“What about the eldest brother?”

“The only thing Salih said in his workup was that he was employed by a security company. That is hardly a fitting description. The man was the valedictorian of his class. And upon graduation, he was immediately hired by DSI. He rose quickly and now runs a corporate intelligence unit. He’s an expert on
cyber security systems and technology. You know the Libyan case before the ICSID?”

“Of course, our branch in France is handling the suit. What about it?”

“His company provides security for the American law firm representing the private consortium whose investments were seized. I had our DC liaison call Mike Tate. Apparently, Gilbert organized the team that infiltrated the French law firm representing the new Libyan government.”

“Isn’t Tate a consultant with the same company?”

“Yes, he is. In fact, he is the one who has been handling our interests. He thinks he’s doing it all for Senator Giovanni, of course.”

“Well, I take it as a compliment that Allah has given us worthy opponents, but if we had known that all of this, especially our connection through Tate, we wouldn’t be in this predicament.”

Jabbar shook his head. “I suspect that Gilbert and Gary put this ruse together themselves. They are certainly capable of it. I don’t know what would have prompted them to do it. The attempt on their sister’s life would have been sufficient I am sure. Whatever the case, they will be very difficult to find now.”

“Which means, of course, that informing them of our demands is going to be a problem.”

“It’s hard to deliver a message to someone you can’t find, sir.”

“So, what else did they hope to learn or gain from this?”

“Sir, they confirmed that someone is intercepting their phone calls.”

“Is that all they would have gotten out of it?”

“Well, from what I gather, the police now have one of our men in custody.”

Ahmet cracked a wry smile. “That will not do them much good. He will never talk and the British police will never try to break him. Fortunately for him, it is a very civilized country.”

There was a knock at the door. A member of the cyber-surveillance team poked his head through the door.

“Sir, Gilbert’s credit card was just swiped. He purchased two Chunnel tickets for tonight at 7:00 pm somewhere close to Russell Square.”

“For himself and his brother?”

“That’s what it looks like. He also took out several large cash advances on the same card.”

“Okay, I want someone on that train,” said Ahmet. “Tell Salih to get someone to Folkestone ASAP. And find out the status of our package.”

“Sir, they just confirmed ETA in fifteen minutes. The oldest boy gave them a lot of trouble, but apparently he is a quick learner and is more cooperative now.”

Jabbar smiled as he pictured the lesson Gilbert’s son had just received.

CHAPTER
37

L
ONDON
  
Gary and Gilbert watched the scene being captured by the laptop webcam for another fifteen minutes while they monitored the stream of data intercepted by the key-logger. Hotel personnel arrived almost immediately, followed by a hotel doctor. The medics were not far behind, accompanied by swarms of uniformed policemen who began treating the area like a crime scene in an attempt to protect it from further contamination. Apparently, one of the agents assigned to protect them had been hit in the shoulder. He was taken out on a stretcher first. The uniformed police-pretender had been shot in the knee. He screamed incessantly. No one but the hotel doctor paid him any mind. He was handcuffed and lying on his stomach. When the doctor tried to move him to a more comfortable position, one of the officers who had just arrived intervened and told him in no uncertain terms to leave him where he was. Finally, a medic was told to sedate him.