Authors: Mark Russinovich
Though she knew Daryl Haugen no better, Edinfield had at least seen her several times and was aware of her very favorable reputation. She’d done good work at the NSA and was missed. Now she was Aiken’s partner, and from appearances they were a couple.
Edinfield had spoken to Frank Renkin that morning and received what initially sounded like good news: Aiken had somehow managed to escape his captors. A Europe-wide manhunt, if that was the phrase, was under way for Haugen, who had not managed to escape. The Swiss police were treating their abduction as a terrorist act. Renkin had said nothing about Tusk, so for now it seemed whoever had taken the couple didn’t know about it. She made a mental note to be certain Aiken was asked explicitly about his interrogation.
The part of Aiken’s file Edinfield found most interesting concerned events two years earlier in Paris. There’d been a shooting of two Saudi nationals, brothers, who were believed responsible for the cyber-attack against Western computers and the Internet. Aiken and Haugen had been involved in that, keeping valuable information to themselves, not informing the proper authorities of the threat, then precipitating a gunfight by their actions. That was Edinfield’s interpretation of events, which she admitted were sketchy. The confidential aspects of the story that were known were certainly intriguing but the file left a great deal unstated.
How a woman with the credentials and background possessed by Dr. Haugen could allow herself to be manipulated into some kind of Wild West shootout was beyond Edinfield’s comprehension. Given events their due, it might have been an unexpected development. But such an outcome was to be anticipated when amateurs went beyond their expertise. Had the couple gone to the authorities the two brothers would have been apprehended and interrogated where much more would have been learned about their actions. In that event, it was likely that far more of their cyber-attack could have been blunted.
But Aiken, acting as some sort of vigilante, had prevented any possibility of such an outcome. Instead, he’d left behind two dead bodies and had destroyed Haugen’s reputation in the process. She’d left government service not long after, perhaps of her own volition, perhaps not.
Edinfield reread Aiken’s history, then closed it again. The man had played football in high school, rugby in college—hardly the activities of your usual computer geek. There was something there, perhaps an unfulfilled desire for action, an appeal to danger.
Edinfield opened her intraoffice e-mail and typed a message to Renkin.
Subject: UNOG
Thank you for keeping me informed of the situation at UNOG. Be certain to advise me of ANY development ASAP. I am most interested in following events.
A. Edinfield
Next she sent a priority one message to her contact in Geneva.
PRAGUE 3, CZECH REPUBLIC
HUSINECKA 12
3:09 P.M. CET
A
hmed eased the Jetta into the rented garage, then killed the engine with a sense of relief and exhaustion. He sat for a moment with his hands resting on the top of the steering wheel and closed his eyes. He flexed his body, releasing it from tension. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d been this tired.
Outside, Karim glanced along the street, then closed the two wooden garage doors behind them. He turned and opened the trunk where Daryl lay bound beneath a blanket. He pulled her up to sitting position, not gently but not roughly, either. She was drowsy and murmured a complaint. With considerable effort he lifted her from the trunk and stood her up against the vehicle.
With a sigh, Ahmed opened his eyes, exited the car, and walked to where the pair stood. Karim was holding the woman as if she might topple over. “I don’t think she can walk,” he said.
Daryl looked terrible. Her eyes were deeply set, ringed with dark shadows. There was a bruise on her left cheek. She was blinking slowly but her eyes remained mostly closed.
“She must,” Ahmed said. “Your place is close and we are going to walk there.” He’d wanted to drop the woman off with Karim but the narrow alley where his apartment was didn’t allow a car. It was just around the corner though.
Ahmed moved closer to Daryl and spoke. “Wake up now. You must be awake.”
Daryl’s head rolled from side to side and she did indeed look as if she was about to fall over. Ahmed slapped her once, then again harder. It had no effect.
Ahmed grimaced. “This may take a few minutes. Try walking her back and forth to get her circulation going.” He moved to the double doors and peered out. He could see no one.
The drive from Geneva to Prague had taken twelve long and nerve-wracking hours. Ahmed had made no plans to bring a hostage from Switzerland and had been forced to improvise. When the other American had managed to fight his way clear and flee on foot Ahmed had called both Karim and Ali back from their pursuit. Karim had argued they must find and kill him at once before he had time to reach the police.
But Ahmed didn’t think that was possible. They weren’t that far from a main road and he’d had an entire day to note how well policed Geneva was. No, the only choice was to leave—at once. He’d told Karim to load the car, then took Ali aside for his next assignment. Ali nodded in comprehension, picked up his small bag, embraced them both, then set out on foot.
The most immediate decision had been what to do with the woman. He’d considered killing her but there was little point in that now that the man was gone and could give the police their descriptions. And no matter how careful they’d been, one of them might have left behind a fingerprint. A murder would only heighten the intensity of the manhunt. He seriously weighed leaving her behind to be found but decided he still needed answers. And as long as he had the woman, the man would be focused on finding her, not on his work. No, he had to take her with them.
He took the couple’s cell phones out to the backyard as he considered how to get out of Switzerland and into the European Union. He wondered what valuable information there might be in these little devices. He couldn’t risk it though; he knew they could be traced. He removed the batteries, then the SIM card from each and destroyed them. For good measure he crushed everything else under his heel, then buried the lot.
Fortunately, the man hadn’t seen the car. The border control into Italy from Geneva was generally lax but he didn’t want to have to depend on that. Regardless, they’d have to stop, present passports, and undergo at least some level of scrutiny.
He had no choice but to smuggle the women into the EU and he had no time to figure out something clever. Not wanting to cooperate, stalling for time, Daryl had fought them but to no avail. As Karim held her, Ahmed found his medical pouch, located the syringe, then injected her. Then they’d taken her out to the backyard and into the garage where they’d lifted the already groggy woman into the trunk of the Jetta. Just to be safe, Ahmed told Karim to bind her up and to tape her mouth. In training he’d noted that similarly drugged subjects often snored. He’d tossed a blanket across her; then satisfied she was no threat he closed the trunk lid, opened the garage doors, and eased the car onto the street.
It was a high-risk option, one he’d only undertaken because the operation had been such a botch to that point. They’d produced their operation passports to reenter the EU as they were the only ones they’d used to enter Switzerland. He hadn’t wanted to risk their day-to-day identities in the Czech Republic so had left those passports behind. He’d considered using the French passports he and Karim held but the car was registered in Prague and it would have raised questions.
The passports didn’t have their cover names or a connecting address and would be destroyed once they were in Prague but they did have their photographs. Ahmed doubted that made a difference but with computer technology you could never be certain these days. It would take time he reasoned. The computers might be lightning fast but a human mind had to put two and two together, then set the technology in motion.
But he’d be known now. He could no longer remain anonymous. He could change his appearance but again computers made matching images much easier even if he wore a beard or glasses. That was something else he’d have to confess to Hamid, likely one disclosure more than his career could bear.
Walking her back and forth had helped. Daryl was more alert now. “We must walk a short way, Miss Hagen,” Ahmed said. “I will kill you if you cause any trouble. It is a short distance. You understand?”
Daryl nodded. “I’m very thirsty,” she said.
Ahmed gave her a long look. “As soon as you are in the apartment. Now straighten your clothing,” he ordered, “and your hair.” When she was finished he told Karim to go outside and when the street was clear to call for them.
“Let me go,” Daryl said, licking her lips. “I won’t tell anyone.”
Ahmed smiled. “The man has already told the authorities. But that is far away. To answer your question, I will let you go, but first you must answer all my questions.”
Daryl nodded, too exhausted to put up an argument. Somewhere in the back of her mind a dim memory named Tusk stirred uneasily.
MEYRIN, SWITZERLAND
MAIRIE COMMUNE DE MEYRIN POLICE
RUE DES BOUDINES 2
4:14 P.M. CET
U
lrich Spyri sat alone in his office. He picked up his small coffee and took a sip as he reviewed the list in front of him. In his time at the Mairie Commune de Meyrin police station he’d had few contacts with UNOG security. It represented an international agency after all, the largest in the world, and considered itself to be above mere local police. Henri Wille had proved a surprise.
“My neck’s on the line here,” Henri had told him.
“Surely they don’t blame you. The couple was kidnapped from the street.”
“That’s how I see it but there will come a time when it will be argued that someone made a mistake and it’s likely to be me who gets the finger.”
“What were they doing here?” Spyri asked, expecting no answer.
Henri paused a moment. “I don’t know the details but they are highly regarded computer security experts. They were working on a special project.” The man, he told Spyri, was a former employee of the American CIA while the woman had worked for the even more elusive National Security Agency. They ran a cyber-security business routinely employed by both private companies and national governments. Henri had no doubt their abduction was related to their work.
Spyri had tried to question the American on that very subject but he’d been too distraught and concerned for the woman to answer his questions. Not long after, he’d asked to go back to his hotel.
Spyri had alerted the border-crossing checkpoints even before the failed rescue attempt. When the rescue team reported back their failure to find the woman he’d issued a standard Swiss nationwide alert. He next ordered a door-to-door canvass of the immediate neighborhood, which was broadened in scope as the day progressed.
Though the American had been surprisingly detailed in his description of the three men there was really nothing remarkable about them. Thousands, perhaps tens of thousands, of similar appearing men lived and traveled routinely in Switzerland. Spyri had put out the descriptions without success and that was how he suspected it would remain.
The forensic examination of the van and of the abandoned shoe repair shop had produced nothing of use. There’d been a few smeared fingerprints, blond hairs from the woman, darker hairs likely from the men, but nothing of help.
Spyri picked up his telephone and called his assistant. “Any word from the border yet?”
He had placed a request to have every bit of traffic that passed through from midnight to four this morning meticulously examined. His gut told him his men would be somewhere in that data but without a car description and a name it was going very slowly. Hundreds, perhaps thousands, of entries had been made in that short time span.
“They’ve been through every vehicle,” his assistant said, “and so far have found nothing suspicious. They’ve reviewed each passport scanned. I’m to receive copies of those that even generally match Mr. Aiken’s descriptions. You should get them at any time.”
Spyri hung up. Maybe the American would recognize a photograph. You never knew. He glanced at the telephone and considered calling DAP again. It had been several hours. Though neutral, of necessity Switzerland maintained a counterterrorism service. Early on, Spyri had made a request through normal police channels to the Federal Office of Police asking for any information concerning a terrorist cell operating in the Geneva area. He expected nothing to come of it. National police response in Switzerland was notoriously slow. The Service for Analysis and Prevention, or DAP as it was known, was also responsible for investigating organized crime and money laundering. Spyri wasn’t even certain they’d have the kind of information he needed.
In any event, the clock was ticking and he was all but certain that time had already run out for the woman. Spyri could not escape the feeling that something more was going to happen. He just hoped it wasn’t the report of a body being found.