Trojan Horse

38

Wu leveled the SportCruiser LSA at 1,500 meters, adjusted his heading, then eased back in his seat. He listened to the steady drone of the engine, studied the controls until he was satisfied, then scanned the outside darkness. To his left was the black Sea of Marmara, to his right the glimmering lights of Istanbul. The SportCruiser was limited to two occupants and beside Wu sat Li Chin-Shou.

When Wu had received orders from his father in Beijing to retrieve two computers, he’d moved as rapidly as he could. This couldn’t be like last time. His father, Mei Zedong, had instructed him to seize the computer of a certain Uyghur leader in Istanbul that contained the names of many Uyghur activists in Xinjian Province. It had been a fiasco. The man had been home when Wu had been told he was out. Worse, he’d managed to pitch his laptop from the balcony and they’d never been able to locate it afterward. Wu ordering the man’s death had created an unpleasant police inquiry that fortunately never led directly to him. He had been officially reprimanded and personally shamed by the failure. Not much later, Li had been assigned to him.

Since learning to fly, Wu had come to know the staff at the Sabiha Gökçen Airport on the outskirts of Istanbul. He was generous with them and on the rare occasion when he wanted to take off at night, they asked for no more than a small contribution to make the runway available to him. Taking off in the dark with just the runway lights was no problem but he never wanted to attempt a night landing.

Wu had stumbled onto the utility of the SportCruiser quite by accident. He’d briefly seen a French diplomat who’d offered to take him aloft in the sport ultralight she’d flown over from Paris. To his great surprise the craft had been nothing less than a slightly downsized general aviation airplane. But because they were classified in the same category as a powered parachute or aluminum framed and fabric ultralight, they were viewed as a novelty by governments and escaped most aviation rules.

The craft were uncomplicated, designed to be simple to fly. Constructed of metal and state-of-the-art composites this model had a low wing and a bubble canopy. It was painted white and silver. A license only required twenty hours of instruction. The planes could be had new for under $100,000; half that for a good used one. The manufacturers had been quick to see the opening and a number of them were now constructing planes such as the SportCruiser, which was in every way an airplane. The official limitations on their use were not much at all especially as they weren’t enforced. Though the official ceiling was 10,000 feet to keep them from interfering with traditional airplanes Wu had taken his to over 25,000 feet with no problem. But he was content to cruise at the official level, even lower, so as to attract no attention but still have the capacity to overfly any European mountain range. He could, and often did, fly at very low altitudes, not only below radar but also beneath any kind of normal observation.

The craft cruised at 222 kilometers an hour and was designed with a 1,120 kilometer range. Wu had extended that to just under 2,000 kilometers by installing an additional gas tank in the rear compartment. The instruments were basic though adequate and with a portable GPS device Wu had no trouble navigating. He used an ordinary cell phone for communication. Though the craft’s landing gear was fixed and it was officially limited to daylight and so had neither landing nor running lights, it was in every important way a sturdy and reliable airplane.

To utilize the craft’s extreme range, as he was doing tonight, meant a grueling ten-hour flight. But taxing as it might be, it greatly improved his flexibility as well as his ability to move about undetected. For one, Wu was not restricted to general aviation airports with all the bureaucracy and record keeping that entailed. With a very low stall speed, the plane could land most anywhere that was flat, including grass fields. With little advance planning, Wu was able to land essentially where he wanted, quickly refuel, then fly on. And when he reached his destination, he utilized the obscure modest airstrips outside all major European cities where no records were kept of landings and takeoffs.

By avoiding regular general aviation airports he was also not required to check in with aviation authorities or, for that matter, to even maintain radio contact while in the air. He faced no passport checks, no meaningful controls over his movement. If he did come to the attention of authorities, he presented his passport and explained he was flying on to some city with exotic ladies of the night. A lewd wink later, he was gone as the Sport-Cruiser was refueled and made ready for his departure.

Before realizing its usefulness he’d bought the SportCruiser LSA to commute between his restaurants in Ankara and Istanbul. It enabled him to cover the distance in just over two hours; otherwise he faced a seven-hour drive. He’d quickly logged two hundred hours in the plane to improve his ability and confidence. He’d flown at night twice before against the eventuality of such a flight. Though illegal, no one was checking, not if he departed from an unsupervised airport. Flying without running lights, shrouded in the darkness, he was all but invisible. He’d timed his arrival for morning, as before, and his landing would arouse no interest.

The wind was relatively calm tonight. The land was a vast stretch of darkness below, the cities of any size glittering, the expanse between black and fathomless. The engine droned steadily and it was possible for him to lapse into a near trance as he held the craft on course. From time to time, he scanned the instruments and confirmed nothing had changed.

Li had arrived from China some months earlier. He was a highly trained and motivated agent. He was also very bright and though he worked as one of his waiters, Wu could not help but question why such an able agent had been assigned to him. He wondered if he was being watched. After all, he worked in a relative backwater of Chinese intelligence and few demands were made on him by Beijing. An occasional agent dropped by to receive cash, information was funneled through Wu, and he was required to file monthly reports. But that was all. It was possible for him to go weeks at a time and forget he was a field operative.

Wu had originally been stationed in Istanbul because of its large Uyghur population. This was a Turkic ethnic minority that had begun arriving from China in the late 1930s. In 1952, several thousand Uyghurs fled China’s communist regime into Pakistan and the Turkish government stepped in and brought 1,850 of them overland to Turkey. The new arrivals were settled in the city of Kayseri in central Anatolia and were given jobs and citizenship.

The kinship between the Turks and Uyghurs was self-evident. You could fly east from Istanbul, get off the plane in Urumqi, and make conversation to some degree. The average Turk felt enormous sympathy for and an affinity with the Uyghurs.

But in recent years, Ankara has become increasingly wary of antagonizing Beijing over the fate of the minority. The two countries had recently signed a $1.5 billion development deal and more were in the pipeline. Now, no more than a few hundred Uyghurs trickled into Turkey each year, and they would apply to the local office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees for refugee status, where they were treated no differently than an Iraqi or a Sudanese. More often than not, they were given temporary travel papers and sent on to receptive third countries such as Canada or the Netherlands.

But there remained a significant Uyghur minority in Ankara and Istanbul, one that was heavily involved in opposition to the Chinese government. Agents were smuggled in and out of China routinely, even receiving training here in Turkey. The Uyghur independence movement was simply waiting for the day when the communist hold on China finally snapped and distant regions such as the Xinjian Province began to break away.

Wu’s first official assignment, the excuse his father had used to get him placed here, was to watch the Uyghur dissidents in Turkey. A significant number, he’d learned, was nothing more than terrorists, licking their wounds in a friendly country while gathering resources. And for all the claim of neutrality toward the Uyghur, they were after all Turkic, and the Turkish government could not help but given them assistance. It might not be the government’s official position but unofficially they turned a blind eye to the Uyghur independence movement.

These days, Wu assigned the agents under him to maintain a watch on the Uyghur dissidents. He stretched, yawned, then glanced at Li, who was sleeping. They’d talked little on the flight, a bit about home, more about the restaurant and Istanbul. He was not a talkative man.

Toward the east, Wu could make out the faint blush of dawn. They’d be there soon.

39

Tap! Tap! Tap!

The rapping on the window roused Jeff from a deep sleep. He blinked, then looked outside. He saw a baton and a man in uniform. Police. He rolled down the window.

“Nemůžete spát zde!”

“I’m sorry,” Jeff said. “I don’t speak Czech.” He could see the officer now, a young, slender man wearing a black leather jacket and peaked cap.

The man switched seamlessly into English. “I said that you cannot sleep here. Not like this. Find a hotel. Okay?”

“Right,” Jeff said. “Thanks. I was just tired.” He started the engine, then rolled out onto the quiet street. He wanted to stay, wished he could think of some way to make it happen. Given the officer’s demeanor he was certain the offer of a bribe would have landed him in jail. As Jeff passed, he looked again at the lockup. No change.

He drove down the street, then made a series of turns that took him out of the crowded city center. When he reached a residential district he went down a narrow street until he found an open spot and parked. He turned off the car and leaned back in the seat. He’d been lucky to last as long as he had without attracting attention. And what had he accomplished by sleeping? For all he knew the car was gone by now.

He glanced at his watch. He opened his laptop, finding six wireless connections, two of them unsecured. He went online and checked messages.

Attached was a document with four photographs and the data to go with them. All looked to Jeff to be of Middle Eastern origin. One was his man. He was wearing a light beard, was younger, and looked innocent, but Jeff would have recognized him anywhere.

Ahmed Hossein al-Rashid was the name. Iranian. With a local address. If it wasn’t still good it would be recent and Jeff was optimistic that with it, the face, and the name he could run his man down. If he had enough time.

He quickly sent the information to Frank, telling him this was Daryl’s kidnapper and requesting any information the Company had on him as quickly as possible.

Prague 3, Taboritska 5 1001/27. Jeff entered the address and went to the map. It wasn’t that far from where he’d staked out the lockup. He made a mental note of directions, then started the car. It was possible Daryl could be there. If not, perhaps Ahmed would be, and given how Jeff felt, that would be very satisfying indeed.

Daryl lifted her right eyelid ever so slightly. The man sat in a straight-backed wooden chair, which he’d leaned against the door. His arms were crossed and he was asleep.

Despite the gag over her mouth, she’d nodded off herself after the other man had left. Awake now, she listened to the sounds of the building and determined it was still night though surely getting close to dawn. There was no clock in view. She closed her eye and willed herself to think.

Why hadn’t she been questioned? They’d been quick enough to torture her in Geneva so why not now? It was the question she couldn’t forget and though she didn’t want to face the reality that when the other man returned she’d certainly be tortured again, why he was delaying bothered her. She couldn’t help fear that something even more terrible was being arranged for her.

One thought was that this apartment wasn’t suitable for their plans. She’d heard others through the walls, even some people walking and laughing just outside on the street. The place wasn’t secure. But they’d surely have one that was and she suspected that was the reason for the delay. The other man, the boss, had gone off to make arrangements and get some rest. But he’d be back.

She tested her wrists. They were no looser than before and she despaired she’d ever wiggle her hands free. She felt behind her with her fingers but her movement was very limited and except for touching the wall she’d found nothing that would help.

Her feet were a different matter. Once her captor had nodded off, she’d started working her legs up and down; slowly her ankle ties had become slacker. She had no idea if she could get her feet free, and even if she could there was little she could do afterward with her hands tied. The man had the door blocked and though he was asleep she’d noticed he reacted to every little sound. If she wasn’t very careful she’d wake him up.

Steadily, and slowly, she continued working her hands and feet.

There was nowhere to park on Taboritska 5 so Jeff was forced to find a spot three blocks away. He locked the car, then set out in the predawn darkness toward the address. He stopped at one store window, straightened his appearance in the reflection, then moved on. The day-old beard was now a fashion statement so he wasn’t concerned with attracting attention.

Once again he was torn with indecision. Should he call the local police with what information he’d developed? If he did, how long would it take for them to act? They’d surely check with Geneva and Jeff didn’t want to consider what the Geneva police would say about him cutting out on them. When the officer learned that Jeff had information he’d withheld, the situation would only get worse. Withholding such knowledge might very well be a crime in Switzerland. Knowing governments, the situation could easily end up focusing on his behavior, ignoring what he’d come up with.

And just what was that? He was certain he’d identified the face of one of the abductors. NSA, as the result of an illegal use of resources, had produced an address in Prague. He’d identified the vehicle the man had driven and the CIA had given him the address in Prague it was registered to, also information he’d obtained illegally. Both Bridget and Frank were out a mile on this. How could he come forward now with what he had?

He couldn’t. He’d made his decision and both he and Daryl were stuck with the consequences. No, going to the local police was out of the question, not until after Daryl was safe or he had no other alternative.

Jeff turned down Taboritska 5. The streetlights were still lit but toward the east he made out the first blush of dawn. The city was starting to come alive. Taboritska 5 was a residential street, not the best neighborhood but certainly not the worst. The few people out struck him as foreigners and that made sense. Ahmed, as he’d come to think of the face in the photograph, wouldn’t want to stick out. He’d select a street with other immigrants.

Then he was passing 1001. He slowed a little but didn’t stop. You had to be buzzed through and the number 27 suggested to Jeff that the apartment was on the second floor though he had no way of knowing that for certain. He walked on to the corner where several people were already gathered at a bus stop and stood with them so as not to attract attention.

The sky was growing light as the city awakened. What to do?

Ahmed slid from the bed and went into the bathroom. He started the shower, not bothering to close the door. He wanted Saliha to wake up. She needed to get going if she was to pack and catch her morning flight.

As he stood under the hot water he felt as if he hadn’t slept at all. He was exhausted. Every problem he’d taken to bed was still with him, and in the bleak light of a new day they appeared as intractable as they had in the black of night.

Well, he’d solved one issue. Saliha would be on her way and the key chain would arrive in Iran the day after the next. And none too soon. It was vital that Iran detonate its first nuclear bomb and take its proper place in the world. He had no doubt that Hamid was correct in his assessment. All she had to do was get to Iran, turn it over, and then all the mistakes of the last few days would be washed away. In fact, he could expect a reward, even a promotion, for his part in transferring this essential information.

Ahmed stepped from the shower and began to towel off. Regardless, he’d deal with the American woman this morning. It was no longer vital but if he could extract more information from her so much the better. Letting her go was out of the question. She knew him; she knew Karim. She was bright and he wouldn’t be surprised if she hadn’t picked their names out of their Farsi conversations.

No, her fate was sealed.

It would make his task this day simpler as it was easier to get information when it didn’t matter what you did to someone. Once you cut off body parts, subjects always talked. Something in their nature knew it was over and they wished to die in one piece as much as they could. It was part of the primitive in us, Ahmed decided.

And it was a shame. She was a pretty woman — and tough. He wasn’t going to enjoy any of this but it had to be done. Karim would take care of her after. And that’s when he’d tell him Ali was dead.

As he dressed, he glanced at the woman’s laptop. Safer to leave it? Or take it? He decided to leave it just in case something went wrong at Karim’s.

“Saliha!” he said. “Get up. You have to go if you’re going to catch your airplane.” Saliha groaned, rolled to her side and pulled the sheet over her head. “Come on!” he said. “Up!” He reached over and pulled the sheet off her. “I mean it.”

Saliha opened her eyes, squinted against the morning sunlight now streaming in the window, then slowly climbed out of bed and made her way to the bathroom. Ahmed sat at his computer and sent a message that, when read, would be interpreted to mean that his mule was on her way. That should make Hamid happy.

Next, Ahmed put the pot on and prepared morning coffee. By the time it was ready, Saliha was finished with her shower and was sitting on the edge of the bed, preparing to dress. Ahmed glanced at his watch. He needed to leave. He handed her the USB key chain. As she reached for it he seized her wrist. “Make no mistake.”

She started and pulled back, then arched her eyebrow. “When have I ever made a mistake?”

“Don’t start now.”

Saliha wrenched her arm free, then stood up and confronted him. “Don’t ever touch me like that again, you understand?”

“Just make the trip.” He met her eyes and held them. “Don’t forget I know where your family lives.” He saw the fear. “Now hurry.”

Jeff had moved down the street and returned to the bus queue three times, careful that the waiting passengers had turned over and there was no one to remember him from earlier. The city was alive now, a busy workday in the middle of the week, nearly everyone in a hurry.

He’d risked as much time as he could watching the apartment building. He’d seen four people leave, presumably for work. That was his way in. But he hesitated. He knew he had no time to waste but still he struggled with his decision to act alone. He was not a trained agent. What if he managed to get Daryl killed in his attempt? What if he was killed and she was left to her fate?

One of the men in line gave him an odd look and Jeff realized he’d been waiting there earlier. He glanced at his watch then set out up the street. He’d go around the block and enter the apartment building from the opposite direction. It was time. He just hoped it wasn’t past time.

Ahmed opened the door to his apartment building and stepped outside. He paused and looked at the sky. It was going to be a good day. The street was bustling with activity and he realized he’d taken longer to leave than he’d intended to. He set out for Karim’s apartment at a brisk pace. He had a great deal to do this morning, none of it pleasant. Better to get it over with. Fortunately, it was not far.

Jeff came around the corner of the building just after Ahmed passed from sight. He went to the entrance of 1001 and stopped. There were two rows of eight intercoms and buttons, so sixteen apartments in all. The building was four stories high so there were likely four apartments to each floor. The number 27 made no sense to him. If it was on the second floor, it should be 20 to 24 or some variation of it, or so it seemed to him. He reminded himself he wasn’t familiar with how apartments were numbered in Prague or if there was even a standard system. And he seemed to recall that floors were numbered differently than they were in America. The second floor was the first floor and so on.

He stepped off the porch and assumed a position against the wall, doing his best to blend in, behaving as if he was waiting. He glanced at his watch.

It took two minutes but a woman of middle years came out of the doorway. Jeff rushed by her, grabbed the door, and let himself in. She never looked back.

The building smelled of fried food, unusual odors Jeff couldn’t place. The entryway had not been swept in some time. Bits of paper and dust were gathered in the corners.

Jeff stopped inside the doorway. He couldn’t just knock on the door once he’d found the apartment. How to get into it? As he was puzzling that out an enormous man wearing a tattered undershirt stepped from the apartment beside the door. The concierge, Jeff thought as the man looked him up and down.

“Do you speak English?” Jeff asked. The man slowly shook his head. “Number twenty-seven. You understand?” Again the man shook his head. Jeff thought a moment, then on the wall wrote the number “27” with his finger, then with a look inquired about it.

“Ah!” the man said with a strong odor of garlic. He stood perfectly immobile.

Jeff reached into his pocket, took out his wallet, and removed a $50 bill. He held it up. The man shook his head, then held up two fingers. Jeff reached into the wallet and pulled out another $50. With a smile the concierge let him enter, then watched Jeff mount the stairs.

Number 27 was at the end of the hallway on the third floor. Jeff approached quietly, then placed his ear to the door but could hear nothing. He turned the doorknob and found it locked. He drew himself back and slammed into the door.

Without warning, the rope the man had used to bind her ankles snapped free and Daryl could move her legs. She quickly looked at him. He was still sleeping, even though sunlight was now streaming in a window. He wouldn’t stay asleep long.

She moved her arms again but could still find no give. He’d done a much better job there. What to do?

Karim closed his mouth, then sighed. She shut her eyes and waited. Would he be able to see she’d freed her legs?

She eased her breathing, fearful he could hear her. She wished she wasn’t gagged. She’d never felt more uncomfortable in her life. Again she pushed at it with her tongue but to no effect. A moment later she heard the front chair legs drop to the floor, then the man get up and walk away. There was a pause, water ran, then she heard him urinating.

This was it, she decided. This had to be it. The other man would return any minute. With her hands still bound, she had almost no chance against Karim but she stood no chance at all against the two of them.

She pulled her legs up, then managed to get herself on her feet. It was harder than she thought and took longer than she wanted. The man was still urinating. She moved to the door, turned her back to it, and groped for the doorknob. She got a hand on it but before she could turn it, he came out of the bathroom. Spotting her, his eyes grew wide for a moment, then he lunged at her.

Daryl leaped away from the doorway, kicking over the chair as she did. She backed up, keeping an eye on Karim, who came straight at her.

Daryl had never taken a course in self-defense though a friend at the office had once urged her to join her in one. But she’d played soccer growing up and the moment he was in range she kicked him in the side of his face, striking him so hard he almost fell over. Before he could recover she kicked again, this time going for his torso. Karim grabbed at her leg but she jerked it free.

He backed up, then scowled and came running at her. This time, with all her strength, she drop-kicked him in the groin. The man fell to his knees. Daryl ran to the door and gripped the knob.

Saliha had wanted to fall back asleep once Ahmed was gone. She was exhausted. She suspected it came from having to deal with Ahmed now that she’d decided what he was really up to and what he had her involved in.

The building had turned quiet now that the rush of residents to leave for work had slowed. She lay back down rather than dress, but the sun shone directly into her eyes and it was impossible to sleep even a little. Plus, she knew she had to get moving. The plane was leaving that morning and she still had to hurry to her apartment to pack.

She’d sensed that Ahmed was going to do something he found distasteful. He’d been sharp with her before when he’d had something unpleasant to do. Men were like that, taking it out on their women.

At some level, she decided, Ahmed also seemed to have sensed the change in her and was responding. Maybe that was it. His behavior frightened her and once again she wondered just what information she was carrying. Though he’d always impressed upon her the urgency of his business, he’d never before treated her like this.

Perhaps she was being paranoid and his reaction had nothing to do with any of that. Maybe it was what she carried that had him so on edge. Something very important was happening and she was a central player in it.

For the first time Saliha wondered if she had more to fear from Ahmed and those who worked with him than she did the CIA or Mossad. I should just vanish, she thought. I can dye my hair, change the name I use, move to another country. He’d never find me. It was a great temptation.

She picked up the key-chain thumb drive and held it in her hand as she reviewed her options. Just how valuable was it? And to whom? Maybe that was a better course. Iran’s enemies might pay a great deal for what she had, much more than Ahmed promised for this trip.

She realized she’d made a mistake telling him this would be the last one. Once she came back there was no reason for him to give her the rest of her money. That had been foolish. It was time she started considering Ahmed as he really was and not as her lover, certainly not as someone she could trust.

Who could she contact about the key chain? The idea all but overwhelmed her in its audacity. In the movies it was always so easy to attempt something daring and the actors knew just where to go. But she realized she had not the slightest idea how to go about it. And once she had, once the situation was out of her control, they’d have her, in a way Ahmed never had.

Who could she trust? The CIA? The Mossad? Turkey’s National Intelligence Organization, the Milli Istihbarat Teşkilati… MIT? No, she was nothing to them. And the last was a joke. They had no money and would most likely simply toss her into a prison brothel.

She put the drive into her purse. At least she was something to Ahmed. Maybe not what she’d once thought but something. He was a tender lover and until that morning he’d always been kind to her. No, she’d stick with Ahmed despite her fears and complete this final mission.

Saliha sighed, stood up, and began dressing. At that instant there was a loud noise at the door, then another, then a third, and suddenly it sprang open and a wild-eyed, disheveled man charged into the apartment.

Daryl found that the knob was impossible to turn. Worn by years of use it was slippery in her sweaty hands. She grappled with it repeatedly as with horror she watched the man slowly gather himself, then stagger to his feet as if drunk. Spotting Daryl at the door he all but dove at her.

Daryl darted away, avoiding his grasp as she savagely worked at her bound wrists. She was sucking air through her nostrils while her tongue pushed against the gag. She was desperate to scream for help and to draw an unimpeded breath of air. As it was, the fight took place in all but dead silence except for the scuffle of their feet on the hardwood floor, and the rattle and scrape of furniture as one of them bumped against it.

Karim came at her with a lethal look in his eye. She kicked him again, this time with her weaker left leg, hoping to catch him off guard, but instead he grabbed the slower and less-powerful limb. Only by falling to the floor and twisting away was she able to pull it from his grasp. Even then, she did not expect to be so fortunate next time. He was still woozy from her first hard blow.

Karim dove at her again as she rolled away, then managed to awkwardly get to her feet, kicking him once hard in the face when she stood erect. Getting up had been difficult. She mustn’t go down again. He was nearly against the door so she backed toward the tiny kitchen. She knew this couldn’t last much longer. She’d been lucky so far but that luck wouldn’t hold, she knew.

As she feared there was no rear door. The only way out was through the front. She grimly turned to face the man as he came at her, more slowly this time, with greater respect, his nose bleeding profusely, a stream of blood pouring down his shirt. He was angry now, muttering what could only be obscenities in his native language.

Daryl slid along the short counter but there was nowhere to go. She doubted she could find a way by him, and even if she did she wouldn’t be able to open the door before he got to her again. This was hopeless.

“Get out!” Saliha snapped in Czech, clutching her blouse to her breasts.

Jeff looked about the small studio, moved quickly to the bathroom, glanced in, and saw they were alone. “Where’s the woman?” he asked in English.

Saliha wrinkled her brow. American? “What woman?” she answered in English. “Get out of here or I’ll scream.”

“Is Ahmed your husband? Your lover? Where is he?”

She looked at him quizzically. “What do you know about Ahmed? Is he seeing your wife?”

Jeff backed away from the woman so she wouldn’t feel so threatened, taking a careful look as he did. Most women would have already screamed by now. She was a cool one.

“No, no, nothing like that. Ahmed kidnapped my wife,” he said, simplifying his relationship with Daryl. “He’s got her in Prague somewhere. I thought she might be here. I’m sorry to have startled you. But I think he’s going to kill her.”

Saliha stared into his eyes intently, then sat abruptly on the bed. This was terrible — everything she’d feared about Ahmed was true. The man before her was clearly desperate and also obviously not a criminal. “He’s my boyfriend,” she said. “Or was. I’m… Anyway, it’s over between us now.”

Jeff drew a deep breath to calm himself. “I have to find him. It’s my only hope.”

“Where did he kidnap your wife?”

“In Geneva.”

“So far? How did you find him? Why aren’t the police here?” She looked at the door as if expecting them to barge in.

“I don’t have much time.”

“Tell me.”

“I used a computer, traced the vehicle he was in, found the forged passport he used, got this address from his student records. Please. Please.” He said the last imploringly, forced to beg as a final resort.

“And the police?”

There was no time for this, but what choice did he have? “They were moving too slowly in Geneva so I got the information myself. I used friends with access and couldn’t share the data with the police without getting them in trouble. I have to do this on my own.”

That made perfect sense to Saliha. The police were slow and, in her experience, corrupt. In Turkey you never went to the police to solve anything. You summoned the men of the family and they took care of it to the extent they could. She looked at Jeff more closely, saw his anguish and his commitment. She wondered if any man would ever love her enough to do what this man was doing.

“I don’t know where he went. He just left. I’m surprised you didn’t see him in the hallway. He’s doing something important.” She paused. “Something I think he doesn’t like very much. He’s not a bad man. But he is”—she searched for the word in English—“devoted, I think.”

Jeff was panicked. He could search the apartment but how long would it take? And in the end would the terrorist have been so foolish as to leave the address he needed here. No. Think. Think!

Karim moved slowly, filling the kitchen, it seemed, to Daryl. With every passing second he was gathering himself and she knew this short altercation was going to end very quickly. She worked along the counter until her hands encountered something hard, which she latched onto, having no idea what it was. She reached the back wall and could go no farther. She tried moving whatever she’d grabbed around to scrape at the binding on her wrists.

Just then the man rushed Daryl, seizing her and encircling her with his arms, then holding her fiercely against him. “Stop it,” he said with a thick accent. “Stop this. Or I will hurt you.”

Daryl squirmed in his grasp, but he held her like a vise, his breath rushing across her face. She twisted and turned, but it did no good. Then she reared her head back, and with all her might butted her head into Karim’s nose. With a yowl Karim released her and pulled away as she fell to the floor. Karim jumped up and down and continued to yowl, his hand pressed against his bleeding nose.

Daryl struggled to get to her feet, her hand holding on to the hard object she’d taken from the counter. She was certain it was a knife. One end was sharp and she realized that she’d cut herself in the fall. Her feet slipped repeatedly on the slick floor as she pushed herself against the wall, trying to edge up, to obtain the leverage she needed to stand erect without the use of her hands.

Karim was cursing in a foreign language. Now he met her eye and said in English, “I will kill you for this, you whore. You hear me? I will kill you slowly, and enjoy every second of it.” He came at her now, more cautiously, one hand to his bleeding nose, blood streaming down his chest.

Daryl was on the floor and realized she’d never get to her feet now. There was no room and no time. Just then he did a belly flop on her, forcing the air from her lungs, his two hands now around her neck.

Daryl twisted away, then back toward the wall, trying to pin him against it so she could keep turning and force his hands away. He was squeezing her so tightly she couldn’t draw a breath through her nose and with the exertion of the fight she was becoming light-headed.

But Karim was having none of it. He released her throat just long enough to grab her shoulders and press her flat to the floor, then moved up to use his body weight and knees to hold her down. Then he deliberately took her neck again in his bloody hands and squeezed, blood dripping from his nose in a near stream, falling on her face, into her eyes.

“What’s this?” Jeff said, pointing to a laptop sitting on the desk beside Ahmed’s computer.

“Ahmed brought it back from his trip. I’ve never seen it before. He was trying to work on it but was frustrated with it.” Her voice became more forceful. “I have to leave. I’m going on a trip and have a plane reservation. Okay?”

Jeff opened the computer. It was Daryl’s. “Sit down,” he said sharply. “This is my wife’s computer! You can leave shortly but right now I need you. My wife’s life is at stake.”

Saliha didn’t sit. She glanced at the door and wondered if she could make it. Perhaps. She started putting on her clothes.

What to do? “His phone!” Jeff snapped. “He has a cell phone and you have the number.” She nodded. “Give it to me.”

“Why?”

“Because I can find him with it. Hurry.”

She gave him the number and he scribbled on a sheet of paper. There were ways to trace the cell phone’s location, he knew, but he immediately thought of Frank and Bridget. Either or both of them might have or could obtain access to the cell towers in Prague and triangulate the location of the cell phone. The police did it routinely, so did the cell-phone companies to track the areas of greatest demand. Most cell phones even had a GPS component which made finding their location very precise. They might very well be able to go directly into one of those systems but how long would it take? Were either of them available?

“You’re certain you don’t know where he was going?” Jeff demanded.

“I already told you that,” Saliha answered angrily. She was slowly collecting her things. “I’m leaving,” she said.

“No,” Jeff answered, standing and quickly moving to block her way. “I already told you that I need you to stay with me. I need your help and I can’t have you warning Ahmed.”

She laughed. “We’re finished. I won’t warn him. I believe you. I really do.”

“I need you to stay with me and not use your phone. Once I’ve located him you can go. I promise.”

Saliha thought about that a moment, then looked at her wristwatch. She had some time. Sitting on the edge of the bed, she lit a cigarette as she watched the man open his own laptop and begin typing.

Frank, he’d decided. The Company could do this fastest. As his fingers raced over the keyboard his entire demeanor changed. He no longer had that haunted, desperate look. Watching him, Saliha could now understand how he’d been able to track Ahmed from Geneva to this apartment. And she believed he’d find him now.

40

Immediately after receiving Jeff’s mIRC message with a name and address of the kidnapper, Frank Renkin opened the Company’s Distant Horizon Cyber Watch [E], or DHCW Europe, database. Another version designated [A] was employed for Asia. Near Horizon was used in North America. He entered the name Ahmed Hossein al-Rashid. Almost at once a page opened with the same address: Taboritska 5, Prague 3, Czech Republic. It was the right man. Then he carefully read just who exactly Jeff had run up against.

The first tier on the man was the Known File. It had a photo and physical description. It gave his age as thirty-five, said he was a registered student, had legal status, and was Iranian. There were no established bank accounts. No wife. No job. The Known File listed only what was regarded as fact. Not much and that in and of itself raised an alert to those in the business.

Frank now moved to the Projected File. This was not speculation or rumor. The information here was the result of careful analysis and in his experience was rarely wrong, as far as it went. He leaned closer to the screen as he absorbed what he was reading. There was a 93 percent chance this Ahmed was an Iranian operative, probably of VEVAK; a 67 percent likelihood he was an organizer.

Jeff had found a big one. The name was a cover but an effective one as there was no information on his true identity. No other intelligence agency would confirm having information on him. He’d been in Frank’s system for just over one year and was not under physical surveillance,

With a smile, Frank noted his own department had an ongoing operation against the man. He opened that file. Now this is interesting, he thought. Cyberterrorism identified one computer he routinely used. He was known as well to have two cell phones.

The man’s phone calls were not being recorded, at least not by the CIA, nor was his computer messaging being read, but the traffic of each was monitored. It was continuously assessed to determine if his threat level should be increased. Given the evaluation of his digital traffic there was no doubt this man was an Iranian intelligence agent and at least a midlevel supervisor. His activities were limited to Central Europe and he’d not been connected to any terrorist event. He was scarcely on the Company’s radar.

This was as far as Frank had gone when he received Jeff’s second message.

Frank grimaced and returned to the cell phones. The number matched one of those Ahmed used. He checked their status and read that the Company had inserted a bit of malware into both cell phones that allowed them to track his location as long as he was within range of a cell tower. This was, if Frank’s memory served, made possible by a zero day vulnerability in the Android system Jeff had identified. Ironic.

So their locations were continuously monitored and when he checked they were moving in unison as he’d expected. Frank typed a response.

41

Wu Ying eased back on the stick and slowed the engine, maneuvering the SportCruiser into a slow glide at an easy fifty kilometers per hour, just above stall. There was a slight wind from his left and he watched his approach carefully. Li, awake now, sat next to him unconcerned, facing straight ahead as the countryside passed beneath them.

Wu had selected a small airstrip for his landing. Private planes sat in two lines outside modest-size hangers and the terminal itself wasn’t much larger than a house. Though protocol didn’t require it, he’d contacted the airport by cell phone and been told no landings were expected. Takeoffs were under way but were few and well spaced. He was just instructed to watch for them. This was standard for such airstrips.

Wu lowered the flaps and slowed the plane even more. The runway came toward him and then they were over it. As the craft eased down, it encountered the ground effect and seemed to hover until after a long moment it dropped through, then touched in a near perfect landing. Once the plane had slowed to the speed of a walk Wu gunned the engine and made his way to the parked airplanes. He pulled his into line and killed the engine.

He and Li opened their doors and stepped out. Wu was grateful to stretch in fresh air after the long flight. A small truck came up and Wu gave instructions to have the plane refueled and serviced. He handed the man more cash than necessary to see it was done immediately. With cash there’d be no record. He had no idea how soon he’d need the plane.

The men walked into the terminal and went to the counter. “Taxi?” he asked.

“I will call,” the young woman said. “It should only be a short wait. There is a canteen you can use.”

Down the hall was a room with various food dispensers. Wu and Li bought hot tea and croissants. They sat in silence as they ate and waited.

“Krasova Street,” Jeff read out loud. “Take me there,” he said. “It will be faster. You know the city.” And he could be certain she didn’t warn her boyfriend.

Saliha punched out her cigarette. “All right, if you insist. It’s not far. I’ll take you to the street but then I go, all right? I will promise not to call him. You will have to trust me. That is our deal.”

Jeff nodded, then said, “That’s what I said. Let’s go.”

A dark fog passed across Daryl’s eyes and for a moment she drifted away. She willed herself back, then fought against the man, trying to twist out from under him. He held her even more forcefully, blood all but streaming on her.

Finally, knowing she had only seconds she turned with all her power and almost managed to squirm out from under him though his hands never left her throat. She’d been working her wrists continuously all this time, never giving it a thought, instinctively seeking to free her hands. As she lay nearly on her side, the binds suddenly broke. With the last of her strength she moved her arm free, maneuvered the knife, then struck blindly at Karim, her stab feeling more like a blow. She had no idea how deadly the knife was so she pulled it back and stabbed again, then again, then again.

Karim released her and screamed, clutching his side. With his other hand he struck her across the face and Daryl blacked out.

Saliha knew where Krasova Street was but had never been to it. The man urged her along and they moved at a near run. He kept slightly back but beside her. She considered if she should even go through with this. Out of the apartment, in the open, she reconsidered the situation. She didn’t know this man. He claimed his wife had been kidnapped by Ahmed yet he didn’t wear a wedding ring.

True, she had her suspicions about Ahmed but she was surprised she’d been so quick to believe the worst about him. Maybe it was true, after all he’d been very rough and threatening with her, but for all she knew this man was even worse. Because his story had the force of conviction didn’t mean he was telling her the truth. Men rarely did.

Then a thought crossed her mind: What if he was a CIA agent? What if the Americans were after Ahmed and had concocted this story to get to him when they’d not found him at his apartment?

As quickly as the thought came it vanished. The CIA would have enough agents to do the job; they wouldn’t send just one man. She’d looked. No one was following them. The Americans would have known Ahmed was not home and would already have his phone number. They had the resources. No, she decided, he wasn’t an American agent.

She looked back quickly at him over her left shoulder. Maybe he was an Israeli, a Jew. She shuddered at the thought.

“This is it,” she said at the corner. “Krasova.”

It was a narrow street. Foot traffic only. “Here,” Jeff said, taking her arm. He moved them to a doorway where he could open his laptop.

Saliha glanced about, confirming the man had no operatives with him. She needed to get away. She had a plane to catch. She looked at the pedestrians on the busier street they’d been on, examining each carefully.

There was a text message from Frank.

Jeff pasted the address in Google Maps. “Just down this street, I think.” He closed the laptop. “This way.”

“Tell me,” Saliha said, not moving, “are you a Jew?”

“What?”

“A Jew. Are you a Jew?”

Jeff laughed. “No, I’m a fallen Catholic.”

“Ah. Like me. Only I’m a fallen Muslim.”

As they turned the corner Saliha saw an opening and without giving it any more thought suddenly bolted away, running into the traffic, making her way quickly to the taxi stand across and down the street. She was gambling that the man was really looking for Ahmed. He wouldn’t risk chasing her with so many people around and risk attracting the police.

Just as she reached the taxi stand she glanced back and couldn’t see him. She looked farther along the street and there he was moving quickly, staring intently at every building as if searching for an address. She stepped into the taxi and gave the driver her address.

Saliha hesitated, then pulled out her cell phone. If something happened to Ahmed she’d never get the rest of her money. She pressed the speed-dial number.

Daryl slowly came awake as if climbing out of a dark and very deep well. It was utterly quiet in the apartment. She had no idea how much time had passed. She looked at the angle of the sun and decided it had only been a short while. She moved her hands to her face and with some effort, worked the tape, then pushed the gag from her mouth. She lay there breathing the rich air, grateful to be alive.

When she finally moved she realized she was wet with something sticky. Then it came back to her. Blood. Still on the floor she turned her head. Across the linoleum kitchen floor was a long, broad crimson streak. At the end lay Karim, unmoving. Slowly, cautiously, Daryl rose to her feet. The cut across her right palm hurt like hell.

The knife was gone. She glanced about the kitchen searching for a weapon in the event Karim was able to attack her again. There was a heavy old-fashioned cast-iron coffee grinder resting on the counter. She took it and approached the man. When she reached him she stopped, listened closely, watching him. No sound at all came from him. And his body never moved. He was dead.

Maybe.

Daryl went behind him, then tentatively reached forward with her left hand and poked him to see if he’d react. He didn’t. Now she poked him even harder. Nothing. She took him by his shoulder and with some effort rolled him onto his back.

She shot upright. Karim’s eyes were open and glazed over. She’d never seen anything like it.

Daryl backed away, bumped into the fallen wooden chair, straightened it, then sat, holding the coffee grinder on her lap like a purse. She’d never seen a dead man before, not like this, not out of a casket and in a funeral home. Then the horror of what had just happened struck her.

She’d killed him.

Daryl sat, contemplating the thought, waiting for the reality to engulf her, for the sense of regret, of guilt, then realized she felt none. The man deserved it. It was him or her and she’d been lucky enough to make it him.

Finally, her numbed mind started to function normally. Get out, she thought. You’ve got to get out of here. The other one will be back at any time. She stood up and moved toward the door. Just as she reached for the doorknob, she saw it turn and an instant later the door opened.

Wu instructed the driver to drop them two blocks from the address he’d been given. His father’s information had been complete, the result of the considerable research skills of the Cyber Warfare Center. He had a description, several photographs, this address, and more. With luck he’d find the laptops at the man’s apartment; with more luck he’d simply surrender it. If not, he had Li.

Taboritska 5. 1001/27. Here it was.

The street entrance was locked. Though Wu didn’t intend to waste time he was not especially in a hurry. He could afford to wait. Just then a gross man waddled down the stairs and caught his eye. Wu gestured for him to open the door.

The concierge held the door open a few inches. He spoke in English as he didn’t know Japanese or Korean or Chinese, whatever it was these two smiling men were. “What do you want?”

“We need to see the gentleman in apartment 27,” Wu said.

The Arab, the concierge thought. He is very popular this morning. “Perhaps.”

Wu understood at once and removed a twenty Euro note from his wallet. The concierge snorted. “You’ll have to do much better than that. Ahmed is a friend of mine.”

Wu doubted that very much. He pulled out a one hundred Euro note, an enormous extravagance. The man nodded. Wu held out the note and it vanished into the man’s palm. He swung the door open. “Upstairs. Three flights. On the end.”

“Is our friend home?” Wu asked.

The concierge shrugged, then vanished through his own door.

Wu went to the stairs and the pair moved rapidly up. Only Li carried a weapon. He drew out his automatic and stood beside the door, his back to the wall. He looked to Wu and nodded. Wu reached out and tried the doorknob. It moved. The door had been broken open. Li took the lead, entered, then called out for Wu to join him.

The place was empty.

“Search,” Wu ordered. “We’re looking for laptops, external drive, thumb drive, anything like that. Be thorough.” The two men set about methodically searching the apartment.

Jeff had the right building but triangulation only worked so far. Frank could not give him an apartment number. Once inside he’d have to figure out where Ahmed was on his own.

Jeff examined the building carefully. It was four stories high, any number of apartments. How to close the odds? If he started knocking on doors he was bound to arouse suspicion. If he asked the wrong questions or appeared desperate it would have the same outcome.

He went to the entrance, which he found locked. On the side were three columns of six with names and buttons. Three of the name tags were blank, others were stricken through with handwritten names scribbled over. They were all incomprehensible to him. Of the remaining neatly printed names all appeared Czech, or at least Western.

A middle-aged man wearing the work clothes of a laborer came out the door without looking at him. Jeff caught the door and entered.

Now what?

Ahmed stepped into the room and stopped, stunned at what he saw. His phone rang at that moment but he ignored it. The furniture was scattered everywhere, there was blood on the floor, Karim lay near the kitchen looking dead, and the American woman was standing on the bloody floor holding something, her mouth wide open staring at him with utter shock.

“What have you done to my friend?” he demanded, moving toward her.

Daryl screamed, then shouted, “Help! Help!” as she lifted the coffee grinder to strike him.

Jeff heard the muffled sound from the foyer and bounded up the stairs, taking them three at a time. The shouting stopped, then resumed. As he moved he heard the sound again from above. On the fourth floor he was certain he was there. But now there was no sound at all. He moved quickly down the hallway, pausing to listen at each door, examining them for any sign that would help.

At the last door on the right he heard voices, agitated. One a man’s, one a woman’s.

Daryl.

Jeff grabbed the door handle just as he heard a struggle inside. The door was not locked. He opened it, rushing in at full speed. There was a man holding Daryl against the wall by her shoulders. Hearing noise he turned, but at the same moment Jeff dove into him.

The three went down in a pile, rolling about in the blood, unable to do anything effective because of the limited space. Ahmed never went about Prague armed and had not expected to need a weapon to get what he required from Daryl. The man was a giant, it seemed to him. The woman was crazy; there was no other description for her. She grabbed his right arm and was holding it firmly while the man was working to pin his left.

Ahmed struggled and pulled his arm free momentarily and struck Jeff hard against the side of his face. There was a scramble beside him as the woman struggled with something, then a black object struck Ahmed on the top of his head, then again, then again until finally he stopped fighting. Dazed and confused he lay there as he heard voices, seemingly distant. Then he was being manhandled and he felt himself being tied up. He opened his eyes for the final indignation as Daryl stuffed a soiled rag into his mouth, then tied it in place with a stark look of satisfaction.

Ahmed watched as the couple embraced, tried to focus his thoughts, then passed out.

“My God,” Daryl said. “I never thought I’d see you again.”

“Are you all right?” Jeff asked, never so relieved in all his life. If he’d lost Daryl he had no idea what he’d do.

“I’m… I’m all right. Very tired and, frankly, pissed as hell. And it looks like I killed one of our friends,” she said, pointing at Karim. Her hand suddenly hurt and she lifted it up. “I cut myself.”

Jeff took a look, glanced at Ahmed who was unmoving, then went into the bathroom. There were no bandages, nothing of use. In the kitchen he opened each of the drawers, finally finding an unopened roll of paper towels. He went back to Daryl who was sitting, exhausted, on the old couch by the window.

“This will have to do for now,” he said as he sat beside her then pulled off several large sheets and pressed them to her bleeding palm.

“How did you find me?” she asked in a near whisper.

Jeff gave her a brief summary including the young girlfriend who’d fled at the last moment. “I was very lucky.”

“It was about time we had some. Then the police don’t know you’re here?”

He shook his head. “I’d have burned Frank and Bridget if I told them. The police were on the same path but moving too slowly.”

“Government.”

“But without me to identify this man they don’t know where to look. By the way, the third guy’s dead, too. He killed Herlicher in Geneva, then was shot to death by the Geneva police.”

Daryl’s eyes turned cold. “Good. I’m sorry for Herlicher, though I doubt he’s any great loss to humanity.”

“Daryl!”

“You try getting kidnapped, tortured, smuggled out of the country, drugged, threatened, then fight your way out and kill a man in the process, and then see how it changes your perspective.” She looked at Ahmed as if considering his future but said nothing.

“You did well,” Jeff said, holding her again.

“I think he’s coming around,” Daryl said.

42

Wu stood back and slowly examined the room as Li methodically went through it again. The only computer belonged to the man who lived here, Ahmed Hossein al-Rashid. Wu would take it just in case. Li had found a cache of key-chain thumb drives. They looked unused but he’d take them as well. Otherwise he hadn’t found what he’d been sent for.

“Collect it,” he ordered. Li placed the items into the man’s computer bag, which was decorated with a large logo of a local soccer team.

Wu lifted his phone. This Ahmed had been the subject of extensive interest to the PLA and the information Wu’s father had passed on to him had been detailed. He didn’t know why the man was important to China but he knew there was some vital connection to justify such an effort. Using a special app designed for agent use, he keyed in the man’s cell-phone number and immediately acquired a location with an address. He entered his current address.

“He’s not far,” he said staring at the screen. “I think he took the laptops with him. Ready?” Li nodded and the two men set out.

This was just Wu’s second field operation and he’d botched the first. He’d not asked if Li had field experience. It was better if the man thought he knew everything about him. What mattered was that he not make any mistakes and look foolish.

On the ground floor the concierge was waiting for them, blocking the exit with his large presence. He held a very heavy walking stick, more like a club, laid casually across his chest. “I should call the police,” he said. “You’re stealing from a tenant.” He indicated the bag Li carried. “You have no right.”

He wanted more money Wu knew. Would it buy his silence? The man should have been happy with what he’d already received. And if he paid, knowing now how he was, he might still call the police. After all, he had to explain to the tenant what happened to his apartment.

The man continued, “I told you Ahmed is a friend of mine. He expects me to look after things for him.” He slapped the club against his chest gently.

Wu turned to Li and spoke in Mandarin. “We cannot trust him.”

Li nodded. In a flash he leaped on the hulking man. Before he could respond Li had struck him against his neck. He toppled over like a felled tree, the club clattering to the floor. Wu looked outside. No one. Without speaking, each man took an arm and dragged the concierge into his apartment. Li immediately searched the rooms, then returned shaking his head. They were alone.

Wu straightened. The apartment had a vile smell. So? What to do? Tie him up and leave him? Wait for him to wake up and give him more money? Every possibility had risks.

Li looked over expectantly. Wu shrugged. “Kill him.”

43

Groggy, Ahmed slowly opened his eyes and glanced around the room, taking a minute to recall where he was and what had happened to him. He spotted Karim lying not far away, dead. His two best agents, killed within a day of each other.

He looked up and there was the tall American couple, holding one another, looking down at him in a way he’d never hoped to see.

So this is what it’s like, he thought. To be on the other side.

“Do you think the police are coming?” Daryl asked. “We’ve made a lot of noise.”

“I don’t know,” Jeff said.

“Maybe we should just go.”

“We need some answers, I think.” Jeff crossed over to Ahmed.

“There’s a dead man here,” Daryl said. “I don’t know where we are but I don’t want to have to explain what happened.”

“We’re in Prague. And you’re right.” Jeff looked at Ahmed. “I’d say we need a very good reason to leave this one alive, wouldn’t you?”

Despite himself Ahmed knew he’d given away his momentary agitation and fear. So, they were going to kill him. What else could he expect? It’s what he would have done if the roles were reversed.

Jeff had no intention of killing the man but knew it was to his advantage for him to think it likely. He glanced at Daryl. Given her state he wasn’t so sure of her intention. He knelt down.

“You see your partner there, dead? That will be you if we don’t get some answers. I’m going to remove the gag but you have to nod your head to show me you understand. If you make a sound I will just kill you and to hell with the information. Do you understand?”

Ahmed nodded. Jeff reached forward and slowly untied the cord holding the gag in place. He pulled the dirty rag out and waited as Ahmed drew several deep breaths.

“What’s this all about? Tell me everything,” Jeff ordered.

Ahmed hesitated but only briefly. There was, he realized, no point in resisting in the extreme. They already knew a great deal from Geneva. “I was instructed to take you and learn how much progress you’d made in your research. That was all. I only took the woman because she was with you.”

“Who gave you orders?”

Ahmed allowed himself a small smile. “I can’t tell you that.”

Jeff considered the nonanswer. The man was Iranian; Iran was all but at war with the United States and poised to detonate a nuclear bomb at any time if reports were accurate. Only the CIA and Israelis, through the very clever use of a Trojan, had managed to cause any significant delay, or the program any real damage. If this was an Iranian operation, then that meant the Trojan he and Daryl had been researching in London and Geneva was Iranian.

And that made no sense at all. It was far too sophisticated.

“What do you know about what we were researching in Geneva?”

“Nothing. It is not my field.”

“What did your superiors want to know?” Daryl asked, steel-eyed.

Ahmed refused to look at her. “They didn’t say. Just to find out how much you knew.”

“Ahmed,” Jeff said, using the man’s name intentionally to let him know he knew it, “Iran did not design this virus. We know that. Who did?”

Ahmed wondered the same thing himself. “I have no idea. That is not something I would be told.”

“What do you do in Prague?” Daryl asked.

“I’m a student.”

Jeff said, “Don’t be foolish, Ahmed. I can find a plastic bag in the kitchen. Do you think I’ve forgotten what you did to Daryl?”

Ahmed eyed the man carefully. No, this one might threaten him but he did not believe for a moment he would kill him, or even torture him, not enough to make a difference. No, it was the woman he feared. There was a coldness there now that he’d not seen when they’d first taken her. What was the point in withholding what they wanted to know? It was of no use to them.

“I supervise people and occasionally carry out orders.”

“You mean you’re a terrorist,” Daryl snapped.

Ahmed laughed. “Hardly.”

“You kidnapped us. You were going to murder me.”

“Of course I wasn’t going to kill you. I do not kill, I do not bomb. We gather information. That is all, I assure you.”

“Get the bag, Jeff,” Daryl ordered. “This SOB is lying.” She moved much closer to him and squatted down. As Jeff went into the kitchen she said in a low voice, “Let’s see how you like it. I’m going to enjoy this.”

“All right, all right,” Ahmed said. “I will tell you everything. It is not so much. I supervise, like I said. We do this and do that, not so much.”

“And that woman?” Daryl said. “What about her?”

“What woman?”

“The one I found in your apartment,” Jeff said returning with a plastic shopping bag.

“Saliha, you mean? My girlfriend. What did she tell you?”

“The way this works is, we ask the questions. What does she do for you?” Daryl asked.

“She’s my girlfriend. What do you think she does?”

“That’s right, smirk,” Daryl said. She glared at him a moment, then snapped, “Give me that. He needs to learn manners.” Jeff handed her the bag. Daryl deftly slipped it over Ahmed’s head without preamble and closed it around his neck.

Ahmed reflexively drew a deep breath, the bag sticking across his mouth. He felt claustrophobic and in the grip of a panic attack. “All right, all right,” he said, his voice muffled by the plastic. “I’ll tell you.” She held the bag a moment longer before removing it. “Every few weeks I receive an e-mail. I copy the attachment to a USB key chain. She takes it to Turkey, then on to Iran.”

“A mule?” Jeff said. Why would anyone go to all that trouble to transfer data to Iran? It made no sense.

Daryl was there already. “Why not just e-mail it?”

“I don’t know. I just follow my instructions.”

Daryl moved to slip the bag back in place.

“All right, all right. They want no trail back to them from Iran.”

Jeff suddenly remembered. The woman was leaving on a trip. “Is she traveling for you today?” he asked with sudden comprehension.

Stupid woman, Ahmed thought. Talking to this man. If he denied it the bag would just go over his head again. And at some point the woman might not remove it. “Yes. But she is gone by now. You can’t stop her.”

“What’s she taking this time?” Jeff asked. Something big, he was certain. That would explain a great deal.

Ahmed, who viewed himself as the ultimate pragmatist, felt his chest unexpectedly swell with pride. These two were weak like all Americans. Soon enough America would have to deal with a reborn Iran. “Stuxnet. You know about it, don’t you? You would in your field. She’s taking the fix to it. Soon, my friends, you will see a bright fireball in the Iranian desert and not long after…” Ahmed smiled. “It is already too late.”

Two Chinese men walking briskly in central Prague drew a few stares, Wu noticed. He slowed their pace and cautioned Li to not look so serious. “We are tourists or perhaps businessmen. We must not hurry.”

The morning-rush time was over and traffic was not as heavy as when they’d come into the city. Wu decided against a taxi. It would be just as fast to walk. Ahmed, he understood, was an Iranian operative stationed in Prague. He served a vital though unspecified role that benefited China. His status as an agent had been obvious by the nature of the apartment. It had been too clean for a normal single man, with none of the usual things Wu would have expected to find. A complete set of furniture for one. It was as if the man had just one foot in, the other ready to bolt.

Wu understood perfectly. It had taken him several years before he laid down the kind of detailed life someone living permanently would. Still, he kept a small bag in both his apartments, one in Istanbul, one in Ankara, and at a moment’s notice could be out the door. He’d noticed one in this man’s apartment. In addition, Wu rented a safe house in both cities, listed under another name, paid for in cash — apartments no one knew existed. And he had two passports beside his official one, each bundled with a supply of American dollars and euros.

Wu checked his phone as he walked. The cell phone he was tracking had not moved. “The next street,” he said to Li, who nodded in response. A few moments later they were at Krasova 702/34. The entry door was locked.

Wu rejected forcing it. “We’ll wait,” he said. He moved onto the street and kept the door under casual observation as he input the building address. It was listed in the man’s database as belonging to a known associate. Three minutes later an elderly woman came up, fumbled with her key, and opened the door. They quickly followed.

Wu glanced at the numbers on the ground floor. “The stairs,” he ordered. “Quickly now.”

“I didn’t like leaving him,” Daryl said on the street, “even if he did tell us about his girlfriend.” She’d taken a few minutes before leaving to wash up, removing as much blood as possible, combing her hair. “What should we do? Kill him?” Jeff asked.

Daryl didn’t answer. Her hand really hurt. She lifted it so she could take a good look. “We need to find a store or pharmacy. I have to fix this, get clothes, and get rid of this blood.” The paper towels were soaking with it.

They spotted a small pharmacy within two blocks, though drawing worried looks as people made way for them on the sidewalk. They looked as if they’d been in a fight. Jeff bought what he needed while Daryl waited discreetly outside. There were bloodstains all over her. The pharmacy sold tourist T-shirts. He bought one for her. I Prague! Once her hand was properly bandaged and she’d ditched her blouse for the T-shirt, the couple took a taxi to Saliha’s address, which Ahmed had surrendered.

“Do you think we can catch her?” Daryl asked. She picked at her pants. There were stains on her thigh but these were not obviously blood as they had turned brown.

“I don’t know. Maybe. But she seemed in a hurry earlier and I delayed her.”

After Jeff paid for the taxi, Daryl said, “Let me talk to her, woman to woman. You’ve already threatened her and she ran away from you.”

“All right. But I’ll be nearby, just in case.”

The building was newer than the one they’d just left. The entrance was open and there was no concierge. They took the elevator to the fourth floor. Saliha’s apartment was the second on the left. Daryl knocked as Jeff placed himself with his back against the wall just beside her, ready to move at the slightest provocation.

A woman answered the door, opening it three or four inches. “Jo?”

“I’m looking for Saliha,” Daryl said with her winning smile.

“Oh. You just missed her.”

“That’s really too bad. Could I talk to you?” Daryl asked. “It’s very important.”

“About what?” The door moved as if she was about to close it.

Daryl held up her bandaged hand. “About Ahmed, what he did to me. About the danger Saliha is in.”

There was a moment’s hesitation, then the voice said, “Come in.”

Ten minutes later Daryl emerged from the apartment smiling. “Come outside,” she said as she walked passed him toward the elevator. On the street she led him around the corner. There was a bench and she sat down, Jeff joining her.

“Her name is Ayten. She comes from Istanbul. She worked with Saliha at the same club for a while but now works somewhere else. Three women share the apartment. She doesn’t like Ahmed. She saw him with another woman and told Saliha he was cheating on her. She said Saliha makes trips to Ankara every few weeks to see her mother but Ahmed pays her so the trips are really for him. She doesn’t know why. She says Saliha was very upset when she arrived; said a maniac had tried to kidnap her.” Daryl stopped, gave Jeff a quick kiss and said, “Hello, maniac.” She drew a breath then continued, “Saliha wasn’t going to go on any more trips she’d told Ayten, but Ahmed is paying her a lot of money so this is the last one.”

“Is that it?”

Daryl smiled brightly. “Of course not. I have Saliha’s address in Ankara and her cell number. I also have her last name. Kaya.”

Jeff beamed. “Excellent.”

“So what do we do? If we contact the police, which one do we call?” Daryl asked. “And what do we tell them? I don’t want to explain the dead body back there. And you don’t want to say how you were able to find me.”

That, Jeff thought, is a very good question. What counted was that he had found her, but in the rescue he’d painted himself into a pretty corner. The police in Geneva were going to be very upset with him. And at the least, here in Prague Daryl would have to account for the dead man. In an ideal world there would be no question of self-defense. She was, after all, a kidnap victim and the man had been one of her abductors.

But this wasn’t an ideal world and Jeff knew nothing about the Czech legal system or politics. Ahmed and the other men were Iranian operatives so the Iranian government would be applying pressure once they knew what had happened. Would the Czech government stand up to an emerging nuclear power? Or would it fold and take the easy way? It was likely Daryl would be held at the least and it was not out of the question she’d be charged with a crime of some kind. He told her what he was thinking.

“I’m not sticking around,” she said. “I need to get out of Dodge immediately. We both do. I’ll text any answers to questions the Czechs might have from the safety of an undisclosed location. What will the Swiss police do about you, do you think?”

“I don’t know. They’re upset with me, I’m sure. Maybe more.”

“We’re victims in this. And we aren’t without friends.”

“Maybe. I can’t be certain that’s how they’ll see this.”

“Well, it doesn’t matter, does it? We’re getting out of this country before that body is found. And we need to stop this woman if we can, don’t we? She’ll be in Turkey today. Once there she’ll just vanish. No one will be able to find her.” She thought a moment then said, “What about just calling her? We’ve got her number.”

Jeff shook his head. “She’s not going to listen to me and she doesn’t know you. It will just alert her and she’ll move even faster.”

“Maybe it will scare her off. She doesn’t sound very committed to this last trip.”

“I don’t think we can take that chance, do you?”

Daryl thought a moment then said, “She’s probably at the Prague airport waiting on the next flight to Turkey. How many can there be? Let’s worry about the rest after we’ve found her.”

44

They’d done a good job, Ahmed realized. He was tightly bound and not going to be able to get loose. The worst part was Karim’s body lying not that far away. Ahmed twisted and turned away from the gruesome sight.

How long would he lay here gagged? Did Karim ever have visitors? It was possible he could lay like this until he died. Now that would be a truly miserable death.

He’d told too much, he reminded himself. They hadn’t even tortured him. The mere threat was all it had taken. He was disgusted. But it was that woman. He’d have stood up to the man, he’d seen his humanity and had been willing to risk that he’d not take those final steps. But the woman…

He’d never seen anyone like her. He’d read somewhere that in earlier times the worst fate of any captive was to be turned over to a tribe’s women. Now he understood. After what he’d done to her she’d been capable of doing whatever was necessary to him, and very likely enjoying every minute of it. He hoped to Allah he never laid eyes on her again.

He twisted himself again and tested his binding. She’d tied him up, of course. He could already feel his hands growing numb.

And what to report to Hamid? He would want to know what they’d done to him to make him talk; worse, he might require he return to Iran for examination, so Ahmed couldn’t risk lying. Karim and Ali were dead. While he couldn’t reasonably be blamed for Ali’s death whose assignment had come directly from Hamid, he would be blamed for Karim’s. The killing in Geneva had carried no great risk; the worst outcome other than failure would have been Ali’s capture. The Swiss police were not known for using violence needlessly. He wondered what Ali had done to get himself shot. Or had it been some kind of terrible accident? Either way, the target was dead and that counted more than the life of a single agent.

Karim was another matter. Twice a prisoner had managed to escape, first the man, then the woman. In the process his Geneva operation had been disrupted and now his second operative killed. How was he going to explain it?

His hands were numb now. He might lose them if he just lay here. Then he had it. He should have thought of the solution sooner. He twisted, then twisted again, and began making his way slowly across the floor like some exotic insect. It was exhausting. He’d rest, then do it again, each time moving an inch or two toward the far wall. He’d reach it eventually. Then he’d point his feet toward the wall and start kicking. Eventually someone would come. At least he hoped someone would hear him and come.

Just then the door flew open and in rushed two Asian men, the first brandishing a pistol. They took in Karim’s body and Ahmed in a single professional glance, then checked both the tiny kitchen and wardrobe for anyone else.

Wu closed the door while Li checked the man lying in blood. In Mandarin he said, “Dead. An hour I think.”

Wu moved to Ahmed. “Your friend?” he asked in English.

Ahmed nodded.

Wu recalled the photo he’d seen in the file. “You are Ahmed Hossein al-Rashid.” He said it as a statement of fact.

Ahmed hesitated, then nodded.

“We are friends. I’m going to remove your gag and untie you. We are friends.” He told Li to see to it while he took a seat at the table in one of the wooden chairs. Once Ahmed was free Li all but carried him over and planted him in the other chair.

“Get him water,” Wu ordered. “How do you feel?”

“I am fine.”

“You’ve had a rough go of it, it’s obvious. What happened to your friend?”

“Who are you two? Why does he have my computer?”

Wu smiled. “My name is George, his is Hanson,” he lied. “We’re here to retrieve those two laptops you got from the American couple. You should have received a message to keep them safe.”

China. That was no surprise. Ahmed had long suspected what he was passing along could only be coming from China. “I only had one, the woman’s, but it’s gone.”

Li came over with a glass of water and placed it in front of Ahmed. Wu told Li to help him as he couldn’t use his hands yet. Li lifted it to Ahmed’s lips and he gulped the water down eagerly. “More.” Li returned to the kitchen.

“What happened here?” Wu asked again.

Ahmed thought quickly. They knew about the computers. That message had come directly from Hamid.

“The woman killed Karim. I arrived almost immediately afterward, too late to save him. Then the man came and”—his cheeks burned with shame at the recollection—“they took me prisoner and left me here. They have both computers,” he said hopefully. “They’ve not been gone long.”

“What are their names?” Wu asked as he pulled out his iPhone. Ahmed told him and a moment later Wu had a photograph taken of Jeff and Daryl at a computer conference in Las Vegas the previous year. She was stunning. “They are CIA?”

It occurred to Ahmed that these ruthless men might very well kill the couple for him. “I think so. They are highly skilled agents, computer experts as well. I would take no chances with them.”

Li set the glass down. Ahmed reached forward with his two hands now burning as the blood rushed back into them. By being very careful he was able to lift the glass to his lips and drink.

“Where can we find them?” Wu asked.

“A woman named Saliha Kaya is traveling to Ankara, Turkey, with an important message for my government. These CIA spies intend to stop her. They are probably at the airport right now.”

“I need details of this Kaya woman.”

“My phone,” Ahmed said with a slight smile. “Everything is there. Even a photograph.” He looked at Li. “May I have my computer, please?”

45

The morning flight from Prague to Ankara had left promptly at 11:45 A.M. Jeff and Daryl had missed catching Saliha by minutes.

“Now what?” Daryl asked, slumping in a chair. She glanced at her bandaged hand and made a face. It hurt like hell.

“We find the next flight, book tickets, then replace our phones.”

Daryl looked at her stained pants with disgust. “I need to buy clothes and it wouldn’t hurt me a bit to wash up. I look like a bag lady.”

Forty-five minutes later they were booked on Lufthansa flight 1691 with a change of planes in Munich, then direct from there to Ankara. As for their needs, Prague-Ruzyne International Airport was one of the most modern and convenient in Europe. At an Apple Store, Daryl picked up a replacement iPhone. Not far away Jeff acquired an HTC Galaxy with the Windows OS he preferred.

While she went shopping for clothes, Jeff waited outside the store and configured his phone to access the high-security e-mail server he and Daryl used. In less than ten minutes he’d retrieved his e-mail, contacts, and calendar. The first message he sent was to Frank Renkin, giving him his new cell-phone number. Once Daryl was finished shopping she’d do the same, then was going to call Bridget directly with word she was safe and thanks for her help.

When Jeff decided he’d waited long enough he punched Frank’s contact to dial his number. They didn’t have a lot of time. Their flight was boarding in fifteen minutes.

Frank answered. “Yes?”

“Frank, it’s Jeff. Daryl’s safe, she’s with me right now.”

“Jeff! Thank God! Are you two all right?”

“We’re fine except for some bruises.” Jeff told Frank what happened. “We’re at the Prague airport right now. We’ve booked a flight to Ankara. We have the mule’s address there and hope to catch her.” He gave Frank all the information they had on Saliha. “How dependable do you think the information about the Tusk patch is?”

“Wait a minute. Let’s back up here. You say Daryl killed one of the kidnappers and left his body in a Prague apartment?”

“She didn’t have any choice, Frank. It was either him or her.”

“And you haven’t called the police?”

“There hasn’t been time and we lost our cell phones. We only just got replacements. We’ve been trying to stop Saliha.”

“Let me think about this a minute.” There was a long pause, then Frank resumed. “Look, this Ahmed is an Iranian agent for certain. We’ve had him on the radar for over a year. At this point though you know more about him than we do. What I’m about to tell you couldn’t be any more secret so careful where you tell Daryl. The rollout for Tusk started on April 1, April Fool’s Day. So far no sign of penetration. Frankly, I’ve suspected your abduction was related but from what you tell me that doesn’t appear to be the case. We’ve found an ingenious way to jump the Iranian air gap. Your zero day Android vulns proved invaluable.” Frank told him how it was planned to work. “With this UNOG mess there isn’t any report. Right now our hopes are on Tusk but it will take time. I don’t know if we have enough. The countermeasure is, of course, Chinese. We have no idea if it will work but their earlier versions I’m told have blunted the first two versions of our stuff. It’s going to work at least somewhat, perhaps as good as your man bragged. I’m concerned about the delay in our current rollout. I’ll meet with the lady running our show out there and my guess is she’ll put some wheels in motion but you two are hot on the trail. I can’t tell you what to do but if you think you can find this woman and get that code back without any danger to yourselves then you’ll be doing us a great service. If there’s risk, let those trained for this sort of thing handle it.”

Frank assured Jeff he’d get all the information he could that might be of help and would text it as it became available. “Don’t let anything happen to you two, all right? You don’t have to save the world. There’s always another way.”

Just then Daryl walked out of the boutique with a mischievous smile. “Say hi to Frank.” Jeff held up the phone. Daryl snatched it up and began talking. Jeff glanced at his watch, caught her eye, then held up ten fingers. “Got to go, Frank,” she said. “I need to wash up and change clothes. See you guys soon.”

She handed the phone back to Jeff. “Where’s the ladies’ room?”

Once she’d vanished behind the door Jeff considered calling Ulrich Spyri in Prague. The man had been very professional with him. He’d worked as hard as he could and in the end had taken the right approach. He’d not succeeded because Jeff had run out on him and he felt very badly about that.

But better to wait, Jeff decided. Better to get out of Europe first — just in case.

46

Agnes Edinfield walked down the hallway, smiling to several subordinates as she did, then entered her reception area. Her assistant glanced up, nodded in acknowledgment, then returned to his computer. In her office Edinfield set aside her notepad and papers, then entered her private restroom.

In the war on terror, as it was still known within the Company, there was one positive: funding had improved. There’d been a time when she’d had to scramble for every piece of her budget or to grab a position or two. Today it was more a question of positioning herself to get a bigger slice of the pie.

Frank Renkin had come by her office earlier that morning and delivered stunning news. First, a UNOG official had been murdered on the street outside his home in downtown Geneva. She’d seen an alert on it earlier but had not matched it to his earlier briefing. The ongoing manhunt had been turned up dramatically. Interpol was requesting CIA assistance — which meant data, not manpower as they were very sensitive about that sort of thing. But there was a lot they were prepared to tolerate if the outcome was to their liking. You simply could not let officials be gunned down at will, especially in Switzerland. A man believed to be an Iranian national was the assailant and had been killed at the scene. Jeff Aiken had been brought to the site and identified him as one of the abductors.

There was, regrettably, no word on Dr. Haugen and Edinfield had decided that she could only assume Haugen was a loss. She didn’t like the thought of that but over the years she’d seen it often enough to know the likely outcome. Those abducted were typically killed quickly unless there was a reason to hold them. She hoped there was one in this case but she couldn’t see it. No, that lovely woman was almost certainly dead. Well, that’s what came of association with risk takers like Aiken.

The second bit of news from Renkin had also been shocking. After identifying one of his abductors, Aiken had fled Geneva. Now why would he do that, especially when the Geneva police so obviously needed his assistance?

Which led Edinfield to rethink the unfolding events. How much of the story Aiken had told in Geneva could be accepted at face value now that he’d disappeared and was no longer cooperating with local authorities? It wasn’t as if he was a professional agent being debriefed. They had no idea why he had gone or where. They’d needed him to examine photographs of suspects. Instead, he’d sneaked passed his police guard and vanished.

If this story Aiken had told was true there was no reason for him not to cooperate. The Swiss police were internationally known for their efficiency. Even Aiken should have understood that after the murder of a UNOG official the manhunt for Dr. Haugen and her abductors would take priority.

No, she concluded he’d left for his own reasons and those could not be good. He’d been holding something back, something he didn’t want the Swiss police to know. His flight suggested guilty knowledge, perhaps even guilty actions on his part. Either that or he was acting as a lone wolf. Neither was a good sign. She wondered how many people were going to get killed before his luck ran out.

Two weeks earlier, Edinfield had received her first classified briefing informing her of the existence of Stuxnet3. It was being unleashed on Iran to stall once again its nuclear weapons program. At first, Stuxnet had existed in the Company only as an idle rumor. The concept was that their Cyber Warfare Center had, along with the Israelis, designed a transformative digital weapon.

She’d long wondered why they’d waited so long. Cyberweapons were used by America’s enemies every day. The Chinese had certainly shown no hesitation in employing their considerable capability in attacking U.S. national security databases. She’d been told that once the United States crossed that threshold there was no turning back and no telling how much damage would be inflicted. The world was simply too dependent on computers to risk it.

But all that had changed with Stuxnet.

Given their expertise, she suspected that Aiken and Dr. Haugen had done work on Stuxnet3. Part of her had wondered if that wasn’t the real reason they’d been abducted. And maybe, she now thought, giving Aiken the benefit of the doubt, that was what he’d held back. American involvement in Stuxnet was a closely guarded secret, one he’d not have been able to share with local police. At least she wanted to believe that of him even if he tended to be a wild card in the field, a place where he had no business being.

Just then her mIRC-app chimed. She opened the secure message and read. Aiken was now known to have flown to Prague where he’d rented a car. An Iranian man had been found murdered in his apartment. Interpol was considering whether this was connected to events in Geneva because a young, rather tall Western couple had been seen by neighbors leaving the scene. They matched the description of Aiken and Dr. Haugen.

She wasn’t dead after all. That was a relief. But had they killed the man? If this was one of their abductors they should have simply called the police and told their story. Unless…

Edinfield needed to do something, and quickly, before this fiasco spiraled out of control. First, she sent an alert to her offices in the region, advising of the situation and that the couple likely possessed highly sensitive information. They were to closely monitor events and police alerts, extend all cooperation to local authorities to assist in finding them, even to act on their own as circumstances dictated.

Her deputy was included on the alert and she sent him a separate message assigning him as coordinator of activities, to brief her every two hours on events. Then Edinfield typed her reply to the message she’d just received.

47

Ahmed had been too exhausted, physically and mentally, to do anything after the two Chinese men had left. Finally, he’d cleaned up before leaving the dead Karim in the apartment. He’d been careful to wipe everywhere he thought he might have touched. He wondered how long it would be before the body was found. A long time he hoped.

On his way to his apartment he’d stopped for lunch, trying to clear his head, thinking how he was going to report all of this to Hamid. The best scenario would be for the Chinamen to catch and kill the couple and while he thought that very likely he couldn’t think of any way he’d learn about it early enough to help him.

What he needed was rest. A long rest. And a good story. The unvarnished truth was of no help to him.

After his fifth cigarette and fourth cup of espresso he decided to go home, no closer to an agreeable account of recent events than when he’d first sat down. As he entered the building he found it unusually quiet. He glanced at the dirty Armenian’s door but the man didn’t stick his head out as usual. Probably upstairs somewhere.

Ahmed hesitated at his apartment when he realized the door had been forced. Perhaps the Chinese had done it. He entered cautiously, then closed the door behind him. Stepping out of the kitchen was a very neat, rather diminutive, bearded man dressed in a dark gray suit with an open-collared blue dress shirt. “Do not be concerned,” he said in Farsi, in a voice Ahmed was certain he recognized. “Take a seat. We must talk.”

“Hamid,” Ahmed whispered, suddenly more frightened than he’d ever been before in his life.

Hamid waited until Ahmed was seated on the small couch. He pulled a chair over and sat on it carefully. He examined Ahmed head to toe before speaking again. “I’m General Hamid,” he said. “I require a detailed report from you. I want to know how you managed to get your two most valuable agents killed and how both the woman and the man you took managed to escape. I want everything, no tales. Most of all, I want to know why I’ve been compelled to expose myself like this to pick up after you.”

Ahmed’s mouth was suddenly so dry he couldn’t swallow. He tried to speak and couldn’t. Finally, his voice coming out more as a croak, he poured out the story without embellishment. It took most of an hour, and once he had to get water from the kitchen but finally it was done. He closed his eyes waiting for judgment.

“These Chinese men, you really think they’ll kill the couple?”

“I hope so. Mostly they want their computers.”

“Your courier, this Saliha, she is on her way, you say?”

“Yes,” Ahmed said quickly. “She has the code on a key chain and is flying to Ankara as we speak.”

“What schedule does she follow once there?”

Ahmed had questioned Saliha about this repeatedly until he was certain he knew every detail. “She will arrive late this afternoon and go to her mother’s house. I have the address. She will spend the night since she has a very long drive across eastern Turkey the next day. As soon as the rental agency opens she will pick up a car and be on her way. She takes different routes so as not to establish a pattern. I’ve insisted on that. She will cross the border around sunset tomorrow and make the transfer an hour or two later. She has done this many times before without incident.”

“There was no trouble with her?”

Ahmed paused, then said, “No, of course not.”

“Tell me.”

Ahmed licked his lips, then told Hamid what had happened, how much he’d had to promise to get her to go.

“She is not reliable this time; that is what you are telling me?”

“I… I think she is. She has always done what I’ve told her in the past.”

“This woman, she is your lover?”

“It seemed the best way to tie her to me.”

“Of course. And she is ugly so it has been a great sacrifice for you.”

“No… no, she is not unattractive, I admit.”

“It is vital this code gets through tomorrow night. The Zionist dogs and American infidels are trying to sabotage our program even as we sit here. We must make certain she is successful. You understand?”

“Yes. I can call her, tell her—”

Hamid raised his hand. “Don’t be any more foolish than you have already been. Call her? What will that accomplish? No, we must go to Turkey, make certain this happens. You understand?”

Ahmed nodded.

“Good. Collect your things.”

Wu leveled the SportCruiser LSA at 1,500 meters. He scanned the controls, then took in the vista all about them. Clear flying from here to Ankara, though they’d not arrive until after sunset. He would be landing in twilight so there was no margin for delay. His primary concern was a headwind, which would not only slow them but might require a stop for more fuel.

It was remarkable that the trail led back to Turkey of all places. He wondered if that was a good omen. Certainly expectations would be high for his success. While he had a strong signal he took out his cell phone and called his father, Mei Zedong in Beijing, who answered at once. Wu reported what had happened, leaving out the concierge.

“Turkey, you say? That is something. Fortune is with us. I’m giving you a number. This man is well connected. He can track cell phones, gather information, tell you almost anything you need to know. His tentacles are everywhere, and he is the one who wants these computers. You understand?”

Feng, Wu thought. From what Wu understood there was nothing in the world secret from Feng’s people. If something existed in a computer he could get it.

“I understand.”

“Take care.”

Wu waited an hour before calling Feng, time for his father to have reached him. When they spoke he gave him all the information he had — names, cell-phone numbers, addresses. “I will need everything you can get from this information if I am to recover those items for you.”

“You will have it before you land. Good hunting.”

At the Prague airport Ahmed and Hamid learned they had missed the earlier flights to Ankara. The next wasn’t until 5:25 that evening. Hamid booked it, then had Ahmed do the same. He didn’t want the records to show them traveling together. They’d changed planes in Munich and that was where the trouble began. During the wait, security flooded the waiting areas of the airport. Sniffer dogs were brought in. Passengers were told to stay where they were.

“What is going on?” Ahmed asked.

“It appears there has been a terrorist threat.”

“Not by us.”

Hamid looked askance at him. “Don’t ever say such things.”

The first phase of the delay lasted over an hour. Hamid watched the unfolding confusion with dismay. Though he anticipated their connecting flight was being held on the tarmac, this was eating into valuable time. They should have arrived in Ankara around midnight and at the girl’s location two hours later. That would have been ideal, to catch her in the dead of night. Now this.

“What will they do?” Ahmed asked more than once, feeling foolish but unable to help himself. Hamid had no way of knowing what was going to happen.

“Who can say? They will let us move on when they are ready.”

But instead of ending, the crisis only escalated. As the delay entered the third hour, the public-address system ordered everyone to exit the terminal. Every passenger was to reenter and clear security again. The passengers from Prague and other connecting cities were enraged. They’d been screened before boarding and had never left the secure area. Why should they be screened again?

But there was no reasoning with authorities, certainly not German ones. Hamid and Ahmed joined the wide column of passengers that spilled into the area beyond the X-ray machines and body searches.

“What is this about?” Ahmed asked someone, as if another passenger would know more than they did.

“ETA, I hear.” ETA was the Basque terrorist network. It typically bombed and shot Spanish police officers but from time to time it showed its reach by planting a bomb in a European city. Of all the nights for ETA to make such a ploy — this couldn’t have come at a worse time.

“ETA,” Ahmed told Hamid.

Why not? Hamid thought. But they have no finesse.

48

Saliha’s mother was delighted to see her as always. But not long after her daughter had arrived, she asked if anything was wrong. Saliha had never come back so quickly from a trip.

“You are nervous. What is it?”

There was no question of telling the truth. The burdens of her life were almost more than she could bear. To share her problems would be needlessly cruel, however. It was her duty to lift the load from her mother.

“I am just tired. And I have this for you.” She handed her all the money she would not need for the trip.

“So much? Can you afford this?”

“Yes, I can afford it. I had no time for gifts. But I’ll get them something before I come back in two or three days.”

“Your being here is all the gift we need. Rest. I will have dinner soon.”

As the girls played, frequently glancing at their older sister to be certain she was watching everything they did, Saliha thought about her situation again. Clearly, time had run out for her in Prague and with Ahmed. She’d never been so frightened as when the American had her. Her instincts told her he was a good man but he’d been a desperate one and even good men do terrible things when they must.

She wondered how his chase had ended. Had he found his wife? Was she alive? Unharmed? Then she smiled grimly. Was his story even true? Maybe he was a Mossad agent after all, or CIA. There was no way to tell with those people. They were crafty, able to fool you into thinking they were someone else. She’d heard the stories since she was a little girl, seen the Turkish television shows. She knew she’d been very lucky to escape and was proud of herself for taking the risk when the opportunity had presented itself.

As for Ahmed, perhaps it was best she not try to collect her final payment. He probably wouldn’t pay her anyway. Still, she didn’t like the idea of giving up on the money. She’d taken, was taking, enormous risks for it. And he’d threatened her. She didn’t like that. When a man treated her like that her instinct was to do the opposite.

So on the flight she’d considered not even delivering the thumb drive. Which was worse? Take it into Iran and hope Ahmed had not sent word ahead to have her arrested once she was across the border? Or throw it away and never return to Prague?

How many choices did she have? If she betrayed Ahmed, how far would he go to punish her? Would he find her in another country? She couldn’t dismiss the possibility. He was some kind of secret agent, he had contacts outside of Prague; if he made it his business to find her, could she hide well enough? And how long a memory would he have? Could she ever feel safe? What about her family?

Just how important was what she did? Would they want to kill her to keep her from telling anyone about it? Ahmed had kidnapped the woman and her husband. At least she was more inclined to accept that as truth. Wouldn’t he kill her? If not him, then others he knew.

She reviewed her options anew. She wasn’t going back to Prague. The city wasn’t big enough for her safety. Some of the girls she’d worked with were living in other cities in Europe — Rome, Paris, Berlin. She’d made no special effort to stay in touch but she had talked with two or three over the last few months. Better to visit one of them, get a small wardrobe, calm down, plan her next step. Yes, that was the better way.

What she could not do was go back to Prague, she reminded herself. Ahmed was there. She’d seen movies. She understood. You always get caught when you go back for things you can buy at any store.

None of which answered her question: what to do now? She puzzled over the decision even as she played on the floor with her brother and sisters. No answer came. Do it or not, both options were filled with risk. After dinner, as the girls bathed and she prepared for bed, Saliha’s mother came up behind her and began slowly brushing her hair.

“I can do it,” Saliha said, reaching up for the brush.

“I want to,” her mother said. “Ahneh always said your beautiful hair was a Gift from Allah.” She leaned down close and whispered in her daughter’s ear. “But it is you who are the gift to us from Allah.” Saliha couldn’t speak she was so moved.

She’d go to Iran. What else could she do?

Wu maneuvered the plane for final approach into his usual Ankara airport. The slight headwind meant he was arriving later than he’d hoped. His legs were cramped and he desperately needed to urinate.

He’d watched with a sinking heart as twilight dissolved into night. He was now checking the petrol gauge every minute. He was dangerously low on fuel but didn’t want to waste the time to land. He was certain he had enough.

It was a vast expanse of night beneath him; his depth perception was shot. He’d been cautioned several times by real pilots that night flying was as dangerous as it got. Disorientation was all too easy. Planes stalled without warning or eased into slow dives, catching the pilot unawares until it was too late. Maintaining pitch and yaw required constant monitoring of the instruments and sometimes flying the craft in a way that seemed counterintuitive.

So he’d been told. For all its virtues and suitability for his needs, the SportCruiser lacked the sophisticated instruments required to safely do what he was doing.

He’d thought about taking a faster commercial flight from Prague to Ankara, leaving the plane to be picked up later, but their passports had not been stamped on entry and it would have raised questions. There was also the matter of the body in Prague. He realized now he’d been too casual about that. If it was discovered and two Asian men were recalled as being in the building around that time, an alert for them would have been issued. Finally, it was very possible they were going to need this handy little airplane. It had proved itself very useful in the past in moving about Turkey.

A few minutes earlier Wu had called the airport and spoken to someone he knew. The runway lights were on, he was told, and there were no other landings or takeoffs expected, though caution was always advised.

As he nosed the plane down and cut back slightly on power, the air was suddenly choppy. The aircraft was rocked in a very unsettling motion. Li sat quietly beside him and Wu wondered if he knew just how dangerous this was. Like most passengers he probably assumed the pilot knew what he was doing. Wu just wished that were true. The SportCruiser lacked landing lights. He’d depend entirely on the runway lights for the landing. He was terrified.

Wu had no real sense of how close the ground was. He could see the runway lights in the distance and slowed the plane to just above stall. In daylight he would not have been so cautious but now he wanted every advantage he could manage.

The craft buffeted again and he abruptly increased power. Maybe too slow wasn’t such a good idea. He glanced at Li who sat unchanged. Wu nosed down more sharply to keep from climbing and the runway seemed to rush at him. He should have practiced this before. There had always been the chance he’d have to do this someday out of necessity. But the truth was, it frightened him so much he’d not wanted to risk it.

Wu wiped a hand on his pants, then the other. His mouth was dry but the bottle was behind him and he didn’t want to take his hands off the control to grope for it. And this was no time for his attention to flag. One moment you were flying, the next you were falling. There was no in-between with an airplane and the change could happen so quickly you had no time to regain the sky.

The turbulence eased and he slowed once again. He was almost there. He decided to overshoot the landing as he didn’t need the entire runway, just a small portion of it. No need to risk landing short. He lowered flaps and felt that slight rise, which told him they were in place. He cut back on the engine and felt the craft start to glide. There was a slight crosswind and he compensated, realizing too late it would carry him to the side of the runway. He hoped he landed before it swept him off the landing strip altogether.

Over the first lights and very close to asphalt, he felt the ground effect grip the craft. The SportCruiser seemed to hang in the air for a long moment, unable to drop through the invisible plane that rode fifteen to twenty-five feet above land. The plane all but hovered, he was now going so slowly, then it happened — the plane dropped. He watched the lights to his right and left and searched for the pavement, letting the plane ease down ever so slightly, nudging it lower as if he didn’t want to crush eggs beneath him, watching the runway slide off to his right as the wind pushed him ever leftward.

Then a wheel touched lightly down, followed a heart-stopping moment later by the other. He cut power. He was on the ground. When he gunned the engine to taxi it sputtered, coughed, then stopped. He was out of petrol.

It was just after 11:30 p.m. before Jeff and Daryl had cleared customs and immigration at Esenboga Airport, Ankara. Now that they could speak freely out of the crowding of the airplane, they sat at the first opportunity.

“Do we take a taxi or rent a car?” Daryl asked. The clothes she’d bought in Prague were a bit flashy but that was all the place had sold.

They had the address Saliha would likely stay at, her family home. They’d feared that she might already have left Ankara but they had to start there.

“I don’t relish driving the streets of Ankara at night,” Jeff said. “I’ve never been here before. I doubt I’m as exhausted as you are, but I’m very, very tired. A taxi is tempting.”

“Then what? I’ll bet this isn’t a very good neighborhood we’re going to, otherwise she wouldn’t be living in Prague working in a nightclub. We can’t just stand around. And you aren’t planning on knocking on the door after midnight, are you? Remember, you scared this woman out of her wits.”

“We take our chances with a car, then.”

As Jeff located a Hertz counter and took what was available, Daryl bought bottles of water, candy bars, anything that looked of use to them. Half an hour later they were dropped at a parking lot. Jeff walked along the row of cars until he found theirs.

“It’s a Fiat,” he said. “It’s all they had.” The Fiorino 1.3 was red and completely unappealing. Squat, small, it had two doors but otherwise looked much like a panel truck.

“Doesn’t James Bond drive a sports car or something?”

“You take what they have,” Jeff said. “Get in. I’m told it’s got navigation. You’re in charge.”

Jeff took the driver’s seat, looked over the controls as he adjusted his seat, then groaned. “It’s a manual.”

“You can’t drive a stick shift?”

“It’s been a few years.” Fifteen as near as he could recall.

“It’s like riding a bike.”

“Yeah. Easy for you to say.”

Driving from the parking lot onto the highway was no easy task. He stalled the car twice and counted himself lucky. His main concern as he began to feel comfortable with it was that it would take too much of his attention once they were on crowded city streets. He needed to get the hang of this quickly. They were some fifteen miles from central Ankara on a modern highway. “How’s it look?” he asked.

“It seems to be working all right. Just follow the directions. I told it you speak English.” Daryl opened a candy bar and bottle of water. “You know, you owe your girl a few nice meals.”

49

Henri Wille sat at his desk, the hallway outside utterly silent. He couldn’t count how many nights he’d spent like this. Whenever dignitaries came to the palace he worked round the clock. But never before had he been involved in an abduction as well as the murder of an employee. He’d already given reports to the security committee and been told to write one in detail. That’s what he was supposed to be doing now but he realized as he worked on it that events were still ongoing. He could write what had happened to the extent of he knew, but there was much he didn’t know.

Not that the committee would care. Someone needed to take the blame and as head of security it was his neck on the chopping block.

Just before midnight Henri took a moment to reread the police alert on Jeff Aiken and Daryl Haugen. Spyri had told him the man had fled Geneva; that was the word he’d used: “fled.” He’d been angry about it and baffled. A few hours later he’d called back to inform him that the Prague police had issued a pickup notice on the pair.

“She is alive?” he’d asked with relief.

“Yes, so it appears. I am greatly relieved. I never expected such a positive outcome.”

“It is extraordinary. She’d been taken to Prague?”

“Yes.”

“How did it happen?”

“I’m not certain. Details are sketchy, which is my polite way of saying they won’t tell me.”

“Do you know if the police found her?”

“I don’t believe so but I’m not certain.”

“Did she escape?” The man had, why not the woman?

“I don’t know. They are essentially, though politely, stonewalling me. I still can’t understand why he left here without helping us first.”

Henri thought about that for some time and was certain he had the answer. Aiken was a computer expert. It was very likely he’d done the job of the local police faster than they could move. The man had obviously gone to Prague since the municipal police there had issued the alert. The two of them were wanted for questioning regarding a homi cide. The notice didn’t say they were suspects but they might very well be. “What do you know about the dead man in Prague?”

“An Iranian.”

“On a watch list?”

“You know DAP. It is a one-way street with those people.”

“I suppose it’s not important now. I’m just curious.” He paused. “Do you think the man found her?”

“That doesn’t seem likely, though I suppose that is probably why he went there. You have better sources than I do, Henri. Use them, then call me back and tell me what the hell happened.”

Henri called his Interpol counterpart with the Prague police, a senior police official he’d met several times, and asked the same questions. There had been a link to Jeff Aiken. A tall Western couple had been seen leaving the building where the killing took place, he was told. Two Asian men had entered as well and left not long after.

“How was the body discovered?”

“Blood dripped into the apartment below.”

“Is there any evidence putting this couple or the Asian men with the deceased?”

“No. It was just unusual for any of them to be there. The apartments are rented by Middle Eastern immigrants. We’d like to talk to them.”

“What can you tell me about the dead man?”

“This is all confidential, Henri. The name on his Iranian passport was Karim Behzad. He was killed following a violent struggle. There were signs someone had been tied up. A neighbor reported seeing him and another man with the woman earlier. He’d thought she was drunk.”

“What do you know about the deceased?”

“He worked as a waiter. We found two other passports hidden in the apartment.”

“An agent?”

“Probably.”

“What have you discovered about the Asian men?”

“Nothing much. Late twenties, early thirties. Well dressed. We’ve alerted local police to bring in any two men matching these descriptions that they encounter within the city. They may have seen something, they may have seen nothing, they may have killed the man. We don’t know.”

“I see. A ‘tall Western couple’ is not much of a description. Many Czechs would match it.”

“It was unusual in that building as I say.”

“How did you connect this pair described to you to the names Jeff Aiken and Daryl Haugen?”

“Yes, the prize question, my friend. You will owe me a drink after you hear the answer. We received a notice from our American friends giving us the names.” CIA. No surprise there. “They urged us to pick up the American man for questioning, hold the woman if she is with him.”

“Why would they want them held?”

“I can’t say. They don’t share their motivations with me. Perhaps they are employees; that seems likely. Maybe it’s for their own protection. Right now their situation is the same as it is for the Asian men. We don’t know if they are involved in the killing at all. We don’t even know if it’s those two. Different people altogether may have left the building. The Americans may have it wrong.”

“Have you traced them?”

“Yes, they left earlier today on a flight for Ankara, Turkey, before the alert entered the Prague police computer system.”

“Are you aware of any connection between Turkey and Iran in all this?”

The man laughed. “Only if I look on a map.”

Henri read the alert once again and reviewed what he knew. The two Americans were kidnapped here in Geneva by three Iranians. The man escaped. One of the abductors murdered the UNOG official with whom they’d been working and had himself been killed by police. The other two had fled the country with the woman. She’d somehow gained her freedom in Prague. There was another dead Iranian there. The two were now wanted for questioning. Significantly, in Henri’s opinion, they’d not contacted the police or the American embassy. Instead, they’d boarded a commercial flight to Ankara.

No, the pattern seemed clear enough to him. He took another look at the earlier Paris report. Afterward he sent a notice to be kept informed of unfolding events.