DeathByte, page 12
part #2 of Spies Lie Series
Could she do this? She wondered why she didn’t feel fear. The voice in her head remained silent.
Cassie grinned, seeing his defeated and exhausted expression. She hit her cell phone’s Redial button. “Ainsley, proceed now to the tavern directly across the street from you and sit in the booth closest to the rest rooms, on the side facing the street side window. Take everything in your pockets—everything—and place it all on the table in the booth. I’ll be with you directly.”
She waited until he entered by the front door, examined herself in the rearview mirror to ensure she looked within the role. Still no noise from the voice in her head, so it must be safe to do this. She could feel her heartbeat accelerate as she was hit hard with an adrenaline surge.
Take a deep breath to reassert focus. She exited the car and walked into the alleyway, then entered the bar through its rear exit. As she passed the rest room, she noticed odors she’d missed before. The tavern’s rear smelled of equal parts urine and beer, but there were other odors, some more terrible—she could smell fear and blood from a fight—and others savory, like shepherd’s pie. She saw the back of Ainsley’s head as she closed on the booth. He sat facing the light, rubbing his eyes, blinded by the sunshine flowing through the dark bar’s only window. She removed the chewing gum and dropped it into a tissue in the pocket of the raincoat.
Standing right behind him, less than one foot away, she quietly removed her Beretta pistol from her belt, and unlocked the safety. Pulled to load a shell. Ready to fire. Cassie shoved the pistol into the back of his neck and whispered, “Slowly rise and place both your hands on the table.”
He did, saying, “Sheesh, very touchy, aren’t you, Cassie?”
“I expect you’d be if people were hunting you.” She patted him down and found the workout—running all over the city—seemed to have left him with an unexpected erection. She sighed, wondering how he’d managed this. Maybe he found danger arousing? She found nothing else of consequence and nothing dangerous.
Cassie sniffed the air. His perspiration smelled sweet, but with no trace of aftershave or cologne. And no scent of fear on him. How can he be so comfortable? Is this a set-up?
She steeled herself to his lack of emotion, moved to face him, and sat. “Wow, Ainsley, I guess you’re really glad to see me.” She pointed to his crotch and although he didn’t reply, his face got red and looked cross.
Cassie examined the contents of his pockets on the table. Once again, there was nothing dangerous. She handed back his wallet, keys, a scrap of paper with a shopping list from the supermarket, and a black plastic comb. He put everything into his pockets.
He passed her the cell phone she’d left for him in a wastebasket outside the agency’s office building. She removed its battery and exchanged this for a sealed zip-lock envelope she’d lifted from the same wastebasket. It contained his cell phone with its own battery removed. She checked the cell phone she’d loaned him, to ensure he hadn’t used it to make any outgoing calls, and dropped it into her gaudy purse. No outgoing calls meant it would be safe here for at least a while.
She sat and tried to keep from grinning at him, filled with the thought of how good it finally felt to be in control. She forced her face into a serious expression. She wanted to smile so much, her face hurt. “Sit, please, Lee. Can I buy you a drink?”
He sat and nodded. “Lagavulin, straight up.”
“Yum. Strong and smoky single malt. If I’d known you were a man of taste when we worked together, maybe I’d have responded differently to your clumsy passes.” She pointed to the bartender and held up two fingers. “Lagavulin straight up.”
The bartender lifted the bottle from the shelf to show her he had the correct brand. She nodded, sure it was filled with a less-expensive brand.
Cassie made an attempt to sound casual, her voice even and quiet as she asked, “Did you know you’re the one person I never expected or wanted to hear from?”
The bartender brought their drinks and Cassie handed the old man two counterfeit twenties. She told him to keep the change, and he vanished.
She frowned. “You’ve no tradecraft, no experience in operations, no idea what “covert” even means. Not in the least interesting to me. So tell me why we’re finally in a bar on a date, Lee.”
Ainsley took a sip of the single malt. From his expression she could tell he savored it. “By the way, this is Laphroaig, not Lagavulin.” Then, for the first time, he looked at her. “Cassie, you look great, even in costume.” He must have realized she was about to dismiss him, and held up his hand to stop her. “Well, see, I found traces on our server. Traces of traffic no one was ever supposed to see. Found ’em by accident.”
He drew his hand through his long blond hair. “Someone used one of the secure workstations in the basement to send and receive email, and this wasn’t agency business. I don’t know who it was, but the message scraps I found led me to believe the message sender was being threatened by a Muslim Brotherhood offshoot. They claimed they were owed a life and threatened to take out their mole’s entire family unless they were offered a substitute. The agency mole begged for the lives of his or her family and claimed he’d already offered you up. The mole claimed he or she could deliver one more if you weren’t enough or if you evaded them.”
He paused. “I can’t tell you much more, except if I’m right, then I’d be the most likely substitute, since I know more about how to track and trace messages moving through the agency’s computers than anyone else. I’m a big threat to our mole.”
He looked squarely into her eyes, his grin sheepish. “I guess no one expected you to survive this long.” He wiped sweat from his brow with the paper napkin from the table setting.
She thought about the facts and opinions he’d had offered up. “I already knew there was a mole, Lee. How do I know it isn’t you?” She purposely showed teeth through her smile, not feeling at all friendly.
His brow furrowed. “You can’t, and the only reason I’m begging your help is I’m convinced I’m your substitute. My only hope for survival is for you to find this person who has a ‘family’ he or she loves and fears will be slaughtered if they can’t kill you, before he or she can offer up me. And know this: I could have given them—whoever they are— your location by backtracing your cell phone, but instead I chose to be here with you. So isn’t that proof I’m not the mole?”
She remembered the men who showed up carrying weapons at her hotel before she left for Hong Kong. She wasn’t convinced of his innocence. Cassie let the silence hang between them like a shroud.
His face showed panic, and even in the air-conditioned bar perspiration flowed down his face. Cassie sniffed the air, smelling the close-by, hard odor that was a confession of his terror. She felt an unanticipated sexual thrill run through her all the way to her core. It felt like an electric current turned on inside her crotch.
She ignored her arousal and considered his story with care, looking for logic flaws. She found none. The big question was, did she believe him. And if she did, what should she do? What could she do?
“Most everyone working at the agency is married, with few exceptions, and most have families,” she mused. “Greenfield and McDougal, plus at least four project managers on the analysis side, more than eighty country managers, both contracts administrators, and all six covert operatives who aren’t NOCs. They all have families. It’s a long list of suspects.”
At this, Lee seemed to relax as he smiled back. “Not so. I tried to find a way to narrow down the list and changed the security on the basement terminals so only director-level employees can log into them. No one below director-level complained and asked to use the terminals. And there was more email traffic, both incoming and outgoing over the next few days. So it’s either Greenfield or one of his three assistant directors. Each is married and has children. You reported to McDougal, didn’t you? He’s an Ass Dire.” He hid his nose in the tumbler sniffing the smoky Scotch.
Cassie shrugged. “What if someone hacked their way into the secure terminal area? Someone without a family. Bob Gault, for example.”
He shook his head. “I’d have noticed. So the only question left is, do you trust me?”
Cassie stared back. He’d asked and asked again, the question at the heart of her dilemma. If she trusted him, she’d conclude he’d delivered valuable information. She decided that for the time being, she’d suspend her suspicions. “Okay. I guess you’ve earned your favor. So what do you want from me?” She sipped her drink and waited.
“Before you disappeared, you’d earned a reputation as one of the brightest people at the agency. I need you to find the mole.” He put his glass down on the table. “If you agree to help me, you’ll need a way to contact me.” He looked ready to offer her a piece of paper he suddenly had in his hand, but she interrupted him, reaching across the table and touching his hand.
“I have a favor to ask first. Prove your value.” Their eyes locked together. She handed him the piece of paper containing the printed phone number and initials in Arabic carried by her intended assassin. She had also printed a license plate number on the paper. “I need to know whose phone number this is, probably in Saudi Arabia. And who owns the vehicle with this Saudi license plate? Also, this one in Washington, since it was outside my apartment building the day McDougal fired me. Who are they? Where do they live? What do they do? Let me know as soon as you can.”
Then she reached into her handbag. She handed Ainsley the assassin’s cell phone in a plastic dry-cleaning bag labeled “Golden Tulip Hotel, Riyadh.” “Have agency forensics process this. Tell me everything about it, fingerprints, purchase place, and date. Everything.” She reached into her bag again and removed one of her untraceable cell phones. “This is how we’ll stay in touch. Keep the battery charged. Don’t call me, I’ll call you. And, Lee, never use this phone for outgoing calls to anyone besides me, ever. Keep it on you at all times. Clear? I’ll be in touch soon.”
She saw relief on his face. Ainsley nodded in acceptance. “Sure. And thanks.”
He scanned the phone numbers and the plate number on the paper she’d given him, then dropped it into the table’s ashtray, took a match, and burned it. He picked up the ashes and rubbed them against his fingers until they were just a smudge on his skin.
The darkened flesh of his fingers morphed into Evan’s ashes and her eyes suddenly blinked with tears. But only for a second.
Cassie rose and backed away from the table until her rear touched the exit door to the alleyway. She pushed it open with her hip, turned, and disappeared from Washington as fast as she could.
* * *
As he retreated back to his office, Lee Ainsley felt so many things at the same time: a throbbing erection, possibly due to being so close to her, possibly from the danger emanating off her skin like the heat from a forest fire. Confusion from the text message he’d received three days ago, anonymously, telling him how to find her. He opened his cell and reread it: Yom Tov Deli says the one you seek is at 2126899999 and will need your help to survive.
Who the fuck had sent him the untraceable text message?
CHAPTER 19
Charles Crane’s flat,
38 Vauxhall, Stantonbury,
Milton Keynes, UK
July 7, 8:26 p.m.
Sir Charles Crane stood at the door to his flat and ran his skinny fingers over the crack between the door and its jamb. He found the tiny thread he’d inserted and smiled. Old habits die hard. He opened the door and scooped up the thread for reuse when he next left his home.
He dropped his umbrella in the brass pail and walked to the kitchen. There, he pulled a small glass from the pantry and filled it with port. The sweet taste would counteract the nasty events of the day. He took the glass with him into the den and turned on BBC2. He adjusted the volume up to mask his voice and entered the bathroom.
The bug detector registered the bathroom was clear. Not so the den, but he wanted whoever had placed the bug to think he hadn’t found it. With the bathroom door shut, he turned the water on all the way in the shower to create more white noise.
Safe now. He punched a number into his cell phone. He turned on the voice modifier. “Do you have what I requested?”
“No, not yet. I need a few more days.” The man sounded nervous. That was good.
Crane’s management wouldn’t remain patient much longer. “I’ll give you two more days. That’s all. I’ll have my local contact deliver an encrypted thumb-drive. Use it. For delivery back to us, do it as usual.” He terminated the call.
There was one more asset from whom he needed to get a progress report. He entered the other number and waited for her to answer.
* * *
Almost three weeks had passed before Pesi Houmaz received all of the proposals, and with his receipt of the last one, he sat alone in the conference room once again.
Sitting in the conference room of the Houmaz family estate in the Al Madinah As Sinaiyah area, on east side outskirts of Riyadh, he reviewed printed copies of the documents. One of the chip manufacturers was in Taiwan. Another was in Hong Kong. There was one in Switzerland. The final one was in Southern California. All four were qualified. As he read them, he realized he had no basis for comparing them. He tried to design a weighting scheme for making a decision, but, they were all so similar. After an hour, he realized his engineering background wasn’t adequate to understand the differences between what he was taught ten years ago and what was now possible. He was out of his depth. He paced the room, his head swirling in the incomprehensible proposal details from each vendor. Wasn’t there an easy way to make this decision?
Had Tariq been available, he’d have deferred to his older brother. But Tariq’s email was routed from a nonresponsive address. There wasn’t any way to contact him. Why did he do that? Was his brother in a non-secure environment? Was he being tracked? Was he trying to keep someone from finding Pesi?
Pesi shook his head. He wondered if his brother really trusted him. He wondered if it was really his brother who’d contacted him.
What was paramount here? The recommendations of each vendor were almost identical. The prices for design and production were about the same. Their schedules to complete the prototypes were similar. He needed some way to pick a vendor, but there was no significant difference. As the sun set, he heard the call to prayer.
While he knelt on the prayer rug in the conference room, Pesi saw a vision. He saw himself entering the country of each vendor, and in every case except one, he saw himself arrested for espionage, or worse, assassinated by the Mossad. He decided that his prime criterion for selecting a vendor would be which country he’d feel safer visiting. He could never appear at the manufacturer’s facility. But he’d want to be nearby, just in case something went wrong.
Which country was the safest for him to travel to? He’d been educated in the United States, at the University of Cincinnati. The city was ugly to him. In fact, the whole country was. His face alone was enough to make things dicey for him in the US, with their facial recognition software and cams everywhere. But he’d stick out in Taiwan and Hong Kong. Not a good thing. Switzerland was close to the Netherlands with its huge Islamic fundamentalist population. Just a three-hour drive or train ride between the two locations. Amsterdam to Bern. Yes, the Swiss corporation was the safest alternative.
He reread their proposal, looking for flaws. The company had won many awards, but so had its competitors. It was small and ambitious, and seemed to have little regard for international copyright law based on the sheer number of infringement lawsuits filed against them during the twelve years since they were founded. They also had the best price and the quickest order completion timeline. A small company with lawsuits might be desperate for business and more cooperative.
In the end, he chose was what was easiest and safest. He typed and sent an email to Antron SA, near the town of Gals, Canton of Bern, Switzerland:
Dear Dr. Greystrom,
Our firm has selected your company to complete the backward engineering of this new communications chip. Please contact me. I will deliver the sample we want you to duplicate. For the first round of manufacture, we will want 200 units for testing. Please indicate your payment information. We are willing to pay eighty percent of purchase price in advance if you can guarantee the order will be delivered within nine weeks. Otherwise, twenty percent on signing and the rest upon delivery.
Sincerely,
Sigmund Tahir
Associate Professor of Computer Design
University of Riyadh
Pesi smiled. The more cash they took up front, the 1ower the likelihood they would ask revealing questions.
The identity he used for the email had been set up for him by Tariq long ago, along with many others. Its address was a dead drop and Tariq had backstopped this identity several years ago.
Within three days, Pesi received a signed contract for the development and production of two hundred test units. In fact the two hundred units were all he thought Tariq would ever need. They wanted eighty percent up front.
Pesi called his driver. Time to visit the bank.
* * *
William Wing’s mouth was wide open as he snored in seat 23B of KLM flight 612 from Hong Kong to Munich. He dreamed he met Betsy Brown face-to-face right after she’d bested him at the latest hacker challenge. In the dream, she was seven feet tall, heavy, and ugly, with huge hands. She was naked. He was having sex with this monster when his smartphone beeped.
At first he was relieved to be awake. Then his mouth fell open as he realized he had an erection. Moving as far from the man in seat 23A as he could, he pulled the cell from his pants pocket and scanned its screen.
He’d set up several roving Internet bots, each one using ECHELON as a base to piggyback within, and one of them had just reported back: the word “Bug-Lok” found in an encrypted email between Riyadh and Antron SA, near the town of Gals, Canton of Bern, Switzerland. He opened the copy of the email his bot had retrieved:
