The Man in the Barretina Hat, page 18
Once in, Gerardo turned on his headlamp. He scanned the cabin. Wood clattered against wood in the back corner. Gerardo spotted the table being shoved across the floor.
First a hand and then a head popped up from behind the table. “Is it safe to come out?” Carlos squinted at Gerardo’s light, keeping one hand behind his back.
Gerardo switched his headlamp to its red-light setting, making it less blinding. Relieved to finally see Carlos fully and in person but concerned at the lethargic state he seemed to be in, he moved swiftly. “Let’s get you out of this dump and into a proper safe house.” Gerardo showed Carlos his military ID card and a letter from the head office. The message confirmed the mission to extract Carlos and bring him home unharmed.
“A friend brought me here.” Carlos hesitated and brought his other hand out front, but not before slipping it rather slowly past his breast pocket. “But I would rather go home now.”
It took longer to get Carlos out through the window than it had taken Gerardo to remove the window and haul himself in. Carlos had surprisingly little strength. Saul helped from the outside while Gerardo propped him up inside. Thankfully, Carlos’ woollen hat protected his head from any rough edges. Gerardo had seen photos of Carlos in this same hat. He figured it suited him more in real life.
Once out, Gerardo sealed the window frame back in place. Clear silicone and a smear of putty made the cut marks nearly indistinguishable from the surrounding cracks.
Gerardo and Saul each took an arm and helped Carlos walk towards the boat. Ana followed behind and brushed away their footprints in the sand. When they were about five metres from the water, Gerardo whistled. A barn owl screamed back. Everyone in the group shuddered, unable to ignore the tension circling around them.
Reeds crackled just ahead. Branches crunched as Celia uncovered the boat from the layer of camouflage she had piled on top.
The fresh air helped to revive Carlos. By the time he could touch the edge of the boat, he was able to lift his legs and get in on his own. After they’d cleared the shallow waters, Carlos leaned over to Gerardo. “The other night I heard someone outside the hut. That wasn’t your team doing reconnaissance, was it?”
Gerardo thought about the question. It made sense that Nadya’s team had been in the area, although he would have expected them to keep more of a low profile. “Not us. It might have been a helpful ally. But if not, it’s a good thing we got you out of there when we did.” Gerardo did not like the prospective of another player trailing Carlos.
During the ride back, Gerardo briefed Carlos on the situation.
***
While he listened intently, Carlos slipped one hand under the opposite sleeve of his jacket. His fingernails had grown over the past week, but he needed the needle-nose clippers to dig deeper. The pain didn’t bother him. It needed to be done. Minutes later, he wound the bloody metal blob up with the wire, tackle and descaler he had nabbed from the fisherman’s hut. As they passed close by a boat anchored offshore, he lobbed the bundle over the side like a small ball of garbage. There was no way he wanted James to track him a second time.
About an hour later, they arrived at a little-used fishing port. It was early enough to beat the fishermen who started their day there and, more importantly, well before the owner of the boat they had borrowed would notice it missing. Saul and Celia tied it up using the same knots that had originally held it fast to the dock.
Carlos nodded, taking it all in. “I have a lot to tell you.”
39
Saboteur
GNARLY DIVE SITE. THX FOR RECOMMENDATION.
Nadya stared at the words that had popped onto the screen of her secure mobile phone. They meant Gerardo’s extraction was a success. Would it be enough to solidify her trustworthiness for the Cuban army? She hoped so. She was tired of reporting back to demeaning superiors and continually having to re-prove her worth in their male-dominated ranks. Cuba’s mindset was certainly not perfect, but at least women had a strong voice up the chain of command. She wanted to be respected for her work, and lately she had realized the never-ending blockages put in her way would not go away.
She and Gerardo had agreed that her extrication by the Cuban military, if it were approved, should not happen straight away. It would raise too many questions and possibly tie her back to Carlos’ extraction. It had to appear as if she were supporting James, even if she did not trust that he was fully supporting the Russian cause. She also fully expected he would be furious when he realized Carlos had slipped through his fingers.
At the moment, she had more pressing concerns. Her team had finished their sweep of Carlos’ and Peter’s offices in the wee hours of Saturday morning. After mandating Dominik and Dmitri to take a couple of days off to decompress, she was eager to hear their front-line perspective. They had sent her a detailed report of what they had found, but there were gaps she wanted to talk through in person. By Tuesday morning, they were both headed to her office for a debriefing.
Dominik, who had searched Carlos’ office, started the discussion. Carlos’ office phone had received only three voicemails since he’d disappeared: two from a student named Cristabel, who wanted his advice on her dissertation, and a message from the dean asking him to call immediately. Carlos apparently kept no handwritten notes. Even his lecture notes were typed and filed according to class and year.
Yet he had found one thing he deemed photo worthy—the only thing at odds with the rest of Carlos’ space. While everything else in his office was neatly stacked or filed based on lecture or research topic, one pile of brochures lay in disarray. The pamphlets related to off-campus speaking events from the past year and had been tossed haphazardly on the back of a cabinet shelf. Dominik knew to concentrate on the overly normal, or in this case the overly abnormal.
Dmitri’s search proved significantly more fruitful. He found USB drives and files hidden in creative places all over Peter’s office. A modified metal detector helped him locate crystal oscillators, a key component in USB drives and watches. He found them planted in the most obscure locations. Dmitri dumped eight USB sticks onto Nadya’s desk; one had been embedded inside a piece of cutlery and another in the handle of an umbrella.
Like Carlos, Peter had a stack of pamphlets from conferences he had spoken at. His were lying on the top of the filing cabinet. Still, Peter’s notes proved more interesting. Using carbon flecks, Dmitri was able to recover the last sentences of handwriting in Peter’s notebook. He must have been pretty passionate when he wrote it, because the pen went through three pages and left a remarkably clear imprint. Dmitri slid the paper he had recovered across the desk.
Nadya read Peter’s bold scrawl: Modification residual and cherry-picked metrics—Religious unification event—Excogitatoris Consulting—Global election schedule?
Nadya’s hands shook as she placed the note back on the desk. Peter’s suspicions mirrored her own. Russia’s next election was scheduled for eight months from now. Iran’s president had committed to hold an election before year-end. The American election stood a few years off; however, polarized dissent and radical groups were already eroding public trust in the country’s most fundamental systems. That blazing fire didn’t need more kindling. She feared another fracture in the thin bands of order could collapse the nation.
Whoever devised this scheme had given themselves enough time to sow seeds of discontent across both the religious and political worlds. If leaders lost the trusting ears of their followers, their persuasive capital would disintegrate. The power of persuasion wasn’t called that for nothing.
Nadya shared her concerns with Dominik and Dmitri. They spent the rest of the morning trying to punch holes in her theory and develop alternatives. By midday, Nadya directed the men to go home and get some rest. It would be another full week.
Nadya scanned the various speaking events linked to the professors. They generally related to technology breakthroughs and data security, whether about trends in cybercrime or misinformation tactics. These were normal themes for IT professors. Her thoughts carried her back to Peter’s message. Religious unification event. Singular. Event. The prospect haunted her.
History had proven that once a malicious message was disseminated to the public, it was very difficult to rein it in. She started searching upcoming concerts, religious gatherings, far-right and far-left chat rooms, and anything else she could think of. A mess of notices filled her search screen, but nothing jumped out as relevant. They all appeared either too small or too self-absorbed to be the type of event that fit. It needed to be about a cause. It needed to have a hook that attracted people. Folks already inclined towards conjecture and contradiction.
She sank into her chair and closed her eyes. A knock at the door broke her thoughts. “Yes?”
Eva opened the door and dropped the day’s newspaper on top of a pile on a bookcase by the door of at least a dozen other papers Nadya had meant to look at. “Take a break, Nadya, you look exhausted.” She smiled and closed the door quietly behind her.
Of course, it’s right there in front of me. Nadya dashed over to the stack and started flipping through it. A grandmaster would want to appeal to a wide audience. They wouldn’t merely call on people already listening to them. They would want to build an audience. To tear apathy from the masses.
She stopped. The bottom third of the front page of a paper from a week ago stared back at her.
The advert promised groundbreaking evidence that would change the basis of every major religion. Nadya leapt to her computer and typed in the website address given in the advertisement. It opened with an image of gridlines flowing outwards from a central point like the spokes of a bicycle wheel. Then a fireball took over its hub. Flames moved across the screen, drawing the eye in an uncontrollable frenzy. They leapt in multiple directions, seething and snapping towards the outer edges of the screen.
Nadya’s pulse quickened just watching the home page. Whoever had created this design understood how to engage viewers. They also knew how to exploit emotions and lead people down a path they may or may not want to follow.
A message popped up on her screen: Event delayed. More evidence uncovered that you must see! Purchase your ticket here.
The revised date fell in four days’ time. Nadya still had a chance to catch—or stop—the big show. Oddly, the pop-up was dated less than a week ago, meaning whatever had caused the delay had occurred quite recently. She would have thought Carlos’ escape, with James’ help—would have the opposite effect. Moving up the date would have nipped any chance for Carlos to speak up. But delaying it didn’t make sense. Something else must have either scared the organizer enough to hesitate or prompted them to regroup so they could ramp up more. Neither option comforted Nadya.
Nadya left the office to mull things over. Walking always helped her to separate distractions from critical points. She would have preferred to follow one of the rarely used paths overlooking the ocean, but temperatures were already scorching this May. The air-conditioned gym with its treadmill won out.
By the next morning when she returned to her office in the temporary clinic, Nadya had accepted the unavoidable next step she must take. She reached for her phone.
Before she picked it up, it vibrated and interrupted her train of thought. “Hello?”
“You conniving bitch, what have you done? Where did you take Carlos?” James’ voice shook through the phone.
Nadya recognized his self-serving impulsive trait shining through as strong as ever. “What do you mean, he’s gone? You said the hut was secure.” Nadya played up her innocence with an offensive return serve.
“Your team were the only ones who knew he was there. I saw tire tracks, Nadya.” James blatantly charged his fellow agent with sabotage.
In Nadya’s mind, his bold antics were yet another example of the low-level disdain her colleagues felt towards women in general. “My dear James, when my guys surveilled your little hut, they went by boat. They left no tracks.”
She hoped her words slammed into James as if she had physically struck him.
Nadya closed her eyes as a dial tone buzzed back in her ear. He did not even have the backbone to finish their conversation. Just like his younger self, he could not face his own misjudgement.
What interested her more, however, was his statement that another player had entered the scene. She knew Gerardo would not have been so careless as to leave tread marks. Had the master planner made an appearance to reclaim his lost victim?
40
Safe House
The fourth-floor view caught every cruise ship entering and leaving Valletta’s waterfront. No neighbours, traffic cameras or other prying eyes could see what went on inside the apartment. A well-stocked kitchen, a laptop connected to a secure network, and a closet full of clothing—correctly sized—assured Gerardo that this safe house lived up to its hushed reputation.
Carlos entered the kitchen, straightening his freshly washed barretina. He appeared revived after taking a shower and pulling on a fresh short-sleeved shirt and cotton pants. The scent of coffee and chatter must have drawn him in.
Sometime through the night or early morning, everyone from the boat had taken turns to clean up in the apartment’s second bathroom. They looked full of energy as they stood around hashing out the events from the night before.
Carlos grabbed a banana and caught Gerardo’s eye. The team needed direction. Gerardo stepped up.
Going forward, all communications would pass through an encrypted internal system that was invisible to all except a niche group within the Cuban military. In-person visits increased the chance of being discovered and were highly restricted. No one wanted to jeopardize control over an already precarious situation.
Everyone stood eager to move forward while Carlos sat down on the nearest chair.
Before the team cleared out, one question hung in the air. Carlos’ lethargy and nausea should not have dragged on for so long. His unexplained symptoms alarmed Gerardo. Even Celia and Saul had pulled Gerardo aside to voice their concerns. Like many safe houses, the apartment was fitted with an array of hospital-grade equipment. The team conducted a number of tests. Their results caught everyone off guard—they pointed to only one country.
Gerardo could not help but wonder if this might have been one of the reasons Nadya was so keen for him to extract Carlos. He knew in the past she had voiced reservations about the Russian intelligence agency’s propensity to use the radioactive chemical as a poison. They did not tend to welcome criticism, light or otherwise, so it might also explain her motivation to shelter under Cuba’s protective wing.
“We found traces of polonium-210 in your urine,” Gerardo told Carlos. “It’s an extremely low level, but it likely explains the nausea and dizziness you have experienced lately. Do you remember when exactly these symptoms started?”
Carlos’ mouth gaped. “Radiation poisoning? Those bastards! I first felt ill after eating food they shoved into my prison cell, not long before James arrived and got me out. Now every time I eat something a wave of nausea takes over.”
Ana dissolved a sachet of electrolytes into a glass of water and passed it to Carlos. “Try drinking this with a slice of buttered bread. Mild foods should be easier on your stomach.”
They decided to stay in the apartment to monitor Carlos for the next twenty-four hours. Spare laptops and phones stored in the unit would allow the team to push forward. Gerardo pulled in Cristabel to work remotely. When he told her who was sitting beside him, she nearly choked on a mouthful of water.
“I am so relieved. And I have so many questions.” Cristabel started talking faster than the video technology could handle. Her words cut in and out when she updated the team on her latest suspicions.
Celia ramped up the bandwidth.
Carlos suggested they check whether the consulting company he had noticed at the archeology sites was linked to any of the data they had found to date. Ana ran Excogitatoris Consulting through her program, looking for hits. Celia searched the registries of all churches on Malta for significant donations. Saul began downloading recent lease agreements taken out with temples of faith. After a great deal of discussion, it was decided not to send a blanket message to attendees that the event had been cancelled. That would give the conspirators advance warning. Instead, Cristabel signed up some of the team members using false names to attend the Big Reveal and several of its breakout sessions.
In the meantime, Gerardo and Carlos strategized about how to extract Myriam, find Peter and infiltrate the upcoming grand event.
Carlos admitted he had an uneasy feeling about his friend James, despite having been rescued by him. “I know it doesn’t make sense, but I feel more relieved about being pulled out of that hut and being here with you now than I did after James rescued me from the pit. Something was wrong with him. He tried to hide it from me but his eyes gave it away. His answers were evasive, just partial responses with no clear plan.”
Colour drained from Ana’s face. She caught Gerardo’s eye, and he moved over to her side of the room. “What’s up?”
“My last approval came in this morning to access the investing regulator database I had wanted to check.” She swivelled her screen so he could read the condensed background report she had pulled together on Carlos’ friend James:
The “James” who went to school with Carlos and Myriam and who now lives in Vancouver has ties to Russian intelligence. His real name is Yakov. Funding for his company came from private investors. On the surface, they appeared to be concerned citizens looking to propel a well-intentioned technology start-up forward. Financial benefits sealed the investment case. Deeper, the men also had ties to military contracts and attended Komsomol together, Russia’s Communist youth league. They went through the program at the same time as Yakov.
