by Tom Clancy
Dom conceded the point. “Very true, but they’re well protected. I passed multiple sets of X-rays and scanners, bulletproof glass, and security armed with body armor and rifles. Al-Matari is too smart to hit that building. At best, his people might kill a secretary and a couple of lobby guards before they got slaughtered. We have to think like he does. Try to find exposed targets here in the area. Something akin to what we’re seeing in attacks in other parts of the country. Intelligence agency folks, special operations troops, pilots, that kind of stuff, but out in the open. If we can determine where they will hit, we might be able to make ourselves useful.”
Adara said, “There could be a half-dozen or more cell members in the area, so the scope of their attack could be larger than any of the al-Matari hits we’ve seen so far. Let’s get to work.”
—
The first news of a fire at the ARTD building reached the Campus detachment working in Bucharest when Gavin called his IT office at Hendley Associates in Virginia and got one of his subordinates to hack into the security camera of a hardware store across the street from the ARTD building.
It took a few minutes for the intrusion to take place, and when the image from the camera showed up on Gavin’s computer, he was surprised to see a row of fire trucks.
Felix Negrescu was asked to look into the situation, and he opened an app on his phone that had a local police and fire department scanner. In no time at all he relayed to the rest of the team that a fire had started in some trash in the building’s basement, but it had been extinguished by firefighters in twenty minutes. There were no injuries, and other than some smoke and water damage, the building was fine.
None of the guys had any indication this small fire had anything to do with their target here in Romania, and they continued on with their plan for the afternoon, which included making entry of Dalca’s apartment to plant listening devices and remote-access tools on any computers, phones, pads, or other devices they could find there. Before they could initiate the break-in, however, Chavez decided they would surveil the building for the afternoon and evening to get a baseline for the location. This way they would have some idea of the patterns and habits of Alex Dalca and the men and women who lived around him.
It was a decision that would cost them some time, but Chavez had done this sort of thing for long enough to know this was a worthwhile expense, considering the alternative could have involved one or more of his team being compromised.
The afternoon passed slowly, especially because the men were all suffering the effects of jet lag to one degree or another. Midas made an afternoon coffee run for the team, and around seven p.m. Jack broke off his surveillance, sitting in the van up the street with Felix, so he and the team’s local contact could pick up dinner for the group.
Gavin Biery was eating his dinner of chicken paprika at the desk in the little closet in the fading light when a yellow Porsche Panamera pulled into the key code–access parking lot next to Dalca’s apartment building. He focused his camera on the sports car when it parked, and recognized his target as soon as he climbed from behind the wheel. The man carried a backpack over his shoulder, and several large bags under his arms.
Gavin touched the transmit key on the wire to his headset. “Target has arrived. He’s alone. His vehicle is a yellow four-door Porsche. Pretty sweet.”
“Roger that,” Chavez replied. He and Midas were in the apartment on the other side of the building. They could see the feed from all the cameras via their iPads, but at the moment they were in the middle of their dinner. “Report his movements.”
Gavin said, “I lost him when he went into the lobby. I’ve got the laser audio transmitter ready if he makes any calls, but if he just sits around and works on his computer, we could be in for a long night.”
Chavez said, “We already knew we’d have more opportunities bugging his devices than we would hoping he meets with someone face-to-face.”
Jack came over the net next. “Yeah, computer nerds don’t get out much.”
It was directed at Gavin, but Gavin was focused on his work. Through his headphones he could hear the sound of the front door of the apartment opening.
“Subject is in his place. No conversation, still seems to be alone.”
Gavin watched the monitor showing the view of the camera positioned on the desk in front of him. In just seconds, he saw the door to the balcony open and Dalca step outside, a liter bottle of beer in his hand.
“He’s on the balcony getting some fresh air. I’m going to tighten on him and get some good pics we can use for the facial-recog software.”
Gavin zoomed in as tight as he could to the young man’s face, then adjusted the focus of his cameras. As he did this he saw Dalca peering down into the street, looking carefully in both directions, and then across the street to the building where Gavin now sat.
Chavez came over the net. “He looks concerned.”
Gavin felt like the man across the street could somehow see him, even though he was invisible in a darkened storage space forty yards away with only a four-inch-wide slit exposing him to the outside. He spoke softly. “I think he knows I’m here.”
Chavez replied, “Relax, Gavin. You’re fine.” Then he said, “Hey, Jack. Is it possible he’s onto us? Someone tipped him off at the airport maybe?”
Jack replied, “I don’t see how. We don’t have any reason to believe he’s sniffed out Hendley Associates as being part of the IC, so the Gulfstream’s arrival in Bucharest wouldn’t have set him off.”
Gavin said, “Trust me, Ryan. He’s definitely worried about something.”
“I can’t see his face like you guys can, but I trust your judgment. Maybe it’s just nerves. He is conspiring with terrorists to kill Americans. There’s probably a little anxiety that comes along with that.”
Chavez said, “Hey, I look at it as good news. I came all the way to Central Europe to watch over a guy I didn’t personally know was really involved in anything illicit. But just looking at him right now, I’d say he’s guilty as hell.”
Gavin panned his optics up and down the street. He switched to the thermal view, trying to pick up anyone loitering in the evening shadows. “Well, if he thinks someone else is watching him, he’s wrong. This street is quiet.”
Jack said, “I can confirm that. Felix and I are about the only two people around tonight, and we’re just hanging out in the van.”
Gavin got his photos; Dalca finished his drink, and then headed back inside. The laser audio transmitter picked up the sounds of television for a while, and then it stopped, and the lights went off.
At ten p.m. Midas took over for Gavin in the closet, so Gavin could get a few hours’ sleep on a cot in the safe house. It seemed clear Dalca wouldn’t go anywhere for the evening, so Felix and Jack drove back to the safe house and crashed themselves.
Chavez told Midas he’d relieve him at three a.m., and he went to bed as well, confident it would be a quiet night.
56
Dragomir Vasilescu finished his glass of pinot noir, said good night to his friends, and left Bruno Wine Bar with a slight sway in his walk. He stepped out to Strada Covaci and checked his phone for the time. It was just after ten p.m., but with the amount of wine he’d consumed, he knew he would have a hangover of epic proportions when he woke in the morning.
He looked around hopefully for a taxi, but instead he saw a white Renault Trafic, a light commercial vehicle, pull to a stop in front of him.
The side door was already open, and two sets of hands grabbed him by the shoulders and yanked him in.
“Hey! What the hell?”
He was pushed to an open floor in the minivan, and then a bag was shoved over his head. He tried to push himself up, but he was held facedown. Two sets of zip ties were secured to his wrists, then he was rolled onto his back, yanked up into a seat by impressively strong hands, and shoved upright.
Dragomir was no longer alarmed. Now he was scared.
In Romanian he said, “What . . . what do you want? I have a wallet. A phone . . .” When he heard no response he said, “I have a car, a Mercedes at home. It’s parked in the garage on—”
A voice interrupted him, speaking English. “How long have you been working with the Muslims?”
He knew instantly this would be the Chinese from the Seychelles Group, but the voice was not that of Mr. Peng.
“We . . . we are not working with the Muslims.”
“The data you have in your possession. Data you have been managing on behalf of the Seychelles Group. This data is being used to kill Americans in America. Did you not understand that we would see your scheme for what it was?”
“Scheme? There is no scheme. I can assure you, gentlemen, that—”
“The United States government has identified the location of the breach of their data. It is Office of Personnel Management, the e-QIP data, the exact data that you have in your possession, that you are using to develop product for us. No one else has that product! Only ARTD!”
Dragomir shouted through the bag over his head, “That’s right! No one else has it! And that means we don’t hand it out to fucking terrorists!”
“Where are the files now?”
“They . . . we house them on an air-gapped server in the office. Your data is completely safe.”
“We will go to your office now.”
“Now? It’s past business hours. Come back at nine tomorrow and I will give you the entire computer. You will see there is no way anyone could possibly remove the files without—”
The voice leaned in close to Vasilescu’s face, silencing him with the threatening tone. “We will go. Right now.”
—
The ARTD building had a pair of security officers who worked a desk during the overnight hours, and they were suitably concerned about the fact the director of their company showed up with three unknown Asian men at ten-thirty, but Dragomir Vasilescu simply greeted them without any explanation for his evening visit and made no introductions of his companions.
He had been warned when still in the back of the van that any alert to the guards that he was there under duress would be met with instant and overwhelming violence, and he assured the men he wanted to continue a good working relationship with the Seychelles Group after this misunderstanding was straightened out, so he would do exactly as he’d been told. They cut off his zip ties but remained close enough to reach out and grab him if he tried anything.
Now Vasilescu stood at the front of the elevator, his eyes down, with the Chinese standing behind him. He’d been instructed to keep his eyes to himself since the bag was removed in the back of the van, and he had every intention of carrying out this order. He felt like everything would be okay the moment these psychos saw there was no way to access the computer with the files on it, although he had no real way to prove the material had not been copied earlier and then placed in the air-gapped room with the terminal.
Still, he was hopeful he could satisfy them and they would leave him alone and return to China convinced they were barking up the wrong tree.
The director of ARTD flipped on several lights in the hallway on the fourth floor and walked straight to the door to the air-gapped room, and here he put his hand over the biometric scanner. A green light glowed and he opened the door, then stepped right up to the machine in the center of the otherwise empty space.
“Gentlemen. All the files we have been working from are right here. Perfectly safe, as I have assured you from the outset.”
“Show me,” one of the men behind him said.
Vasilescu turned on the monitor, waited a few seconds, then clicked the monitor button on and off again. There was only a blank screen.
“Problem?” the man doing the talking asked.
Vasilescu sat at the desk now, tried to restart the computer, but after a few seconds he just said, “It’s . . . that’s not right.”
One of the Asian men leaned behind the desk, looked around. As he was doing this Vasilescu said, “Just a software issue. I’ll try to restart the device and—”
The Asian man reached down and lifted the cover off the computer tower. It had not been screwed in place. The man clearly knew something about computers, because he said, “Hard drive gone.”
“That’s ridiculous,” Vasilescu said, then he stood, peered over the monitor, and saw for himself.
Instantly his knees weakened and he slumped back into the chair. His heart began to pound and he felt a sick nausea and light-headedness.
The man who had been doing all the talking stood close behind him now. “Who has access to this room?”
Dragomir Vasilescu’s voice cracked. “I . . . have my best man working on your case. Dalca. Alexandru Dalca. We can go talk to him now. He will tell you. He is the only one with access to—”
Dragomir Vasilescu put it all together quickly. He remembered that long-ago conversation with Alex Dalca. The one where he said the Chinese were thinking too small and ARTD could exploit the data and sell it to the highest bidder. Clearly, Dalca had been doing just that.
And he thought of the very odd fire this afternoon. Clearly that was Dalca’s doing, a diversion to take the hard drive.
The man leaning into Vasilescu’s ear from behind noted Vasilescu’s hesitation. He said, “We will talk to this man Dalca. Perhaps he can answer questions that you cannot.”
As Vasilescu came to the realization of what was actually going on, he knew for his own self-preservation he had to somehow convince the men surrounding him now that they were completely off base. He couldn’t have Chinese intelligence roughing up one of his people. The information they might uncover could be bad for ARTD, and bad for Vasilescu himself.
The fury that burned inside him was almost enough for him to punch his fist through the monitor in front of him. He said, “Dalca is my very best employee. And a good man as well. His discretion is beyond reproach.” But while saying this, his inner monologue was singing a very different tune. I’ll fucking kill you myself, you deceitful, betraying sack of shit!
“Where do we find this Dalca?”
“He . . . he will be at work at nine o’clock tomorrow. Let’s all meet again and—”
The man with the strong hands grabbed the back of Vasilescu’s neck and yanked him up, turned him for the door.
As they waited for the elevator, two men said something in Chinese, and then one of them stepped in front of Vasilescu, opened his suit coat, and revealed a short-barreled submachine gun hanging from a sling under his arm.
The English speaker behind him said, “You communicate danger to your guards, and you will all die. We want security camera files from this building removed.”
Vasilescu stepped behind the front desk in the lobby a minute later, and immediately pulled one of the keyboards to him. He began deleting security camera files. As an explanation to the two very confused guards, he just said, “My clients here are the shy type. You know how it is.”
The two guards just looked at each other, but they did not respond to their boss.
With a final press of the Enter key, the files were erased and the cams turned off. He stood back up and left with the Asian men and climbed back into the van, and the lights went out when the black bag slipped back over his head.
As they drove through the night, with the interior of the vehicle perfectly silent, Vasilescu realized his only hope for survival at this point was finding Alexandru Dalca and convincing the Chinese that he alone was responsible.
57
Midas was nearly halfway through the ten-p.m.-to-one-a.m. watch, which consisted of little more than gazing bleary-eyed at a few images from low-light security cameras and listening to a mechanical droning sound—the slight vibrations of Dalca’s snores from his bedroom, into his living room, pick
ed up by the laser on the sliding glass door, and translated through the headphones Midas had hooked over his right ear and the back of his head, giving him room for the Campus-encrypted earpiece he kept in his left in case he needed to talk to the team.
He sipped water from one of two bottles he had on the floor next to him. The other was empty, for now. He had a standard two-water-bottle system; one full of water and one to use as a receptacle so he wouldn’t have to leave the storage room and take the several-minute walk to the apartment to relieve himself in the bathroom there.
He was just about to make use of the empty bottle when he noticed the headlights of a vehicle moving up the street. As it rolled under a street lamp he thought it might be some sort of delivery van on a late-night run, but it slowed even more in the intersection, then backed into the side alley between Dalca’s apartment building and the adjacent fenced parking lot. Here it turned off its lights, but Midas could tell the engine was still running.
Midas watched the vehicle in silence for several seconds, thinking it would shut down and the driver would get out, but to his surprise the side door opened. Four men climbed out, all wearing different types of dark clothing: tracksuits, cotton work pants, and hoodies.
Midas snatched his secure mobile off the desk and dialed Chavez. He assumed Ding was sacked out on a cot in the safe house apartment on the other side of the building, but this event across the street warranted waking him up.
Midas’s earpiece came alive in his left ear with Chavez’s voice, and though he answered quickly, it was clear he’d been sound asleep seconds earlier. “Yeah?”
“I’ve got a vehicle in the alleyway alongside the target location, a driver behind the wheel with the engine running, and the nose out to the street. Four pax climbed out and entered through the lobby doors.”
