by Brad Taylor
I had no idea who this was, but there was a better-than-even chance that whoever he was, he was being monitored. I didn’t want to incriminate myself on some DEA tape.
“I’m sorry, my English isn’t that good. Could you please explain yourself?”
“Yeah, I’ll try to make it as plain as I can. Your messenger acted like an asshole and I took him off the project. I’m not involved in any way, and just want to make sure that you know that I don’t have the package, don’t want the package, and don’t even know what it is.”
28
On his Guatemalan estate, Miguel cursed under his breath. Those damn amateurs. He should have known they would screw this up, but he was on a tight time schedule, and they were the only ones who could have reacted in time. His calculator brain began assessing courses of action. The guy on the other end of the phone, whoever he was, was clearly no innocent bystander, as he’d had the presence of mind to call and had fairly good operational security on the phone. Tony and Ed must have said too much, and now this guy wanted a piece of the action. On the other hand, why would he start out by saying he wanted nothing to do with it? Of course, he could be the police, but if that were the case it really didn’t matter. Miguel wasn’t tied to whatever antics Ed and Tony had pulled. The only loss was the package itself, and if this was the police, the whole operation was over anyway. He needed to determine who this guy was, and maybe turn this to his advantage.
“I’m beginning to think you have a wrong number. I’m sure I don’t know what you are talking about, but am curious. If you don’t know anything about the package, then how do you know there is one? That seems a little illogical.”
“Look, the person who was supposed to get the package is sitting right here. She told me about it. I’m not involved and just want to make sure you know that I’m not trying to get the package, whatever it is. Your business is with her, not me.”
Miguel had the opening he wanted but was still not sure this wasn’t a trick. “All right, because I’m curious and have nothing else to do right now, I’ll talk to her. Put her on.”
“I will, but before I do, are we good? I’ll get her on the phone, and I’m out of it? I didn’t mean to do anything, but your messengers were insistent.”
“Sure, you’re good. Put her on. Since I don’t know about a package or any messengers, I certainly won’t be upset at you for anything.”
Miguel waited a few seconds, then heard a female’s voice. “Hello? Who’s this?”
He was surprised, but pleasantly so. This seemed to be the real deal, and it didn’t look like the entire operation had been brought to a halt. He still needed the package, but maybe he could get it through her. He dropped his innocent pretenses. “Is this the niece of John Cahill?”
“Yes, this is Jennifer. What do you want? How do you know who I am?”
“I’m a business associate of your uncle’s. He told me that he mailed you a package by FedEx yesterday. Unfortunately, he mailed you something that he had promised me, and I need to get it back. My two friends were sent there to get it from you, but apparently you would prefer to steal what is rightfully mine.”
The phone went silent. After a pregnant pause, the woman spoke.
“I don’t know what to say. I don’t have a package from my uncle. If you would let me talk to him, maybe I can sort this out.”
Miguel knew he had to manage this carefully. His only lead was the phone call going on right now, and both would likely flee as soon as they hung up. He didn’t even know the man’s name. He needed to turn this to his advantage, bringing the mountain to Muhammad, as his foreign guests would say.
“I’m not sure what else your uncle could add to the conversation. He told me he sent you a package, the method it would arrive, and the date. What I need is that package, and since you have seen fit to prevent my men from collecting it, I’m going to need you to bring it to me.”
“I’m telling the truth. I didn’t kill your guys, Pike did.”
WHAT THE FUCK DID SHE JUST SAY? I jumped up in a spasm, trying to get the phone out of Jennifer’s hands. She turned around in a circle, batting my hands away and continuing the conversation.
“I’m the person they threatened. I don’t want to be a part of this either. Whatever my uncle owes you, I’ll help him to repay. Whatever is in the package, I’ll make sure you get a replacement. If you would just get my uncle on the phone, we can sort this out.”
I saw Jennifer’s face go white at whatever the man was saying. I quit trying to get the phone.
“Please, please don’t hurt my uncle.... I’ll do what you want.... Whatever you want . . .”
She looked me in the eye, her expression pleading for help, and said, “Pike wants the phone.... I don’t know. . . . Please . . . Here’s Pike.”
She held out the phone with her hand over the microphone and said, “Talk to him. Please . . . do something. I don’t know what to tell him. I don’t know anything about a package. Don’t let him hurt my uncle.”
I snatched the phone and put my own hand over the microphone. “Why in the hell did you give him my name and tell him his men were dead? I’m trying to help us out and you’re sitting there digging a grave for both of us. Focus on your own damn grave and leave me out of this!”
“Please . . . Talk to him.” The fear on her face cracked my anger.
Shit. She’s telling the truth. I looked at her for a second, making up my mind.
I removed my hand and said, “This is Pike.”
“I didn’t know the extent of the damage to my operation. Is what she says true?”
I gave up any pretense of operational security. If someone was recording this, I was already screwed.
“Yes, it’s true, but I only reacted to what they did. The assholes came on my boat and tried to knock me out. When I stopped that, they pulled out a knife and tried to gut me. I have no idea what this is about, but I’m not going to be held accountable for your team losing their cool. I really didn’t want anything to do with this. They escalated, not me.”
“I don’t give a shit about your excuses. I only care about the fact that your interference will cost me profits. I don’t have my package because of you. I’ll give you a choice. Either get the package and deliver it to me or I’ll take the profits out of your skin.”
Shit. That was the last thing I wanted to hear. What in the world had this girl gotten involved in?
He continued. “Don’t test my patience. If you wish, you can run. It’ll just increase the pain of your death. Put on the girl.”
“Hang on, hang on. I’ll get your package. We don’t have it here. I just met the girl, and she’s been out here all week.”
“I’ll make this plain, as I’m not sure my English would be able to get across any subtle nuances. Bring me the package or I will kill your uncle in a very slow, painful manner.”
“Yeah, yeah, I get it. I don’t speak Spanish, so I’ll talk slow as well. It’s not my uncle and I don’t give a shit about him.”
I saw Jennifer snap her head around, looking at me like I was a piece of dog shit on her shoe. I held up a finger and continued. “The package is probably at her house in town. We’ll go see if it’s there.”
I waited a beat, hearing only silence. “You still there?”
“Yes. I’m now trying to decide if I want the package more than the pleasure of killing you. Let’s get something straight: I will slaughter you and anyone you have ever known if you speak to me in such a manner again. Do you understand?”
Oops. I guess that wasn’t so smart. “Yes.”
“You and Jennifer call me when you have the package. If you don’t call in the next six hours, you can start the clock ticking on your life. Tell the girl her uncle will be skinned alive.”
I hung up the phone and looked at Jennifer’s ashen face. Yeah, I’ll be sure and relay that bit of sunshine.
29
It took relatively little time for us to determine that there was no package waiting at
Jennifer’s apartment. She went to her computer to see if she had a FedEx tracking number, or anything to indicate something was on the way, but came up empty.
Jennifer said, “What the hell am I going to do now? I don’t even know what’s supposed to be in the package, so I can’t even fake it.”
I needed to get some background before I offered any advice. “What was your uncle doing in Guatemala? I mean for real, no bullshit?”
Jennifer sighed again, like she didn’t think I would believe what she had to say, which was smart, because if it was some sort of Indiana Jones bullshit, I wouldn’t.
“My uncle has a theory about the demise of the Mayans. He thinks the Mayan priests created a weapon a long time ago that got out of control. For the last twenty years he’s gone down to Guatemala to find a temple that he thinks will prove his theory.” She saw the skepticism on my face and raised her voice. “I know it sounds ridiculous, but it’s true. That’s what he’s doing in Guatemala.”
This was getting downright stupid. “So, your uncle believed that the Mayans had invented or found the world’s first WMD? Did he look for crop circles during Christmas break?”
Jennifer’s eyes clouded with a scowl. “I never said anything about WMD. I said a weapon. Many, many respectable scholars believed his theory.”
I chuckled and held up my hands in a gesture of surrender. “WMD stands for weapon of mass destruction. It’s a military term meaning any weapon that can kill a lot of people, like a nuke, or biological weapon. They’re pretty hard to make. I’m not trying to get you mad, but is there a chance that your uncle was doing something besides looking for this temple?”
Jennifer shook her head adamantly. “No. No way. He was obsessed with the temple. He spent all year using every spare minute to research possible new sites. Nobody was paying for the trips anymore, so he had no reason to pretend.”
“Was there anything about this trip that was different from the other trips? Did you talk to him at all?”
“Not really. He didn’t have the money for a satellite phone. The only contact I had with him after he went into the jungle was an e-mail he sent a couple of days ago.”
Jennifer paused a moment as a look of realization crossed her face.
“Actually, I did think it was a little odd, because it came before he was supposed to be out of the jungle. I just figured it meant he hadn’t found anything.”
“What did it say?”
“It was nothing. He had found some local music and sent it to me. He didn’t even say anything about his trip.”
“Let me see it.”
Jennifer pulled up the e-mail. “See, it’s nothing. The music isn’t even that good. It sucks.”
“Did he send you music on every trip? What was special about this music?”
“Nothing, now that you mention it. It was just some local music.”
“Yet he’d been going to the same place for years and just now noticed the local music? That doesn’t make any sense.”
“Well, it might not make any sense, but that’s what it is. My uncle is eccentric, so I wouldn’t put it past him. The bottom line is that it’s just a bunch of MP3 music. Nothing more.”
“Pull up the properties of the music. Right-click on it.”
Jennifer did as I asked, showing that the song she clicked on was about ten megabytes.
“Click on the next one.”
It was nine megabytes.
“These files have been altered.”
I was pretty well versed in various terrorist communication methods. I had come across steganography on multiple occasions from the computer equipment my team had confiscated, usually because some analyst with a fifty-pound head deep in a basement found it.
“I think your uncle sent you something hidden in these songs. The average MP3 song is about three to five megabytes. These songs are all twice that size, but not twice the length. I think he hid something in here, and whatever it is, it’s what the man on the phone wants.”
“Are you serious? How do we get it out? What do we do?”
“Whoa. Calm down. It might be nothing more than a bad copy of an MP3. If he got it from some corrupted server in Guatemala it could just have a bunch of extraneous stuff attached, or even some malicious software like a virus or Trojan horse. I’m just saying that steganography is a possibility. He might have embedded some message inside the songs.”
“How can we tell?”
“We can’t, without the program that created it. Whatever is in there will be encrypted and hidden.”
I watched Jennifer deflate again. She said, “So what do we do now? That doesn’t help us out at all.”
What do you mean, “we?” I wanted to ask.
Instead, I thought about it for a minute, then said, “This might be enough. What we know is that the guy on the phone thinks your uncle mailed something. We also know he doesn’t understand how it was sent or exactly what it was. I’m going to assume that he knows it was some sort of computer data, and he just doesn’t know the form it’s coming in.”
“Okay, so? How does that help my uncle?”
“Well, you could plausibly tell the guy on the phone that you got the package, and that it was an MP3 player. You can see where it goes from there. If he seems to think that’s okay, you take it to him, then use the stego portion as leverage to get your uncle back. In other words, let him get the MP3 player and see if he honors his part of the deal. If he doesn’t, tell him the stuff is encrypted and you’ll decrypt it when you get your uncle back.”
“What do I do if I can’t decrypt the files? This sounds like a dangerous game you’re playing with my uncle’s life. We don’t even know if this is stegocryptography or whatever you called it.”
“Yeah, it’s a game, but the alternative is to say, ‘I don’t have the package. Feel free to send me my uncle’s skin when you’re done. I’m making some boots.’ I’m offering some alternatives. If it is stego, your uncle made it and should be able to decrypt it. If it’s not stego, you don’t have a hand to play anyway. The fact remains that he thinks you have a package from FedEx, and you don’t.”
Jennifer looked at me in disgust. “Jesus, do you work at being such a jerk, or does it come naturally? I’m just trying to figure out the best thing to do, not questioning your manhood.”
I let that go and watched her pace back and forth for a couple of seconds.
She said, “Trust me, it’s painful to say this, but I can’t see a better way.” She stopped pacing and looked me squarely in the eyes. “Will you help me with this? Will you fly to Guatemala with me and help me get my uncle back? I’ll pay the way. I have money. Please . . . I don’t have anyone else to turn to. My uncle’s a good person.”
Shit. I knew that was coming. She didn’t stand a chance in hell of getting this done. If left on her own, she would be eaten alive. Even so, getting involved was sure to be a dead end. I figured that if I left right now I could get out of here clean. I had dumped the bodies in the woods behind the marina Dumpster, so they probably wouldn’t be found until morning and wouldn’t be tied to me, at least not right away. The problem was that I didn’t have the means to just up and leave. On top of that, I had the asshole on the phone who just might try to track me down. If I left now I would be looking over my shoulder for the next few years.
I felt squeezed by my lack of choices. I wanted to punch a wall again. Maybe I should just dial 911 and haul ass. That wouldn’t do the uncle any good, but it would keep Jennifer from getting killed, no matter how much she thought otherwise. The uncle probably deserved what he got. It would also probably dissuade the man on the phone from hunting me down.
I prepared to give her the bad news. She was staring at me like I was a firefighter that was going to pull her baby from a burning building. Jesus. Did she practice that look?
I steeled myself, thinking that this really was in her best interest, and said, “Uhh . . . Yeah. I’ll help you.”
Huh? Where did that come from? You id
iot.
Jennifer’s face broke into a radiant smile. “Should I call or you?”
I thought about retracting my statement but didn’t have the courage. “I’ll do it. Let him know you aren’t coming alone. Maybe he’ll rethink any shenanigans he’s planning.”
I pulled out the cell phone, said, “Here goes nothing,” and hit the last-call button.
30
Inside the guesthouse, Bakr turned off the police scanner. He had heard the entire conversation between Pike and Miguel and was puzzled by it. He gave Sayyidd a questioning look. “Are you sure there wasn’t a FedEx location in Flores?”
“I’m sure. There was nothing like that, DSL, UPS, anything. I searched for all of them.”
“Then what was that all about? Why are they talking about an MP3 player? What do you think’s going on?”
Sayyidd thought about it, then decided it didn’t matter. “The answer is simple: Allah is leading the way, praise His name. The explanation is irrelevant. We may not know why, but we do know what. The MP3 player has the data. We have the key. We just need to get the player and extract the data. It is being delivered right to us.”
Bakr didn’t really care for Sayyidd’s blind faith but let it go. “Maybe. Maybe not. Either way, we need to inform The Sheik that we might be altering the plan. He should know that we’ve come upon an opportunity that we wish to seize. Let him give us further guidance.”
Bakr was concerned that this new direction was outside the intent of his masters, and thus wanted to make sure he wouldn’t be blamed for acting irresponsibly. To do so would endanger his status as a martyr when he died. As much as he mistrusted Sayyidd’s simple belief in God’s will, he still dealt in the world of religious fervor and wanted the blessing before continuing. This meant a risky message, something that was specifically forbidden on this mission. They had a file of six different e-mail accounts that could be used only once. Al Qaeda didn’t know what was being monitored or who was being watched, and thus were treating every communication as compromised as soon as it was sent.
