Countdown in Cairo

by Noel Hynd

  Now Leonardo picked his way through it. Mimi, Rizzo’s friend, teamed with Leonardo to work on hacking Boris’s encryption. Mimi had graduated from her colorful Sailor Moon period that was so-twomonths-ago and had now suddenly gone Goth, a drastic overhaul from just a few days earlier. Black nail polish, black boots, soft powdery makeup, a black miniskirt, and two silver rings on each internet-savvy finger. She had also roared past Leonardo and was taking the hacking of Boris’s machine to new levels.

  She had been at it for an hour when she leaned back, satisfied.

  “He’s using Advanced Encryption Standard,” Mimi said, staring evenly at the screen and continuing to work the keypad. “It’s a symmetric 128-bit block data encryption technique developed in 2007 by the Van der Waal brothers, a couple of insane Dutch cryptographers,” she said.

  “So?” asked Alex. “Can you penetrate it?”

  “Oh, yeah, yeah,” she said. “It’s not a bad program. There’s backdoor access to it, but difficult to achieve. The US government adopted the same algorithm as its encryption technique in 2008, replacing the DES encryption it used to use. I’m surprised to see a Russian goon using this stuff,” she said.

  Boris’s eyes, all one and a half of them, were wide with rage.

  “The Van der Waal brothers were psycho, like I said,” Mimi continued, “so the logic of their program is elliptical. It doesn’t follow any traditional encryption logic. That’s what’s so severe about it. It goes by the rules of ‘Mondo van Waal,’ which is to say it’s completely unpredictable and follows no logic at all, more like a counterlogic, but it’s still kinda cool.”

  “So can you crack it, Mimi?” Rizzo asked, exchanging a glance with Alex.

  “Hell, yeah,” she said.

  “You rock, Mimi,” Rizzo said. “Doesn’t this girl rock?” he asked the room.

  The room admitted that Mimi rocked. All except Boris.

  Alex glanced to the battered and unhappy camper on the sofa.

  “You should warn your people,” Mimi said to Voltaire, Alex, and Rizzo. “Someone was drop-dead careless exporting this encryption technology. You could apply this program to a different platform and break into existing GSM codes all over North Africa. I don’t think Boris here is smart enough or computer-savvy enough to do that, but, for example, if terrorists gained these same encryption codes for your own laptops, they might be able to impede your abilities to track them.”

  She worked the keypad intensely. Leonardo had bailed.

  “They could also apply a GPS application,” Mimi said, “and monitor your movements. That way,” she said cheerfully, “they could know where you live and be there to meet you. They could put broken glass in your bathwater, arsenic in your coffeemaker, or just an ice pick in your ear as you slept. Someone needs to be more careful with this crap. Anyone got a cigarette?”

  Alex looked at her.

  Rizzo gave her one of Boris’s disgusting Russian smokes.

  Mimi lit up. “This thing’s gross,” she said. She snuffed it after two drags. “What is it?”

  “Bulgarian tobacco,” said Rizzo.

  “Yuck,” she said. “No wonder people fled to the West for fifty years. Anybody got a Winston or a Pall Mall or even a Nakla or anything that doesn’t taste like horsesh—?”

  Abdul had a pack of Winstons, which kept Mimi calm.

  “So, young lady, you’re telling us that most of the police agencies of Western Europe and North America are sharing the same encryption technology as this hood?” Voltaire asked.

  “That’s pretty much what I’m telling you, Einstein, yes,” Mimi said, smoking.

  “Great,” muttered Voltaire. “That’s a whole separate report to Langley.”

  “I’ll let them know,” Alex said.

  Alex turned back to Boris. “Why don’t you earn yourself a few extra points here and tell us where you got your encryption system?” she asked in Russian.

  Boris shrugged. “Moscow,” he said unhelpfully in a muffled voice from under the tape across his mouth.

  “Most likely that’s true,” said Mimi. “It was already programmed into the laptop when it was given to Boris. I don’t think he’s smart enough to program it or apply it himself. I mean, just look at him.”

  “Strong as a bear, but only half as smart,” Rizzo suggested pleasantly.

  “Do you hear what my technician and my associate from Rome are saying about you, Boris?” Voltaire said. “They don’t think you’re the sharpest knife in the drawer.”

  By now, Boris was wondering why they were talking about knives.

  “Okay,” Mimi finally said. “I’m into the program. What now?”

  “We need to send something,” Bissinger said.

  “That’ll be a problem too,” Mimi said, “unless you get your prisoner to do it.”

  “Why?” Alex asked.

  “There’s an extra encryption layer,” she said. “The laptop has been textured to recognize finger touch, keystrokes, and speed. It’s like it’s looking at your handwriting and telling who you are. So anyone important who he sends to is going to be alerted that it’s another sender. Unless Boris does the typing.”

  Bissinger and Voltaire looked to Boris.

  “That’s not going to be a problem, is it, Boris?” Bissinger asked.

  Another low profanity from the Russian indicated that it wasn’t.

  Alex leaned forward. “Here’s what Boris should send,” she said.

  She leaned forward and handed her notepad to Voltaire.

  On it, there was a message that purported to be from Boris to Michael Cerny. Voltaire eyed it, made no changes, and passed it along to Boris. Rizzo walked to Boris and, with a quick yank, again ripped the adhesive duck tape off the Russian’s mouth.

  Boris, not having much choice in the matter, took the pad in his hands, which were still shackled together. For a full minute not a word was spoken in the room.

  Then, “Read it to us,” Voltaire asked.

  Boris drew a breath and began.

  “Direct message from Department of Interior Management, Moscow, for Ambidextrous,” said Boris. “Superiors require further final visible samples of product before meeting your price. Second meeting in Cairo with representative is essential before completion of transaction.”

  “Now send it,” Voltaire said.

  Mimi turned the computer around and pushed it to the Russian.

  “He’ll never fall for it,” Boris said. “You would need me present, and you would need to set a place.”

  “You will be present,” Voltaire said, “and we’ll set a place when he responds. Now send it.”

  Boris gave everyone in the room a final glare. He leaned over the keyboard and tapped out the message. It took less than a minute, and then he hit SEND.

  He leaned back.

  “Good,” Voltaire said. “That was the easy part.”

  FORTY-SIX

  The highway that led south from Cairo to the morgue at the “new city” of Bahjat al-Jaafari was four lanes, two in each direction, and as gray as the sandstone buildings that were visible beyond the highway’s edge. High walls ominously enclosed the roadway. To Alex’s mind the walls gave the road a claustrophobic air, even though the desert beyond was long and flat and stretched into the hazy sky. Traffic was intermittently either very fast or very slow. The road was cratered with cracks and potholes.

  Alex had traveled this road once before, the day she went to see the pyramids and the Sphinx, but that had been a pleasant day and this one was not. The best she could ask for was to get through it and survive.

  Operations I have known, she thought to herself. Lulls before storms. Somewhere almost all of them blew dangerously off course. The chainsawed car in Lagos. The RPG attack in Kiev. The near-death in a subterranean tunnel in Madrid.

  And today?

  Alex’s driver was an American Marine named Len, a twentysomething and one of the usual guards from the embassy in the capital. He was not in uniform but instead wore a gr
ay shirt and black slacks with a military sidearm on his right hip. His foot tended to be heavy on the floorboards, and he didn’t miss a bump.

  As Len drove, he spoke with a deep-Dixie accent and took an immediate liking to her, much as a man would take a liking to a woman who reminded him of an older sister. Man of the world that he was, he boasted about the German girlfriend he had in Munich whom he visited a few times a year.

  “My fraw-leen,” he called her. Alex listened indulgently.

  They rode together in a black Hummer with deeply tinted windows and doubly reinforced panels and windows. There was a third person in the vehicle too, another Marine, also in plainclothes, which in his case was a white polo shirt and jeans. He went by his last name, which was McWhorter. He was a lieutenant from Virginia, and he sat with an automatic submachine gun across his lap.

  They drove on the highway that went out toward the pyramids, then exited the main road and accessed a tributary road that led east over tougher terrain. Alex felt her anxieties heighten. About two miles behind them, another vehicle followed, this one an unmarked van with three more Marine bodyguards, all disguised as laborers.

  McWhorter spoke little the whole ride but chipped in when a settlement came into view down the road. “That’s Bahjat al-Jaafari,” he said. “The tallest building in the settlement is the hospital. The morgue is attached to it.”

  “I recognize it from the pictures,” Alex said. She felt her heart race. Her sweat glands started to misbehave. What if this operation somehow had been compromised? Was she at greater risk here than she had previously imagined? Would there be a final irony that attempting to play dead would end with her being dead for real?

  As she did in such circumstances, she spoke a small silent prayer. It had never hurt before. She was sure it would do no harm now.

  The SUV turned from the tributary road onto an uneven, bumpy stretch of sand and gravel. The roadway passed for the access route to the hospital and the morgue. Len cut the speed out of self-preservation.

  Alex was dressed in the garb of a middle-class Egyptian woman, in an ankle-length linen dress. She wore a beige hijab on her head. She had a veil but it was not yet in place.

  She pulled out a cell phone and hit Rizzo’s number. They had fresh phones but had worked up this charade for whoever might be listening. One never knew. She spoke in Italian.

  Two rings. A third.

  That’s right. He’s waiting, she thought to herself. No need to sound as if he were waiting for a call. He’d pick up after three but before—

  “Allo?” he answered.

  “Signor Rizzo?”

  “Si.”

  Alex assumed the role of a clerk calling from a Fiat dealership back in Rome. She cheerfully conveyed the bad news that Rizzo’s 1987 Spider needed a new gearbox. Rizzo responded with a graphic obscenity, designed to sully the ears of anyone eavesdropping.

  “How long will a repair take?” he asked in a vexed tone.

  “Maybe three weeks,” she said. “The part needs to be special-ordered from Torino and the inventory is already backordered.”

  Another salty profanity. Then, “How much?”

  “About three hundred Euros. I could call back with a specific sum if we place it on order.”

  “Si, si. Go ahead,” he said with exasperation. “Do the blasted overpriced work.”

  “Grazie, signor.”

  She rang off. The call meant they were safely accessing the hospital. The three meant she expected to be there in three minutes. Her two solders listened in like a couple of terriers, but if they understood Italian, she wasn’t aware of it.

  Next, they were driving on sand, then fine gravel. They arrived at a semicircle in front of the hospital at Bahjat al-Jaafari. Alex scanned for trouble. So did her soldiers. Did she see any or not?

  She couldn’t tell. Their vehicle slowed but didn’t stop. No one in the Hummer spoke. Alex moved her hand under her dress to grip her pistol. It was awkward. She had to pull the window side of the dress all the way up to where the gun lay on her lap. But the Beretta was her final line of security.

  Near the entrance was a solitary man leaning against the building. He was in Arab garb, moustache, soul patch, and dark glasses. Six-two maybe, she guessed. Unusual height, potentially one of their thugs. He was smoking and he carried a small canvas bag. A weapon within or overnight clothing? A bomb or his dinner?

  Not far away was a small van. No one in the driver’s seat. Were there gunmen in the back, assassins waiting?

  Then again, they thought she was dead, didn’t they? They had announced her missing and then her body found. So why would the opposition be here? Or then again, why wouldn’t they be here? And why didn’t the thuggish man glance their way? If he were waiting for arrivals, would he be curious?

  Why was he now walking away the way he was? Shouldn’t a black Hummer have attracted his attention, his curiosity? There was also a gaggle of women sitting by the bus station. No problem there—they looked fat and middle-aged—unless they weren’t women, had weapons stashed and were going to spray the vehicle as soon as a door opened. They had bags with them. Big bags. Ominous. The tall Arab threw his cigarette away. A sign?

  There were two other small knots of Arabs, all men. Alex took a quick census. Four in one group, three in the other. Good Lord, if she was walking into a trap and there were five to eight guns out there, she didn’t stand a chance. They wanted her dead, and they wanted to make sure, so, again, why wouldn’t they be here?

  “Our instructions are to take you to the rear entrance,” Len said. “The morgue, not the hospital.”

  “I know. Follow the instructions. Do everything by the book.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” he said.

  The SUV rolled through the semicircle. No one paid them much notice. She heaved a long breath, then assumed—or hoped—they were clean.

  McWhorter turned in his seat and looked at a vehicle behind them. He smiled.

  “Our backup is on our tail,” he said. He raised a hand and gave a slight wave.

  Alex pulled the veil up onto her face. It felt strange, like a mask she would use to examine toxic evidence. She wished she were back on the friendly beaches of Spain, wearing almost nothing. Or maybe back in Washington at her desk. Or anywhere but here right now—not that there was any turning back.

  “I thought they were two minutes behind us,” Alex said.

  “He must have hauled ass and caught up,” McWhorter said. “Anyway, he’s here. That’s good.”

  “We’re going around back,” Len said.

  “Good thing,” she said.

  On the side of the building, at the base of the wall, a man was lying down. Dead? Rotting in the sunlight and heat? Sleeping? Faking? She didn’t know.

  Len turned the corner. The back of the building was void of people and vehicles. A good sign. She scanned. Nowhere to take a shot from either.

  No trees, just sand.

  She looked carefully, keeping the Beretta in her palm.

  She checked her veil to make sure it was secure.

  Len came in close to the building. Then they rolled to a halt. She flicked a glance through the car’s rear window. The backup vehicle came around the corner and stopped about twelve feet away. She glanced at it carefully, then turned to McWhorter.

  “Are the right people in that car?” she asked.

  He looked, squinting. The driver gave a thumbs-up signal.

  “Yeah. We’re cool,” he said.

  McWhorter put a hand of support and caution on her shoulder.

  “I know it’s not in the plan, but do you want me to go through that door first?” he asked.

  “That would give us away, wouldn’t it?”

  “It might, but—”

  “I’ll be okay,” she said, hand on the door.

  “Good luck,” Len said.

  “Yeah,” McWhorter added.

  She gave him a nod. Then she was out the door, prim and proper, like a middle-class Arab woman calli
ng on a medical facility.

  For some reason, her feet felt strange on the sand. Must have been her slippers. The heat radiated upward. She carried her bag. A change of clothes. The gun remained in her palm. The steel door was a few feet away. Somehow she felt more vulnerable out in the open, even though if this operation were tainted, a volley of bullets might lurk on the other side of the door.

  She moved quickly. The Egyptian sun pounded down. Ra the sun god wasn’t a benign spirit.

  The service entrance was unlocked, a dull steel door that could have been pulled off its hinges by any strong man or woman. She pulled it open and glanced back. The Marines gave her a final wave.

  Suddenly, she liked them a lot and missed them. They weren’t hillbilly tourists with guns anymore. They were big brothers-in-arms.

  She entered the morgue. Stench assaulted her nostrils. Formaldehyde, disinfectant, rotting flesh. The aroma of ugly death.

  She hadn’t been ready for it. She gagged.

  Okay, memory. Don’t fail on me.

  She steadied herself. She had memorized the directions to the office of Dr. Badawi.

  End of the corridor, turn left. Follow that corridor about ten feet, turn right. Ignore everyone. If spoken to, don’t talk. What the heck could I say, anyway? “Loved your pyramids? Hated your radioactive crystals.”

  She traveled through a warren of dingy corridors. She picked up signs that would lead her to the medical examiner’s station. There were voices and sounds from adjoining rooms. Mostly in Arabic. Nothing good. Some wailing. Some fool was playing music.

  Supplies were stacked up in the corridor. There were two body bags, both looked full. Cadavers on top of each other. Small. Probably children. She shuddered. It was hot. Humid. Fetid.

  She passed two nurses who eyed her strangely but didn’t speak. Proper ID? She noticed quickly. No one had anything. What was proper ID in a place like this? A scalpel? Bloodstains? A pulse?

  Then she arrived. An office, door opened, just where it was supposed to be. Cluttered. Much noise from adjoining chambers. Some piece of heavy equipment was rumbling.

  A heavy saw? Were they cutting a body? She cringed again. She couldn’t wait to get out of here.