by Brad Taylor
“And the rest of them?”
“Same way.”
“You know you have to trap them all day. Keep them happy.”
Devon smiled and rubbed his eyes. “That’s not going to be an issue. I’ll get them drunk again. Last night they were talking about how today was their day. Time of their life and all that. I’ll take ’em out. Hell, they won’t get moving until at least one. Once I’m done with them, they’ll sleep for the rest of the night.”
Jacob had started to remind Devon of the stakes, of how Devon needed to keep his head about him, then remembered that Devon had been on cocaine benders that had lasted for days. Altar boys from an affluent high school stood no chance.
He’d said, “Get your passport picture before you become engaged again. It’ll be your only chance.”
Jacob had left him, going to the chaperone’s room, praying the key still worked from the soaking last night. It had. He’d entered, seeing the clothes splayed about, as if the owner were coming home. It had given him pause. He’d gone into the bathroom and seen the toothbrush. It was . . . almost melancholy. He’d caused the death of a man, and was seeing the vestiges for the first time. The artifacts left behind. He’d thought again of his worth, strangely proud and wondering if he was wasting his talents in the service of the Islamic State.
He’d opened the laptop on the desk, typing the password Devon had gleaned. It had worked. He’d scanned all the emails until he’d found one from someone named “Poster Girl.” He’d used a search function, then rummaged through past emails, finding photos she’d sent: her wearing a bikini, her holding a poster from Chris’s company, selfies with major cleavage, lingerie with a Staples “easy” button on her crotch. They went on and on.
He felt like a voyeur, but couldn’t quit clicking. He looked into her eyes, knowing he was going to kill her. He came to terms with the choice.
He created an email, asking her to meet “Chris” at the bistro on Assassini, and apologizing for missing their earlier date. Blaming business. Then he’d left and collected Carlos at their hotel, both getting their own passport pictures for the forging to come.
That had been twelve hours ago, and she still had not shown. Now he was contending with a waiter who’d run out of patience, just as he had in the hotel. The café was famous for wine, and he had done nothing but drink water. The man came out one more time and said, “Are you sure the lady is coming?”
Jacob said, “No. I’m not. I’m sorry.”
He threw some money on the table and stood up, the waiter growing indignant. Putting his notebook into his apron, he started to say something—maybe a curse, maybe a slur—and Jacob caught his eye. It was enough. The man took the money and retreated.
Jacob walked to the end of the alley, finding Carlos sagging in the seat of the johnboat. Jacob tapped the aluminum, waking him up.
“She’s not coming. Get the boat back. We’ll need it tomorrow.”
“What now?”
“We’re out of time. We keep the boys tomorrow, and kill them tomorrow night.”
“What about the girl?”
“Nothing I can do about that. For all I know, she’s flying back to America. I contacted Omar, but he didn’t reply. We don’t have a lot of choices. We kill the kids and get to Rome. Tomorrow night.”
“Maybe we should wait for guidance from Omar.”
Carlos saw Jacob’s aggravation and said, “You know, in case he has a change or something.”
Jacob looked away and said, “I don’t know why he didn’t answer, but I’m not waiting on him for a decision. For all I know, he’s dead.”
66
I blinked my eyes, the lids feeling like sandpaper from staying awake for the last thirty-six hours. On the screen was a still image from the YouTube video, showing a clearly terrified Shoshana tied to an ornate wooden chair. Behind her stood a large man wearing a black hood with the eyeholes, nose, and mouth cut open haphazardly, as if it had been done in haste.
He had blue eyes and was holding what appeared to be a large serrated bread knife. Something that would do significant damage to the neck it was against, and not in a humane way. Staring at the screen, I felt impotent, wanting more than anything to be with her in that moment. I wished I could will myself to her location, teleport right into the middle of the room, then set about delivering justice to every one of the murdering psychopaths.
As much rage as I felt, it was a candle to Aaron’s sun. He was quiet and showed no outward displays, but the heat coming off of him was palpable. He kept looking at me for a miracle, believing the US government had some magical way to resolve the situation, but I feared we were already too late. Rashid had given up nothing in an initial interrogation, either because he didn’t know or was holding out. The Taskforce continued to work him, but our best intel was the video.
My watch had crawled past 2:00 P.M., and we’d had the footage for over sixteen hours. The Taskforce had done what they could with it, starting with the usual IP addresses and other computer linkages. It had produced nothing, the kidnappers masking their computer trail well, using temporary ISPs and the Tor network. Leaving the network associations behind, the Taskforce had looked at the image itself, and with what they’d found, we’d necked the location to five different hotels within a half-mile radius of the city center, but so far it hadn’t been enough.
Retro and Knuckles were at one more hotel, the last on our target deck, and the one least likely to prove any use. It was a budget number that barely registered above a hostel. It didn’t even have a website, so expecting it to have Internet was beyond the scope of wishing, but we were all holding our breath, waiting on Retro’s call. The one good thing was that I didn’t need to worry about Kurt Hale or Showboat calling instead, ordering me to leave.
Through voice analysis of his speech and accent, the Taskforce had concluded the captor was from the Caucasus—Georgia, Chechnya, Dagestan, or some other such place. Further, because of his stated affiliation to the Islamic State and his specific threats of beheading Shoshana, the analysts were speculating that he might be the mythical Chechen called Omar al-Khatami, the tactical genius behind the Islamic State’s ability to roll up most of Iraq and Syria. If it was him, the analysts were flabbergasted that he’d left the protection of the Islamic State, and felt it was a huge spike of something serious. That had been enough to turn off the war drums for the team going immediately to Venice. Nobody was sure if it was Omar, but it was enough to tip the balance. They had sent every photo they had of the man, some crisp and others grainy, showing a large fighter with ice-blue eyes and a lumberjack’s red beard, constantly adorned with grenades and weapons. Kurt had given me something better; another day to sort out whether he was here, in Tirana. After that, the Oversight Council figured Omar would be in the wind, and further searching would be a waste of time.
Left unsaid was the threat of Shoshana’s neck being ripped out by a bread knife. I could give a crap about the Chechen, but it got me twenty-four hours to find Shoshana, time that I was rapidly burning through like a drunk dropping quarters into a slot machine.
Initially, the Taskforce had made great strides toward necking down her location, impressing the hell out of me and almost making it seem easy. After working such issues in the past, I should have known it wouldn’t be. The American James Foley was testament to that. In 2014, US intelligence had identified what they thought was hard data on his location. Special Operations forces had launched a daring nighttime raid into the heart of the Islamic State in Syria, and found a dry hole. Foley was beheaded shortly thereafter.
In our case, the Taskforce, after the hyperventilating and jumping up and down over Omar, had dissected the video almost at the ones-and-zeros level, and they’d sent us a pretty impressive list of forty different points. Some speculation, some facts. Most were worthless, but three were critical.
They identified a noise in the background. After isolating it from all other sound, they determined it was a clock tower, and that it was tolling 9:00 P
.M. Nine from the gongs, and P.M. because a cycle of darkness hadn’t yet happened.
They used image extrapolation to identify an object in the shadows. It was the corner of a laptop, and it had an Ethernet cord coming out.
They’d seen the edge of a map coming out of the Chechen’s pocket, and, after magnification, had identified Cyrillic writing along the top. They’d used digital manipulation and a proprietary predictive algorithm to create their best guess of what the writing said: Justin’s Place.
We put the information to immediate use. Knowing that the firefight had happened right at dusk, it meant the Chechen had had less than an hour to take Shoshana and hole up somewhere, which indicated he was still inside Tirana.
Brett had identified the only clock tower in the city, a once-derelict brick structure that had been restored in 2010 and was now competing in stature with the minaret of a mosque next door. Using that as a focal point, we’d drawn a half-mile radius around it, then identified all hotels, motels, and hostels within that circle. We had about twenty. Way too many.
We’d immediately focused on those with any variation of the name Justin in the title, and had come up completely empty. Truthfully, that piece had been a bit of a guess on the Taskforce’s part, so I wasn’t surprised, but Aaron—having expected more—had not taken it well.
Disgusted, he’d cursed under his breath and stomped to the bathroom, growing more and more impatient. I wasn’t looking forward to what would happen when he reached the end. I could only imagine the pain he was feeling because he’d allowed his professional obligations to supersede his personal ones. At 9:00 last night, we were planning for the assault against Rashid. I wondered if he was second-guessing his decision, believing he’d placed too much faith in our ability to find Shoshana.
It hadn’t helped things when the video showed the Chechen demanding Israel back off of the Islamic State. Somehow, they’d figured out Shoshana’s nationality, and it might have just been the usual blustering, but if they did know, it didn’t take much to imagine what they’d done for the information. I’d let Aaron go, returning to the list of forty points from the Taskforce.
Studying it, Retro had found the remark about the laptop with Ethernet, which had set up our next step. We refined the search, seeking out all potential hotels that had Internet. In Tirana, it wouldn’t be a large list. We’d come up with four. A manageable number.
Between the Taskforce analysis and our own work, we had burned through most of the night. At 8:00 A.M. I’d sent Retro and Knuckles to the first hotel, dragging along a healthy hacking package. They’d gone in and, with the help of the Taskforce computer network operations center, had flayed open the system, looking for a computer with the telltale vestiges of the YouTube video. And had come up empty again.
They’d taken about five hours going from hotel to hotel, and had found nothing. They’d come back to the Sheraton bleary-eyed and aggravated, primarily because we weren’t sure that they hadn’t been to the right hotel, only to have the suspect computer air-gapped from the Internet when they probed, or turned off.
We were war-gaming a second line of attack when Jennifer had entered, interrupting us. Retro was banging away on Google Maps, Knuckles, Aaron, and I looking over his shoulder while Brett talked to the intel geeks in the rear. Jennifer said, “Pike, I think I’ve got something.”
I held up a finger, still staring at the screen. She leaned past me and said, “Retro, search for any hotels near the Tirana castle. It’s inside the envelope of the clock tower.”
I started to snap at her, the lack of sleep shortening my temper. Aaron took one look at Jennifer and said, “Listen to her. Do it.” He was searching for a miracle, wanting to see Shoshana’s unique abilities in Jennifer. He would believe anything at this point, and I didn’t have the courage to disagree. I nodded, and Retro began typing.
He found one hotel, called the Kalaja, built right into an old wall left from centuries ago, the last vestige of the castle that had once stood there. The hotel had some reviews on various travel sites—none very flattering—but didn’t have a website of its own, which didn’t leave much hope for them having Internet, a cut line given the information we had. I said, “Why are we wasting time on this?”
She said, “Something about the name Justin was sticking in my head.”
Retro said, “But this hotel has nothing to do with the name Justin.”
She said, “Yes, it does. I think it was a bad translation from the Taskforce. The Tirana Castle is really no longer a castle. It’s just called that for the tourists. It’s a single wall, and it’s called the Justinian Wall by locals. That’s what he wrote down. I’m sure of it. With the digital extrapolation, and then the translation from Cyrillic, I think they gave us a bad name.”
Nobody moved, wanting to believe but fearing the consequences. Aaron broke the silence. And the fear.
He looked at her in amazement and said, “What on earth led you to that? How did you know the history?”
Knuckles patted Jennifer on the back and said, “Because she’s a pencil-necked professor at heart, that’s how. Retro, load up and let’s get over there. Check it out.”
Retro left the desk, starting to repack his hacking kit, and Knuckles looked at Jennifer. “Saved by your useless history trivia.”
He shouldered his ruck and turned to the door, saying, “This pans out, and you can forget about that bad call in Jordan. You’re back in hero land.”
She grinned as if it was just a joke, but I could tell what Knuckles had said meant a great deal to her. I knew he meant it too, because, well, he was Knuckles. Make no mistake, he’d done the same with me a few times.
Aaron said, “It’ll pan out. I can feel it. She’s there.”
That had been twenty minutes ago, and now we were all sitting around staring at the phone, waiting on it to ring. It did.
“Yeah, what do you have?”
“I got nothing yet, but when we checked in they said I had to pay if I wanted to use Internet. They don’t have Wi-Fi—only Ethernet from, like, 1998. We’re in the room, and Retro’s getting set up.” He paused, then said, “The chair Retro’s sitting in is just like the one in the video.” I could hear the excitement coming through the phone. “Pike, I think this is it.”
I said, “Crack the system. Find the computer. Get me a room.”
He acknowledged, and I gave out the good news. Everyone began hustling at that point, me giving instructions on what to pack, and Aaron asking how far we were willing to go. I said, “As far as it takes, I promise.”
He gave me a grim smile, and the phone rang again. I snatched it up, expecting to hear more good news. It was Showboat, and it most definitely wasn’t good.
“Pike, I’ve got an abort on your current mission profile. I’m sorry.”
“What the hell are you talking about? What about Omar? You said the director of the CIA thought he was the find of the century.”
“He did. Does. But we’ve got the further interrogation results from Rashid, and it’s grim. The Lost Boys are on the warpath. They’re real. Rashid says they’re going to be passed specialized explosives through some other cell—things that can evade conventional detection. He’s holding out on what the target is, or doesn’t know it, but the Council is looking at a real threat. Omar isn’t an Omega mission right now. The Lost Boys are.”
Aaron had stopped moving, looking at me, knowing something bad was happening. I said, “Sir, we’ve found the bed-down. Give me tonight. Please.”
“You have a pinpoint location?”
“No, not yet. But I will in another couple of hours. I’m sure of it.”
“Pike, that’s not good enough. Shoshana’s an Israeli problem. She’s not Taskforce. I can’t do anything about it.”
Jennifer and Brett had both stopped packing kit, warily watching me. I looked into the computer screen at the still video image, seeing Shoshana’s eyes. Hearing her words in the American Bar.
I said, “I’m sorry, sir. I
’m not leaving tonight. Tell Kurt this is a Prairie Fire. Shoshana may not be Taskforce, but she’s on my team. My call.”
Instead of indignation or anger, I actually heard relief, and knew why: According to our charter, a team leader making that call got absolute support, and Showboat didn’t like leaving her either. Shoshana wasn’t officially Taskforce, but it would be enough to buy me a night. He said, “You’re calling Prairie Fire? For Shoshana?”
I said, “Yes. Relay that to Kurt. For tonight, I have control.”
He said, “Get her back, Pike. It’s the only thing that will mitigate delay on the Lost Boys.”
I nodded at Aaron, and he slowly began packing again, eyes on me. I said, “Sir, don’t worry about those juvenile delinquents. They’ll keep. There’s no way they’re doing any attack in Venice.”
67
Jacob watched the sun drop, absently drinking his beer as Devon and the three targets slowly went through the entire minibar. He caught Devon’s eye, telling him to slow down. They had a lot of work in the next twelve hours, and, while Devon’s primary role was babysitter, Jacob didn’t want him so drunk he couldn’t control the situation.
One of the kids—even though they were only a year or two younger than Jacob, he couldn’t help but think of them that way—let rip a horrendous expulsion of flatulence, causing all of them to laugh. Jacob stood, saying, “I’m out.”
He grabbed his phone, hearing the fart boy say, “What’s his problem?”
He entered the hallway, not waiting for Devon’s answer, thinking, Fart Boy is first.
He couldn’t kill all three at the same time, especially since they had only knives, so he’d decided to take them one at a time.
After last night’s failure with the woman, Carlos and Jacob had returned to the hotel, waiting on Devon. He’d been out with the boys all day long, calling intermittently, then had finally given them the answer they’d waited on: He was sleeping in his new friend’s room.
