Threatcon Delta

by Andrew Britton

  Kealey thanked him and hung up.

  As he was talking with Dean, Kealey had received an e-mail from Ned Hull letting him know the names of all the current businesses that were likely to use this bank over another. It was possible that this Lukas Durst worked for, or had a relative who worked for, one of those establishments.

  The connection that caught Kealey’s attention was the Venezuelan embassy, which was right next door to the bank. South America had always displayed a welcome mat for former Nazis and their money.

  Kealey punched in Ned Hull’s speed dial number. It occurred to him there was another way to approach this matter. If so, Hull would find a way in. The MIT graduate had been arrested for hacking CIA records to find out what they knew about him. The fact that they “knew something” had been floated as a lure to see if he could get in. When he did, they offered him a job. Now he was the head of the Computer Access Division.

  “Ned, what kind of access do you have to current census data, specifically Venezuelans living in Berlin?” Kealey asked.

  “Not so bunderful,” the technician joked after checking the index of previously hacked files to which he still had passwords. “That information is recorded and kept by the immigration bureaus and released as simple number amounts, not as specific individuals. Why?”

  “Many expatriates need to keep ties with their homeland,” Kealey said. “We saw that with Iraq under Hussein, Iran under the Ayatollah, and certainly many Nazis who fled Germany. If the guy we’re looking for lives in Venezuela, he may be related to someone who works for the foreign service whom he trusts to go to a bank and withdraw the money he needs to live.”

  “I’ve got a way to do that,” Hull said. “If the family member is Venezuelan, he probably has credit cards from a bank there. Those numbers are all nationally distinctive. I’ll just check to see who’s spending what in Berlin.”

  “Brilliant,” Kealey said.

  “Who’s the ultimate guy we’re looking for?”

  “Lukas Durst. Age, in his eighties.”

  “Hang on,” Hull said. “He doesn’t show up in tax records of either country.”

  “No surprise,” Kealey said. If Hull could hack these files, so could the Israelis. Former Nazis had a clear interest in staying off those records. South American tax officials were renowned for looking the other way if there was a generous donation to their personal economy.

  “But I’ve got a lot of unlocked bank records so we can watch money laundering,” Hull said.

  Kealey waited while Hull went to work. It was a brief eye of the storm. He took the moment to catch his breath.

  “I have seven names charging expensive dinners and clothes in Berlin,” Hull said. “Give me a second to compare them to the Venezuelan tax records.”

  “I thought you said there wouldn’t be any—”

  “For the Nazi,” Hull jumped in.

  “Right. Not his family.”

  “Got him,” said Hull. “One Cesar Montilla. Let me just search him and—here it is. Just building the yellow file.”

  A yellow file was a program that distilled data into chronological order. It was the computer equivalent of a highlighted textbook with all the nonessential data eliminated.

  “Okay,” Hull said. “Montilla is Durst’s son-in-law. Durst had a wife, Dita, married 1961, a daughter Nina two years later. Nina doesn’t appear after 1981 and the mother has no mention after 1994.”

  “Daughter turned eighteen and the mother died,” Kealey speculated.

  “Right you are. Public death records show that Dita Durst died in the Hospital de Clinicas on August 8, 1994.”

  “Which is located where?”

  “Caracas, Venezuela,” Hull replied.

  “Can you get those files?” Kealey asked, typing.

  “Checking, but I doubt it,” he said. “Nope. Many of them still aren’t computerized down there.”

  “What about a marriage record for Nina Durst in Venezuela?”

  “Newspaper account,” he said, reading down the yellow file. “She wed the son of the comandante general of the Guardia Nacional in May 1986. That’s our Cesar Montilla and he’s a courier in the diplomatic corps.”

  “You have an address for him in Venezuela?”

  Hull looked it up in the directory and gave him the number of a house in the Altamira district. “Hold on, though. He’s got a second house registered. Let me look that up. . . . Uh, okay, Cesar Montilla has a second house in Alto Hatillo.”

  “You sound bemused.”

  “Alto Hatillo is one of the wealthiest neighborhoods in Caracas. Chock full of millionaires and probably a few billionaires, too. Our little courier has a house there—well, technically it’s just outside the neighborhood but it would still be money—but he doesn’t live there.”

  “Are you sure it’s the same Cesar Montilla?”

  “Same phone number listed, must be a cell.”

  “So who’s living there if it’s not him? Is he split from his wife?”

  “Let’s see what the utilities bills say.” Kealey heard Ned singing under his breath. It sounded like “Electric Avenue” but way off-key. The singing stopped. “Elec-tridad de Caracas, the local power company, says a Carla Montilla is paying the bills. Cross-referencing . . . says she is the daughter of Cesar and Nina and she’s a physical trainer. Which means she’s not paying anything but the electric bills on a house in that neighborhood.”

  “Married?”

  “No,” Hull said. “Hah!”

  “What?”

  “Reading her electric bill,” Hull said. “It’s a fat one. Unless she’s running the dishwasher 24/7, it’s too much for one person. She could have roommates or a boyfriend, I guess.”

  “Or her grandfather bought the house, put it under his son-in-law’s name, and he’s living there with his granddaughter,” Kealey said. “That could be the one we want. One more question. What have the Israelis got on Lukas Durst?”

  “I already looked that up and the answer is not much,” Hull said. “Born 1923, joined the SS age eighteen, activities unknown, whereabouts unknown. Do you know how high in the ranks he climbed?”

  “No, but I’m guessing he wouldn’t have been at the top or someone would have heard of him by now.”

  “Then he probably couldn’t afford this house, either. Even if he hoarded his SS salary, even if he didn’t spend much of it getting to Venezuela and making the necessary bribes, even if he lucked out and bought the land decades ago, not guessing that it would become so exclusive. And even considering this house is just outside the Alto Hatillo instead of in the middle of it, SS underlings just didn’t make that kind of money.”

  “Maybe he’s being paid off by someone? If he has useful information—or maybe he had something priceless when he arrived that turned out to have a substantial price after all, and a willing buyer.”

  “Or he’s being paid off by Ricardo Ramirez.”

  Kealey gripped the phone. “What?”

  “The mobster. Our locations analysis for this neighborhood has red flags all over it. It’s believed Ramirez has a house in the Alto Hatillo and it’s known that some of his closest cronies do. A man living just outside the neighborhood beyond his obvious means could be a valued employee or source.”

  “I don’t know if you just made my day or ruined it,” Kealey said.

  “I aim to please,” Ned said. “One thing’s for sure, there’s going to be hefty protection all around that area. You might want to go in with a white flag, if going in is what you’re thinking about.”

  Kealey thanked him, got the number of the house in Alto Hatillo, and hung up. He told Phair what he had learned.

  “Is it possible he took an occult relic or two with him to Venezuela and sold them there?” Phair mused.

  “Perhaps including the Staff of Moses?” said Kealey.

  “I’m betting Durst’s superiors wouldn’t have invested time or energy seeking this particular staff,” Phair said, indicating the video fr
om Egypt. “It’s really nothing.”

  “You’re going to find that we live in an era of video nothings,” Kealey told him. “Someone on YouTube crying about something stupid or arguing with an ex can make them a star.”

  “YouTube,” Phair echoed sadly. “And we’re fighting to make the Iraqis more like us?”

  “Something like that,” Kealey replied. He drummed his desk thoughtfully, then moved his fingers to the keyboard. “I’m asking my superior if we have any maneuverability with or around Ramirez,” he said, tapping out an e-mail. Again, Phair noticed a twist on the word superior. “But with or without him . . .” Kealey murmured, still tapping. “Let’s go.”

  Phair rose. He was excited. “To Caracas?”

  “To dinner,” Kealey replied.

  Phair deflated.

  “Ricardo Ramirez has a reach as deep as it is wide,” Kealey said. “If we don’t have some kind of protection or connection and we go after one of his favorites, we won’t even get a cup of coffee with him. We’re officially in hurry-up-and-wait mode.” By the tone of his voice, Phair could tell that he had mentally finished that sentence with again. “In the meantime, I’m hungry. Let’s grab a hamburger.”

  Phair shook his head. “It’s strange to say this, but Iraq feels well-ordered compared to what I’ve experienced the last few hours.”

  “Simple survival is always simpler.”

  “It isn’t just that,” Phair said. “All the technology, the data—I feel like I’ve just gone through the looking glass.”

  “You have,” Kealey said as he headed toward the door. “But only a very, very little way.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  JEBEL MUSA, SINAI PENINSULA

  There was a saying in the Task Force: Armed prey is dangerous, but only if you are reckless.

  Adjo was not reckless as he watched the compound empty, the gate shut, and activity on the mountainside cease. Except for the observer and the occasional hum of a distant aircraft, it could have been an earlier millennium. A few bedouin boys came along, tugging camels, having given up on finding a brave tourist to rent one for the ascent. That only enhanced the sense of time out of sequence.

  Then there was the holy man on the mountain. As much as Adjo tried to hold to rational thought, the site lent its weight to the claim that he was the Gharib Qawee. If Adjo felt that way, he could only imagine what more susceptible men might feel.

  Then, what he had been expecting occurred. He heard the familiar growl and would have to decide now what to do.

  Four jeeps came chugging through the village. The United Nations Multinational Force and Observers had arrived. The MFO had been established by Egypt, Israel, and the United States in 1981 to keep this holy region from becoming remilitarized. The MFO was comprised primarily of Egyptian peacekeepers under the supervision of Egyptian, Jordanian, Saudi, American, and British officers. Their mandate was to provide defense and deterrence, not to engage in combat operations. Pulling up to the front of the gardens, the white-helmeted soldiers set up blockades and multilingual signs advising traffic not to enter the area. Their only protectorate was the defined roadway, paved and labeled on a map. Pilgrims were free to find another way up, and locals were still permitted to use the peaks for sheep grazing and olive groves. The United Nations presence was strictly to control what was defined as “commercial visitation and passage.” Truckers or buses seeking to use the route would be stopped and questioned. If the interviewer suspected they might be delivering arms or reinforcements, or in this case, helping the gunman flee—improbable though that was, since no one would be searching for him and he could stay on the mountain till the MFO left—they had the right to detain him or turn him back. Many of the soldiers could be bribed. It was a big, ineffective gesture that satisfied an international mandate for peacekeeping but accomplished, in fact, very little.

  According to protocol, absent a second attack, the MFO would treat the shooting as an aberration. If another shooting did not occur within twenty-four hours, they would withdraw. If there were another attack, Task Force 777 and other special operations units would be permitted to undertake “cleansing activities” under MFO supervision. Lieutenant General Samra had once said that the mandate prevented genocide but not murder. He was absolutely correct.

  Because Adjo had anticipated their arrival, the lieutenant had marked possible trails up the mountain in his memory. He did not want to use the tourist routes, which were relatively level and clear of rock. If this were a plot of some kind, then the men who felt they now commanded the mountain would be using those paths. He wanted a route that would overlook those arteries. The moon would be nearly full tonight, and there would be ample light for observation—and, he hoped, for the climb. His only considerations were that the slope of the area be gradual so that he could walk or crawl rather than climb, which would tire him quickly, and that there be no steep falls from either side, something he might stumble from in the dark.

  Adjo had half a bottle of water and now only a well-melted candy bar. The tourist paths were dotted with small shacks that sold tea, snacks, and Coke. Even if they were open, he didn’t dare approach any of them. He rationed the water but ate the chocolate before it had to be licked from the wrapper. For the last hour of daylight, he stayed in the dark shadow of the tree where he was less likely to be seen and where it was at least ten degrees less—cooler was not really a word that applied here—than the 120 degrees in the sun.

  The sun was finally swallowed by the peaks behind him, vanishing in a murky pool of red and violet. The moon was climbing above the mountain’s southern peaks; a pie-shaped wedge cut by a promontory diminished as it rose. Before the blue-white light could illuminate the ruddy, darkening peaks, Adjo set out. He walked along the monastery wall, which concealed him from the ghostly glow that swiftly swept the mountainside. The path he had selected was littered with irregular, fist-sized chunks of granite left by ancient excavations. The rubble had slid into a stable, triangular sheet that barely shifted under his tread. It rose for some fifty feet, the top half of which he took in a spidery walk, his hands spread before him. He felt like a boy again, playing in the ancient quarries near his home in Wadi Kom Ombo. His father was a carpenter who worked for a small boat maker on the Nile. Adjo was the youngest of three children and he hid among the rocks to keep from going on the water. It frightened him because no one ever knew when it would leave the riverbed and consume land, homes, cars, and people. He did not want to work on boats. Even at the age of five he liked wrapping his fingers around stone, knowing that it could be used to build or fight or stand on. In school, when they read the stories of the ancient gods, he always wanted to hear more about Geb, the earth god, who was not part animal like the others but was a man the color of mud and flowers. Adjo drew pictures of him, at one point painting his own body with mud from the riverbank. He liked the notion that the night god, Nut, came to bring him darkness and rest, that the snake-headed water god, Naunet, feared him.

  Bassam Adjo joined the army to protect the land he had loved—first as a physical thing, then as an ancient political concept. He was drawn to 777 where he could soar above the waters and occasionally see the place on the river below where his father and brothers toiled. He liked the freedom and also the control. But being here, like this, was also good. It was like visiting his boyhood home, the place where he was born.

  The rocks felt familiar, the night air invigorating. The evening was cooling quickly, and by the time he reached the top of the mound there was a distinct chill in the air. At the top of the rock apron he moved to the right, where waters—perhaps from the time of Moses himself—had carved a waist-deep gully in the mountainside. Adjo’s Nikes provided a strong cushion where the V-shaped cut was insufficiently deep for him to touch bottom. Sure-footed, he made his way in a zigzag course to a small ledge some fifty meters above the monastery. The gunman would have been at a nine o’clock position laterally from where he was standing.

  The rock cut ende
d and Adjo continued along knobby outcroppings of varied size and uneven surface. This was more of a climb, and the shadows the rocks threw made it difficult to see anything on the left side. He didn’t want to stop in the open and there was no point going back, so he had to feel his way before committing to a handhold. Here, his thick soles were a hindrance. His feet themselves weren’t very happy, swelling from the heat and exertion. But he was not in a rush and it still felt good and right to be among the rocks.

  When the sniper’s post was below him, Adjo paused and turned his back to the rock. He took a swallow of water—he kept the plastic bottle in his backpack, whose metal clasps he’d covered with dirt lest they reflect moonlight—and looked back at the gunman’s perch. The tourists’ path went right by it, about ten meters away, meaning the gunman could have come from above or below, day or night. There were no security cameras looking up from the monastery, so he wasn’t concerned about being spotted. Still, he wasn’t sure it was worth going to investigate at night—especially if the shooter was still in the vicinity.

  Adjo looked up the slope and decided to make for the next outcropping, one which would give him a good view of the tourist road at sunup. He wasn’t tired but he was cold and shivering, the long afternoon’s perspiration cooling everywhere on his body. The desert wind had come up, carrying not just a chill but sand. The puffs of grit got in his eyes, in his mouth, and clung to the sweat on his exposed hands and face.

  I wonder if Moses had to brush his beard and hair and shake out his robes when he reached the summit. That may have been why it took the prophet so damn long to carve the Ten Commandments.

  The next forty or so meters took three times as long to negotiate as did the first fifty. In addition to the wind, the rocks were larger, rounder, and had steeper faces than those farther down. Gripping them was a problem. Also, the wind had a deep, whistling quality that made it difficult to listen. If anyone were waiting up there, Adjo would have to see them, not hear them. But he made the ascent without incident, and was surprised to see that fully three hours had passed since he set out. It seemed much shorter. Nestling between two rugged projections that jutted like thick, flat arms from the side of a boulder and provided some protection from the wind, Adjo had a good view of the tourist path and below, the sprawling, open plain beyond the foothills. At one point during the long night he thought he heard voices. But they sounded distant and muffled, as though someone had left a radio on in one of the tea shacks. He hadn’t seen any pilgrims, which didn’t surprise him. This was not a journey a novice would take at night. The noises he did recognize on the peaks were not human, whether it was underbrush stirred by the wind or the scratching of a large lizard crawling among the rocks. He was also alert for wolves and mountain lions, though there was enough game and trash so that they almost never attacked humans.