One Rough Man (32 page)

“Okay. I’m game. The folks looking for us know we’re in Atlanta, so we need to do all preparations here, while it won’t give anything away.”

“What preparations do we need to do? How are we going to get to D.C. with the cops chasing us?”

“We have to disappear. We can’t use any credit cards, cell phones, anything tied to either you or me. Right now, the police know we’re in Atlanta, so it won’t do any harm to use your ATM or credit cards here. It’ll just reinforce what they already know. Once we leave here, we can’t use anything that will trigger an alert with the authorities. First thing we need to do is go to an ATM and take out your max amount of money. Next, we need to get to a place that sells prepaid credit cards and cell phones. We also need to get a rental car for local use.”

Something dawned on me. “You don’t have your cell phone with you, do you?”

“Yes. I turned it back on when we hit the U.S. It works now.”

“Turn it off and take out the battery.”

“I haven’t called anyone. Nobody knows it’s on.”

“Doesn’t matter. Your phone talks without you using it. It constantly sends out a signal to make sure it has a tower it can talk to. This signal leaves a trail, essentially telling anyone who wants to check that your phone talked to such and such tower at such and such time. They can track the city you’re currently in and neck it down to which tower you’re near. Depending on the concentration of towers, it can put you within a couple of city blocks. That’s
without
using any special gear. Trust me, turn it off and take out the battery.”

I had intimate knowledge of the power within the U.S. government and knew that any slip-ups would cause us to be caught fairly quickly. Despite all that, the federal government wasn’t omnipotent. Most fugitives were caught by doing something stupid, like returning to the scene of the crime, or going to a family member for help. Smarter fugitives managed to evade the law for extended periods of time, no matter how much effort was put against them.

A buddy of mine in the FBI had chased a man named Eric Rudolph, a homegrown terrorist who had murdered at least three people and wounded upwards of a hundred because of his twisted beliefs, including the 1996 bombing during the Atlanta summer Olympics. He’d managed to evade the FBI and local police for five years, despite a million-dollar bounty on his head and being on the FBI’s top-ten most wanted list.
Great. You’re hoping you’re as good as that sick bastard. Perfect
.

H
arold Standish slowly hung up his phone. Disappointed at the failure at the Atlanta airport, he wasn’t overly surprised. Pike and Jennifer were proving to be more resourceful than he would have thought, but knowing Pike’s background now, he should have anticipated it. He quickly punched in Lucas’s private number.

“It’s Standish. Remember what we talked about yesterday? I need you to execute. Come by the office and I’ll give you the phone you worked on. They’re headed here but I don’t know when they’ll arrive. I’m sure they’ll make contact on the cloned phone.”

After listening for a few seconds, Standish replied, “I’ll be here. See you then.”

Before the Atlanta incident, he’d had doubts that using Lucas was the best course of action. He’d contracted Lucas many times before for simple break-ins to gather information on opponents, but he had never asked him to do anything violent. After hearing what had happened in Atlanta, he saw Lucas as the only solution.
Let’s see them get away from someone who doesn’t play by the rules
.

 

 

SEVEN HOURS AFTER WE HAD EXITED THE METRO AT FIVE POINTS, we pulled into the Sheraton, in Greensboro, North Carolina—about halfway to Washington, D.C. We had robbed Jennifer’s bank account of about five thousand dollars and converted that to pay-as-you-go credit cards and prepaid cell phones. Once that was accomplished, we found a “rent-a-wreck” car place and rented a nondescript sedan for in-town use, telling the man behind the counter our car was getting repaired. Finally, we’d stopped yet again to buy some clothes. Jennifer was probably getting sick of leaving our bags at every hotel we stayed at.

After checking in, as we rode up in the elevator, Jennifer asked a question that apparently had been bouncing around in her head.

“Are you sure you’re not a drug dealer or something? How come you know all about hiding from the authorities? I know you didn’t learn that stuff at basic training.”

“I had to learn it for some other things we did. I’ve never had to do it as a real fugitive.”

I could tell she didn’t buy that answer.

“Sure. I bet. I can’t wait to get back to Charleston. You’re going to save me a bundle when you set up my free cable. I’m looking forward to it.”

“I’m telling the truth. I’ll be running out of tricks soon, trust me.”

The door opened on our floor. Jennifer exited, muttering, “I doubt that.”

 

 

BAKR AND SAYYIDD EXITED THEIR PLANE IN OSLO, Norway, exhausted from the trip. Given the seven-hour time difference from Belize, they landed at ten o’clock at night, almost twenty-four hours from the time they had left. Bakr had found them a small hotel on the outskirts of Oslo that catered to Muslim immigrants. Going through customs without issue, they flagged a cab and gave the driver an address.

For security reasons, Bakr had them exit the cab three blocks from the hotel. While they walked, Sayyidd asked about Walid abdul-Aziz, and why on earth they were in this country. It didn’t make any sense to him. The place was frigid and full of blond-haired, blue-eyed infidels. It seemed the last place they should be.

“Norway is one of the few countries in Europe that allows us to blend in without undue scrutiny from the authorities,” Bakr told him. “Believe it or not, it has a very large Muslim population. Larger than the people here realize, so there isn’t a backlash yet. God willing, we’ll own this country before they realize we’re here.”

“What do you mean? Own the country?”

“The faithful have been flooding into Europe for decades. We’re the minority now, but we’ll eventually outpace the native people. Sharia law has already been allowed in some countries. If we can’t win by fire, we might win by simple numbers.”

“So, we’re safe here? The
Ummah
are all true believers?”

Bakr scoffed, “No. No way. Most of the Muslims came here to escape their life at home. They were told about the free welfare and decided to join in. Don’t trust them just because they pray to Mecca. They’ll turn you in simply to prove they aren’t a threat.”

Wearily unpacking their bags, Bakr checked to ensure the weapon was still intact in its duct-tape cocoon. Seeing no signs of a breach, he asked Sayyidd to set up the M4 satellite phone and check the e-mail account.

Sayyidd demurred. “Let’s get some sleep first. The message will be waiting for us when we get up, and there’s nothing we can do with it right now anyway.”

Bakr started to argue but didn’t have the energy. He was growing weary of his partnership with Sayyidd, wanting to be on his own again. He was unsure why his leadership had chosen Sayyidd for their original mission, but was becoming convinced it had been a mistake. A mistake that he would more than likely have to rectify. Crawling into bed, he turned out the lights.

F
inished cleaning up, I gave Jennifer’s door a light knock. I sensed her looking through the peephole, then saw the door swing open. Jennifer was smiling, standing barefoot while finishing buttoning the top of her shirt, her hair wet and smelling of shampoo.

“Hey, you’re early. Let me get my shoes.”

She moved away from the door without waiting on a response, which was lucky, because seeing her like that made me about as comfortable as a snail crossing salt flats.
Don’t knock like this again. Call first.

She came back to the door wearing a ball cap, her wet hair stuck through the hole in the back. The effect floored me. Heather had worn her hair the same way almost every weekend.
Jesus. I can’t do this.
I knew it wasn’t Jennifer’s fault, but the combined effect cut me to the quick. She noticed me stiffen and looked at me with concern.

“Are you all right? What’s wrong?”

I had no idea why my brain had made that connection. Heather looked nothing like Jennifer. It was just a ball cap—a stupid connection that passed quickly, like the jolt you feel when a car starts crossing into your lane on the freeway, then swerves back.

“Nothing. Let’s go. I did a recce of the north lobby and found the business center.”

Eight minutes later we were sitting in the The Link, a pseudo- business center, pseudocafé, with me on one computer and Jennifer on another. I logged on to the Embassy Suites Web site in Old Town Alexandria and proceeded to get us a couple of rooms.

I was finishing up the reservation, asking for adjoining rooms, when Jennifer whispered, “Pike. There’s another message. It’s in a different e-mail account. The first account’s empty. The message we printed in Belize is gone.”

I closed out my system. “Print it out.”

After she hit print I said, “Scoot over. Let me try something.”

I got behind the keyboard and typed
www.whatismyipaddress.com
.

“What’re you doing?”

“Well, we can’t read the message itself, but with a little luck, we can determine where it came from. All I have to do is get the full header of the e-mail and paste it into this Web site. It should have the originating IP address, which, if we’re lucky, is tied to an actual location. Sometimes it’s good to go, other times it doesn’t work, but it’s worth a shot.”

I clicked “get source” and waited for the computer to quit churning. The screen loaded with an analysis of the message.

Jennifer asked, “What’s that telling us? Do you understand any of that?”

“No. The normal human language is at the bottom.”

I scrolled down the screen until I saw “source.” I felt Jennifer leaning over my shoulder, reading the screen:

“You’re a genius!” she exclaimed.

She got a stranglehold on my neck, giving it a hug. She pecked my cheek with a light kiss.

What the hell was that?
I leaned away from her.

“I can’t believe you just did that! It’s like black magic or something. Why don’t you raise your hands and say, ‘Behave, and I’ll bring back the sun’?”

“Hold on. All this really says is that the message went through Norway as a first gate. It doesn’t mean it came from Norway. There’s a good chance of that, but it isn’t absolute proof. It’s easy to fool this type of thing.”

“All right, all right. It’s still pretty cool. You’re a walking library of cool stuff.”

I didn’t let it show, but I was secretly pleased with the attention. If I’d had a tail, I’d have been wagging it like a dog getting a pat from his owner.
I’m pathetic
.

“I’m going to delete this completely. If nothing else, it’ll slow down the terrorists.”

Making sure the message was gone from both the in-box and the trash file, I said, “I got a couple of rooms in D.C. Tomorrow, I’ll give a friend from my old unit a call. He’s an Arabic speaker and can decipher both this message and the one before. Sound like a plan?”

“Sounds like a good plan.”

We headed back to our rooms to rack out. Jennifer opened her door, then turned around.

“Hey, Pike?”

I stopped working my key. “Yeah?”

“I’m sorry for that thing in the business center. I didn’t mean anything by it.”

She couldn’t have made me more uncomfortable if she had asked to borrow a condom. Why bring it up?

“That’s okay. You didn’t do anything wrong. I’m just still a little touchy about that sort of thing, I guess. Not your fault.”

“That’s what I mean. I could tell I made you uncomfortable. I wasn’t trying to . . . to . . . make you think of your wife. Anyway, I just wanted to make sure we’re still on the same sheet of music. I shouldn’t have done that.” She broke into a smile. “But you do have some neat tricks.”

 

 

ABU BAKR AWOKE BEFORE ABU SAYYIDD. He could feel the endgame in his bones and was itching to bring it about. Quietly setting up the M4, he logged on to the Internet and checked the next address on the e-mail list. Two messages were in the in-box, both supposedly from Nigeria telling him he had been named in a rich man’s will. All he needed to do was wire some money to get his inheritance. Disappointed, Bakr checked the other addresses. None contained the message he was looking for. This was getting a little annoying. Working at a snail’s pace was fine when one had that luxury, but they needed to get moving. It had been over forty-eight hours since their last message.

He woke up Sayyidd.

“We have no new message.”

Sayyidd rubbed the sleep out of his eyes, secretly happy that his desire to go to bed earlier had proved to be the right call.

“How long should we wait? What do we do if he never contacts us?”

“I think we should send another message to The Sheik. If that doesn’t work, we head out on our own. I think I can get some SEMTEX explosives from some helpers in the Balkans, but we won’t be able to implicate the Persians. God willing, we’ll still accomplish our mission.”

Sayyidd was pleased that Bakr was now getting impatient, and was willing to strike out together with or without the message.

“Let’s send the e-mail,” he said.

Bakr turned back to the computer and typed a simple message:

Bakr closed the laptop. “Now we wait.”

L
ucas leaned back from his computer with a new appreciation for his adversary. His research/administration assistant had sent him a data dump on his assigned targets. On the screen was the enlisted record brief for Nephilim Logan, the man he knew as Pike. The ERB was a one-page document used by the U.S. Army to encapsulate a soldier’s career. In Pike’s case, his assignments read like a who’s who of the military elite. Initial assignment to the 3rd Ranger Battalion, on to Special Forces, with two years in Okinawa in 1st Bn, 1st Special Forces Group, followed by eleven years in 1st Special Forces Operational Detachment—Delta. His last assignment had been as some do-nothing communications technician on Fort Bragg.
Retirement job.