Sympathy For the Devil (27 page)

“At heart, he’s nothing but a common street peddler from Wahran; albeit an exceptionally good one. Over the years, he’s expanded his practice and network to the point where he’ll peddle anything he can get his hands on. Arms, information, state secrets, drugs, contracts on people’s lives. Lately he’s been peddling what he calls relationships; putting two particularly nasty fuckers together so they can do whatever their black hearts desire. Weapons and munitions mostly. He gets a finder’s fee for introducing them and brokering the deal, then goes on his way.”

“Who does he work for?”

“Anyone so long as they’re willing to pay his fee. Mexican cartels looking for arms. Drug dealers looking for new outlets. That sort of thing. No product for him to worry about and it’s very, very profitable. Little risk for a lot of reward.”Hicks realized he may have seen the name mentioned in a few intelligence reports over the years, but not specific details. If he’d been tied to a threat on American soil, he would’ve remembered. “What the hell is an Algerian like Djebar doing with a low-level Somali punk like Omar?”

“Haven’t you been listening?” Clarke frowned. “I just told you he’s a Matchmaker now. If that’s what he’s done with your man Omar, then there’s two things you’d do well to consider and none of them pleasant.”

“The first,” Clarke explained, “is that this Omar isn’t the punk you believe him to be. Djebar doesn’t come out of his fucking hole for less than a hundred grand, plus a small percentage of whatever the action is. Since he was on Omar’s camera shagging some whore, that can only mean Omar has money.”

Hicks had seen Omar’s travel activity. He’d gauged his spending and his contributions and he had a fair assessment of how much he raised at the cabstand. He could’ve raised that much if he squeezed the drivers and ran a little credit card fraud on the side. Drunks wouldn’t notice an extra couple of miles on the odometer until the next morning, if then.

The Djebar connection would also explain how Omar had gotten the numbers for the financiers he’d contacted. He’d probably spent every cent he’d raised on whatever meeting Djebar had arranged for him. The question was why.

“What’s the second thing?” Hicks asked.

“Given that you found an envelope with trace amounts of diseases inside mean Djebar was probably involved in helping Omar acquire them. There’s not really much of a commission in that sort of arrangement.”

“So?”

“So, it means your friend Omar really is planning something major. Because Djebar has always said his biggest regret in life was that he wasn’t connected enough to help Osama and his pals fund their grand show.” He nodded his fleshy face down Sixth Avenue toward the new Liberty Tower. “Right down there.”

Hicks didn’t have time to think about past attacks. He was too focused on stopping the next one. “You said something about Madinha before.”“I hope your stomach is empty because you’re not going to like this.”

“My stomach’s my problem. Tell me about Madinha.”

“You may have read that there’s been a rash of small, but rather nasty, outbreaks of MERS, SARS, and Ebola in small villages throughout the Middle East for the past couple of years. The Saudis, being good neighbors, have taken the lead on studying the outbreaks and have their laboratories searching for ways to treat and cure these diseases. One of those labs is in Madinha.”

Hicks didn’t like where this was going. “Go on.”

“The Saudis believed these outbreaks were suspicious and so did we,” Clarke explained. “We helped them track down who might be behind the outbreaks and traced them back to three scientists in the Saudi lab in Madinha. Two of them were French and one of them was American. None of them were Muslim and all of them had passed extensive background checks before being employed at the lab. They’d apparently been contacted by some ruthless bastards who’d paid them well to look into ways to weaponize the viruses they were studying. The outbreaks were trial runs.”

Hicks knew there’d been several attempts to figure out how to turn these viruses into biological weapons for years, but none had been successful. Yet. “Why haven’t I heard any of this before?”

“Because the Saudis were embarrassed by the whole thing happening at one of their labs and moved in to quickly arrest all three scientists. All three were said to have been killed while resisting arrest. Forces fired upon their car, which conveniently exploded as it ran off the road. Bodies were burned beyond all recognition but authorities assured us they’d killed all three men. That was two months ago. They assured us all samples of all the viruses were present and accounted for. As they’re our allies and prickly about having their honor questioned, we took their word for it. Given this business with the envelope in Omar’s possession, I’d say they lied.”

Hicks felt his hand begin to shake and not from the cold. “If we’d known about all of this, we could’ve been on the lookout for something like this. Maybe could’ve prevented it.”

Clarke smiled. “I’m sorry, old boy, but American secrets have a habit of winding up on the front page of the New York Times.”

Hicks didn’t smile. “The University is different, and you know it.”

“So you say. Well, that’s all in the past now. Little we can do about it now except put a lid on Djebar and Omar. I trust you’re tracking Omar?”

“We’ve got a go team sitting on his residence right now, but I need Djebar first.”

Clarke’s eyes narrowed. “Why? You know where the fucker is. Grab him right now.”

“Because Omar’s got more means and money than we know, and I need to know how much before I pull him in. I have a feeling Djebar can tell me that. And that’s why you’re going to release his information to me. And the information on the three scientists who were supposedly killed by the Saudis.”

“Agreed,” Clarke said. “But only on one condition.”

Hicks wasn’t in a bartering mood. “Name it.”

“We get Djebar after you’re done with him. He won’t be easy to break, but you have to agree to not kill him or hurt him to the point where he’s useless to us. You honor your end of the bargain, my office works with yours in the future. You don’t, I never answer your phone calls again. Not even if your president himself calls the Queen.”

“Fine,” Hicks said. “But we have to get Djebar first, don’t we?”

Clarke held out a gloved hand to him. “Do we have a deal?”

Hicks shook it. “We have a deal.”

“Right. I’ll have the information you’re looking for released to you and only you. If I find out you shared it with those fucking brie eaters, I’m going to be furious.”

Hicks assumed he meant the French. “You have my word. But he’s not going to be pretty when you get him back.”

Clarke smiled. “I wouldn’t expect him to be.”

A
S SOON
as Clarke released the information on the scientists and the embargo on Djebar’s file, the full resources of the University’s system went to work.

It was times like these that made Hicks appreciate the true power of the University’s ability to digitally reach into any life it chose.

Hicks had been with the organization for over a decade and not even he knew the full history or the reasons behind what the University was or even what it was. Where agencies like the NSA were only beginning to get their footing in the electronic landscape, the University had been in it from the beginning; from a time when microprocessors and wireless technology and the Internet were mere ideas on a classroom chalkboard.

Hicks was interested in the Saudi scientists, but Djebar was the more immediate priority. Within thirty seconds of Clarke lifting the embargo on the image, OMNI began comparing it to millions of images taken in the New York area in the past week. Airport security cameras, social media pictures, even cell phone pictures from all over the New York area were examined.

Within five minutes, OMNI had discovered fifty incidences of where Djebar had been before and after Colin’s murder. More hits on more images came in each second.

The first viable hit came off a security camera at JFK airport a week before. It was a picture of Djebar as he stepped off a plane from Mumbai. Hicks made a note to tell his friends at the Indian Intelligence Bureau that he had been in their country for a time.

Hicks noted the resemblance on Djebar’s forged passport to the blurred image they’d gotten from the SD card, only this one was much clearer. Djebar had a thin face and now sported a pencil thin mustache. He had deep set eyes and a light tan that probably helped him pass for Latin, Turkish, Mediterranean, Arabian, or even Persian if he’d wanted. Ambiguity was invaluable in the shadows.

The next hit came at a surprising place: a traffic cam in Long Island City. The image showed a clear image of Djebar and Omar in the back seat of an Escalade. Two men in the front were stocky black men and vibed hired security. Hired security meant they were probably armed. Hicks didn’t waste time or effort searching for their identities because they were probably not part of Omar’s plans.

The Escalade’s license plate was clearly visible and showed it was registered to Shabazz Security in midtown Manhattan. Another search for the car’s black box showed it was parked over at the Millennium Hotel in Times Square. That didn’t necessarily mean Djebar was there, too, but it was worth looking into.

The University had long been tied into the lodging and security systems of all the major hotel chains in the world. He checked the Millennium’s lodging information to see if Djebar was registered under his own name or any of the aliases the British had provided.

When all aliases came up negative, Hicks went old school and put OMNI to work searching the hotel’s security cameras for any matches of Djebar’s likeness.

He had a hit from two nights before at the check in desk. Hicks matched the time on the image to the entries made in the hotel’s system and found that a Francois Andabe of Zaire had checked in at that exact moment. And he was scheduled to check out the day after tomorrow.

Hicks’ mind flooded with questions. If Omar had the money to bring a man like Djebar to New York, then why the hell had he made a panicked phone call for funding? It didn’t make any sense.

Not yet, anyway. And he hoped Djebar could tell him why.

Hicks knew he had two choices: go straight after Djebar and find out why he’d met with Omar. Clarke had said Djebar wouldn’t go quietly, so getting him could draw attention they didn’t need and might tip off Omar. Omar was already probably on edge because of the Kamal mystery. And even if he grabbed Djebar, Roger might not break in time before Omar hatched whatever he was planning.

The second option was to put Djebar on electronic surveillance while the Varsity raided Omar’s safe house. But the safe house was in a crowded Brooklyn neighborhood. If Omar was working on something like a dirty bomb, a lot of people could get killed.

Hicks decided grabbing Djebar could answer a lot of questions. It was worth the risk.

He called Roger and told him to get ready.