“That’s independent confirmation of the email we received yesterday!”
“It seems to be. The attachment was obviously information captured with a key-logger. Apparently somebody managed to get spyware onto their system.”
“By ‘somebody’, we mean O’Brien, don’t we?”
“Given his profession, the FBI warrant for his arrest on charges of corporate espionage, and the initials G.O.B. at the bottom of the email, I would say he is the most likely source of the information, sir.”
“You know that email is going to start a firestorm in the diplomatic core and intelligence community.”
“Or, get us killed.”
“We need collaborating evidence . . .”
“We need a vacation.”
“Any idea why the email was sent from Spain, and how O’Brien got there?”
“There’s no record of him entering the country. The email was sent from an internet café in Madrid. There are security cameras both inside the café and on the street outside. We’ve reviewed the footage, but cannot identify O’Brien.”
“Then, it wasn’t O’Brien,” said McIntosh slowly, his mind searching desperately for that one thing he knew was being overlooked.
“What about the symbol at the top of the email?”
“It’s called Rub el Hizb. It’s an Islamic symbol. That’s about as far as we’ve gotten. We haven’t been able to make a connection yet. It’s peculiar. Obviously meaningful. Parker is working on a couple of leads right now.”
“Okay,” replied McIntosh curtly. “How long will it take to empty the building?”
“Ten minutes at the most, sir.”
“Let’s do it then. They know they’ve been compromised. We need to secure any evidence before it gets deleted. I’ll meet you in the operation room in five minutes.”
“Yes, sir”
Parker shut the door on his way out. McIntosh pulled a thumb drive from his computer, slipped it into his pocket and picked up the phone. It was time to put the pieces together.
“Jack, has the university not responded to our subpoena? I need those server records.”
“They arrived in the morning mail. I’ll get on it right away.”
“Did you have any luck cross-referencing past records on that cell phone number we received from our anonymous tipster with any of the individuals in the case file?”
“We had one match, but it could be coincidence. The guy looks clean.”
“Let’s talk after the raid.”
CHAPTER
80
L
ONDON
When the door finally opened, Zeki picked up his bag, slipped into the apartment and closed the door. Normally, the control panel would have been on the wall just inside the door. Instead, he found himself staring at a portrait of Tariq ibn Ziyad. Zeki quickly scanned the entryway. There was no control panel, only a coat rack and a shoe rack, both of which gave evidence of female habitation. He had been on jobs before where the security control panel was intentionally hidden, so this was not unusual. The difference was that on those missions he had been informed of its location in advance. Now, he had the security code, but no way to enter it, and less than sixty seconds to find something that wasn’t meant to be found.
The beads of sweat that had formed while he was picking the lock grew as he looked around the living room, trying to determine the most likely place to conceal a control panel. His roving gaze stopped on the wall directly opposite him on the other side of the living room. Bookshelves covered it from top to bottom. He felt a drop of sweat finally gain enough mass to begin trickling down his neck. If it was hidden on a wall, this was the most likely one. Dropping the bag, he crossed the room in quick strides and working from left to right, he began emptying the two middle shelves, hurling the books to the floor. Twenty seconds later, he was standing on the other side of the room with nothing but bare wall in front of him.
Without wasting a moment’s time, he started down the adjacent wall, removing both of the picture frames that hung there. Still no control panel. He was running out of time. He turned to the opposite wall, which also had two pictures hung directly opposite the ones he had just taken down. Halfway across the living room, he stopped, looked at the entryway for a moment and sprinted for the door.
Of course! The key to Europe, the conqueror of Spain. Tariq ibn Ziyad.
Zeki took the frame and pulled on both sides. The right side swung open to reveal a control panel with a flashing yellow light. 2-3-1-8-2-1-2. He repeated to himself as he punched the numbers in. Flashing yellow turned to steady green, and he gave a sigh of relief.
Zeki picked up his bag, locked the door and turned the deadbolt before checking each of the rooms. In the end, he decided the study would be the best place to set up. Five minutes later, the contents of the bag were all neatly arranged on top of the desk. He sat down in the high-back leather office chair and gazed at his surroundings. More books. Three of the four walls were solid bookshelves from floor to ceiling. Several of the shelves across from the desk were decorated with ceramic vases of Middle Eastern origin, one of which bore the characteristic blue patterns of the Ottoman style developed in Iznik. The only wall without book shelves was covered with examples of Islamic calligraphy tastefully framed. To the uninitiated, the flowing Arabic script was more like a Rorschach inkblot than anything else.
The center-piece of the collection was twice as large as the others, and Zeki found himself tracing it out. Deciphering the flowery characters was almost as hard as drawing them. He patiently followed the lines to separate each word.
Murat . . . son of . . . Orhan . . .
Zeki stopped. The style was different, but he was clearly looking at a modern-day rendition of the royal seal of Murat I, the
tugra
of
Hüdavendigar.
The same
tugra
under the text on the document Professor O’Brien had found.
Something to ask him before I kill him.
Zeki looked down at the papers on the desk. There was a stack of essays marked with corrections and grades, a book entitled
Islam in the Modern World
and several utility bills. He picked up the bills and began looking through them. This was when he noticed the top of the desk. In the very center was the Rub el Hizb executed in beautiful mother-of-pearl. The circle in the very center was a snake swallowing its tail.
><><><
Salih was standing in front of his desk, looking at a system analysis report, when the door at the far end of the office burst open. He turned to find CO19 officers streaming into the labyrinth of cubicle work stations in navy blue uniforms and ceramic helmets, guns at the ready.
“Hands in the air! Everybody! Now!”
There were at least five rows of cubicles between Salih and the door. He dropped to his knees and began crawling as fast as he could. Everyone knew the drill. They had rehearsed it the first Friday of every month for six years. In seconds, the commotion and shouting were over. No one offered any resistance. Careful not to raise his head above the desk, Salih began feeling on top of the desk for his cell phone, silently cursing himself for breaking protocol by taking it out of his pocket. He heard the team leader speaking.
“You are all under arrest. You will be escorted to a police van that is waiting outside. You will be processed individually at the station. Let’s make this easy on everybody.”
Salih found his cell phone and quickly began punching in the number. He wished it had been a speed dial number, but that was just too risky. His movements were quick and sure. His fingers weren’t trembling. He could hear the man giving instructions to his colleagues.
“Do not touch, I repeat, do not touch any of the equipment in this office. As of this moment, it is all State’s evidence.”
From his position under the desk, Salih started chanting the
tekbir
slowly, with feeling and conviction
.
“
Allahu ekber, allahu ekber…”
He was immediately joined by every employee in the office.
“La ilahe illallahu allahu ekber. Allahu ekber ve lillâ ilhamd.”
He solemnly pushed the call button on the cell phone and began repeating the
tekbir
again
.
One of the officers began shouting for them to stop. In seconds, several other policemen had joined him, screaming out orders for the employees to remain silent. It had to be unnerving to hear the Islamic confession of faith recited so calmly in this tense situation. One of the officers bolted for the door. None of the employees paid them any mind. They had all turned to a mark on the wall which indicated the direction of Mecca and were prostrating themselves in prayer.
Salih looked over at the block of C4 attached to the back of his computer. An identical set-up could be found under every desk in the office. On the fifth ring, the embedded detonators would be activated. The block of plastic explosive wrapped in ball bearings was less than three feet away. He knew he was looking at the gates of paradise, the face of God in a lump of plastic putty.
La ilahe illaallahu . . .
><><><
The explosion could be heard five kilometers away. Windows rattled in buildings over two kilometers away. From a distance, Londoners saw only a small cloud of dust rise slowly into the air. Up close, it was messier, a gangly pile of rubble, nowhere near as tidy as a controlled demolition. But no one in that building cared about aesthetics anymore. The live feed in the operations room went dead, and the only thing McIntosh heard was silence. Silence more deafening than the roar of the explosion. It was the hush of forty-seven souls being unplugged, severed from their connection with the material world.
“Damn it! Bob, I’m going down there myself; you coordinate from here. Send in our search and rescue teams. Alert the fire department and local hospitals. Plus, I want a search warrant for the homes of every single employee at that company before any evidence is destroyed.”
“Yes, sir.”
There was a knock at the door. It was Jack. McIntosh waved him in.
“Sir, is everything alright? You don’t look well?”
“Our raid just turned into a mass suicide.”
“Shit! The CO19 team?”
“They were inside.”
“Damn!” he said, dropping his eyes.
“What do you have, Jack?” asked McIntosh.
“Remember how Professor Brown said that he hadn’t received the emails sent from the secretary? Well, that’s not true. The server records show that those emails were both delivered successfully.”
“Whatever,” replied McIntosh, waving his hand as if batting at a gnat. “Maybe he lied to keep from getting entangled in a murder investigation.”
“The Google report came back too. It confirms that he read them,” replied Jack. “Sir, we made it pretty clear that the document was a central piece of evidence.”
“Fine. Pay him a visit. We’ve got bigger problems right now.”
“That’s not all,” continued Jack. “Remember the cell phone number we received on that anonymous tip?”
“The one that was disconnected before we had even started tracking it?”
“Yes. Well, it still hasn’t registered on the network, so obviously the SIM card is not being used, but there was a call, or rather several calls, to that number. Two yesterday and one today.”
“And?”
“All three calls came from Professor Donald Brown.”
The expression on McIntosh’s face hardened.
“Are you saying the professor was connected with the office we just raided?”