“Good to see you, Gilbert. How long has it been?”
They both knew how long it had been.
“The last time we were in the same room was at Mom’s funeral.”
“Wow, it’s been a long time.”
“Or, maybe not long enough.”
“What was that supposed to mean?”
“Have you forgotten English too?”
“Don’t be a jackass.”
Gilbert bristled.
“Don’t act like one.”
Gary sighed. “If you’re done with the lecture, maybe we should go.”
“You look like you’ve lost some weight.”
“I picked up a bug in India. It took me a long time to shake it. A simple giardia infection, but this time it was resistant to the medication. I look good now. You should have seen me when I arrived in Istanbul.”
“If you had arrived in London or Dallas, I might’ve.”
“Listen, if sadism is your new drug of choice, by all means fire away. I’ll indulge your habit.”
“Damn it, Gary. You could’ve called.”
“Thanks for the ticket,” he said ignoring his brother. “I could’ve swung it, though.”
“Well, I heard through the grapevine that freelance English positions in the developing world ranked somewhere between porters and those tea-guys, what did they call them?”
“
Chaiji
.”
“Right. Well, my job pays well and family has to pull together in hard times.”
Gary could feel a sermon bubbling just under the surface of his brother’s words.
“I didn’t figure we needed two elder brothers in the house. Are we going straight to Dad’s place?”
“Yes. The officer on the case asked me to come down to the station, but I asked him to meet us there instead. I want to see the apartment for myself. Are you ready?”
“Ready as I’ll ever be.”
They both grabbed their bags and headed for the curb to wave down a cab.
><><><
The phone rang. Salih looked up from the data he was reviewing and glared at the phone.
“
As-salamu alaykum
.”
“
Wa Alaykum As-salam
. Good work Salih. Now what is the plan?”
“We have no idea what his son and daughter know, what he told them when he passed off the file and, most importantly, if they’ve made a connection. We don’t have the document, and at least one digital copy is also unaccounted for. We think we might know who received it, but haven’t pinned it down for sure. Whatever we do, it has to be conclusive, no more loose ends, no mistakes, no unintended consequences.”
Ahmet smiled on the other end of the phone. This was why he liked working with Salih. He understood the stakes.
“Are you sure the original is with Gwyn?”
“Positive. Our communication intercept is operational. During his flight to London, she sent him a text message asking whether or not she should put the document in their safe deposit box.”
“He advised against it,
inshallah
.”
“Correct. He said there was no need for such a move, but I wish he had said yes.”
“Wouldn’t that have made it more difficult to retrieve?”
“Not really. Safety deposit boxes have a specified location and I’ve never seen one that money couldn’t open. What we have to be concerned with now is containment. Our job is to destroy these instructions. If it were in a safe deposit box, we would know exactly where it is, monitor it and ensure that it is not spreading or being copied.”
Ahmet smiled again. “Bravo, Salih. Very good. What now?”
“Well, we grab the girl, make her talk, retrieve the original, find out if copies have been made, and then eliminate her.”
“
Inshallah
. What is the closest team?”
Salih switched the phone to speaker so that he could pace as he talked.
“That’s the problem, Ahmet. Putting together what I would call a clean, uncompromised team with the necessary training and expertise in America right now is difficult. As you have seen from the reports, operations are becoming increasingly difficult there. We’ve had two teams flushed out in the last six months and quietly sent to Cuba due to the FBI’s new Internet monitoring capability. Besides, you know the orders are not to use sleeper cells for things like this. None of them are to be activated without specific instructions from the Rightly Guided One. I can put one together, but it will take two days for us to insert them.”
“Ok, do it. Make sure the insertion is perfect. We cannot afford any more mistakes.
“Consider it done.”
“
Inshallah
.”
Salih continued, “The police report is already calling it death due to natural causes. A routine autopsy won’t be able to prove anything to the contrary.”
“Right. Let’s just make sure it is routine, and one more thing. Did you ever find anything on the email address on the secretary’s computer?”
“That has proven to be a bit troubling. It’s a gmail account. It didn’t turn up on any of the initial scans conducted on email databases.”
“Which can only mean that it’s either a relatively new e-mail address, or one that is very infrequently used and sitting behind a good firewall
.
”
CHAPTER
24
There were two police cars sitting outside when they drove up. Gilbert paid the driver while Gary retrieved their bags from the trunk. As the taxi drove away, the two brothers exchanged glances before they ascended the steps. Gilbert began fumbling for the keys a few steps from the outside door that led into the apartment building, but the door opened before he could find the right one. A middle-aged man with a crew cut stuck out his hand.
“Chief Superintendent John McIntosh. Are you Gilbert O’Brien?”
“Yes, sir, and this is my brother, Gary,” he said.
“I’m truly sorry for your loss, Gentlemen, and wish I could have made your acquaintance in different circumstances. I would have preferred to have met you at the office. It might have been easier for you in a place not so full of memory.”
“Which is, of course, exactly why we had to meet here. This was his home, this was where he took care of Mom before she died, and this was where he lived, worked and breathed his last. No sir, we’re very happy that you have honored our request by coming here. We also wanted to make sure his personal effects were secure. It would be almost impossible for your people to be absolutely sure there was nothing missing.”
“Of course, you are right,” McIntosh replied cordially.
They walked down the hall to the elevator, and Gilbert sent them up to the second floor. McIntosh let Gilbert open the door and noticed him grimace slightly as he swung the door open. It swung wide without a sound. Gilbert and Gary entered the apartment slowly and with reverence. It looked exactly like they remembered it. Gary sat down on the couch, turned to McIntosh and asked, without a trace of emotion, “What did your investigation find?”
“There were no signs of forced entry, though the locking mechanism isn’t what I would call state-of-the-art, and the deadbolt was not drawn. Nothing appears to be missing, but you will be a better judge of whether this assessment is true. We took photographs of everything. His body had no apparent markings. He was lying supine on the bed. The first responders said it looked to them like a heart attack. They estimated that the time of death was between 01:00 and 03:00 on Wednesday.”
Gary stood up and began walking through the rooms looking at the shelves. Gilbert headed for the office.
“Please continue, Superintendent.”
He walked over to the computer with McIntosh in tow and pushed the power button.
“That is about it. I was just going to say that after the autopsy, we should be able to confirm death of natural causes.”
“Who will be performing the autopsy?”
“Not quite sure, but I can find out. We actually had one of your father’s colleagues from the university provide positive identification, but you are more than welcome to come down to the morgue with me.”
The computer was prompting for a password and Gilbert typed in the passphrase that his dad had used for years.
PsAlM2:2
“I may want to do that. However, if I could have a few minutes here in the apartment, I’d really appreciate it.”
“Of course, I’ll leave you gentlemen alone. If you need anything, I’ll be outside.”
“Thank you, sir.”
Gary closed the door behind McIntosh and turned to find Gary standing in the door to the office holding a pearl and diamond necklace that had belonged to their mother.
“Nothing missing from the safe.”
“Well, that’s nice to know. It looks like Dad got around to oiling the hinges on that door too. The last few times I visited, it squeaked horribly.”
“So, what are we going to do here, Gilbert? He said there was nothing amiss or suspicious. I’ve only taken a quick glance around, but everything seems to be the same as always.”
Gilbert had been debating whether or not to tell Gary about what their father had given Gwyn, but again he decided against it.
“I just wanted to have a look at his computer and then we’ll go.”
Gary pulled up a chair beside his brother.
He is a computer geek, a security guru and one time hacker. Let him poke around
, he said to himself.
He watched as his brother conducted a search for a picture file created within the last five days. While he waited for the computer to scan the C drive, he opened the browser, looked at a few settings and hit Shift+Control+H to bring up the Internet search history.
“What are doing, Gilbert? I’m not sure you should be poking around on Dad’s computer like this. Personally, I don’t want to know what he did on the Internet and I don’t think it is any of our business either.”
“For crying out loud, Gary! What kind of person do you think I am?”
“How the hell should I know? Dad dies of a heart attack, and the first thing you do is look at his Internet history? It seems a bit weird. Are you going to tell me what is going on?”
Without saying a word, Gilbert turned back to the computer and scanned the list. There was no Internet history for the last ten days.
What’s going on here?
He clicked back to the search window. It said simply, “No items match your search.” Gilbert stared at the screen in disbelief and then, without a word, stood up and headed for the bag that he had left by the door.
“Gary, would you mind asking McIntosh to come back up here. He’s going to want to see this.”
“Damn it, Gilbert, stop playing games with me! What is going on?”
“You don’t think it’s strange that there’s no history in his browser for the last ten days?”
“Maybe, but that doesn’t explain what prompted you to go poking around on his computer. You know more than you are telling me. Stop treating me like your little brother and tell me what’s driving this.”
“To be honest, I don’t know either. Gwyn and I met Dad at the airport Tuesday afternoon. I had a long layover on my flight to Washington DC, and Gwyn was on her way to Dallas, so she arranged for Dad to meet us for dinner at the airport.”