But Marco wasn’t thirsty, not yet anyway. He passed the cafés and shops, then suddenly, after a furtive glance, stepped into Albergo Nettuno, a fifty-room boutique hotel just off the piazza. Krater radioed Zellman and Luigi, who was particularly puzzled because Marco had no reason whatsoever to be entering a hotel. Krater waited five minutes, then walked into the small lobby, absorbing everything he saw. To his right was a lobby area with some
chairs and a few travel magazines strewn over a wide coffee table. To his left was a small empty phone room with its door open, then another room that was not empty. Marco sat there, alone, hunched over the small table under the wall-mounted phone, his blue bag open. He was too busy to see Krater walk by.
“May I help you, sir?” the clerk said from the front desk.
“Yes, thanks, I wanted to inquire about a room,” Krater said in Italian.
“For when?”
“Tonight.”
“I’m sorry, but we have no vacancies.”
Krater picked up a brochure at the desk. “You’re always full,” he said with a smile. “It’s a popular place.”
“Yes, it is. Perhaps another time.”
“Do you by chance have Internet access?”
“Of course.”
“Wireless?”
“Yes, the first hotel in the city.”
He backed away and said, “Thanks. I’ll try again another time.”
“Yes, please.”
He passed the phone room on the way out. Marco had not looked up.
______
WITH
both thumbs he was typing his text and hoping he would not be asked to leave by the clerk at the front desk. The wireless access was something the Nettuno advertised, but only for its guests. The coffee shops, libraries,
and one of the bookstores offered it free to anyone who ventured in, but not the hotels.
His e-mail read:
Grinch: I once dealt with a banker in Zurich, name of Mikel Van Thiessen, at Rhineland Bank, on Bahnhofstrasse, downtown Zurich. See if you can determine if he’s still there. If not, who took his place? Do not leave a trail!
Marco
He pushed Send, and once again prayed that he’d done things right. He quickly turned off the Ankyo 850 and tucked it away in his bag. As he left, he nodded at the clerk, who was on the phone.
Two minutes after Krater came out of the hotel, Marco made his exit. They watched him from three different points, then followed him as he mixed easily with the late-afternoon rush of people leaving work. Zellman circled back, entered the Nettuno, went to the second phone room on the left, and sat in the seat where Marco had been less than twenty minutes earlier. The clerk, puzzled now, pretended to be busy behind his desk.
An hour later, they met in a bar and retraced his movements. The conclusion was obvious, but still hard to swallow—since Marco had not used the phone, he was freeloading on the hotel’s wireless Internet access. There was no other reason to randomly enter the hotel lobby, sit in a phone room for less than ten minutes, then abruptly leave. But how could he do it? He had no laptop, no cell phone other than the one Luigi had loaned him, an outdated device that would only work in the city and could in
no way be upgraded to go online. Had he obtained some high-tech gadget? He had no money.
Theft was a possibility.
They kicked around various scenarios. Zellman left to e-mail the disturbing news to Whitaker. Krater was dispatched to begin window shopping for an identical blue Silvio bag.
Luigi was left to contemplate dinner.
His thoughts were interrupted by a call from Marco himself. He was in his apartment, not feeling too well, his stomach had been jumpy all afternoon. He’d canceled his lesson with Francesca, and now he was begging off dinner.
24
IF DAN SANDBERG’S PHONE RANG BEFORE 6:00 A.M., THE
news was never good. He was a night owl, a nocturnal creature who often slept until it was time to have breakfast and lunch together. Everyone who knew him also knew that it was pointless to phone early.
It was a colleague at the
Post
. “You got scooped, buddy,” he announced gravely.
“What?” Sandberg snapped.
“The
Times
just wiped your nose for you.”
“Who?”
“Backman.”
“What?”
“Go see for yourself.”
Sandberg ran to the den of his messy apartment and attacked his desk computer. He found the story, written by Heath Frick, a hated rival at
The New York Times
. The front-page headline read FBI PARDON PROBE SEARCHES FOR JOEL BACKMAN.
Citing a host of unnamed sources, Frick reported that the FBI’s cash-for-pardon investigation had intensified and
was expanding to include specific individuals who were granted reprieves by former president Arthur Morgan. Duke Mongo was named as a “person of interest,” a euphemism often tossed about when the authorities wanted to taint a person they were unable to formally indict. Mongo, though, was hospitalized and rumored to be gasping for his last breath.
The probe was now focusing its attention on Joel Backman, whose eleventh-hour pardon had shocked and outraged many, according to Frick’s gratuitous analysis. Backman’s mysterious disappearance had only fueled the speculation that he’d bought himself a pardon and fled to avoid the obvious questions. Old rumors were still out there, Frick reminded everyone, and various unnamed and supposedly trustworthy sources hinted that the theory about Backman burying a fortune had not been officially laid to rest.
“What garbage!” Sandberg snarled as he scrolled down the screen. He knew the facts better than anyone. This crap could not be substantiated. Backman had not paid for a pardon.
No one even remotely connected with the former president would say a word. For now, the probe was just a probe, with no formal investigation under way, but the heavy federal artillery was not far away. An eager U.S. attorney was clamoring to get started. He didn’t have his grand jury yet, but his office was sitting on go, waiting on word from the Justice Department.
Frick wrapped it all up with two paragraphs about Backman, historical rehash that the paper had run before.
“Just filler!” Sandberg fumed.
THE
President read it too but had a different reaction. He made some notes and saved them until seven-thirty, when Susan Penn, his interim director of the CIA, arrived for the morning briefing. The PDB—president’s daily briefing—had historically been handled by the director himself, always in the Oval Office and normally the first item of the day’s business. But Teddy Maynard and his rotten health had changed the routine, and for the past ten years the briefings had been done by someone else. Now traditions were being honored again.
An eight-to ten-page summary of intelligence matters was placed on the President’s desk precisely at 7:00 a.m. After almost two months in office, he had developed the habit of reading every word of it. He found it fascinating. His predecessor had once boasted that he read hardly anything—books, newspapers, magazines. Certainly not legislation, policies, treaties, or daily briefings. He’d often had trouble reading his own speeches. Things were much different now.
Susan Penn was driven in an armored car from her Georgetown home to the White House, where she arrived each morning at 7:15. Along the way she read the daily summary, which was prepared by the CIA. On page four that morning was an item about Joel Backman. He was attracting the attention of some very dangerous people, perhaps even Sammy Tin.
The President greeted her warmly and had coffee waiting by the sofa. They were alone, as always, and they went right to work.
“You’ve seen
The New York Times
this morning?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“What are the chances that Backman paid for a pardon?”
“Very slim. As I’ve explained before, he had no idea one was in the works. He didn’t have time to arrange things. Plus, we’re quite confident he didn’t have the money.”
“Then why was Backman pardoned?”
Susan Penn’s loyalty to Teddy Maynard was fast becoming history. Teddy was gone, and would soon be dead, but she, at the age of forty-four, had a career left. Perhaps a long one. She and the President were working well together. He seemed in no hurry to appoint his new director.
“Frankly, Teddy wanted him dead.”
“Why? What is your recollection of why Mr. Maynard wanted him dead?”
“It’s a long story—”
“No, it’s not.”
“We don’t know everything.”
“You know enough. Tell me what you know.”
She tossed her copy of the summary on the sofa and took a deep breath. “Backman and Jacy Hubbard got in way over their heads. They had this software, JAM, that their clients had stupidly brought to the United States, to their office, looking for a fortune.”
“These clients were the young Pakistanis, right?”
“Yes, and they’re all dead.”
“Do you know who killed them?”
“No.”
“Do you know who killed Jacy Hubbard?”
“No.”
The President stood with his coffee and walked to his desk. He sat on the edge and glared across the room at her. “I find it hard to believe that we don’t know these things.”
“Frankly, so do I. And it’s not because we haven’t tried. It’s one reason Teddy worked so hard to get Backman pardoned. Sure, he wanted him dead, just on general principle—the two have a history and Teddy has always considered Backman to be a traitor. But he also felt strongly that Backman’s murder might tell us something.”
“What?”
“Depends on who kills him. If the Russians do it, then we can believe the satellite system belonged to the Russians. Same for the Chinese. If the Israelis kill him, then there’s a good chance Backman and Hubbard tried to sell their product to the Saudis. If the Saudis get to him, then we can believe that Backman double-crossed them. We’re almost certain that the Saudis thought they had a deal.”
“But Backman screwed them?”
“Maybe not. We think Hubbard’s death changed everything. Backman packed his bags and ran away to prison. All deals were off.”
The President walked back to the coffee table and refilled his cup. He sat across from her and shook his head. “You expect me to believe that three young Pakistani hackers tapped into a satellite system so sophisticated that we didn’t even know about it?”
“Yes. They were brilliant, but they also got lucky.
Then they not only hacked their way in, but they wrote some amazing programs that manipulated it.”
“And that’s JAM?”
“That’s what they called it.”
“Has anybody ever seen the software?”
“The Saudis. That’s how we know that it not only exists but probably works as well as advertised.”
“Where is the software now?”
“No one knows, except, maybe, Backman himself.”
A long pause as the President sipped his lukewarm coffee. Then he rested his elbows on his knees and said, “What’s best for us, Susan? What’s in our best interests?” She didn’t hesitate. “To follow Teddy’s plan. Backman will be eliminated. The software hasn’t been seen in six years, so it’s probably gone too. The satellite system is up there, but whoever owns it can’t play with it.”
Another sip, another pause. The President shook his head and said, “So be it.”
______
NEAL
Backman didn’t read
The New York Times
, but he did a quick search each morning for his father’s name. When he ran across Frick’s story, he attached it to an e-mail and sent it with the morning message from Jerry’s Java.
At his desk, he read the story again, and relived the old rumors of how much money the broker had buried while the firm was collapsing. He’d never asked his father the question point-blank, because he knew he would not get a straight answer. Over the years, though, he had come to accept the common belief that Joel Backman was as broke as most convicted felons.
Then why did he have the nagging feeling that the cash-for-pardon scheme could be true? Because if anyone buried so deep in a federal prison could pull off such a miracle, it was his father. But how did he get to Bologna, Italy? And why? Who was after him?
The questions were piling up, the answers more elusive than ever.
As he sipped his double mocha and stared at his locked office door, he once again asked himself the great question: How does one go about locating a certain Swiss banker without the use of phones, faxes, regular mail, or e-mail?
He’d figure it out. He just needed time.
______
THE
Times
story was read by Efraim as he rode the train from Florence to Bologna. A call from Tel Aviv had alerted him, and he found it online. Amos was four seats behind him, also reading it on his laptop.
Rafi and Shaul would arrive early the next morning, Rafi on a flight from Milan, Shaul on a train from Rome. The four Italian-speaking members of the
kidon
were already in Bologna, hurriedly putting together the two safe houses they would need for the project.
The preliminary plan was to grab Backman under the darkened porticoes along Via Fondazza or another suitable side street, preferably early in the morning or after dark. They would sedate him, shove him in a van, take him to a safe house, and wait for the drugs to wear off. They would interrogate him, eventually kill him with poison, and drive his body two hours north to Lake Garda where he’d be fed to the fish.
The plan was rough and fraught with pitfalls, but the green light had been given. There was no turning back. Now that Backman was getting so much attention, they had to strike quickly.
The race was also fueled by the fact that the Mossad had good reason to believe that Sammy Tin was either in Bologna, or somewhere close.
______
THE
nearest restaurant to her apartment was a lovely old trattoria called Nino’s. She knew the place well and had known the two sons of old Nino for many years. She explained her predicament, and when she arrived both of them were waiting and practically carried her inside. They took her cane, her bag, her coat, and walked her slowly to their favorite table, which they’d moved closer to the fireplace. They brought her coffee and water, and offered anything else she could possibly want. It was mid-afternoon, the lunch crowd was gone. Francesca and her student had Nino’s to themselves.