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.
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
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.
65
Finished 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.
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.
“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, pseudocafe, 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:
Country: Norway
City: Oslo
Lat: 59.54.45
Long: 10.44.19
