relieved. No matter what happened tomorrow, tonight I had done something right.
88
At seven A.M. Bakr got out of bed and completed sunrise prayers, wishing for the thousandth time that he were allowed the small dignity of a prayer rug as part of his cover.
At seven-thirty, he walked to the end of the hall for his shower. He fidgeted in his room for another forty-five minutes, playing with the remote detonator and going through linkup options with Sayyidd in his mind. At eight forty-five, he packed up the weapon. Stepping onto the street, he looked left and right, then proceeded at a slow pace to the Internet cafe so as to arrive after it had opened.
Jennifer sat in her peasant’s dress with a different colored scarf in place on her head. The scent of vomit still occasionally wafted from her dress like the odor of a dead animal in the attic, the stench floating about with no clear source no matter how hard you walked around sniffing the room. She had done her best to clean the dress but had missed a spot somewhere.
She’d awakened before their alarm went off, the room artificially dark due to the heavy drapes, the corners showing the feeble light of dawn creeping in. Raised on an elbow, gazing at Pike’s slumbering form, she could barely pick out his features.
That feeling had remained throughout the morning, and persisted still. Sitting in the back of the coffee shop, she jumped when her cell phone rang, spilling her cup of coffee halfway to her mouth. She heard two simple sentences.
“He’s on the move. He’s going slow, so it’ll probably be five minutes before you see him.”
She acknowledged the call and hung up, the sense of dread building in her gut. Four minutes later she saw Carlos down the street, walking at a leisurely pace toward the cafe. It would take him a couple more minutes to get there, but that would only be more time for Pike inside the hotel. She picked up her phone and dialed, wishing it were still yesterday, not wanting to set things in motion.
Outside of Bakr’s hotel, one of Lucas’s team members from Norway sat looking at a map, trying to determine if he was in the location dictated by the computer plot of the beacon. He glanced up to get his bearings on the street, looked back at his map, then did a double take when he saw Pike exit a Pajero SUV fifteen feet to his front.
He had pulled into the parking spot five minutes before merely to pinpoint his location, one of several sites being reconnoitered by Mason’s team based on the trail left by Pike’s pager. This was supposed to be just a familiarization day, necking down possible locations and getting a feel for the area. Fumbling with his cell phone, he calmed down enough to dial, ducking to prevent Pike from seeing him.
“Mason? Yeah, I’ve got Pike. He’s fucking right in front of me. The girl’s not with him. He just went into a hotel.”
He paused, listening. “I don’t know if he’s staying here or not, but if you want him, I need to get the team here ASAP. I’m not going to try take him out on my own. I haven’t seen the girl, but let’s face it, he’s the threat. Get rid of him, and she’ll be easy.”
He listened a few more seconds. “Yeah, I get that we can’t track the girl, but this guy’s been pretty damn dangerous from the beginning. You sure you want to attempt a capture?”
Hearing Mason’s reasoning, he relented. “Okay, I can do that. If you get a team here, I should be able to close on him fast enough to prevent him from doing anything.”
He listened a moment.
“If he gives me any trouble, I’ll smoke him right here. If not, he can tell us where to find the girl. I don’t recommend going in after him. We can ambush him when he comes out. Maybe we’ll get lucky and they’ll both come out.”
I entered the hotel like i belonged there, carrying the bump key and a small mallet I had purchased the day before. I moved straight to the stairwell, the distance and direction exactly as described by Jennifer. Exiting the third floor, I paused in front of Carlos’s door. I strained my ears, listening for any movement behind it or from the rooms down the hall. Hearing none, I placed the key in the lock. It slid in easily. I moved it forward, feeling the clicks of the pin tumblers through the key. When I went past the last tumbler, I pulled the key back out until it clicked once. Looking left and right, ensuring I was alone, I raised the mallet and gave the key a sharp rap, applying torque as soon as the key seated past the pins. The lock broke free, the cylinder turning. I rotated the key and turned the lever, pushing the door. It didn’t budge. I paused a half second and pushed again. The door was still locked. Puzzled, feeling the press of time, my instinct was to simply kick in the door.
Once again, Jennifer’s description was spot on. The room was small, consisting of a single floor lamp, an end table, a chair, and a twin-sized bed. No closet and no bathroom. I went to a duffel bag on the chair first, sifting through the clothes. Finding an American passport, I saw that Jennifer had been right. The name inside was Carlos Menendez.
89
Bakr sat at his usual table, staring at the in-box for the e-mail account between him and Sayyidd. The box was still empty. Bakr felt drained, cheated of the gift for which he had so patiently waited. What the hell was Sayyidd up to? Why hadn’t he e-mailed? Bakr couldn’t bring himself to think the unthinkable — that Sayyidd had been captured or killed. Surely he was just hung up on his trip with Walid. They were too close to paradise for something to happen now.
He calmed down, mentally chastising himself for his pathetic wheedling. The forty-eight hours were up, and he had told Sayyidd he would immediately leave, but he decided to give his partner more time. Too much was riding on Walid’s coordination. If Sayyidd didn’t send an e-mail by this afternoon, he would begin looking for routes into Israel on his own, planning his next steps. He would return tomorrow morning and check again, giving Sayyidd an extra twenty-four hours. If there was still no response, he would assume the worst and leave Bosnia, heading perhaps toward Turkey, then onward into Syria.
Leaving the cafe, Bakr chastised himself again for his weak constitution, purposely picking up his gait to get away from the thoughts of self-pity.
Inside Carlos’s hotel room, I was carefully checking the box for any indications of booby traps when my phone rang.
“Yeah? How long? Okay. I’m headed out. No, I haven’t found anything, but I really haven’t had time to check it out completely.”
I started the chronograph feature of my watch, figuring I had about two minutes to finish up. Sure the box was clean, I lifted the lid and found my first indication of terrorist activity. I pulled the remote detonation device out of the box and turned it over in my hands, considering what I should do with it. I looked for some way to disable it without Carlos being aware, but quickly dismissed the idea, since I couldn’t read the Cyrillic writing and didn’t know enough about its operational capability to ensure I did it correctly without his knowing. I placed it back in the box
