by K. T. Tomb
Nigel had not been able to encounter any threats in spite of devoting all of his waking hours searching for a threat. For all practical purposes, where security was concerned, they were in the clear.
With the intense security surrounding the museum, given the levity of the exhibit, a threat to their security was extremely unlikely. Having more or less completed their task, Chyna made a decision to cut Demetri and Thorin loose that morning and focused all of her attention, and that of the team, on finishing the job in time for the opening.
Chapter Seven
Everything seemed to be right on track until they got back to the hotel that night. There were several messages from Nigel for Chyna to contact him on the secure office line because he didn’t want to discuss the issue over the public airwaves.
Quickly she dialed the number and Nigel picked up instantly.
“Nigel, I’m sorry but we just got in. What’s going on?”
Chyna pressed the hands free button and put the phone down on the table so they could all hear what he had to say.
“I managed to isolate and quarantine more than three thousand individual viruses on the computer. They were minor, only a few would have caused any serious complications.”
“That’s good news isn’t it?”
“In and of itself, sure; but there’s more,” he continued. “While I was distracted by the legion, a worm skipped by me and that’s where the problems started. It just gobbled up information at an exponential rate, duplicating and sending file after file before I could stop it. Once I managed to slow it down, I initiated a trace on where the data was being sent to.”
“Did you have any luck?” Oscar asked, eagerly.
“By the time I could stop it I had a good trace. They did an amazing job of trying to hide it; bouncing it off more than a hundred proxy servers all over the world but I tracked the location down to a computer at an internet cafe in downtown Damascus called ‘Hotspot and what not’.”
“Thanks, Nigel,” Oscar said. “Send me that I.P. address and we’ll take it from there. Make sure you upgrade the antivirus on everything today. You know the drill, find out what Emma’s using over at Quantico now.”
“Sure thing, Boss.”
With that Nigel killed the call and got right to work.
“They know where we are,” Lana said, solemnly.
“Yes, they do,” Chyna replied.
She immediately put in a call for Demetri and Thorin to come back, though they were in still in the air and probably would not get her message until they landed. That meant that there would be a delay.
The moment she disconnected the call, she pressed the speed dial button for Anthony. When he picked up, she stepped away from the others.
“Hi there, beautiful,” he greeted.
“Hi, Babe,” she replied. “It’s not good news, I’m afraid.”
“Tell me,” he said.
“The computer was hacked when Nigel was cleaning up the viruses they uploaded to it. The hacker is right here in Damascus and we really don’t know how much they managed to get before he traced them and terminated the link.”
“Was there anything about the Syrian assignment on it?”
“Just a digital copy of the original communiqué and the dossier.”
“So they know you have access to the falcon.”
“We have to assume that.”
“It’s time to code it then, Babe, you know what to do. I’ll place a call to the local operatives at the embassy and call you back with the name of a handler.”
“It’s going to be hard to go under, Tony,” Chyna advised. “We’ve still got the opening to attend next Friday night.”
“That’s fine; I’ll let my guy know. You just need to get to a safe house with some properly secured communications; isolate yourself from the masses.”
“Got ya!” she agreed. “I’ll wait for your call.”
“Okay, Babe, don’t worry; we’ve got this!”
When Chyna, hung up the phone, she turned to the team with a strange expression on her face.
“We’re on a code red, guys. Pack it all up.”
Lana made arrangements for the rental car company to pick up the Land Cruiser at the hotel and meet her at a local shopping mall with a fully tinted, armored Land Rover later that afternoon. Oscar packed up the equipment and taped each bag shut with tamper proof security tape; if they were to be opened, someone would have to cut it to get inside. Chyna made a call to the ‘Hotspot and what not’ to reserve every computer there for three hours that afternoon and ask the manager to clear it out and shut the place down for them.
About fifteen minutes later, they received a call from F.B.I. Agent Marsha Branch at the U.S. Embassy. She introduced herself as their handler and told Chyna that she was sending a car to take them to one of the agency’s safe houses. They would be assisted by Special Agent Lawrence Major and he would be arriving at their hotel in five minutes. Chyna confirmed the information with her and told her they were packed and ready to go.
The safe house was located in the upscale neighborhood of Malki in the center of the city. There were eight bedrooms upstairs, each with an ensuite bathroom; downstairs they had a large modern kitchen with fully stocked pantry and fridge, a study, media room, living and dining rooms and a powder room. Off the kitchen were butler’s quarters, which Special Agent Major advised would be his lodgings for the rest of their stay in Damascus.
While Lana went with Lawrence to pick up the new rental car, Chyna let Oscar set up in the study while she made a few phone calls. She had to let Fatma know that since they wouldn’t be needed at the museum until Thursday when the printed media arrived, they would be on the road researching the falcon. If she needed them she should call Chyna’s cell phone; she had the number for the secure line. Then she called Anthony to update him on the situation and let him know they were now in good hands. She thanked him for his usual flawless arrangements. There was no need to let anyone else know what was going on yet; Oscar would email Sandra and Sirita to update them.
When Lana and Lawrence came back, everything was ready and Chyna had already printed out the information she received from Inga at the Swedish Museum. They had picked up falafel pitas and gyro sandwiches for lunch. As she put everything on plates, Oscar opened the fridge to look for some beverages.
“I know it’s not my awesome sweet tea,” he started, “but we’ve got Coke, beer and bottled water.”
“I really need a beer,” Chyna announced.
“Me too,” said Lana.
“Beer it is then,” he replied. “How about you Lawrence?”
“Well, I don’t usually drink on the job,” he explained.
“Aw, come on, Agent Major,” Chyna said. “You can relax when you’re with us. My regular security guys have one every now and then. It’s not like we’re on high alert or anything.”
“I’ll have a Coke,” he said.
“Okay, suit yourself,” Oscar replied.
After lunch, they went into the study leaving Lawrence to catch up on the news. Chyna handed out copies of the email she had received about the falcon and everyone was stunned to silence. They were reading the story of Alaric and Ivor.
“The story falls in place with where the falcons came from,” Chyna finally said. “According to Inga, it’s confirmed history so we don’t need to concern ourselves with that. Only one falcon was recorded as having been excavated at the burial site just across the Swedish border outside of Halden and that’s on display in Stockholm so the question is: why was the other one found here?”
“That’s what we need to find out. I’ll bet everything falls into place after that,” Lana said. “But at least we’ve confirmed that it’s definitely Viking, we weren’t off the mark with that one.”
“That’s for sure. I think we should be getting down to that internet café. We’ve got the place booked from two to closing, so let’s go.”
They arrived at ‘Hotspot and what not’ at a quarter to two a
nd sat across the street in the protection of their Land Rover, watching as the manager ushered the customers out. Lana took a series of high definition photographs of everyone who was leaving just in case the perpetrator was there again that day. When the street was clear of the ousted internet surfers, they got out of the vehicle and went inside. The manager locked the door behind them.
“Pull the shutters closed,” Chyna instructed, and Lana and Oscar closed up the shop.
“You’re Ali Hammad?” she asked the manager.
“Yes, I am,” he replied.
“Great. I’m Chyna Stone and these are my colleagues, Lana Ambrose and Oscar Cunningham. We traced a compromise of our company’s computer servers yesterday back to a computer in your café and we need to check it out to see if we can identify the hacker.”
“Oh my, I’m not in any trouble am I? I mean, I just charge for the computer use and the internet time and serve refreshments, I don’t really monitor what they do online.”
“You’re not in any trouble, Ali, unless you’re involved with the breach.”
“I assure you I’m not aware of what anyone who comes here does with the time they purchase. Most of my customers are just kids who want to play video games because their parents don’t allow them to at home.”
“Then you’ve got nothing to worry about,” Oscar chimed in.
He started looking at the back of each station’s CPU and then said to Ali, “Do you have the I.P. addresses for these machines written down anywhere?”
“Check the back of the monitors,” Ali replied. “I think the technician said he labeled them all.”
“Thanks.”
In a minute, Oscar located the station whose IP address matched the one Nigel had emailed to him. He logged on and started pinging the Found History server. Soon he was video chatting with Nigel and they were analyzing the computer’s browser history and user identification in hopes of singling out the hacker either by handle or by the time of access to the network.
“Do you take I.D. when you rent the stations?” Lana asked.
“Yes, for the stations I have to take identification. The internet access is not restricted so unless they come with their own laptop, I have to be sure they are over eighteen. Content, you know.”
“Yes, that’s why we asked.”
“Got a time on the actual hack yet, Oscar?” Chyna asked, over her shoulder. She had been keeping a close eye on Mr. Hammad the whole time while he had been working, she wasn’t inclined to trust the man whose shop had been used as a hacking site and she wasn’t convinced that wasn’t a regular occurrence either.
“Yeah, he was online from just around two forty to four o’clock,” he replied.
Let’s see who rented that machine at two forty yesterday, Mr. Hammad,” Chyna said, gesturing to the counter where he served his customers.
Hammad reached under the counter and came up with a small receipt book and started flipping through it. Soon he came across the ticket; he handed the book to Chyna. She read it and satisfied with what she saw, took out her Blackberry and snapped a photo of the page, handing the book back to Hammad. Lana looked around the shop and noticed something.
“Does your surveillance system work, Mr. Hammad?”
“It does,” he said. “The machine has memory for about a months’ worth of video then it records over it.”
“Our guy is quite sloppy,” Chyna chided.
“Well, come on then,” Lana said sarcastically to Hammad. “Let’s have a look at yesterday’s footage.”
When they left the shop fifteen minutes later, Oscar had the criminal’s hacker handle, Lana had a copy of the video footage of the man who used the computer station during the breach and Chyna had his name and ID.
He had been very sloppy indeed, she thought to herself, realizing that she had been pretty sloppy too.
Later that evening, Chyna sent an email to Anthony.
They had done all the ground work and had managed to find out the identity of the man who had hacked into their computers. Chyna also suspected that he was involved in the machines going missing from the airport to begin with. There was no way that she could take the investigation into who he really was without calling attention to the team, so she decided to bring in the big guns.
“Tony, I’ve attached a copy of the ticket from the internet Café that belongs to our perp as well as a link to the surveillance video we got. I need a positive ID on this guy and anything else you can dig up. I have a feeling he’s not acting on his own and that he’s involved with the lifting of Oscar’s case from the airport. See what you can do and let me know if you need anything else to find out what we need to know. Thanks. See you soon.”
She clicked ‘SEND’ and sighed deeply, what she wouldn’t give to be lying next to him tonight. She could almost feel his warm breath at the back of her neck and the touch of his lips down her spine. Hmmmm…
Shake it off, Chyna, she said to herself. You’ll be in Istanbul and all up in Agent Stewart’s mix quite soon enough.
Chapter Eight
The opening had been a grand success.
As her team wandered the alcove chatting to the various dignitaries, diplomats and colleagues in attendance, Chyna couldn’t help but smile to herself. They had worked really hard on this project and under some extreme circumstances. Things had cooled off a little in Homs and there didn’t seem to be as many military personnel passing through Damascus on the way north any more. Still she didn’t plan on lingering in Syria; there was an uneasy political tension over the city that was as persistent as a London fog in November. Still, the turnout for the exhibition’s opening night had been stellar.
As she took a sip of champagne, Chyna spotted Demetri and Thorin trying to be inconspicuous as they roamed the edge of the crowd and kept an eye on the three Found History employees at all times. Fatma was in her element. Of course, all the praise for the layout and content of the exhibit was hers by default and they didn’t begrudge her that; curating a museum like this one was not an easy task for just one person and yet she was effortlessly successful at it. Found History had been there in purely a supporting role, so even when Fatma and Dr. Epstein had asked Chyna to give the opening speech to their guests, she had graciously declined.
The team was still operating on a code red, which meant they needed to maintain a low profile. There were unidentified threats against them in the city and they were no closer to figuring out what they were dealing with than they had been a week ago. All they knew was that their hacker wasn’t working alone. Anthony had used the F.B.I. database to identify the man and as it had turned out he was part of a suspected international smuggling ring that specialized in antiquities, priceless artwork and illegal precious stones. Lana had theorized that he had hacked their systems to find out what they knew about the Phoenician Falcon and to decide if they knew its location. She thought it was possible they had stolen it from the dig site in Sweden and smuggled it to Syria. Possibly they had a buyer in the region and had brought it here while waiting to make contact with them. In any case, the finial ended up inside the Hamah dig site and was brought in for testing with the rest of the artifacts.
They had submitted sufficient proof to the Syrian government and Interpol that the falcon did not belong at Hamah and even though they couldn’t say how it got there, both authorities agreed to relinquish possession of the piece to Found History until its rightful place could be determined. Chyna had decided that she would start working that mystery out as soon as they got settled in Istanbul. For now all she wanted to was to enjoy their last night in Damascus and get the hell out of the country.
“Good evening, Miss Stone,” Dr. Epstein said. “I haven’t seen much of you since we cut the ribbon earlier.”
“Fatma has been whirling me round and round introducing me to all the ‘Who’s who’ of Damascus society. She’s very proud of the turnout.”
“Impressive, isn’t it?” He said in agreement.
“It absolutely is.
”
Just then, Chyna caught site of a man at the edge of the crowd. He looked strangely familiar and she let her eyes follow him around the room for a while. He was trying his best to fit in but he didn’t stop to talk to anyone and that made him stick out like a sore thumb. He kept weaving around the little group of chatting socialites as if he was searching for something.
“Excuse me a moment Dr. Epstein,” Chyna said, walking towards the front of the alcove to get Demetri’s attention.
When he looked her way, she gestured in the man’s direction with her head and the bodyguard instinctively began to scan that area of the room. It didn’t take Demetri long to single him out. She noticed when Demetri touched the tiny device lodged in his ear and instantly every muscle in Thorin’s body tensed visibly. Chyna smiled to herself and found a nearby table to put her glass down. Her hand went to the left and inside of her signature leather jacket and she unsnapped the safety strap of her SIG Sauer®M-11 pistol. She knew it was locked, loaded and ready to be fired in an emergency; she only had the flip off the safety. The three of them circled the room casually keeping an eye on the man to figure out what he was up to.
Then, she saw Thorin say something into his ear piece and she followed Demetri’s gaze over to two waiters who were manning the buffet line. They looked as nervous as a couple of long-tailed cats in a room full of rocking chairs. The sweat had actually started beading on their forehead. Suddenly Chyna got a feeling that something bad was about to happen and she made a bee line for where Fatma was standing talking to the U.S. ambassador’s wife. She excused herself and pulled her aside turning her back to the buffet line.
“I think we may have a terrorist situation here. Keep calm and get your radio out now. When I tell you to, I need you to radio all your security staff.”
Fatma unhooked the radio from the inside of her jacket and discreetly palmed it.
“I’m going to need you to cue the firework show early. Tell your team to hold open all the exit doors and just usher the people out of the building and across the lawn as quickly and calmly as possible. I don’t want them to sound any alarms. Hold on.”