by K. T. Tomb
“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 and 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.
***
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.
***
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 u
sed 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.”
Chyna looked directly at Thorin and tapped her ear once. A few seconds later, he walked past and placed an earpiece in her open palm.
“The others too,” she said softly.
She watched until he was back in position then glanced quickly around the room to assess the situation. Everyone was scanning the room trying to make out what was going on.
Chyna pushed the button on the ear piece once and whispered, “Blonde-haired man in the tux to my four o’clock, both waiters at the buffet line, possible others not yet identified.” She paused and looked around the room again. Her team looked informed and ready; the men didn’t look as if they noticed anything was going on.
“Call your team and tell them to open the doors now,” she said to Fatma.
“Marsha, Lawrence, can you hear me?” Chyna said.
“We read you loud and clear, Chyna,” Lawrence replied.
“We have a potential terrorist situation here. They might be planning to bomb the place or open fire on the people in this room. None of us can say the crowd in here wouldn’t be a prime target. We’re going to have Fatma’s people neutralize the room with an early start on the firework show outside while we apprehend the suspects. Hopefully, they’ll be so surprised by the sudden movement they won’t have a chance to initiate their plan.”
“Affirmative,” he said.
“Thorin and Demetri, you take down the wait staff. Lawrence and Marsha deal with ‘Mr. Suit’ over there. Lana and Oscar help move the people as quickly to the open doors as you can. I’ll make the announcement for the fireworks.”
“Okay,” everyone responded.
“Alright, Fatma will cue the firework display and we move on the first explosion.”
Fatma raised her radio and said, “Cue the fireworks!”
They watched the first rocket launch and climb into the sky. As soon as it exploded, they all sprang into action. Chyna jumped onto the podium and turned the microphone on.
“Everyone please make your way outside through the exits to the right for the firework display,” she announced.
Immediately, people started to move towards the doors. The guards held them wide open and Lana and Oscar were very successful in ushering the people swiftly out onto the terrace and across the lawn. Simultaneously, Chyna saw the bodyguards seize the two nervous waiters. They bound their hands behind their backs quickly with tie straps and patted them down. They placed an AK-47 rifle each on the buffet table in front of them. Marsha and Lawrence were leading the blonde man towards the front of the room in handcuffs. As he was walking towards her Chyna suddenly remembered where she knew his face from.
“Lana, Oscar,” she called across the room, “I think these fine agents just caught our hacker!”
***
“Welcome to BBC World News service. It is six o’clock Greenwich Mean Time and we’ll start with the international headlines. Reports coming out of the Middle East today are that the growing threat of civil unrest and military action in the Old City of Homs in Syria has prompted the Embassy of the United States of America to issue several advisories this morning.
The embassy advises that all travel to Syria, Lebanon and the southeast region of Turkey should be avoided at this time. It also states that the process of shutting down embassy operations in Damascus is already underway and that any citizens who are currently in the region should make immediate arrangements to return home or declare their presence to the embassy in case emergency evacuations become necessary.
At the moment, N.A.T.O. peacekeeping troops are on the ground in Damascus and additional support from the U.S. Navy has been stationed in the area to assist should an evacuation of citizens become necessary. We’ll have more on the situation in Syria when we return from the break…”
“What are we going to do, Chyna?” Lana asked.
“We’re leaving,” she replied, “as soon as Anthony gets here to transport those guys to Istanbul. I would have preferred to interrogate them here since part of the crime was committed in Syria, but even the authorities agreed that if we can take care of it somewhere else, they were willing to mark it off as a crime committed in Sweden and therefore an international matter. So we move out as soon as he gets here and secures the suspects.”
“I’ll be glad to leave,” Oscar said. “I’ve never felt this nervous in a country before.”
Just then Lawrence stepped out of the butler’s quarters with his p
acked suitcase ready to go.
“We’re leaving for the embassy in an hour,” he announced. “Agent Stewart just called in his ETA at the U.S. Embassy, so let’s get ready to rumble.”
Chapter Five
“Why did you let him go back there by himself, Greame?” Xavier asked.
“Marko said he had it under control. How could I know he’d be so sloppy?” Greame replied. “He said he was sending a hacker, and then I find out he went and did the job himself.”
‘That’s all well and good, Greame, but he went to the one place in all of Damascus that still takes an ID from people who want to surf the net? Really?”
Xavier sighed deeply into the telephone; Greame could just imagine the look on his face.
“We’ve got to keep things underground right now,” he continued. “There’s no telling what he’s going to tell them about us.”
“Marko ain’t no snitch; he won’t tell them anything.”
“Under any other circumstances, I’d agree with you. Police, local authorities; Marko can handle them but he’s being held by the F.B.I., Greame, and now with Homs going postal over there, he’s being moved to Turkey. I’m sure they’re going to put him in one of those black sites for questioning until he gives us up. You can bet money on that, Greame.”
“He’s a dead man if he does.”
“He’s a dead man either way.”
Things didn’t usually get this complicated with the deals they made, but Marko just seemed cursed recently. It had been a miracle that the Burmese deal had gone off without a hitch, especially with ruby smuggling becoming such a priority for local government. He was just fresh out of luck with that damn falcon. Greame didn’t feel sorry for him; he had told him not to steal from the burial site, a Viking one at that. There were some things that Greame just wouldn’t ever do. Now it seemed Marko was being haunted by the Phoenician Falcon.
***