The Lost Codex (OPSIG Team Black Series Book 3)

by Alan Jacobson

  “I’ll get a view of the area, what’s around, what things we have to be careful of, that type of thing. Less suspicious than two cars driving around looking like we’re looking for someone.”

  “And what about that laptop?” She gestured at the screen. “What if—god forbid—we’re caught?”

  Uzi was striking the keys, logging into the server. “I’ve got a strong password on the BIOS and the drive’s encrypted with Bit Locker. And I’ve added some other goodies. They won’t be able to crack it.”

  “I’ve heard of that Foot Locker thing.”

  He glanced at her. “Uh huh.”

  Vail watched as Uzi played with the trackpad, zooming and virtually walking down various streets.

  “So Greenwich is an interesting place. You’ve heard of the term Greenwich mean time? Or Zulu time?” He got a nod from Vail, so he continued. “It originated here. I seem to remember a street where the meridians meet and the corner store is named ‘The first shop in the world,’ or something like that, because it’s at longitude of zero-zero-zero.”

  “I’ll pass. Sounds gimmicky.”

  “I wouldn’t take you there anyway. It’s only for intelligent people. Its meridian significance is lost on common folk.”

  “Good thing I’m driving or I’d kick you in the balls. Oh, wait, we’re in England. I’d kick you in the bollocks.”

  By the time they reached Greenwich, a light rain had begun falling, shifting the overall mood from bleak to bleaker.

  “Weather’s interfering with my signal. But I got what I needed—I took a look around the area where the cell call came from. There are several buildings we need to check out.”

  Unfortunately, he explained, it was a densely populated neighborhood and the location data provided by the NSA was not as specific as they needed.

  “One of the blocks consists of professional and white collar workers in the service, IT, and financial sectors. It’s possible the tangos are blending in, using them as a cover, but I doubt it. The other area is a little lower rent district, so to speak, so that’d be my best guess. I told Santa and Mo to take the upscale townhomes. We’ll take the middle-class apartment building, take a look around, get a lay of the land, make an educated analysis and pick our spots, then stake out the most promising flats.”

  “Not quite a needle in a haystack, but …”

  “The idea will be to narrow the possibilities down by a process of elimination. But if we can’t, we’ll be stuck looking for that needle.”

  THEY ARRIVED AT THE APARTMENT BUILDING on a court just off Dartmouth Hill, a four-story series of three conjoined brick buildings. DeSantos and Fahad were parked a couple of blocks away.

  “Multiple exits,” Uzi said as Vail pulled into the small parking lot. “Those green doors at ten o’clock, eleven, twelve, and one. See?”

  “Not really. We need to turn on the wipers. But if we do that—”

  “It’ll draw attention to the car. And it’ll look odd that all the cars in the lot have rain-covered windshields except for ours.”

  “Yeah, yeah, yeah,” she said, leaning forward and struggling to see out the window.

  He pulled out his phone, put it on speaker, and waited the two rings until it was answered. “Santa. Status?”

  “It’s raining.”

  “No shit.”

  “Parked at the end of the block. These are like townhouses. Gotta be twenty units along this street alone. Hard to keep an eye on all of them. Lots of cars in driveways, but there are garages for just about every unit. To do this right we really need two cars, one at each end of the long block.”

  “I know,” Uzi said. “But this is what we’ve got, so we’ll make it work. We’ll watch in shifts. Karen’s got the first one here.”

  “I do?” she asked, tearing her gaze away from the apartment building.

  “Mo’s taking ours,” DeSantos said. “Have a good nap. Out.”

  Uzi moved his seat back to a fifty degree angle and shifted his body to get comfortable. He folded his arms and closed his eyes. “Wake me if you see anything.”

  Assuming I don’t fall asleep.

  36

  “Yo, Karen! Wake up. Karen.”

  Vail felt a hard shove, then a poke. “Huh? What?” She sat up and opened her eyes. Still dark. What the hell time is it? She found the dashboard clock: 4:30 AM. I’ve only been sleeping twenty-five minutes?

  “They’re on the move. Start the car.”

  Uzi’s phone buzzed. He answered it as Vail cranked the engine.

  “Hold on,” Uzi said, grabbing her right forearm. He listened a moment, then said, “Shut it. We’re going in.”

  Her eyes burned and she felt like her head weighed fifty pounds. More like a hundred. Just want to go back to sleep.

  “Going in?”

  “Santa and Mo are coming around to follow them. We’re gonna check out their flat.”

  “Can you do that? I need some sleep.”

  Uzi peered out the rain-streaked window, watched two men on foot as they walked about thirty feet from their car and headed toward Dartmouth Hill. Back into the phone: “Okay, I see you coming up the street, headlights off, right? … You got them? They’re leaving the parking lot right now—” He peered out the corner of his right eye, attempting not to turn his head in their direction. “Cool. They’re all yours. Going in. Let you know what we find.”

  Vail pulled her exhausted body out of the seat and gently closed her car door. The prickle of cold raindrops made her shiver. She tightened the muffler around her neck. “Why the hell are they on the move at 4:30 in the morning?”

  “You’re not really expecting an answer, right?” He pulled out his lock pick kit and had the exterior door opened in four seconds. They stepped inside and climbed the steps.

  “How do we know which is their flat?”

  “I saw a light come on in the room fronting the parking lot on the fourth floor. We should be able to figure it out based on that.”

  They reached the last landing, Vail’s legs feeling more like lead than flesh and bones. She stifled a yawn but a low groan escaped her throat.

  “Wake up and get ready,” Uzi whispered as they headed down the dimly lit hall. “That’s the flat right there.” He nodded toward door a dozen feet away.

  They walked up to it and Vail pressed her ear against the metal. She shook her head no.

  Still, they exercised caution. They had their weapons in hand now, untraceable handguns provided by Knox—the Glock L131A1, a British version similar to the models they used in the Bureau—and, most importantly, not found in the United States.

  None of them carried American identification; they were traveling on Canadian passports—a favorite trick of Mossad.

  Uzi did his thing with the lock and Vail quietly opened the door, moving slowly with the barrel of her pistol leading the way.

  The place was dark. Her eyes were adjusted to the low light so she was able to get a decent idea of the flat’s layout. Had there been someone sitting still in the corner, however, she never would have seen him.

  They silently closed the door behind them. Splitting up, they cleared the rooms and reconvened a moment later in the kitchen. The flat was sparse, a fully furnished rental by the looks of it, with two or three men occupying the residence.

  “What are we looking for?” Vail asked in hushed voice. There was no one there, but it was the middle of the night and they did not know how well sound traveled between the units.

  “Anything and everything. But if you see a computer, let me know.”

  “Desktop in the bedroom at the end of the hall.”

  “Show me.”

  Vail led him to it, and he reholstered his weapon. “You’re on point. Someone comes in that door—”

  “I’ll be sure to tell him how atrocious the furniture is, that the
place needs a woman’s touch.”

  “Stay alert and don’t nod off. We have no idea if anyone else lives here and is on his way home from the local pub this very minute.”

  Shit. Good point.

  Uzi woke the computer and the logon screen asked for the password. “Crap. This is gonna take a little longer than I’d hoped.”

  37

  DeSantos was riding shotgun, leaning forward, peering into the dreary darkness. It had stopped raining but the streets were shiny and their tires made unwanted whooshing noise as they drove.

  “Oh Jesus,” DeSantos said. “A traffic circle?”

  “Bloody useless if you ask me. It’s a tiny intersection. What’s the point? More work than just a simple four-way stop sign.”

  The vehicle turned, avoiding the roundabout. “Stay with him,” DeSantos said. “It’s your lucky day. Left turns in the UK don’t go through the stupid circle.” He glanced at Fahad. “Did you say ‘bloody’?”

  “Trying to get into the vernacular,” Fahad said. “If you think like the locals, better chance your cover stays intact.”

  “You’re schooling me in undercover work?”

  Fahad picked up speed a bit and turned as directed, following the car onto Wat Tyler Road. “I don’t like this, Hector. It’s not well lit, but it’s the middle of the night and there are no cars out. Except theirs. And ours.”

  “Just stay with them. If they make us, we’ll deal with it.”

  DeSantos fired up his phone’s GPS and started following along on the screen, using his left hand as a shield to keep the light from illuminating their interior. “Coming up on Shooters Hill Road.” He looked up just in time to see the vehicle ahead of them accelerate and hang a sharp right.

  “Time to deal with it. They made us.”

  “I can see that, Mo. Stay with them. And put our goddamn lights on. No point in trying to do a high speed pursuit without being able to see where we’re going.”

  Fahad did as suggested and said, “They’re in a Fiat. We should be able to make up some ground.”

  As predicted, they closed the gap. The perps swung left onto Hyde Vale, a curving residential street with tall brick apartment buildings on the left and a wooded, hilly landscape to their right.

  The Fiat hit a speed bump well in excess of the safe rate of travel for the road and they lost control, skidding on the slick asphalt and slamming into a blue panel van on the right before bouncing off it and careening into a station wagon.

  “Whoa! Slow down, slow down,” DeSantos yelled. A man jumped out of the back door of the Fiat and took off on foot up the hill into the blind of trees. The sedan then sped off, down Hyde Vale.

  “Shit,” Fahad said as he brought the sedan to a stop. “I’ll take the guy, you follow the car.”

  Fahad got out and DeSantos slid behind the wheel, shoved the shift into first and went in pursuit of the Fiat. In the rearview mirror, he saw Fahad sprint after his man before disappearing into the pitch darkness of the trees.

  As they sped down the curving road, the area turned more residential, the buildings mostly single brick-and-stone homes set back off Hyde Vale with lawns and landscaping out front.

  DeSantos drove hard and caught up to the Fiat—which had a flat left rear tire.

  He rolled down the window, then reached into his jacket and pulled out his Glock. One advantage of driving in the UK was that with the steering wheel on the opposite side of the car, his right hand was free to shoot.

  He leaned out, lined up the tritium sights, and squeezed the trigger. One shot at a time to minimize noise and attention. After firing three rounds, he realized he was succeeding in nothing but generating calls to the Met—something­ they definitely did not want.

  The driver of the Fiat was a persistent little twat because he kept going, turning right onto Royal Hill and swerving through the business district—book shops, pubs, apartments, and more pubs—as a light or two snapped on in response to the ruckus the sedan was making as its backside scraped along the pavement.

  DeSantos was trying to make out the layout of the road ahead, hoping to find a stretch that would be wide enough for him to come up alongside the Fiat and force it against the curb.

  As he passed Burney Street to his right, Royal Hill opened up into a two lane road. But before DeSantos could accelerate, the Fiat hung a right onto a main drag, in what looked like a commercial district. A strip mall—or London’s equivalent—was ahead and he passed a storefront with bold orange and blue signage that read, “ISIS Greenwich Education.”

  DeSantos laughed—this was probably not a good time to be in business with a company named “ISIS” anything.

  The moment of levity vanished as DeSantos passed an HSBC bank branch and decided it was now or never. He had no idea where this joker was headed, and he did not want to be led into an ambush.

  He accelerated and veered left to come around, but the Fiat countered by swerving into the center of the road.

  DeSantos reached into his jacket again and pulled out the Glock. “Enough.” There were few, if any, homes in this area so the risk of a witness or collateral damage was minimal.

  With the third round he hit his target—the Fiat’s right rear tire—and the car slapped down fully against the pavement, sparks emanating from the metal bumper like firecrackers exploding against a dark night sky.

  The front doors opened and out spilled two men. They turned and fired on DeSantos, who ducked beneath the dash as he slammed on the brakes. The windshield shattered and rained fine granules of safety glass across his hair and lap.

  He got out and initiated foot pursuit. They turned left in front of the Mitre Hotel, then passed O’Sullivan’s Bar—and in the reflection of the dark windows, DeSantos caught the image of one of them running with a cell phone pressed against his face.

  Warning bells sounded in DeSantos’s head. He had no backup and he had no idea where they were leading him. But there was nothing he could do.

  They jumped a low wrought iron fence and seemed to be heading back the way they had come, through a lawn in front of what looked like a church, then back onto the main drag, Greenwich High Road, and through town. These two guys were unfortunately fast and they kept DeSantos—a runner himself—at a safe distance.

  They passed the Greenwich Market, a narrow cobblestone alley, where DeSantos saw signs for the Cutty Sark schooner.

  He knew there was a rail line somewhere nearby, which could create complications. There were no trains running at this time of the morning but a station, with its myriad tunnels and passageways, could serve as its own means of escape.

  They turned right onto Thames Street—and again his internal alarm tripped.

  The men had led him into a construction site, which looked to be extensive. They disappeared into the darkness headed along a makeshift sidewalk that was off to the far right of the project.

  DeSantos slowed, removed his Glock, and continued after them. He had not traveled all the way to the UK, chasing a well-known bomb maker, only to break off pursuit when he was close to apprehending him and his accomplice—even if the safer play was to pull back. And if one of the men ahead of him was in fact Qadir Yaseen, then the man with him was likely Tahir Aziz or someone of equal significance.

  Still, he could not shake the bad feeling that this was not a random chase, that they had an escape route planned. And either DeSantos was being led to a convenient place for them to execute him out of view of a surveillance camera, or they had someone waiting to whisk them off to safety.

  He pushed on, his feet crunching the dirt-strewn concrete of the sidewalk, when he felt a stiff breeze ruffle his hair. The smell of water hit his nostrils … and that’s when he realized where he was: the Thames was dead ahead. Was that their objective?

  As he pondered that, he saw signs for the Greenwich Pier—and the sky-blue pipework and aquamarine of
the manmade jetty that projected three dozen feet into the river.

  The two men were now sprinting for the pier—and off to the left, DeSantos heard an outboard engine moving quickly. And with it, he presumed, a small boat of some sort.

  If that were the case, this would be his only opportunity. The men hit the gangway and ran down the incline, which dipped twenty degrees toward the water’s surface. Pulling up to the perpendicular dock—and barely visible in the darkness—was a Zodiac or some other kind of RIB, or rigid inflatable boat.

  It slowed as it approached the pier and the men timed it well, as they reached the mooring platform a moment before their getaway vehicle pulled up. There was no way DeSantos would reach them in time.

  They jogged along the wharf’s edge and hopped into the back of the Zodiac, its engines cut back to an idle.

  With no other boats anchored nearby that DeSantos could use for pursuit, there was only one thing he could do: he pulled up and leveled his Glock.

  PART 2

  “You will invade the Arabian Peninsula, and Allah will enable you to conquer it. You will then invade Persia, and Allah will enable you to conquer it. You will then invade Rome, and Allah will enable you to conquer it.”

  —ISLAMIC TRADITION BASED ON

  THE PROPHET MUHAMMAD’S TEACHINGS

  “It will be the end of freedom of democracy and submission to God. We don’t believe in democracy. As soon as they have authority, Muslims should implement Sharia. This is what we’re trying to teach people … Eventually the whole world will be governed by Sharia and Muslims will have authority over China, Russia, USA, etc. This is the promise of Allah.”

  —ANJEM CHOUDARY, ISLAMIST PREACHER

  “IN HIS OWN WORDS,” BY SOEREN KERN

  GATESTONE INSTITUTE, SEPTEMBER 30, 2014

  “They claim to do this in the name of Islam; that is nonsense, Islam is a religion of peace. They are not Muslims, they are monsters.”

  —David CAMERON, PRIME MINISTER, UK