Spy Who Jumped Off the Screen : A Novel (9781101565766)

by Caplan, Thomas

  “And apparently,” said Delilah, “impart a thrill the likes of which you may never before have experienced.”

  “Can we let that go?” Bingo said.

  “Before it sticks?” asked Nevada.

  “That would be nice,” replied Bingo, turning at once back to Ty. “Now, if it’s just you who is walking, maybe it’s not such a big effing deal, right? But if we’re looking for the one man or woman in a large crowd whose behavior is out of character, then it’s often a different story. Say you’re in Shanghai and you’re headed from the Bund to Pudong. You might want to watch the screen on the lower left. That’s what’s on it. There must be a hundred ways to make that trip, many of them zigzags. The program knows them all, and it won’t target you for choosing one or another or even changing between two different routes, but if you’ve been traveling to wherever long enough for the CVP to assume that’s where you’re going and then out of nowhere you decide to turn around or go somewhere else or you change your rate of advance appreciably, that’s when it lights you up. You’re supposed to be right-handed, but you pick up a pen with your left—the same story.”

  Ty considered the plan. “So you propose to prod him with one program and do surveillance of him with another?”

  “Simultaneously,” Delilah said. “It’s simply a matter of superimposing one lens upon another, then determining what we’ve trapped in the intersection of both sets of data.”

  “How much have we learned about the people on the other end of Frost’s transactions?” Ty asked.

  “Alphabet soup again,” Bingo explained. “By and large their real names never make it online, and even when they do, that’s seldom all there is to the story. There’s a whole sorry cast of in-betweens out there, from the A-list to the penny-ante. From time to time, we have our suspicions, which are eventually confirmed or contradicted, but whoever they are, they’re just one more set of hands through which bad things pass on their way to the really dangerous fellows, most of whose names are household words. Not even Santal would have dealt directly with them. It would have been far too dangerous for both parties. No, Frost’s clients will be mere cutouts, über-hedgies, in-and-out types. Only instead of some broad, it’s the world they fuck.”

  “We haven’t talked about one thing,” Ty said.

  “The odds,” Nevada shot back.

  “You read my mind,” Ty said. “Do we have any idea of the odds of a cybersearch like this actually working?”

  “How could we? We’re playing on a far frontier,” Jonty said. “And on far frontiers there is never enough history to draw that kind of conclusion.”

  “That’s what I thought you would say.”

  “It’s still our best shot,” Bingo said.

  “We’re long past the point of being able to reconsider that question,” Ty said, “but you know the old military maxim, don’t you? ‘No battle plan ever survives contact with the enemy.’ So right now it’s up to you and Lady Luck.”

  Bingo smiled. “Luck’s where you come in,” he said.

  Chapter Fifty-one

  Philip steeled himself. For a man of his age, he had been required to make many fateful decisions, yet never before so many in one day. Had he made them with admirable resolve, or had impetuousness gotten the better of him at any stage? It was still too soon to tell, but as the summer afternoon lengthened, he felt not only the thrill of the impending moment but an apprehension he could not identify. Before him in the pilot house of one of the two trawlers that he, with Ian’s sanction, had had fitted in Majorca sat a Sony VAIO laptop, its seventeen-inch screen alight and subdivided into graphs, much like the home screen of a Bloomberg machine. Unlike those on a Bloomberg machine, however, the functions expressed on these graphs reflected highly privileged information. These were, in fact, functions Philip had designed himself to express not merely the times and amounts of the myriad wire transfers that were now under way but the orderliness with which they were being completed. Suspicious by nature, he was especially afraid of shenanigans now that his own life and future were on the line and so had conceived an imaginative list of variables that, when put into equations elaborated from the basic y = f(x) structure of calculus, would alert him to trouble in time to adjust his plans and resolve it.

  So far no such alert had been raised, but forty-seven minutes ago there’d been a thirty-second hiccup when one of the subdivided screens had frozen. Doubtless it had had to do with transmission or reception, he’d told himself. They were at sea, after all. Still, the fear that it might, just possibly, have been more than either of those had begun to torment him.

  For the moment the Mediterranean was still, although a front was predicted to bring unsettled weather overnight. Because of this, Philip was tempted to advance his schedule, set sail sooner. The schedule had been carefully worked out, taking into account all imaginable contingencies. The trawlers were seaworthy. To alter such an intricate plan at this stage would risk the introduction of unknown factors. To find himself closer to Arabia than Europe even a moment before the funds were where they should be would be to chance fate and human nature with an abandon only a fool would summon.

  So long as the functions reported on the laptop were satisfactory, with money flowing toward him in millions of small, innocent-seeming increments, he decided he would not deviate from his course. The arrangement, of his devising, still struck him as ingenious. A deposit of one-third of the total was his already. A second third would be held by his various banks in various lockboxes, either to be transferred to his accounts when the warheads had crossed over the halfway mark, defined as the north latitude of 35.575242 degrees, or returned to their originators if for any reason the warheads had not done so by a time certain. The final third of his new fortune would be released to his accounts from the same or similar lockboxes at the very instant the warheads had passed inspection and changed hands. An encrypted code to authorize such releases had already been provided to the purchasers.

  The ever more brilliant western sky drew his attention, turning his thoughts to the Atlantic and, across it, to Washington. He wondered how the government there would react—indeed, if it would. It might be a long time, or no time, before the American security services found out. Even then it would take them longer to trace the weapons back through Europe to the Strait of Kerch, at which point suspicion might begin to settle on him or, more likely, the authorities would ironically seek his help. Confident that he possessed the wit, charm and reputation to placate—and would by then possess the resources to fend off—anyone, Philip was prepared for either eventuality.

  Would he miss Surpass? In a way, as one mourned the loss of any luxury, he expected he would, but he was not meant to live on the sea or against a canvas of incessant hospitality. His psyche was more private, more selfish and, in its cool insistence upon logic, perhaps even more rational than Ian’s. Where would he live? In Switzerland, probably, for Switzerland was the most orderly state in the world. And perhaps he would have an estate somewhere in eastern Germany, where the wild forests only appeared to have been tamed.

  His mobile rang. It was a new and, as usual, temporary telephone. He knew that it was Andrej, for Andrej was the only one who had its number. “Yes,” Philip said.

  “I don’t know if you’ve heard. Tragically, there was a fire at Mr. Santal’s former office,” Andrej said.

  “No,” Philip said, his voice aghast. “I hadn’t. When?”

  “Not very long ago,” Andrej said softly. “I just heard about it from someone who had seen the smoke. My first thought was, what a run of bad luck. My second was that someone really was out to get him.”

  “It would certainly appear that way,” Philip said. “I hope no one was hurt.”

  “I don’t know about any of the staff,” Andrej replied, “but you will be much relieved to know that your friend Miss Cavill and that actor—what’s his nam
e?”

  “Ty Hunter,” Philip said, struggling to disguise the rising irritation in his voice.

  “Yes. In any event, fortunately, they did manage to escape. I don’t know what they were doing there, but according to the person I spoke to, theirs was a feat of real derring-do. Apparently they were hanging by ropes from one of those old gun emplacements until they were rescued. I am sure it will be on television.”

  “They had probably come to see me,” Philip said. “I’d been trying to help Isabella.”

  “I know you are close to her. That’s why I thought you’d want to know.”

  “I was very close to her,” Philip said, with feigned melancholy. “I’m not sure if I am anymore. That’s her call. But thank you for telling me. I’m sorry, but much relieved.”

  “You are most welcome.”

  “And how are you, by the way?” Philip inquired as an afterthought.

  “One has a plan and one sticks to it.” Andrej sighed. “That’s how I am: on course to die, like everyone else, but hoping for a modicum of fun in the meantime.”

  “Oh, yes indeed, concentrate on the fun,” Philip advised, then switched off his phone. This was a complication he had not expected but was nevertheless prepared for. If, eventually, he were to be confronted by Isabella, he would shatter her with a simple narrative. He had not received her call nor contacted her because he himself had been kidnapped by the same Slavs who had attempted to sequester her and Ty. He had no idea for whom they were working, but it was no secret that a man in Ian’s position would have enemies, not all of them known to him. As for Ty, Philip would dismiss him and his theories, if there were any, with flattery. What was an actor but a fabulist, weaving imaginary tales? The more he thought about it, the more convinced he became that the ploy could work. At the end of the day, Isabella was a European. So was Philip. Ty was something else, dazzling but as transient and unstable as a comet. He might have a face and a form ripe for infatuation, the careless investment of young girls’ idle dreams, but surely not for commitment.

  Philip relished his newly hopeful thoughts, discerning not only danger now but opportunity in the still sea through which the trawler slowly sailed. Only when, from the corner of his eye, he registered unfamiliar motion did he return his full attention to the transaction at hand.

  One of the functions displayed on his laptop had frozen. He stared at it as if his gaze might correct a false image, but instead of unfreezing, the function began to reverse itself. Did this mean that money was being taken from him or simply put into escrow until the second and final payments were made? Uncertain, he watched attentively. Again the function froze. Again it reversed itself. In the right angle where the x and y axes intersected, when he right-clicked on the touch pad, a small green neon wheel cycled rapidly backward, signaling, he feared, the unraveling of his expectations. Then it stopped, jerked forward as if to park, and that square of the screen went momentarily dark. When, with a jolt, it subsequently restored itself, it was back to where it both had and should have been, and Philip breathed a sigh of relief.

  It was not to be a long sigh, however, for another screen, displaying yet another function, suddenly began to tremble, showing a rate of transfer at first accelerating far beyond what was prudent, then halting entirely.

  For ten minutes that status quo prevailed.

  Disciplining his agitation, Philip stood. “I’m going for a breath of fresh air,” he informed the captain, a sullen veteran of North Sea rigs and also one of the Slav mercenaries who had remained with him.

  When he returned to the pilot house, he was relieved to discover absolutely no changes on his computer’s display, but shortly thereafter, one by one, not in sequence but randomly, all the functions began to misbehave, to shiver, or fast-forward, or rewind at intemperate, unsteady speeds. He lowered the special program, called up Google, which was at once steady as a rock. So was the Financial Times. No, Philip concluded, the problem resided in neither his software nor his device. Someone—perhaps one or both of the Al-Dosari twins, or al-Awad, or a rogue banker, or perhaps, God forbid, a government—was toying with his accounts. He had to resign himself to that probability quickly, and he had to act in light of it.

  He immediately picked up his mobile and telephoned Andrej. “I think it’s time to let the dog out,” he instructed.

  “He hasn’t been asking to go. Are you certain?”

  “Trust me. He’s bound to give you problems later if you don’t.”

  No sooner had Philip disconnected than Andrej pressed in a number that activated a small motor that only partially retracted the lid of a lead box he had the day before managed to place in the hold of an Airbus 330 cargo plane on the tarmac of Gibraltar Airport. He then telephoned the leader of the team of Slavs who had taken up position in the galleries above Ian Santal’s office. “Is Mrs. Potyomkin there?” he inquired, according to a preestablished code.

  “I’m afraid she’s not here at the moment,” answered the gravel-voiced mercenary, “but she is expected.”

  “Suppose I call back in a quarter of an hour, then?”

  “Please. That should be fine.”

  Chapter Fifty-two

  “The bastard’s got titanium nerves, I’ll give him that,” Jonty Patel said. “We’ve been pulling his chain for over an hour, and he’s still steady as you go. I wouldn’t be.”

  “Or he isn’t and the CVP’s missed it,” Ty said.

  “I’m not sure what he’s seeing,” Delilah said.

  “They have to be functions of some sort,” said Nevada Smith. “I’m assuming he doesn’t possess our capabilities, because, as far as we know, no one else does. So there’s no way he’d be able to penetrate and then deencrypt data from so many different financial institutions. No, what he’d have to do would be to rely on his access to his own accounts, meaning de Novo’s and those of whatever other nominees he has, and to be watching not only their balances but—somehow, according to some algorithm—the habits of those who are depositing into them. I say we go for broke. If we can’t arouse his suspicions to the point where he’ll act on them, let’s make him sure he’s being played.”

  “You mean, steal everything?” asked Jonty gleefully. “I agree. That ought to do it.”

  “Actually, more now you see it, now you don’t,” Nevada said. “We can’t keep it, of course. We’d be thieves if we did. Eventually they’d have to prosecute us, and they would, somewhere. And, what’s just as important, our cover story wouldn’t hold up.”

  “Regrettable but true,” replied Jonty. “Where shall we park it?”

  “In Bingo’s current account,” suggested Delilah.

  “Hardly fair,” said Jonty, “when it could do so much more good in mine.”

  “The problem is, I doubt that Frost’s afraid of either of you,” Delilah ventured. “He will be afraid of the people who gave it to him, though.”

  “Let’s go, then,” Jonty acceded grudgingly.

  But before Bingo could reply, Admiral Cotton appeared at the side door of the geeks’ office. Stepping forward, he beckoned both Bingo and Ty toward him. “We have a lead,” he said quietly. “One of the radiation sensors at Gib Airport has picked up something from one of the cargo planes.”

  “I’m on my way,” Ty said.

  “Not yet,” said Giles Cotton. “Let the hazmat crew go in first. In the meantime there are both police and military cordons around the plane and all air traffic’s been grounded.”

  “Do you want us to hold off?” Bingo queried.

  Giles Cotton looked at Ty.

  “I don’t really see any reason for you to,” Ty said. “Do you, Admiral?”

  “No,” the admiral told Bingo. “Keep doing what you’re doing.”

  When Bingo stepped back into the camera’s line of sight, Ty followed Giles Cotton into the corridor. �
��Was it about to take off?”

  “No,” the admiral replied. “Which is surprising, isn’t it?”

  “Unless Frost was following a hide-in-plain-sight strategy,” Ty said. “Does Oliver know?”

  “He does. I spoke with him just before I came to find you. Until we hear back from the hazmat team, he’s staying put organizing the task force.”

  “How long will it take for us to hear back?”

  “I shouldn’t think very long. In fact, this may be the word we’re waiting for,” Giles Cotton replied, directing Ty’s attention to the rapid approach of a young naval aide.

  The plane in question had been parked as far from the new civilian terminal as was possible without trespassing on the domain of the Royal Air Force. Surrounding it now were members of that air force’s police detail, as well as of the local constabulary, their vehicles arranged like the points of a compass at a safe distance from the aircraft. Only the van bearing the hazmat crew was permitted through the perimeter. It halted forward of the plane’s wing assembly. Four men emerged from it, anonymous in camouflage Type 1 Nuclear Biological Chemical suits. The last of these proceeded swiftly to a set of portable stairs that had recently been abandoned by a departing flight, then drove the stairs across fifty meters of restricted tarmac to the forward cabin door of the Airbus. When it was in place, the others followed him up it. He had just withdrawn the door’s recessed handle and begun to turn it counterclockwise when a sharp backfire resounded in the distance. The men on the lower steps turned at once, unsure what it was or where it had come from. A second backfire followed, then a third, a fourth and a fifth. The first round from the Heckler & Koch PSG1 struck the hazmat worker at the door in the right shoulder. He stumbled against the stair rail before crumpling onto the top landing. The third entered the man one step from the bottom on the ladder at the base of his neck as they fled for cover. Within a minute he was dead.