So on the flight she’d considered not even delivering the thumb drive. Which was worse? Take it into Iran and hope Ahmed had not sent word ahead to have her arrested once she was across the border? Or throw it away and never return to Prague?
How many choices did she have? If she betrayed Ahmed, how far would he go to punish her? Would he find her in another country? She couldn’t dismiss the possibility. He was some kind of secret agent, he had contacts outside of Prague; if he made it his business to find her, could she hide well enough? And how long a memory would he have? Could she ever feel safe? What about her family?
Just how important was what she did? Would they want to kill her to keep her from telling anyone about it? Ahmed had kidnapped the woman and her husband. At least she was more inclined to accept that as truth. Wouldn’t he kill her? If not him, then others he knew.
She reviewed her options anew. She wasn’t going back to Prague. The city wasn’t big enough for her safety. Some of the girls she’d worked with were living in other cities in Europe—Rome, Paris, Berlin. She’d made no special effort to stay in touch but she had talked with two or three over the last few months. Better to visit one of them, get a small wardrobe, calm down, plan her next step. Yes, that was the better way.
What she could not do was go back to Prague, she reminded herself. Ahmed was there. She’d seen movies. She understood. You always get caught when you go back for things you can buy at any store.
None of which answered her question: what to do now? She puzzled over the decision even as she played on the floor with her brother and sisters. No answer came. Do it or not, both options were filled with risk. After dinner, as the girls bathed and she prepared for bed, Saliha’s mother came up behind her and began slowly brushing her hair.
“I can do it,” Saliha said, reaching up for the brush.
“I want to,” her mother said. “Ahneh always said your beautiful hair was a Gift from Allah.” She leaned down close and whispered in her daughter’s ear. “But it is you who are the gift to us from Allah.” Saliha couldn’t speak she was so moved.
She’d go to Iran. What else could she do?
Wu maneuvered the plane for final approach into his usual Ankara airport. The slight headwind meant he was arriving later than he’d hoped. His legs were cramped and he desperately needed to urinate.
He’d watched with a sinking heart as twilight dissolved into night. He was now checking the petrol gauge every minute. He was dangerously low on fuel but didn’t want to waste the time to land. He was certain he had enough.
It was a vast expanse of night beneath him; his depth perception was shot. He’d been cautioned several times by real pilots that night flying was as dangerous as it got. Disorientation was all too easy. Planes stalled without warning or eased into slow dives, catching the pilot unawares until it was too late. Maintaining pitch and yaw required constant monitoring of the instruments and sometimes flying the craft in a way that seemed counterintuitive.
So he’d been told. For all its virtues and suitability for his needs, the SportCruiser lacked the sophisticated instruments required to safely do what he was doing.
He’d thought about taking a faster commercial flight from Prague to Ankara, leaving the plane to be picked up later, but their passports had not been stamped on entry and it would have raised questions. There was also the matter of the body in Prague. He realized now he’d been too casual about that. If it was discovered and two Asian men were recalled as being in the building around that time, an alert for them would have been issued. Finally, it was very possible they were going to need this handy little airplane. It had proved itself very useful in the past in moving about Turkey.
A few minutes earlier Wu had called the airport and spoken to someone he knew. The runway lights were on, he was told, and there were no other landings or takeoffs expected, though caution was always advised.
As he nosed the plane down and cut back slightly on power, the air was suddenly choppy. The aircraft was rocked in a very unsettling motion. Li sat quietly beside him and Wu wondered if he knew just how dangerous this was. Like most passengers he probably assumed the pilot knew what he was doing. Wu just wished that were true. The SportCruiser lacked landing lights. He’d depend entirely on the runway lights for the landing. He was terrified.
Wu had no real sense of how close the ground was. He could see the runway lights in the distance and slowed the plane to just above stall. In daylight he would not have been so cautious but now he wanted every advantage he could manage.
The craft buffeted again and he abruptly increased power. Maybe too slow wasn’t such a good idea. He glanced at Li who sat unchanged. Wu nosed down more sharply to keep from climbing and the runway seemed to rush at him. He should have practiced this before. There had always been the chance he’d have to do this someday out of necessity. But the truth was, it frightened him so much he’d not wanted to risk it.
Wu wiped a hand on his pants, then the other. His mouth was dry but the bottle was behind him and he didn’t want to take his hands off the control to grope for it. And this was no time for his attention to flag. One moment you were flying, the next you were falling. There was no in-between with an airplane and the change could happen so quickly you had no time to regain the sky.
The turbulence eased and he slowed once again. He was almost there. He decided to overshoot the landing as he didn’t need the entire runway, just a small portion of it. No need to risk landing short. He lowered flaps and felt that slight rise, which told him they were in place. He cut back on the engine and felt the craft start to glide. There was a slight crosswind and he compensated, realizing too late it would carry him to the side of the runway. He hoped he landed before it swept him off the landing strip altogether.
Over the first lights and very close to asphalt, he felt the ground effect grip the craft. The SportCruiser seemed to hang in the air for a long moment, unable to drop through the invisible plane that rode fifteen to twenty-five feet above land. The plane all but hovered, he was now going so slowly, then it happened—the plane dropped. He watched the lights to his right and left and searched for the pavement, letting the plane ease down ever so slightly, nudging it lower as if he didn’t want to crush eggs beneath him, watching the runway slide off to his right as the wind pushed him ever leftward.
Then a wheel touched lightly down, followed a heart-stopping moment later by the other. He cut power. He was on the ground. When he gunned the engine to taxi it sputtered, coughed, then stopped. He was out of petrol.
It was just after 11:30 p.m. before Jeff and Daryl had cleared customs and immigration at Esenboga Airport, Ankara. Now that they could speak freely out of the crowding of the airplane, they sat at the first opportunity.
“Do we take a taxi or rent a car?” Daryl asked. The clothes she’d bought in Prague were a bit flashy but that was all the place had sold.
They had the address Saliha would likely stay at, her family home. They’d feared that she might already have left Ankara but they had to start there.
“I don’t relish driving the streets of Ankara at night,” Jeff said. “I’ve never been here before. I doubt I’m as exhausted as you are, but I’m very, very tired. A taxi is tempting.”
“Then what? I’ll bet this isn’t a very good neighborhood we’re going to, otherwise she wouldn’t be living in Prague working in a nightclub. We can’t just stand around. And you aren’t planning on knocking on the door after midnight, are you? Remember, you scared this woman out of her wits.”
“We take our chances with a car, then.”
As Jeff located a Hertz counter and took what was available, Daryl bought bottles of water, candy bars, anything that looked of use to them. Half an hour later they were dropped at a parking lot. Jeff walked along the row of cars until he found theirs.
“It’s a Fiat,” he said. “It’s all they had.” The Fiorino 1.3 was red and completely unappealing. Squat, small, it had two doors but otherwise looked much like a pan
el truck.
“Doesn’t James Bond drive a sports car or something?”
“You take what they have,” Jeff said. “Get in. I’m told it’s got navigation. You’re in charge.”
Jeff took the driver’s seat, looked over the controls as he adjusted his seat, then groaned. “It’s a manual.”
“You can’t drive a stick shift?”
“It’s been a few years.” Fifteen as near as he could recall.
“It’s like riding a bike.”
“Yeah. Easy for you to say.”
Driving from the parking lot onto the highway was no easy task. He stalled the car twice and counted himself lucky. His main concern as he began to feel comfortable with it was that it would take too much of his attention once they were on crowded city streets. He needed to get the hang of this quickly. They were some fifteen miles from central Ankara on a modern highway. “How’s it look?” he asked.
“It seems to be working all right. Just follow the directions. I told it you speak English.” Daryl opened a candy bar and bottle of water. “You know, you owe your girl a few nice meals.”
49
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND
UNITED NATIONS OFFICE AT GENEVA (UNOG)
AVENUE DE LA PAIX
11:57 P.M. CET
Henri Wille sat at his desk, the hallway outside utterly silent. He couldn’t count how many nights he’d spent like this. Whenever dignitaries came to the palace he worked round the clock. But never before had he been involved in an abduction as well as the murder of an employee. He’d already given reports to the security committee and been told to write one in detail. That’s what he was supposed to be doing now but he realized as he worked on it that events were still ongoing. He could write what had happened to the extent of he knew, but there was much he didn’t know.
Not that the committee would care. Someone needed to take the blame and as head of security it was his neck on the chopping block.
Just before midnight Henri took a moment to reread the police alert on Jeff Aiken and Daryl Haugen. Spyri had told him the man had fled Geneva; that was the word he’d used: “fled.” He’d been angry about it and baffled. A few hours later he’d called back to inform him that the Prague police had issued a pickup notice on the pair.
“She is alive?” he’d asked with relief.
“Yes, so it appears. I am greatly relieved. I never expected such a positive outcome.”
“It is extraordinary. She’d been taken to Prague?”
“Yes.”
“How did it happen?”
“I’m not certain. Details are sketchy, which is my polite way of saying they won’t tell me.”
“Do you know if the police found her?”
“I don’t believe so but I’m not certain.”
“Did she escape?” The man had, why not the woman?
“I don’t know. They are essentially, though politely, stonewalling me. I still can’t understand why he left here without helping us first.”
Henri thought about that for some time and was certain he had the answer. Aiken was a computer expert. It was very likely he’d done the job of the local police faster than they could move. The man had obviously gone to Prague since the municipal police there had issued the alert. The two of them were wanted for questioning regarding a homi cide. The notice didn’t say they were suspects but they might very well be. “What do you know about the dead man in Prague?”
“An Iranian.”
“On a watch list?”
“You know DAP. It is a one-way street with those people.”
“I suppose it’s not important now. I’m just curious.” He paused. “Do you think the man found her?”
“That doesn’t seem likely, though I suppose that is probably why he went there. You have better sources than I do, Henri. Use them, then call me back and tell me what the hell happened.”
Henri called his Interpol counterpart with the Prague police, a senior police official he’d met several times, and asked the same questions. There had been a link to Jeff Aiken. A tall Western couple had been seen leaving the building where the killing took place, he was told. Two Asian men had entered as well and left not long after.
“How was the body discovered?”
“Blood dripped into the apartment below.”
“Is there any evidence putting this couple or the Asian men with the deceased?”
“No. It was just unusual for any of them to be there. The apartments are rented by Middle Eastern immigrants. We’d like to talk to them.”
“What can you tell me about the dead man?”
“This is all confidential, Henri. The name on his Iranian passport was Karim Behzad. He was killed following a violent struggle. There were signs someone had been tied up. A neighbor reported seeing him and another man with the woman earlier. He’d thought she was drunk.”
“What do you know about the deceased?”
“He worked as a waiter. We found two other passports hidden in the apartment.”
“An agent?”
“Probably.”
“What have you discovered about the Asian men?”
“Nothing much. Late twenties, early thirties. Well dressed. We’ve alerted local police to bring in any two men matching these descriptions that they encounter within the city. They may have seen something, they may have seen nothing, they may have killed the man. We don’t know.”
“I see. A ‘tall Western couple’ is not much of a description. Many Czechs would match it.”
“It was unusual in that building as I say.”
“How did you connect this pair described to you to the names Jeff Aiken and Daryl Haugen?”
“Yes, the prize question, my friend. You will owe me a drink after you hear the answer. We received a notice from our American friends giving us the names.” CIA. No surprise there. “They urged us to pick up the American man for questioning, hold the woman if she is with him.”
“Why would they want them held?”
“I can’t say. They don’t share their motivations with me. Perhaps they are employees; that seems likely. Maybe it’s for their own protection. Right now their situation is the same as it is for the Asian men. We don’t know if they are involved in the killing at all. We don’t even know if it’s those two. Different people altogether may have left the building. The Americans may have it wrong.”
“Have you traced them?”
“Yes, they left earlier today on a flight for Ankara, Turkey, before the alert entered the Prague police computer system.”
“Are you aware of any connection between Turkey and Iran in all this?”
The man laughed. “Only if I look on a map.”
Henri read the alert once again and reviewed what he knew. The two Americans were kidnapped here in Geneva by three Iranians. The man escaped. One of the abductors murdered the UNOG official with whom they’d been working and had himself been killed by police. The other two had fled the country with the woman. She’d somehow gained her freedom in Prague. There was another dead Iranian there. The two were now wanted for questioning. Significantly, in Henri’s opinion, they’d not contacted the police or the American embassy. Instead, they’d boarded a commercial flight to Ankara.
No, the pattern seemed clear enough to him. He took another look at the earlier Paris report. Afterward he sent a notice to be kept informed of unfolding events.
LAST DAY
THURSDAY, APRIL 16
FINANCIAL NEWS ANALYSIS
WHEN THE LIGHTS GO OUT—FOR GOOD
By Livingston X. Gooden—Financial News Analysis
April 16
Most of the electrical grid systems in the United States report repeated attempts at penetration by aggressive forms of malware. The attacks are pervasive and not directed at any particular company or region. Experts believe that every significant electrical grid system in the nation has at least some software implanted there by China, Russia, and other nations. Though this malware does not interfere with c
urrent operations, it is believed much of it is intended to transfer control of our electricity producing capability to a foreign power in time of emergency.
The electrical blackout in Yakima, Washington, one week ago, originally attributed to a computer malfunction, is now believed to have been the test of such a capability. “We have found no cause for the fourteen-minute blackout of the WAyk5 [Yakima] region,” said a spokesperson with the company, who asked not to be identified. “We believe someone, somewhere, executed a kill switch as a test.” Efforts to locate malware capable of such an event have thus far been unsuccessful but are ongoing. The only nuclear power station in the Northwest, the Columbia Generating Station in Richland, Washington, shut down for three hours as a safety precaution.
American power companies are rapidly converting to a system known as Smart Grid. This is designed to be customer friendly, allowing individual customers to directly access their account and regulate power into their homes and offices. Many companies view the rapid adoption of Smart Grid as a way to leave behind issues of penetration. Unfortunately, those in charge of the new system appear to have learned nothing. According to the Government Accounting Office, two-thirds of all Smart Grid systems have no special security measures and are as vulnerable to a Yakima-style attack as the old system.
Significantly, analysis of the most recent power grid malware’s behavior reveals startling changes in purpose, according to Bruce Freeman of the Cyber Security Consortium in Seattle, Washington. “The code now permeating our national grid system is intended to stop the system at will. The new code also has the capacity to destroy infrastructure components,” he said in a recent interview. “This is the equivalent to targeted bombing by smart bombs.”
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