No Remorse

by Ian Walkley

  According to the file, Prince Abu-Bakr was seventy-two years old and some distant relative of the Saudi King. They’d had a falling-out as young men, and the CIA suspected Abu-Bakr was financing insurgents and opposition groups in the Kingdom. He had made a fortune negotiating illegal arms deals for authoritarian regimes going back as far as Idi Amin in Uganda, Ferdinand Marcos in the Philippines, and more recently, Saddam Hussein. He’d been on the CIA’s watchlist for twenty years, but it was only with the capture of the Bin Laden hard drives in Abbottabad that he’d been implicated in financially supporting Al Qaeda. They showed he had contributed more than $140 million to the group, most of it funnelled through a charity for orphans called the Hunnafite Brotherhood Foundation. The US Justice Department was investigating, but that could take years, by which time, the old man would probably be dead.

  He clicked to the next page. An image appeared on screen showing Abu-Bakr with three younger men. There were three sons and six daughters. Two of the sons, Abdullah and Tariq, were employed in the Saudi regime. The third son, Khalid, had been exiled after he’d killed a young royal. Khalid had married a girl from Saddam’s clan, Salimah, in order to cement Prince Abu-Bakr’s business relationship with Saddam Hussein, which only served to increase suspicion about Abu-Bakr’s terrorist links. Khalid was also suspected of supporting terrorism, using his megayacht Princess Aliya to ferry drugs from the Taliban, which were exchanged for weapons. But as yet there was no proof of such activities.

  A second photograph showed Prince Abu-Bakr, Khalid and a third man with two attractive Arab women in bikinis on board the Princess Aliya. Strange, he thought. These women were not dressed modestly, not hijab, and nobody in the photo seemed at all concerned. Very strange. He zoomed in to read the names listed under the photograph. The one on the left was Sheriti, Khalid’s personal trainer, and the one on the right was Rubi, one of Abu-Bakr’s daughters. Remarkable that Abu-Bakr would allow his daughter to wear a bikini, particularly in his presence. Then he saw the other name.

  The other man in the photograph was Adnan Ziad.

  ~ * ~

  30

  The man’s badge identified him as Dr. Sebastian Delacroix, Surgical Registrar. Hers said she was Nurse Lilly Martiene. They had waited until the early hours of the morning. From their surveillance, they figured that the target and his wife and bodyguards would be exhausted after the numerous visitors they’d had over the past two days. Even so, they carried noise-suppressed pistols under their blue theatre scrubs in the event of any complication.

  Like any other hospital, Dubai’s Pierre Morrell Cancer Clinic had routine checks, specialist checks and training checks, even during the night, so there was no reason for their visit to be questioned. The masks shouldn’t be an issue either. All staff wore masks into the old man’s room because of the risk of further infection.

  As they passed the nursing station they nodded to the ward clerk, who barely acknowledged them as she raised her voice on the phone in what sounded like an argument.

  The bodyguard on duty sat half-asleep in his chair, head lolling on his shoulder. But as they went to open the door, he roused himself and blocked their path, an unyielding expression on his face.

  “Dr. Pratelle asked me to check his patient,” Dr. Delacroix said quietly.

  “His Highness is asleep.”

  “We won’t wake him. Just a routine check. The next day or so is time-critical for his recovery.”

  The bodyguard narrowed his eyes and seemed uncertain for a moment, then grunted and ushered them into the room. The lights were dimmed. The woman was asleep under a blanket on a sofa.

  Perfect.

  The nurse gently held her fingers near Prince Abu-Bakr’s wrist as though checking his pulse, while the doctor made a show of checking the chart. By rights, she should have checked his blood pressure, but that risked waking him.

  “Pulse weak but regular,” she whispered, for the benefit of the bodyguard.

  “When was the last time he had his blood sugar checked?” the doctor asked.

  The bodyguard shot him a strange look. “How should I know?”

  “I was speaking to the nurse,” he said, squinting in the dim light as he examined the chart.

  “Yesterday, doctor,” she murmured, glancing at the woman.

  “Check the IV lines. Increase saline flow by two points,” he ordered.

  “Yes, doctor.”

  She checked the blood drip and the catheter draining his lung cavity. She checked the flow rate of the saline drip, turning the thumbwheel marginally to increase flow.

  “Would you mind?” the doctor asked the guard, holding up the chart and gesturing at the door.

  The guard opened the door to let in more light.

  “Shukran.“

  It took only three seconds while the bodyguard was distracted for the nurse to stick the needle into the saline bag and inject its contents. The bodyguard probably wouldn’t have noticed even if he’d been looking directly at her. The injection contained a tiny amount of ricin in a saline solution. Anton had obtained the poison from a contact in the Bulgarian Security Service.

  Anastia capped the needle, careful to avoid what would have been a fatal stick injury, before replacing it in her pocket. The poison would distribute into Abu-Bakr’s drip, allowing them plenty of time to escape.

  A short time after the poison flowed from the drip into Abu-Bakr’s vein, he would die. Perhaps quickly, from a massive allergic reaction, or perhaps slowly, from multiple organ failure. Regardless, he would die within the next twenty-four hours. It helped that he was in such a weak condition. Most likely, medical staff would assume that it was simply his frailty. Chances were slim they would run tests or investigate the visit of the nonexistent Dr. Delacroix and Nurse Martiene.

  She nodded, and Anton replaced the clipboard on the end of the bed. They left, nodding again to the ward clerk who ignored them, preoccupied as she was in a furious conversation with her errant husband.

  Anastia leaned towards Anton. “Now, about that holiday you promised me in Koh Samui.”

  ~ * ~

  31

  “From all the packets of data collected overnight by a device called a packet sniffer, I’ve isolated the Princess Aliya’s wireless network from the others in the locality,” Tally explained, a sparkle of mischief in her eyes, as her fingers moved like a concert pianist across the keyboard. “Now I’m profiling the network so I can determine what security protocols they’re using. Then I’ll figure out how to exploit any vulnerabilities.”

  “In other words, you’re trying to hack into their network.” Mac went over to their room’s kitchenette facility and began to brew a pot of coffee.

  “Well, yes. But you’re making it sound easier than it is. So far I haven’t found any vulnerability. Abu-Bakr must have a pretty competent computer guy.”

  “Coffee?”

  “Please. Lots of milk, no sugar.”

  Tally seemed to be over the games that she’d played at the restaurant back in Nice, but that didn’t mean he could trust her. She was too close to Wisebaum, and he didn’t know her well enough. He had no intention of telling her about Martinique or Paris, of the significance of the name Ziad, or of his plans to pursue Sophia’s kidnappers. But he needed her skills to find out more about Ziad. Was this the same Ziad that The Frenchman had sold the two girls to?

  “I thought I read where Abu-Bakr gave the boat to Khalid some years ago. So why are we hacking here?” He passed Tally a steaming mug of coffee.

  “Thanks.” She smiled at him and took a sip, then blew on the drink to cool it. “We’re using Khalid to get to Prince Abu-Bakr. Since his father’s been sick, Khalid has taken over his shipping business. We don’t have any evidence on Khalid’s involvement with terrorist networks. Not yet, anyway. Then again, maybe I’ll get something we could use later. We just need something, some email or contact details that will allow us to make up an email and send it to Abu-Bakr. That would then allow us to trace his co
mputer and place a keylogger on his computer like we did with Brazhlov.”

  “And if you can’t hack in?”

  “Then I’ll try a dictionary attack. That’s what these babies are for.” She pointed at the four five-terabyte external storage drives. “We have every word in every language, every first name and surname in every telephone directory, every place name and email address. Slang terms, you name it.”

  “You’re kidding, right? That’s got to be impossible.”

  Tally waggled her head, grinning proudly. “The internet is constantly being trawled and the database updated in real time. Our software will crack almost any encrypted password in minutes, unless it’s a random combination of numbers and letters of more than ten characters.”

  “What if everyone on Princess Aliya has a long, random password?”

  “Most people can’t remember complex passwords. Someone on the Princess Aliya will be using a simple password, believe me.”

  “But how do you cope with all that Arabic? I can speak it, but the writing’s a little more difficult.”

  “I think my eidetic memory makes it easier. I can read and write Arabic and quite a few other languages, actually. But if all else fails, I have some extremely powerful translator software.”

  “If it’s anything like Google Translate, its probably not—”

  “It’s a few steps up from that, I can assure you.”

  Mac watched for a while, becoming increasingly fascinated at the way Tally worked with three computers at once.

  Without warning, her eyes flashed up at him. “What’re you grinning at?”

  He hadn’t realised he was staring so intently. “I was... just wondering what that big red button was.”

  “That’s the panic switch. If there’s trouble, we just hit that switch and the computers lock up. The only way they can be unlocked is through a complex password given to us from Montreal. Any attempt to break in and the hard drives self-destruct.”

  “Impressive. Derek mentioned how valuable they are. By the way, there was a strange-looking guy in one of the photos from the briefing file. Adnan Ziad. Got anything in that photographic memory of yours about him?”

  Tally nodded and with a couple of clicks of the mouse brought up a profile shot. “Works for Khalid. Security chief or something. From Karachi, Pakistan. We don’t know much about him, other than he’s worked for Khalid for a long time. Why do you ask?”

  “Oh, just thought I saw him as we walked through the lobby,” he lied. “What do you want me to do while I’m waiting for you to hack in?”

  Tally held up a brick-sized object that looked like a GPS unit, and a tiny device he recognised as an audio bug. “We want you to try and plant these on the Princess Aliya.”

  Mac raised his eyebrows. “What is this, the 1980s? That the smallest unit you have? The one’s I’ve used are about the size of a matchbox.”

  Tally smiled. For the first time he spotted a small round scar under her left eye, like a chicken pox scar. Strange he hadn’t noticed that before.

  She shrugged. “It’s the battery and the waterproofing. It has to send a signal to a satellite for six months. We’ll be able to monitor where the boat goes and potentially identify Khalid’s connections with terrorist groups or weapons suppliers, information that will support our suspicions about Khalid’s support for terrorism. Then we’ll be able to target him.”

  A knock at the door. Room service.

  “Just in time. I’m starved,” he said. “Jet lag, I guess.”

  Tally stretched her arms and yawned. “You have some money for a tip?”

  “Wait. Check the security viewer first.” As he turned to her, he reached for his wallet and knocked it onto the floor.

  “Just a minute!” Tally called out, picking up the wallet. She recoiled, raised her eyebrows. “And what, may I ask, are those?”

  “What, you’ve never seen condoms before?”

  “Not ones that look like they’re past their expiry date. How long have you had them in there?” Her voice oozed with sarcasm.

  Mac coughed. “A while. Emergency supply.”

  “Only two? Well, let me reassure you, there won’t be any emergencies in Dubai.” She took out two bills and thrust the wallet at him, grinning. “Wow, you really know how to impress a girl, Rambo.”

  ~ * ~

  32

  Strolling with a daypack along the marina near the hotel where the Princess Aliya was berthed, Mac lingered among tourists taking photographs of the magnificent vessel. He had a palm-sized camera with a 25X zoom. Even if his photos weren’t of much intelligence value, taking them gave him an excuse to study ways he might sneak aboard later. The GPS was big and he’d need to find somewhere that was rarely used to hide it. A storage cupboard, maybe. Further aft, he spotted four barrels secured outside the superstructure, ready to deploy life rafts in an emergency. Perfect. Except they were about ten metres up.

  Men were still loading provisions, but there was no obvious security. He decided to test the defences. With an audio listening device hidden in his palm, he ambled up the gangway and posed grinning, camera at arm’s length, taking photos of himself on board. Almost immediately, a solidly built crewmember appeared at the top of the stairs.

  “This private. You leave now.”

  He waved. “G’day, mate.” He hoped he sounded like an Australian. “Any chance of a yap with the Captain? I’m a yachtie looking for work.”

  The other man shook his head and signalled for him to get off the boat, then pulled out a two-way and spoke in Arabic: “Just another idiot tourist. I’ll wait until he leaves.”

  Mac understood every word, being fluent in Arabic, but gave no indication. “I’ll come back later, with me resume,” he called up to the man. Backing off the vessel, he deliberately lost his footing, and as he grabbed the rail he attached a tiny bug on the rail’s underside. It could transmit about eight hundred metres, more than enough to reach the hotel room. He headed back and stopped at the beachside bar, where he ordered a Coke and plugged in the bug earpiece that looked like an iPod.

  He listened. Nothing. Nobody seemed inclined to chat on the stern deck. All he had on tape after an hour of inactivity was one long fart. He was about to go upstairs when he heard some voices on the vessel, and soon after a group passed him, heading towards the car park. Leading the group was a man he badly wanted to talk to. Ziad. He was carrying a maroon briefcase. Following Ziad and four men were three women in western-style clothes—the personal trainer, Sheriti, the sister, Rubi, and one he didn’t recognise, a teenage Arab girl.

  If only he could figure out a way to isolate Ziad and take him somewhere to interrogate for an hour or two...

  He took a discreet photograph of the group and followed them as they drove the short distance to the busy Madinat Jumeirah souk, whose castle-like facade contrasted with the ultra-modern silhouette of the nearby Burj Al Arab. They climbed aboard an a bra that ferried them along a canal. Mac hurried on foot through the crowd along the promenade by the canal. After they disembarked, the women headed for the clothing boutiques with two bodyguards while Ziad and his two men went in the opposite direction, to the gold bazaar.

  Ziad disappeared into a gold shop. After several minutes, Mac wandered inside, browsing the gold bracelets, rings and other trinkets. A well-groomed and overly perfumed young man asked if he could assist. There was no sign of Ziad, but his two men stood outside the door leading to the rear of the store. It appeared that a little business was being transacted, no doubt over a glass of sugary mint tea. Mac left the store and made a note of its name. Soon after, he spotted Rubi and the girl entering a beauty salon. Their bodyguards stood outside.

  Sheriti strolled off alone, and he decided to follow. Later, he wondered why he had done that, and he couldn’t come up with a rational answer. Gut instinct, he guessed. Sheriti hurried past the entrance to The Noodle House and turned left at the amphitheatre, slipping through an exit door. He raced to the next exit so she wouldn’t
spot him following her, and emerged on the promenade beside the canal.

  Vanished.

  Damn!

  He bought a freshly squeezed orange juice and ambled along, browsing the stalls while watching for her. And then he spotted her, in the shadow of a palm tree, with a burqa-clad woman. A pre-arranged meeting, had to be. They ambled along the almost deserted walkway beside a canal, occasionally checking their surroundings as they walked. Mac’s suspicious nature made him wonder if the person under the burqa might be a man. A secret boyfriend? He’d had plenty of experience studying people in burqas in Afghanistan and he decided that no, it was probably a woman.

  After looking around, the burqa woman passed Sheriti a bag with the Madinat logo. Sheriti lifted the item halfway out of the bag to see what it was, then let it slide back. It was the distinctive white box of an Apple laptop computer. Why, he wondered, would a woman be delivering a computer to Sheriti at what appeared to be a clandestine meeting? What else might be happening here?