Trader of secrets

Chapter Thirty-Seven

Some people have a natural gift for hand-eye coordination. Sarah Madriani was one of them. Adin was surprised how well she had done on the FBI’s indoor firing range.

He thought that the triple-burst recoil on the short-barreled MP5 would intimidate her, but it didn’t. She sucked it up, held the muzzle down, and, with a thirty-round clip, blew out the target, chest high, center mass.

It was with Adin’s handgun, the Glock, that she seemed most comfortable. With it she was able to punch intersecting holes in several of the targets, something a first-time shooter almost never did.

Adin was impressed. Of course, shooting paper targets was a lot like playing golf. Nobody was firing back. A novice with nothing to lose could afford to be relaxed. A single muzzle flash in their direction and the heart rate would jump threefold. The conscious brain would turn to jelly. It was why the tips of the spears, the international badasses who faced fire for a living-the Navy Seals and Delta Force in the States, Special Air Service in Britain, and Shayetet 13 in Israel-often required that each of their members put a million rounds downrange in training situations each year. In the field, under fire, the only part of themselves they wanted to bring to the game were their hair-trigger automated motor skills.

“Can we stay a little longer, just a few more rounds?” Sarah was like a kid, smiling, glad to be out of the condo. She was wearing one of the official FBI baseball caps the range master had given her when she and Adin first arrived.

“I wish we could, but we can’t,” he told her. “I have to make a phone call.” Adin looked at his watch. “And I’m already late.”

“Hot date?” She looked at him and winked.

“No. Actually, it’s business.”

“OK, then I guess we can go,” she said.

They cleared the firearms, released the empty clips, and opened the chambers to make sure there were no live rounds inside. Adin held up the MP5 for the range master to see. The guy waved him over and Adin placed the submachine gun back in the rack. He put his Glock in his side pouch empty, though he had two fully loaded clips in the zippered pocket. They headed out.

“I want to thank you,” she said. “I haven’t had that much fun in a long time.”

“Perhaps we can we do it again.”

“You think so?”

“Sure, if we can find the time. Look at your schedule, and we’ll see if we can set it up.”

“Yeah, right,” said Sarah. “I’ll just call my secretary and have her check my calendar. You know, I don’t think you realize how lucky you are.”

“In what way?”

“You have a job, a career that takes you all over the world.”

“I have to admit, at the moment, as you Americans might say, ‘life doesn’t suck,’ ” said Adin.

“But I’m left here to worry about my father, who is off someplace God knows where and for God knows how long. I’m left in a helpless position totally powerless to do anything. Everyone treats me like a child, and I’m not. I’m left to sit with Bugsy, the only one who seems to understand me. I want my father back. I want my life back.”

“You have to admit, the dog’s pretty nice,” said Adin.

“Well, thank you. I’ll tell him you said so. And Herman was worried about what you might do to me. Now I know. You’re just using me to get to Bugsy. You just want to kidnap my dog.”

“Now that you mention it.”

“Well, thanks. That certainly reinforces my self-image.”

“I’m just kidding.”

“For that you owe me at least another two hours at the range.”

“Duly noted. I’ll mark it down,” said Adin.

They headed for the door. By the time they got outside, it was dark, the ebbing tide of rush hour in Washington, the red taillights of cars streaming down Pennsylvania Avenue.

They walked on talking and laughing. By the time they covered the few blocks to the condo, Sarah wondered where the time had gone. Minutes later they stepped off the elevator upstairs. She glanced up at him and said, “So what does your schedule look like tomorrow?”

“You’re worse than a child at Christmas,” he told her.

“What do you mean?”

“You can’t wait to go back and shoot.”

“Or you could loan me your pistol and some bullets and I could set up targets in the hallway of the condo. After all, it would make Herman feel better if I spent a little time with him shooting.”

Adin laughed.

“You didn’t answer my question. Are you busy tomorrow? After work, I mean.”

“Why?”

“Why don’t you come to dinner, say about seven? I’ve got some steaks in the fridge, and I do a wicked salad.”

“Do you think it would be all right with Herman?”

“Once you two get to know each other, it’ll be fine,” said Sarah.

He looked at his watch. “It sounds like a date,” said Adin. “Tell Bugsy I’ll see him tomorrow night.”

She gave him a sideways glance and smiled.

“Sorry, I’m late. I gotta run.” Adin started to move backward down the hall toward his room. “See you tomorrow night.”

“You like rice or potatoes with your meat?” she asked

“Whatever you have will be fine,” said Adin.

“I have dog kibble.”

Adin laughed. “See you.”

“Bye.”

He disappeared around the corner.

Sarah turned the other direction and walked back toward her condo.

Once inside the apartment Adin wasted no time. He went to the bedroom and tossed the fanny pack with the empty handgun onto the bed. He would clean it later.

He reached into the closet, lifted the empty sports bag off the hook, then changed into his running togs, shorts, a T-shirt, and a pair of Nikes.

Adin opened the top drawer of the desk and grabbed the phone inside. He disconnected the charging cord and connected the earbuds with the small, wired mic. He dropped the phone and the wired mic along with his wallet and ID into the sports bag and left the apartment.

Downstairs he nodded and smiled to the female agent at the front desk. He watched as she made an entry in the log showing the time of his departure. Besides the ubiquitous security cameras, those residing in the condo complex were checked in and out by the security staff. Adin had had to sign the register and agree to provide security for Sarah before she could accompany him to the range.

He stepped out onto the sidewalk and began to jog back toward the FBI building. He crossed Pennsylvania Avenue and ran toward Constitution and the Mall.

Hirst didn’t stop until he reached the area near the Tidal Basin, where he took a seat on one of the benches. He unzipped the sports bag and opened the top wide. He didn’t take out the black phone. Instead he propped it up so that the stub antenna would have a clear, unrestricted line of sight into the open heavens above the Mall.

Adin plugged the two small buds into his ears and left the tiny mic dangling on the wire just below his chin. He reached in the bag, got his wallet, and retrieved a small folded piece of paper from the section of the billfold. Then he punched a series of numbers on the phone. The first was a code to power up. The second, only two digits, was a quick-dial number to the party on the other end.

The satellite telephone operated behind two levels of encryption, one provided by the manufacturer and a second layer of algorithms added by the people who had modified the phone and given it to Hirst. It was set up to dial a single number.

Adin waited for almost a minute while the signal worked its way to the satellite in low orbit 485 miles above Earth.

He listened anxiously for the three-second high-pitched tone. When he heard it, Adin waited until it stopped. Then he spoke, not in English or Hebrew, but in Farsi, a single word: “Redwing!”

The magicians who modified the phone had installed safety mechanisms. Both the password and the digitally confirmed voiceprint of the person saying it were required before the satellite would allow the signal to be transmitted to the party on the other end. Anyone finding the phone, even if they could power it up, would never be able to complete the connection or trace it to its ultimate destination without the password delivered in Adin’s voice.

It took another seven seconds for the call to reach its destination. When it did, it was answered in a crackling tone, again in Farsi: “Hello, Redwing. Thrush here. Ready for data burst.”

Adin waited a few seconds so that he wouldn’t step on any words coming the other way. There was always a delay on the satellite. “No burst. Request voice trans.” He waited again. Adin did not have time to prepare a keyed-in message that would allow him to send the information in the form of a high-speed data burst. This was the preferred method of transmission since the time of exposure to interception was always much less.

A few seconds later the response came back: “Voice trans authorized. Ready… Transmit.” They had turned on the audio recording device.

He waited again, and then spoke: “Cover intact. Contact made. Leopard in Paris. Repeat, Leopard in Paris.”

Zeb Thorpe had bought into the cover story that Adin Hirst was employed by the Israeli Security Agency, Israel’s counterpoint to the FBI. The ISA was responsible for Israeli internal security. The FBI swallowed the cover because it had been carefully laid.

The FBI had checked with Tel Aviv in the hours after Adin arrived and requested confirming documentation. This was standard procedure. They were blinded by the fact that everything, right down to Adin’s picture, squared with information on file in Israeli records.

Adin had been sent out by his handlers soon after word leaked that the White House was beginning to panic over two missing NASA scientists. And Adin knew why. They were trying to put the cork back in the bottle, but it was too late, unless Madriani screwed up the works again.

He looked at the small folded piece of paper from his wallet. It was a quick, nearly illegible note in Adin’s hand, a copy of the message left on the kitchen pass-through written down by Sarah on the phone as she spoke with her father.

Adin talked slowly and clearly into the tiny mic below his chin. “Current location, Hotel Claude Bernard. Repeat, Hotel Claude Bernard. This is urgent. Employ immediate dispatch. Use all available methods. Message ended.” Adin pushed a button on the phone and terminated the call.

Newspaper accounts that were now nearly a year old had mentioned Madriani by name in connection with the failed attack on the U.S. Naval Base at Coronado in California. Rumors persisted that the Coronado attack involved a radioactive device. The government denied it. The feds had sought to discredit the rumor by publishing it in thousands of conspiracy-riddled comments on nut sites across the Internet. American intelligence had learned that the fastest way to hide the truth was to soak it in paranoia and hang it out on the web for the world to see.

But when Madriani’s name popped up again, this time in connection with the failed Washington bombing, even the legitimate press began asking questions. They wanted to know if the two attacks were linked. If not, how did the FBI explain Madriani’s presence in both cases? What was the connection? The government’s response was to put the lawyer and everyone around him who might know the answer under the FBI’s protective wing. In that way anyone with questions couldn’t get to them. Only the bombers knew the answer.

When Adin found out that Thorpe had allowed Madriani and his friends to leave Washington, he knew something was up. He put his ear to the ground, trying to find out where they had gone and why. They had not gone home to California. One of their other operatives working with Adin’s people had checked. The law office was closed and the house was empty.

Adin couldn’t get near Thorpe, and even if he could, it wouldn’t have done him any good. The man was tight-lipped. So were his chief lieutenants. When you want information, you go to the bottom. In this case one of Britain’s female assistants.

Over drinks in a bar she decided to charm Adin with her inside knowledge. She let it drop that Thorpe was in a cold sweat. The White House was flogging him hourly over two missing American scientists. They were desperate for the FBI to find them, though the woman didn’t know precisely why.

What she did know was that there was a middleman, someone on the FBI’s most wanted list, named Liquida, who was somehow connected to the earlier two events, the attack in Coronado and the bombing in Washington. It was Liquida who had tried to kill Sarah Madriani in Ohio and who was believed to have some connection to the two scientists.

Liquida was the missing link.

She told Adin that Thorpe was frantic because he had used Madriani as bait in an effort to lure Liquida into the open. He was hoping that Liquida would lead the FBI to the two missing men.

Without appearing too interested, he asked her if she knew where Madriani was. She told him that no one knew except her boss and Thorpe, and possibly Madriani’s daughter.

Adin knew he had to act and act quickly. The next morning he went to see Jim Ellison, head of the bureau’s International Ops training program, with the story that got him into Sarah’s condo.

The fact that he liked her made no difference, not to the people Adin worked for. Once he realized she was the key to finding her father, Sarah Madriani became a player. Whether she knew it or not, she was now fair game.