A Deceit to Die For (20 page)

“Death . . . finds us . . . all. Take care . . . how . . . it finds you.”

That was the last thing he was able to say. Five minutes later, the professor was dead. The man in charge began barking orders and raining curses down on the whole lot of them. If his curses had come to pass, the whole neighborhood would have been burnt with fire from heaven, swallowed up by the earth and erased forever. For another ten minutes, they looked around for the diary, but it was not there either. This revelation triggered another round of cursing as bad as the first. When Salih was informed of the situation, he said they were all bastard sons of a donkey and ordered them to leave without a single trace that they had ever been there.

CHAPTER
18

Mrs. Davenport was irritated. By this time, she should have been on her second cup of coffee, but this morning she hadn’t had a sip. When she arrived at the office, just after eight o’clock, Dr. O’Brien had still not picked up the disc she had left on her desk for him. It was the Power Point file he had requested for his presentation that morning. She had knocked on the door to his office. It had swung open, but he was not there. He had to be somewhere near if his door was open. Thinking that maybe he was in the restroom, she had gone back to her office and put the coffee on. When she returned a few minutes later, he was still not in.

She had called his cell phone. There was no answer. She had left a message. Her next call had been to the receptionist at the information desk in the conference hall. They scoured the building looking for him. He was nowhere to be found.
Maybe he was delayed in traffic? He would have called.
Besides, why was his office door open? She had to inform someone.

She scanned the faculty list looking for Dr. Jones’ number. He was on the conference’s organizing committee. Hopefully, he could make a last minute adjustment to the schedule. The phone began to ring, but before it was answered, Dr. Brown poked his head in the door.

“Have you seen Dr. O’Brien? I wanted to ask a question about how feedback from the breakout sessions was being collected.”

“No, I am looking for him myself.”

“No problem, I’ll catch him after the presentation this morning.”

Dr. Jones answered his cell phone.

“Good morning.”

She smiled at Dr. Brown and pointed to the phone. He smiled that he understood and walked away.

“Hello, Dr. Jones. I’m afraid that Dr. O’Brien has not shown up yet today.”

Dr. Jones did not take this news well.

“Pam, I’m standing on the platform in the conference hall getting ready to introduce his session!”

“I understand, sir. The disk with the Power Point presentation he planned to use is right here on my desk, but I can’t find him. I have called his cell phone and his house and left messages in both places. He isn’t answering.”

“He wasn’t at my session yesterday either, and he told me he was looking forward to it. Let me call my secretary and ask her to contact Dr. Bennet. She was going to present tomorrow morning. We’ll have to ask her to switch places with Dr. O’Brien.”

Mrs. Davenport hung up the phone and then bent down under her desk to turn the tower on, but stopped when her hand brushed the mouse and the computer screen came to life.
That’s strange
, she thought,
I would have sworn I turned that off yesterday when I left
.

At precisely nine o’clock, Dr. Jones walked up to the podium and told the audience that, due to unforeseen and extraordinary circumstances, it would be necessary to change the program this morning. He asked that everyone be patient and assured them that the session would begin momentarily. For the first fifteen minutes, everyone in the conference hall had been quite content to chat over their coffee, but now he could see people casting curious looks around the conference hall as if attempting to actually see what was causing the delay. Dr. Jones was a model of composure. He minded the P’s and Q’s—Punctuality, professionalism, protocol. There was no Q, but he considered his list far superior to the Pints and Quarts of the English pubs in which the phrase had allegedly originated.

Inside, though, he was panicking. Ian’s presentation was the result of years of research on the socio-religious factors surrounding the collapse of the Byzantine Empire. It was supposed to have been the highlight of the conference.
Where the hell is he?
Ian would never leave anyone in the lurch. He wanted to rush over to Ian’s house and find out what in the world was going on. He was concerned and wanted to act on that. Instead, he found himself fretting over how this unprofessional glitch in the program was going to reflect on the university. He resented the fact that he had to stand before his colleagues apologizing for this disruption to the program. He could see that the hall full of researchers and professors had begun to get fidgety and impatient.
Where is Dr. Bennet
?

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C
AIRO
  
Ahmet hadn’t had breakfast and it was nearly time for his noon prayers. It was not quite ten o’clock in London, where the drama was unfolding. This was not turning out to be as smooth as they had hoped. The professor’s last words and his temporary internet files were proof that he had figured out almost everything. According to Salih, their men had torn the place apart, only to come up empty handed.
What are we missing here?

Somehow the package had slipped through their fingers. The IT intercept team said that Dr. O’Brien’s phone had been off until he came home that night and that only one person had left a message during this time. The message was suspicious, but impossible to trace. The eyes of the man who had found the document would never open again. His sun had set last night, and now Ahmet regretted his sudden demise. Maybe the excitement and stress had caused a heart attack . . .

If he had been alive, he could have been persuaded to talk. Salih had seemed confident that the document was being carried in the man’s briefcase. It had been a careless assumption.
Damn!
Ahmet closed his eyes, forced himself to shut out unproductive thoughts and get back on task.
Be methodical,
he told himself.
There has to be a break in the chain somewhere
.
Our man saw the physical document in Dr. O’Brien’s hands on Monday. The operation was conducted less than forty-eight hours later. We know from his internet search history that he had probably figured it all out, and his dying words about George Sale confirmed it. Still, he couldn’t have known he was in danger. It was impossible.

But he knew that wasn’t true. It was possible. It had happened. Ahmet’s job was to find out how, and few could do it better.
Retrace every step, catalogue every conversation, every email, every . . . every everything
. He dialed Salih.

“
As-salamu alaykum
.”

“
Wa Alaykum As-salam
.”

“Do we have any leads yet on where the document is?”

“No, but Allah is all-seeing and aids those who keep faith. We are retracing his steps now. Our analysis should be finished within the hour.”

“Salih, we know the professor was on the right track. I’m sure he already figured out almost everything. What we have to do is find where he would put something for safe-keeping. You said that there were irregularities in his routine yesterday. Did he not have a tail?”

“No, we deemed it unnecessary.”

Ahmet knew that in Salih’s place he wouldn’t have put a tail on the man either. It was a difficult undertaking, and there had been no reason for O’Brien to be suspicious or for them to worry about evasive action. Still, hindsight was 20/20, and a tail might have prevented this undesirable situation.

“Find out where he banks, maybe he put it in a safe deposit box. Maybe he visited a trusted friend. Send everything that was recovered to PGP key
Hüdavendigar
.”

Salih replaced the phone on the receiver. The brotherhood refrained from using encryption on a regular basis because it drew unwanted attention. In fact, their American operations were forbidden from using it at all because it essentially meant extending an invitation to the FBI to install a trojan horse, Magic Lantern or whatever their latest key-logger was. American had already created the Big Brother society the populace feared, but it had all been done quietly, unobtrusively and in the name of national security.

Fortunately, the Internet had become such a garbage pile of information that it was possible to hide reams of information right in the open. The FBI was working hard on open source intelligence monitors to track the hundreds of thousands of blogs and junk websites. The fact that they publicized their efforts was proof their claims were bullshit. It was propaganda aimed at instilling fear and paranoia to prevent people from using it.
They might be able to search every website in the world and every blog for certain keywords, but what terrorist was going to use sensitive words in his communications?
It was ludicrous.

Ahmet had a dozen different encryption channels and just as many separate keys. Ahmet did nothing randomly, and Salih wondered what the choice of key signified. He was annoyed. It had only been fifteen hours since their team had tried to recover the document. They were working on it and had never failed a mission yet.
Why is Ahmet trying to micromanage this project
? If he had lived in Cairo as long as Ahmet had, he would have understood the man’s desperation to get out.

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Fifteen minutes into Dr. Bennet’s presentation, Dr. Jones felt his cell phone go off in his breast pocket. It had been muted, but he hadn’t wanted to turn it off in case Ian should call. He discreetly slipped into the aisle and walked through the doors to the side of the stage.

“Hello.”

“Dr. Jones?”

“Speaking.”

“Sir, I’m afraid there is a bit of a problem here. Dr. O’Brien’s door is locked, and no one is answering. None of the neighbors saw him leave today. Shall I call the police, sir?”

“No, I will take care of it. Thanks for taking the time to stop by his place.”

“Sorry I couldn’t be of more help.”

Dr. Jones hung up and dialed a friend. It was too soon to involve the police.
For heaven’s sake, what would I tell them? That a professor had failed to show up for a lecture? If that were cause for concern, the police in London would never have a moment’s rest.
Still, his friend, John McIntosh, might be able to offer some advice. He was now a chief superintendent at the Metropolitan Police Service. In spite of his new title, all his friends still called him Inspector McIntosh.

“This is Dr. Jones. I would like to speak with Chief Superintendent McIntosh.”

“One moment sir, while I connect you.” He looked down at his watch. It was just after ten o’clock.

“Dr. Jones, what a pleasant surprise. How can I help you?”

“Sorry to bother you, John, but I could use your assistance.”

The professor quickly described how Ian had failed to show up for a most important lecture and related what he had learned.

“I can have a constable stop by and check it out. I’ll call you as soon as I hear something.”

“Thank you, John. I wouldn’t normally bother you, but Professor O’Brien’s presentation at this conference is essentially a summary of his life’s work. I can’t imagine what would have delayed him. It is so completely out of character for Ian not to let us know that he would be late. I’m afraid something must be wrong.”

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Zeki stepped up to the window at passport control and handed the female officer his passport.

“Good morning, Mr. uh . . . Sorry, I’m not sure I can pronounce this.”