Dead or Alive - By Tom Clancy Page 0,238

on, until you’ve filled the OTP grid.”

“And the numbers are random?” This from Granger.

“Pseudo-random, but you wouldn’t be able to tell unless you had a whole bunch of OTPs to number-crunch. The more complicated the formula, the more random the numbers, but at some point you can’t run the calculations with pencil and paper.”

“So what formula are they using?”

“Month, day, and year, all added together. Take today, for example: May 21, 2010 ...” He wrote:5 + 21 + 2010 = 2036

“You’d just use the middle two digits. Rounding up the zero, of course.”

“And thirteen is your new seed number,” Hendley said.

“You got it.”

“And all their OTPs use the same method?”

“All the ones we got from Almasi’s safe.”

“Damn nice work, Gavin.”

“Thanks.” He left.

“That boy just saved our ass,” Granger said.

Knowing Allah would take it as a sign of faithlessness, Hadi had always resisted believing in omens, but the proximity of Rio’s Botanical Garden to the O Cristo Redentor, or Christ the Redeemer statue, was unnerving. But then again, he reminded himself, in Rio everything seemed close to the O Cristo Redentor. Sitting at 2,300 feet atop Corcovado Mountain, gazing down at hundreds of square miles of jungle and urban sprawl, the 120-foot, 600-ton soapstone-and-concrete monolith was the city’s most famous landmark—and a reminder to Hadi that he was in a largely heathen country.

Hadi had made good time after parting company with Ibrahim and the others, but he’d spent the first two hours of the journey with his hands clenched white on the wheel and looking in his rearview mirror every twenty seconds.

An hour after dawn he had pulled into the municipality of Seropédica, on the far eastern outskirts of Rio. Thirty miles to the east he could see Rio proper: five hundred square miles of city holding some twelve million souls—almost half the population of Saudi Arabia in just one city. São Paulo was larger still, but he’d landed there at night and driven around the northern edge of the city on his way to his hotel in Caieiras.

At the garden’s entrance he bought a ticket and a brochure/ map from the cashier. The brochure gave him the highlights of the gardens—350 acres, 7,000 species of tropical plants, research laboratories ... He flipped through the pages until he found the listing for specific sites. The aviary was at the top of the list. He oriented himself on the map and started walking. It was a bright, sunny day, and the humidity was already unbearable. Far to the south, he could see the cap of black smoke over São Paulo, so dense that it looked like night had fallen over that section of the coast.

Halfway to his destination, he was passing an ice cream shop and glanced in the window. A small television mounted in the corner of the shop was tuned to Record News. Images of the refinery fire, some taken from the ground and some from a helicopter, were playing beside the anchorwoman’s face. She turned to face another camera, a change of topic, and suddenly a sketch appeared on the screen. The likeness was not perfect but was close enough that Hadi felt his heart lurch in his chest.

This can’t be, he thought. Who saw me? They’d left no witnesses, of that he was certain. The refinery security truck that had passed by while they were setting the charges had been too far away to see him. A surveillance camera, perhaps? No, that wasn’t right. If they had a real image of him, they would have broadcast that, not a sketch.

He continued to watch the report, expecting to see his sketch followed by one of Ibrahim, then Fa’ad, then Ahmed, but his alone stayed on the screen.

Think, think ...

He spotted a souvenir shop across the food court. He walked across to the shop and stepped inside. He checked for television sets or radios; there were none, so he browsed around, not wanting to appear in a hurry, before selecting a baseball cap emblazoned with the Botanical Garden’s logo. He paid cash for it, declined a bag, then walked out and put on the cap, pulling it close to his eyebrows. He checked his watch. He was early for the rendezvous by almost seventy minutes. He walked over to a concrete ledge surrounding a fern bed and sat down.

Had Ibrahim and the others heard about the sketch? If so, they may not show up. They’d discussed contingencies for pursuit, for capture, and for the death of team members during the

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