He sat for five minutes, staring into space and thinking, then made a decision. He paged through the brochure until he found what he needed.
The Internet café was on the eastern side of the gardens. He paid the barista for a half-hour, and she assigned him one of the terminals. He sat down in the cubicle and opened the Web browser. It took him a moment to remember the site URL. It was the fifth today, so he’d rotated to ... bitroup.com.
When the site came up on the screen, he logged in and tabbed to the messages area. He was surprised to see a text file sitting in the “uploaded “section. He double-clicked on the file; it contained two lines of alphanumeric pairs. He jotted the pairs on the back of his brochure. There were 344. He signed off and left.
It took him thirty minutes to create the grid, and another twenty to decode and double-check the message:Saw TV sketch. Suspect compromised, one of your team. Break contact. Proceed Tá Ligado Cyber Café on Rua Bráulio Cordeiro for instructions. 1400 hours. Acknowledge this message by encode: 9M, 6V, 4U, 4D, 7Z.
Hadi read the message twice. Compromised? His mind spun. It wasn’t possible. Ibrahim or one of the others had betrayed him? Why? None of it made sense, but the message was authentic. Break contact. He checked his watch: 11:45. Hurrying now, he encoded the acknowledgment pairs, then returned to the café, typed the response into a text file, then uploaded it.
Ibrahim passed both Fa’ad’s and Ahmed’s cars as he pulled into the parking lot. He found a spot, pulled in, and shut off the engine. Fa’ad and Ahmed had parked one row behind him, separated by half a dozen cars. Out his passenger window he saw Hadi exiting the garden’s main gate. His pace was hurried, his posture tense. Police? Ibrahim wondered. He kept watching, half expecting to see men running after Hadi, but nothing happened.
What’s this?
Hadi reached his car and got in.
Ibrahim made a snap decision. He waited until Hadi’s car was headed toward the entrance driveway, then backed out and followed. He slowed beside Ahmed’s car and gestured for him to follow.
What are you up to, my friend?
80
THEY HOOKED HIM,” Chavez said, punching off the satellite phone. “Two o’clock, an Internet café on Rua Bráulio Cordeiro.”
“Great, where the hell’s that?” Dominic replied, swerving their car as a taxi swept them, the driver honking and yelling. “Not that it matters. We ain’t gonna get there in one piece anyway.”
Chavez was tracing his finger along a city map. “Keep heading east. I’ll steer you.”
“I assume we’re not grabbing him there?”
“Nope. First we gotta make sure he’s alone. We told him to break contact, but who knows? Plus, we’re gonna need some privacy to get done what we gotta get done.”
“Which is?”
“Whatever it takes.”
Dominic smiled grimly.
They found the café and circled the block twice to get the lay of the land, then found a parking spot on the street fifty yards to the north on the other side of an intersection. They got out and walked south. Between a pharmacy and a tire repair shop they found a short alleyway that led to a makeshift junk-yard full of rusted washing machines, car axles, and stacks of old sewer pipes. Chavez led the way to the back of the yard and behind a trash heap. Through a wide-slatted fence they could see the Internet café across the street.
“Shit,” Chavez said.
“What?”
“Just noticed that walkway to the right of the café.”
“Back entrance, maybe,” Dominic said. He checked his watch. Still twenty minutes to go. “I’ll circle around, see if I can get a look.”
Ten minutes later, Chavez’s phone beeped. He pushed the talk button. “Go ahead.”
“There’s a back door, but there’s a Dumpster pushed up against it,” Dom said.
“Bad for fire code, good for us. Okay, come on back.”
Chavez had no sooner taken his finger off the button than a green Chevrolet Marajó slowed down outside the Internet café. Though the angle was oblique, Chavez could see a lone man sitting behind the wheel. The Marajó continued on, then braked and began backing into a space.
“Dom, where are you?”
“Almost back to the intersection.”
“Slow up. We might have our guy.”
“Roger.”
Up the street, the Marajó’s driver got out and started toward the café.
Chavez pushed the button. “It’s our guy.” He gave Dominic a description of Hadi’s car, then said, “Get back to the Hyundai. Shouldn’t take him long.”