There were three beds in the safe house, and at eleven o’clock that morning all were occupied. Yosy and Anna had taken the bunked twins in one bedroom, while one of the 8200 men was racked out on a single in the other. Slaton, in what he was sure was a rigged game, had drawn the short straw and been forced to crash on the couch in the main room.
The second 8200 man was on duty—someone always took watch—and after receiving a message from headquarters he snapped the curtains open sharply in the main room.
The brilliant light of day flooded the apartment.
Bleary-eyed, Slaton rolled over and squinted against the sun. “What is it?”
“Get up, we have to move!” the watch said.
“Why?”
The thirty-something man handed over a secure phone and went to roust the others. Slaton read the message, and a minute later everyone was in the main room. They all looked at him expectantly, and Slaton shared the bad news that he himself was still digesting. “Moussa is dead.”
“What?” said Anna. “How?”
“The Office has it on good authority that he was murdered. They found him on the bed in his room, right where I left him, with a single gunshot to the head.”
“Shot by who?” Yosy asked.
Slaton shook his head. “I don’t know. He was alive when I left, but there’s no time to figure it out. Three of us were at the hotel last night, and Anna was seen leaving the bar with him. The Office wants us to abort immediately and get out of the country.”
This surprised no one. Mossad had suffered its share of embarrassments over the years, agents getting arrested and held for show trials after missions had gone south. Now, when an op showed the first signs of cratering, headquarters was spring-loaded to bail out.
“Do we sanitize the house?” Anna asked.
Slaton considered it. There were a number of options for an unscheduled egress. If time wasn’t critical, a team might take a full day to wipe away prints, minimize DNA, remove trash to a distant receptacle, and even plant misleading evidence. The other extreme was to grab your gun, phone, and passport, and run for the door.
“Twenty minutes,” he said. “Pack up, clean what you can, try not to leave anything behind. We have two cars, so we’ll split—I go with Anna in the Renault, everybody else in the Fiat. We’ll go north into Belgium. Yosy, you and the others head for Paris. I’ll give The Office a heads-up and they can make arrangements beyond that.”
Not another word was said. Everyone began moving.
The bartender came in before his scheduled shift on Bausch’s request. Bausch met the man in the empty lounge, and the interview commenced with his witness framed by rows of top-shelf liquor and branded beer taps.
“Yes, Mr. Tayeb was here last night,” said the lanky Belgian, whose name was Fellaini.
“Was he with anyone?” Bausch asked.
“Not when he arrived. He came alone, ordered his usual gin and tonic. Most nights he had one or two, but last night, after his second, he began socializing with a blonde.”
“Had you seen this woman before?”
“No, never. We have a small cast of girls who come regularly, but never this one. I would have remembered her—very striking, late twenties, wearing a tight black dress.”
“She was alone?”
“Yes. I saw one other man approach her, but she brushed him away. After that she began talking to Monsieur Tayeb and the drinks began to flow.”
“She drank as well?”
“Yes, but only one, I think. She took her time.”
“Did they leave together?”
“They did, and a good thing. Monsieur Tayeb had put down six or seven drinks by then—I can look up the bill, if you like. I’m not sure he would have found his room by himself.”
“Is it possible the two of them might have known each other?”
Fellaini chuckled. “I’ve been in the pit a long time, monsieur. Long enough to spot a professional girl … and not a cheap one. Such things happen at Le Cristal. Many wealthy men stay with us, mostly for business. Some bring their mistresses, but very few bring their wives.”
Bausch knew Fellaini was editorializing, but only just. “Have you ever seen Mr. Tayeb partake in such … socialization before?”
The barkeep thought about it. “Not this week, but on previous visits … perhaps once or twice. I can tell you I’ve never seen him drink so much.”
Bausch didn’t know what to make of that, but he was sure it was no coincidence. A new girl showing up, Moussa drinking heavily. Also, the barkeep’s impression that the girl had ignored another approach. The Tayeb brothers had their share of enemies. A few might be criminals, but the majority were police, prosecutors, even a few intelligence agencies. It was the last group that stuck in his head.
He was about to pose his next question when his phone chimed with an email. He checked it and saw a message from the technical team. They had arrived an hour ago and were going over the security video in the room behind the office. They’d found something important.
Bausch told the bartender he would be back shortly. He went to the lobby, rounded the front desk, and walked into a maze of administrative offices. He found a tech named Astrid Lavelle waiting for him.
She led him to a tiny office where she’d set up a laptop. “We’ve been able to access the hotel security system,” she said as she began typing, “but there’s a problem.”
“What kind of problem?” Bausch asked, leaning in for a better look.
Footage began playing, and he recognized the lobby he’d just walked through. The scene was quiet. He saw an older couple walking toward the elevator, the man using a cane. A red-sweatered clerk at the front desk said something and gave them a hospitable wave.
“Note the time and date stamp,” said Lavelle.
Bausch read it aloud, “Eleven thirty-four last night.”
“Right. Now I’m going to play another file.”
She did, and Bausch saw the time as three hours later, 2:33 in the morning. He immediately saw the problem. The same older couple walked past. Same cane, same elevator, same wave from the red sweater at the desk.
“I don’t understand,” he said. “How can that be?”
“At some point yesterday evening—we haven’t nailed down the exact time—the network shut down and this loop was fed in its place. So far, we’ve seen the same thirty-minute sequence sixteen times in a row.”
“Are you saying—”
“Yes. The hotel’s surveillance system has been hacked.”
Bausch’s grim expression deepened. Things were getting increasingly complex. Increasingly delicate. He was already convinced that the murder of Moussa Tayeb was no tryst-with-a-hooker gone bad. Everything he was seeing pointed to a well-planned hit. An operation that now included the ability to hack into security systems. In light of Moussa Tayeb’s background, with which he was loosely familiar, a state-sponsored assassination seemed the most likely scenario.
As if sensing his plunging thoughts, Lavelle said, “There is some good news. Based on the rough description of the mystery woman you distributed, this came up.” She began typing again, and images ran from what looked like a different security system. Bausch saw a long-legged blonde in a black dress climbing into a Renault.
“Where did you get this?” he asked.
“Parking garage three blocks away. As it turns out, we already had a warrant to monitor the place—there’s been a car theft ring working the area. Purely a coincidence, but one of my techs remembered. He checked last night’s footage and we got lucky. This system hasn’t been tampered with, so the time stamp is good. Twelve thirty-seven last night.”
“Outstanding work. Can you capture the best image and send it to me? I’d like to show the barkeeper to confirm it’s the right woman.”
“No problem. And it gets better.” Lavelle paused play, enlarged the image, and pointed to the back of the car. “With a little enhancement, I think we can pull this plate number.”
Bausch’s mood went on an upswing. He told Lavelle to prioritize the plate number, and minutes later he was outside the hotel’s front portico. He lit a cigarette, took a long draw, and pulled out his phone. On his first call, Bausch explained his findings to his supervisor, the regional commissioner, who agreed that locating the woman’s car was the priority.
His second call went to a number that was answered not at Grand Ducal Police headquarters, but in a derelict rooming house on the southern edge of the city. The man he spoke to there gave, almost word-for-word, an identical response. “I want you to find this woman.”