Constructed for emergencies only, al-Qasr’s underground hideaway was hellishly cramped. Below the battery-powered lamp bracketed to the hardboard panel, al-Qasr squinted at his laptop, sweat dripping onto his keyboard.
Fiona hadn’t fooled him. He’d suspected an Agency honey-trap from the start. It had taken him all morning, and all of his wiles, to distract her long enough to link his laptop to her hard drive: a state-of-the-art metaphor from which al-Qasr derived private satisfaction. He’d long realised his so-called colleague Bob Lowenfeld’s interest wasn’t simply academic. Experience of Lowenfeld’s duplicity had given al-Qasr the scent. Having accessed Bob’s computer data and codes, Fiona’s system would be a breeze to crack. Al-Qasr smiled at the prospect of ‘listening in’ to internal CIA traffic and observing their inevitable pursuit of him. It would not be long now; his hour was almost upon him.
Al-Qasr stopped dead. A CCTV system monitoring his lab flickered into life. Al-Qasr slammed the laptop closed and focused on the monitor. Bob Lowenfeld! Lowenfeld was extracting additional drives from al-Qasr’s computer and imaging system.
‘Motherfucker!’
Al-Qasr skidded his Jag by the entrance to RIBOTech’s car park. He didn’t want to be seen from his lab window. He reversed, parked beneath a cluster of tall pines, and walked round in the dappled light to the rear trade entrance. He knocked on the cafeteria’s kitchen window.
‘Sorry, Jolene, think I left something in the cafeteria over lunch.’
‘Oh, I didn’t see you.’
‘I’m the invisible man.’
‘You look all right to me, honey!’
Smiling, the cook returned to her washing up, while al-Qasr strode through the dining hall to the back stairs. The first-floor reception was empty: normal for a Saturday afternoon. The only thing that mattered was to extract his latest files before Lowenfeld found them. Distracted by Fiona, he’d been stupid.
His office door was open.
Fiona.
She turned in shock. ‘Professor! I er…’
Al-Qasr smiled. ‘What a nice surprise. Can’t you get enough of old Sami?’