Incognito’s Paris office was near the Bastille, several flights up a narrow seventeenth century building full of Internet startups, entrepreneurs and assorted hand-to-mouth enterprises. Few were open as Maggie climbed the stairs but Incognito was, thanks to the dedication of its volunteer “hacktivists” who made it their mission to antagonize the establishment as well as select enemies. Maggie knew they would not be deterred by the demise of one of their key members. In fact, quite the opposite.
She stood in the open doorway, metal music grating from a PC at the far end of the room overlooking a narrow alley. At a pair of desks against a wall underneath the poster of a smiley face with a wry smirk and sunglasses—Incognito’s logo—two of the people Maggie knew well enough to say hello to were busy clacking away on keyboards.
Standing behind the two was the man she needed to see.
Waleed, a well-built Arab man in his thirties, with a week’s worth of brown beard and a knit cap, pointed at one of the screens. Ever since the November 2015 Paris attacks, Incognito had been focused on the deactivation of Twitter accounts used by Jihad Nation. Two days ago they had reached 100,000, a number proudly scrawled across a white marker board with several exclamation marks after it.
Operation Abraqa, the effort to cripple Jihad Nation’s Darknet Bitcoin payment system, was originally Dara’s brainchild. Maggie had learned of the endeavor and pushed the Agency to assist and fund it, in return for Jihad Nation’s Darknet information.
When she knocked on the open door frame, Waleed turned, saw her. He wore a faded Rolling Stones T-shirt, the lapping tongue a hint of what it once was, and his brown eyes were intense, as always. Around his neck hung the silver Iman Ali Islamic sword on a thin chain she had never seen him without.
Waleed gave Maggie a stare that wasn’t particularly friendly. The two hackers stopped their work momentarily to look up at her as well; they eyed each other questioningly.
“What are you doing here?” Waleed said to Maggie in rough French. He was fluent enough but cared little for the pronunciation.
“I need Dara’s laptop. But you already know that. Dara’s aunt told you as much this morning—when you stopped by. But you took it anyway. After you threatened her with deportation.”
Waleed placed his hands on his hips. “It’s not your operation to worry about anymore.”
“I put many, many hours into it. Saw it got the funding it needed. It wouldn’t have gotten off the ground without me.”
“Things have changed since Dara died. That laptop is the property of Incognito.”
“With a good deal of software on it provided by my people. I promise I will take excellent care of the machine and have it returned by private courier in a matter of days—as soon as I harvest key files off of it. I won’t delete a thing. And I will provide you any analysis I come up with, and keep you in the loop.”
“Keep me in the loop?” Waleed laughed. “Do you really expect me to believe that?”
“Things actually go better for me when someone else gets the credit.”
“Do you know what kind of reputation your agency enjoys?” He held up a thumb and forefinger, forming a zero. “I didn’t want you part of this in the first place. It was Dara. Well, whatever agreement she made with you died with her.”
“I went out on a limb to get Abraqa noticed, Waleed. It won’t be easy getting my people to move forward now, after the shooting. I’m going to need all the help I can get. That laptop is key.”
“I’ll let you know.” Waleed returned his focus to the screens the two hackers were working on. He pointed at one, said to one of the workers: “Hold off on deleting that one for now. We’ll monitor who follows him.”
“I have to get on a flight in less than an hour, Waleed,” Maggie said.
He gave a casual shrug, not looking at her. “When you take risks, you have to be prepared to suffer the consequences.”
“How far do you think you and your friends are going to get without our help?”
“We get as far as we get. It has always been that way.”
“You don’t have access to satellites, software—I’m going to have to deactivate what’s on Dara’s laptop, you know . . .” She crossed her arms again, sitting back on the desk. “And I’m going to push ahead, with or without you. I’m going to nail those guys, trash their payment system that’s funneling a billion dollars to murderers while you sit here, deleting Twitter accounts. And in that time how many innocent people will die? How many more slaughtered? How many girls raped? Taken as child brides?”
“You need to leave. Before I throw you out.”
“How far do you think you’ll get?” Maggie reached into her jacket pocket, came out with Dara’s cell phone, held it suspended between thumb and forefinger. “Without this?”
Waleed’s mouth fell open for a moment.
“That’s right,” Maggie said. “Security gesture, password, text history. I’ve already texted Kafka once. That’s why we need to work together.”
“That phone is the property of Incognito.”
Maggie slipped the phone back in her pocket. “Kafka gave it to Dara. And she gave it to me. On her deathbed.”
Waleed narrowed his eyes. “You think I couldn’t take that thing away from you?”
“It’s debatable,” she said. Daily runs, trips to the gym, Special Agent training said as much.
Waleed took a step toward Maggie. She reached into her pocket and quickly pulled her house keys, working the tip of one between her index and middle finger. Raising a reinforced fist, she showed him an inch and a half of impromptu stiletto.
Waleed froze.
She lowered her hand. The two volunteers had stopped typing again and were watching, one of them open-mouthed.
“This makes no sense,” Maggie said. “We’re on the same side.” She needed to get to the airport. “OK, I tried. Thanks for nothing. But all you’ve done is slow me down. I do need to ask a favor, though.”
“A favor?” He shook his head.
“I need to remind you and the others here not to discuss Dara’s death. Not with friends or family, even amongst yourselves. For now, Dara is still in the ICU, but stable. You can’t say which hospital yet, but you spoke with her family and she is looking forward to returning to work at Incognito as soon as possible. Can you update your web page with that info today?”
Walled gave a shrug. “Fine.”
“My sympathies for Dara. I’ll be back for her funeral. I’ll keep you posted.” Maggie turned, strode through the doorway.
She heard Waleed’s determined footsteps thumping through the door behind her.
“Maggie.”
She stopped on the landing.
He leaned over the rail. “You promise to send Dara’s laptop back once you get what you need?”
She gave a sigh of relief.
Dara’s laptop was a beat-up MacBook with a bumper sticker across the lid that read Wage Beauty. When Maggie slipped the computer into the cushioned laptop compartment of Dara’s SwissGear backpack, she found a granola bar with a yellow post-it stuck to it with a note from Aunt Amina, telling Dara to stay strong “for our people.” She took a deep breath when she saw that.
“Don’t lose this,” Waleed said, holding up a one-inch long digital key fob on a chain so Maggie could log onto the Incognito network.
Maggie took the fob, added it to her key ring, careful not to break a thumbnail.
“She was my responsibility too.” Waleed placed the power cord into one of the pockets of the backpack, zipped it up, handed to Maggie. “You are Dara now.”
Maggie borrowed Waleed’s phone and let John Rae know she was en route.
Taking off in 15, John Rae texted back. With or without you.
Still pissed. Well, she’d earned that.
On her way to the airport, Maggie switched on Dara’s phone in the back of the cab, checked the voicemail. Nothing. Good. Kafka was honoring her no-call rule. But there was a text from him:
I pray you are safe. please let me know you are well.
She texted back, struggling with the Arabic: alive, thank God, but still very weak.
To her surprise Kafka texted her back immediately: I must see you. Where are you? Hospital Necker?
Damn. Was he tracking her? It was a good thing she had set up MockLoc.
She replied, still in ICU. should not even be on phone. they’ll take it away if they find it. not allowed visitors, only aunt. wait for me to contact you. don’t know when. but promise I will.
I want to see you, he wrote.
She replied: I want that too. but be patient. please.
As you wish. Thank God you are all right.
must go, she replied. enta kol shay’a. You are my all—the phrase Dara used when signing off to Kafka.
Hopefully that would hold him for a while. But how long could Dara “stay” in the ICU?
As the cab approached Le Bourget, she saw the huge camouflage tail of a C-130 US military transport appear above the buildings. Still here. A flush of encouragement offset the weariness of very little sleep. Leaping from the boxy Renault after tossing the driver several bills, she flung Dara’s backpack over her shoulder and once again leveraged her running skills to get her through the airport.
She found John Rae waiting for her, with his carry-on, plus the one she’d left in the cab.
“Don’t you ever pull a stunt like that on me again, little sister,” he said, his eyes darkening.
“I think you’ll find it was worth it, JR. And I did make the flight.”
He picked up his carry-on, left hers sitting on its rollers. “Hurry the hell up.” He turned, headed off.