| |
––––––––
“ANYTHING?” MANNY STORMED into our hotel rooms, going straight to where Francine was sitting on one of the sofas. “Do you know where that bloody woman is?”
Roxy shook her head with a smile and walked to Vinnie in the kitchenette. Colin closed the door behind us and took my hand with a reassuring squeeze. We settled on the sofa across from Francine. Ivan sat down next to Daniel on the other sofa, Phillip reading a newspaper on the third sofa.
“She’s turned off her phone, so the virus I put on her phone is useless. And before you ask, I tried to power it up, but I think she’s removed the battery.” The admiration was clear on Francine’s face. “She knows how to disappear.”
“Not what I want to hear.” Manny rubbed both hands over his head.
Ivan frowned. “Wait. You put a virus on her phone?”
“Just a little one.” She winked and looked at Colin. “Ty lost Bree? How’s that possible?”
“Clearly he’s an incompetent criminal.” Manny sat down next to Francine.
“He’s not a convicted criminal, Millard.” Colin’s tone was terse, his facial muscles tense. “But he’s one of the best if you want someone followed.”
“And she gave him the slip.” Francine smiled. “That’s my kinda girl.”
“Do you have anything on his assistant?” Daniel asked.
“Let me ask.” Ivan got up and swiped his smartphone screen. He walked to the large windows overlooking the park behind the hotel and spoke quietly in Czech.
Manny continued his grumbling about wasting time going to Bree’s hotel only to find that she’d gone in shortly after we’d stopped at Jarda Zonyga’s hotel. But she’d left again twenty minutes later. I thought about her sitting alone in Colin’s SUV while we interviewed Antonin Korn.
“Have you looked at Bree’s incoming and outgoing calls?” I wasn’t surprised when Francine nodded. “Anything interesting?”
“In my opinion, yes.” She glanced at Ivan when he asked a loud question into his phone, his posture tense. “For an investigative journalist who is here to investigate a story, she made very, very, very few calls. And received even fewer. I counted seven outgoing calls in the last twenty-four hours and nine incoming. I checked the numbers and they’re nothing to pay attention to.”
“Are you sure?” I needed to know that she had done her due diligence.
“Oh, I made very sure of that. I have a bad feeling about this and don’t want anything to happen to Bree.” She rolled her eyes when Manny swore. “I like her.”
Ivan walked back from the window, putting his smartphone in his trouser pocket. “My team found Bree’s assistant, Tobie, in an Italian restaurant having dinner. He was expecting Bree to join him, but he said that he’s used to her not showing up. Usually, that means she’s following a lead.”
I uncrossed my arms when I realised I had folded them tightly across my chest to protect myself from the angry expression on Ivan’s face. “What else did you find out?”
“Our IT guys traced the hack.” He sat down, but didn’t relax into the sofa. “The person who hacked our police station and deleted all the footage of Tomas Broz and of Bree coming in and leaving... that person was in Bree’s hotel.”
“Holy hell.”
“My team did some more checking and found that a call had been made from that hotel to the news station that first reported about Doctor Novotný’s death and that he’d been working under duress for a madman.” His lips tightened. “We can’t say for sure it was Bree, because the call originated from the hotel’s phone system, not a mobile phone. And the hotel’s system is old—too old to pinpoint from which room a specific call was made. All local calls are free and unregistered. Only international calls are registered on the system.”
“I want that paparazza arrested.” Manny pushed his fists on his thighs. “Tonight.”
“I don’t know about this.” Francine looked at me. “What do you think, girlfriend? Did Bree hack the police station? Did she leak the story about Doctor Jan’s death?”
I took my time to consider everything I’d learned about Gabriella Reuben. And everything I’d observed in the time we’d spent together. “There are no absolutes in human behaviour analysis, but in my experience and opinion, Bree showed no indication of deceit or that she was conspiring against us.”
“You think she’s being set up, Doc? By whom?” Manny’s frown deepened, then he looked at Francine. “Do you think Shahab has the computer and technical skills to do this?”
“We know that he worked in Iran’s cybercrimes division for a few years when he just started out.” Francine shrugged. “It’s not that hard to hack a police station, or to reroute a phone call so it looks like it came from a different country.”
“Not hard for you maybe,” Daniel said. “I’m pretty decent with computers, but I can’t do that.”
“I can sho—”
“Please don’t continue.” Ivan pretended to shudder. “I don’t want to have to arrest you.”
“Ooh, that would be fun.” Francine winked at him. “But Daniel is right. Maybe this is too far above Shahab’s skillset.”
“He could’ve hidden his skills. I know some extremely smart people who play dumb all the time.” Roxy’s attempt not to look at Vinnie was so obvious, my eyes immediately went to him as she tilted her head away from him.
Daniel and Ivan chuckled when Vinnie shook a spoon at Roxy.
“Do we need to worry about Bree?” Phillip had been quiet this whole time. “Is her life in danger?”
“I would say yes,” Daniel said. “But I have a feeling she can look out for herself.”
“I did more digging into Bree.” Francine’s voice was just above a whisper. “She was terribly bullied and attacked when she was a child. When she was seventeen, she started taking self-defence lessons.”
“What kind of self-defence?” Vinnie asked.
“Krav Maga.” Francine winced. “She only took a few lessons. Said she wasn’t made for violence.”
“Huh.” Vinnie was disappointed. “Krav Maga would’ve been perfect for such a pint-sized woman. Man-woman. Shit. For Bree.”
“She’s a woman, honey.” Roxy put her hand on Vinnie’s chest and looked into his eyes. “A woman.”
“Yeah, I’m still trying to wrap my head around all of that.” He looked over her head at us. “So what do we do? Should we look for her?”
For a few seconds no one spoke.
“If that paparazza is everything you’re telling me, then we should maybe give her some rope.” Manny grunted and looked at me. “Some space to do whatever the blazes she’s doing.” He looked at Francine. “Are you going to just sit there and look pretty or are you going to tell us what is on Novotný’s tablet?”
Francine fluttered her eyelids and pressed her palm against her chest. “You think I’m pretty.”
When Manny swore, she smiled and held out her hand towards Ivan, wriggling her fingers. “Gimme.”
Ivan got up and handed Francine Doctor Jan Novotný’s tablet. “Don’t upload anything to that cloud folder you created. I would like to keep a very tight lid on whatever we find and I’m not as confident in your cloud as you are.”
“Non-believer.” Francine’s revulsion was exaggerated and so fake, it made Ivan smile. She took the tablet and tapped the screen. “Don’t worry. I’ll keep all the secrets I find here safe.”
“Why don’t I find that reassuring?” Ivan’s relaxed expression belied his words. A small frown formed when his phone pinged. He swiped the screen, his frown deepening. “I have to go.” He looked at Daniel, then at Manny. “My boss said the bigger bosses want to see me.”
“Do you need me to intervene?” Manny moved to the edge of the sofa.
Ivan’s eyes narrowed for a moment in thought, then he shook his head. “Let me first see what this is about. I’ll let you know if I need reinforcements.”
“Hmm.” Francine tapped the screen of Doctor Novotný’s tablet, her mouth twisting. “It’s password-protected.”
“That’s my cue.” Ivan nodded at us and walked to the door. “I’ll let you know what the bosses say.”
There were a few murmured greetings, but our attention was mostly on Francine. She continued tapping. “I tried that crazy code Doctor Jan burned on his skin, but it’s not working. I need time.”
“And here you thought it was going to be easy.” Roxy giggled when Francine threw a cushion towards the kitchenette. She pulled at Vinnie’s arm. “I’m hungry. Cook for me. Now. Feed me.”
“You ate dinner.”
“That was three days ago!” She put her fists on her hips. “I’m going to wither and die if I don’t have... pumpkin chip cream pie! Yes, that’s what I need to keep me alive.”
Vinnie laughed. “I don’t have the ingredients for that, Rox.”
“They’re working.” She nodded towards us. “We can go shopping.”
“Don’t go too far.” Francine glanced up. “I plan to crack this baby quickly and we might need you and your terrible shoes to make sense of any science stuff.”
“Ten minutes?” Roxy looked at Vinnie. “There’s that twenty-four-hour shop two blocks away.”
They continued talking, but I lost interest. I sat back in the sofa and let Mozart’s Symphony No.14 in A major flow through my mind. I went through everything I’d learned so far. Doctor Novotný’s work that involved the worrisome ability to create a chemical weapon that could kill one or thousands depending on the targeting and the delivery method. Antonin’s unadulterated fear of Shahab. The role Antonin as well as the thief Tomas Broz had played in Shahab’s plan.
But this was where I stalled. We didn’t know what Shahab’s end plan was. Of equal importance, we didn’t know what motivated him. My assessment of Shahab was that he wouldn’t execute a terrible act just because he could. He was driven by a strong motivation and in the year we’d investigated and searched for him, we’d not once come across something that could explain his plans for a chemical weapon.
We’d been able to create an acceptable profile of Shahab’s professional life, but his personal life had proven problematic. The Iranian authorities had given us his date of birth and parents’ information, nothing else. They’d said that after carefully going through everything they had on his personal life, they’d come to the conclusion that none of that would assist us in finding him. Not even President Godard had been able to get us information about his life outside of work. And Francine’s efforts had been fruitless—there was nothing about Shahab’s private life stored in any of the places she’d hacked.
I moved on to go through all the data we’d gleaned from Antonin’s operation. I’d just started contemplating the probability of Shahab working with a partner when Roxy and Vinnie returned, laughing and carrying three large shopping bags.
They went to the kitchenette and Phillip joined them, smiling when Vinnie forced Roxy into a chair by the kitchenette counter and made her promise not to help him. Colin and Daniel started talking about ingress and egress methods when stealth was required in an operation.
I went back to Mozart.
An hour and twenty minutes later, we’d all had a slice of Roxy’s pie and the others were in their bedrooms. Colin had convinced everyone that it would be to our benefit to rest while we could. At least until Francine had gained access to Doctor Novotný’s tablet. No one had seemed enthused about leaving all the work to Francine, but had reluctantly agreed to rest.
I hadn’t.
My mind would not allow me to sleep, so I had a relaxing bath and returned to the living area to Francine punching the air and hopping in her seat. “I knew I would get you, you Evel Knievel.”
“What’s an Evel Knievel?”
“Ooh!” She started, then smiled at me. “Didn’t see you sneaking up on me there, girl. Don’t worry about Evel. I got into Doctor Novotný’s system.”
I sat down on the sofa next to her. “Have you had time to look around?”
“Nope. Just got in this very second.” She grabbed an unfamiliar tablet and held it out to me. When I leaned away from it, she snorted. “It’s not going to bite you. It’s brand new and I’m the only one who’s touched it. If you put your grubby hands on it now and take it, I’ll quickly clone Doctor Novotný’s tablet onto that one and you’ll have what I have.”
“I don’t have grubby hands.” I took the tablet. “I just bathed.”
She stopped and looked at me. “Right now, I’m a little jealous. The ugly kind. A soak would be heavenly right now.”
“You can indulge in spa treatment later.” I knew she wouldn’t consider taking a break to rest. Not at this moment. The information we could get from this tablet was too important. “I will give you another voucher for that spa you like so much.”
“And this”—she shook her index finger at me—“is why you are my bestest bestie in the whole wide world.”
“Have you cloned the tablet yet?”
She laughed at my irritated tone and shook her head at me. Then she started tapping on Doctor Novotný’s tablet. “You know I love you, right?”
“Yes.”
She laughed again. “Glad we’re clear on that.” She raised her hand and dramatically tapped the tablet screen. “There. You now have everything I have on this tablet.”
I swiped the screen and started looking through the files stored on the tablet. I exhaled in relief. Doctor Jan Novotný had been organised. He had a few apps that organised his folders under different headings. Within a folder, the files were clearly named and when I opened the files, their names correctly indicated the content.
Five and a half hours later, Francine was in the kitchenette making another cup of coffee and I was staring at the tablet screen. We’d divided the content and I’d finished working through my folders. And had found nothing of significance. Everything I’d looked at was related to his work in Prokop Industries and his work on the cure for opioid addiction. There were also a lot of his personal thoughts on deep learning, machine learning and artificial intelligence.
“Here you go.” Francine handed me a mug. “Maybe this coffee round will give us something.”
“Not in any of the folders I’ve been through.”
“Nothing?” She winced. “Damn.”
“How far are you with yours?”
“I have another”—she looked at the tablet screen—“three to go.”
“Which ones?”
She gave me the names and I took the largest folder. She worked through the first one and again found nothing. I was two-thirds through my folder when Francine jerked. I looked up. She was staring wide-eyed at the tablet screen. “That wily old scientist.”
“What did you find?”
“He named the folder ThisIs and the file TheKey. Open that document.”
I found the file and opened it. It was a word document with only one line written on it. “What does this mean?”
“It’s the address to a cloud folder.” Francine’s fingers flew over her laptop keys. “It’s an extremely secure cloud storage in the internet—one of the best. I know quite a few hackers who use it because they’ve not been able to hack it.”
“You’ve hacked it.” I’d seen it on her face.
“Of course.” She winked at me and returned her focus on her laptop. “Aha, here it is. Okay, now we have his account name. We need a password.”
“His hip,” we both said at the same time. Her smile was wide when she entered the code into the allocated place and pressed enter. She shifted so it was easier for me to see her screen.
It took two seconds before a new window opened on her laptop screen, listing seventeen documents. She frowned. “This is not a lot. This cloud has room for much, much more than this.”
She clicked on one document. It opened to a spreadsheet with a lot of technical data, a lot of medical terminology and scientific terms I’d not come across before. “We need Roxy.”
“In a mo.” Francine opened another document, but returned to the listing. “Wait. Look at the date stamps on these documents.”
My eyes widened. “These were uploaded in the last two weeks.”
“Updated. Not uploaded.” She turned to me. “You know what this means, right?”
“I have a theory.”
“Oh, let me just come out and say it. Doctor Jan found a way to link Shahab’s computers to this cloud network. All Shahab’s stuff is here. All the work Doctor Jan did for him.”
“We don’t know this.”
She pressed her index finger against her chest. “I know this. Give me ten minutes and I’ll prove to you this came from Shahab’s system.”
“Before you do, send those documents to this tablet so I can go through them.”
She did that and I opened the most recent document. One glance at it told me it was a journal. Each section started with a date and a time, followed by paragraphs of writing. It would appear that even in captivity Doctor Novotný continued his wordiness. I started reading.
“Jenny?” Colin’s hand on my forearm jerked me out of the focused space I’d been in. I looked up and saw everyone dressed and seated on the sofas, including Daniel. Vinnie was in the kitchenette making coffee.
“Where’s Ivan?” I asked.
“Checking in with his team,” Daniel said before Colin could answer.
“Francine updated us.” Roxy had a tablet on her lap. “I’m going through the medical data now. There’s a lot here.”
“It’s not good.” It was clear on her face.
“No.” She pushed the tablet to rest on her knees, away from her. “I would have to confirm my findings, but I’m quite confident that Doctor Novotný successfully developed a drug similar to Kolokol-1. It’s an opioid analogue and seems even stronger than carfentanyl. He finalised the delivery system and it seems ready to be used.”
“What delivery system?” Manny asked.
“Aerosol. It can be sprayed from a normal spray bottle that you use to spray house plants or it can be placed in a pressurised can to release on a timer.”
“Oh, hell.”
“Hmm-mm.” None of Roxy’s usual good humour was evident. “This is lethal. Kolokol-1 was developed by the Russians as an aerosolisable incapacitating agent—a sleeping gas. This one has no such benevolent uses. Looking at the chemical structure Doctor Novotný uploaded here, this is deadly. Completely deadly.”
“He tested it.” The words came out hoarse and I cleared my throat. “I’ve been reading Doctor Novotný’s journal. He’s been extremely thorough in detailing everything Shahab made him do.” I swallowed. “And everything Shahab did to him.”
“Oh, hon.” Roxy’s expression conveyed her sympathy. “That had to be hard to read.”
It had been. “I only have three more pages to read. Doctor Novotný started journaling a week after he started working for Shahab.”
“That’s peculiar wording.” Daniel was sitting next to Phillip. Not only had I not heard anyone move around, I also hadn’t heard Daniel join us. “He wasn’t kidnapped like we thought?”
“No.” I remembered the distressing phrases Doctor Novotný had used. “Shahab contacted him and blackmailed him into taking a sabbatical and starting the work on this weapon.”
“Blackmail?” Roxy asked. “How?”
“No, wait.” Francine held up her hand. “First finish telling us about the testing.”
“Shahab started testing Doctor Novotný’s weapon a month ago. The first time didn’t work as fast as Shahab wanted and the doctor had to change the formula. Then it worked fine.”
“Bloody hell.” Manny closed his eyes for a moment. “How many people?”
“Doctor Novotný wasn’t sure, but he wrote that Shahab had told him he’d killed one person at a time for the five tests they’d run. Shahab didn’t want to attract attention by killing more than one person. One overdose victim found by the police didn’t raise much suspicion.”
“He’s right,” Roxy said. “I contacted my colleagues here in Prague and they told me that there were fewer than fifty opioid overdose cases last year. One more wouldn’t raise any eyebrows, but a cluster at the same time would.” She rubbed her upper arms as if she was cold. “How did Shahab blackmail Doctor Novotný?”
I’d read this on the first pages of the journal. “He had a long list of threats. Shahab laid out to Doctor Novotný how he had set up fake accounts in Doctor Novotný’s name. Bank accounts that received a lot of bribe money, social media accounts with a lot of racist, homophobic and politically radical and very divisive rants. This went back years and Shahab had assured Doctor Novotný he would change the social media accounts’ settings to public so everyone could see it. That would destroy him and his life’s work.
“Shahab had done the same with Patrik—fake accounts, rants and bribes. He knew Doctor Novotný’s colleagues didn’t know about Patrik. He was going to use that to make his colleagues doubt everything else Doctor Novotný had told them. He threatened to use the social media manipulation against Doctor Novotný’s nephew if he did not have full cooperation. He kidnapped Patrik and held him hostage, but wanted Doctor Novotný to voluntarily take the sabbatical and go to Shahab’s laboratory.” I shuddered at the memory of that page. “Doctor Novotný seemed to have suffered greatly from guilt for doing this and not going to the police.”
“Why didn’t he?” Colin looked at the tablet on my lap. “Did he say?”
I nodded. “Arrogance. He admitted as such. He thought he could outsmart Shahab. Doctor Novotný was highly intelligent and often these individuals put themselves above everyone else. Two months ago, he admitted Shahab was much more intelligent than he’d had originally thought. The doctor tried to work in a code that would diminish the effectiveness of the chemical weapon he’d created. Shahab found out and showed Doctor Novotný a video where he broke all Patrik’s toes and the small bones in his feet. Shahab promised to do worse if Doctor Novotný didn’t produce his absolute best work.”
“Bloody hell.”
“To answer Colin’s question, at first Doctor Novotný was worried about his reputation and thought he could stop Shahab by quickly creating something that wouldn’t work, but that Shahab wouldn’t know. Two months in, he realised that wasn’t going to happen, but it was too late to contact the police. Shahab was controlling Doctor Novotný’s day completely. He had no access to a phone or anything that wouldn’t alert Shahab.”
“But he managed to have access to the cloud.” Phillip looked at Francine. “How did he do this without notice?”
Francine looked at me. “Did he say?”
“Yes. In the last month Shahab disappeared sometimes for a few hours. It was one of those times that Doctor Novotný used his knowledge of artificial intelligence and computer technology to set this up.”
“But why not contact the police then?” Daniel asked.
“I would also like to know that,” Manny said.
“He didn’t explain his reasoning for connecting these few folders to this cloud storage.” I had wondered about this as well. “He also didn’t explain why he didn’t connect Shahab’s entire computer network, why he didn’t alert the authorities about Patrik’s abduction or the many other questions I have. Some of his actions appear clearly thought out and logical and others don’t make sense to me at all.”
“Did he write any details about his work?” Roxy glanced at Francine’s laptop. “It would be helpful to compare the data I have here with his thought process.”
“He was quite detailed about his work.” I didn’t understand all the science, but had determined that he’d been successful in creating exactly what Shahab had asked of him.
“Is there any actionable intel, Doc?”
“Doctor Novotný didn’t know what day and time Shahab would execute his plan. He also didn’t know what the plan was exactly. He did know that Shahab is planning to kill as many people as possible.” I thought back to everything I’d read. “Eight times Doctor Novotný wrote that Shahab said this was for Chabar.”
“Chabar?” Roxy’s frown pulled her brows down low over her eyes. “Who or what is that?”
Francine’s fingers were flying over her laptop’s keyboard. “I’ve got nothing here.” She spelled it. “Like this?”
“Yes.”
“Hmm.”
“Hold on.” Daniel leaned back and scratched his shaved head. “This might be Chabahar. It’s Iran’s most southern city and the port is a free trade zone.”
“Ooh, let me check.” Francine typed a few commands, then leaned closer to her screen. “Daniel is right. This is not a large place at all. Only around a hundred thousand residents. Ooh, there’s a mangrove forest nearby and a lot of beautiful beaches.”
“Now how the holy, bleeding hell does this fit in with everything else?” Manny rubbed both his hands over his face. “This is the first time we’ve heard about this city, right?”
“Yes.” I had not come across it in any of our intelligence-gathering about Shahab.
“As far as we know, Shahab has no connection to this place,” Francine said.
“We now know different.” I pointed at the tablet on my lap. “Doctor Novotný connected Shahab to Chabahar. If indeed this is the correct interpretation of the word or name Doctor Novotný heard Shahab say.”
“Okay, let’s put that aside for only a sec.” Again Roxy’s lips pulled into a thin line. “We know the kind of weapon Shahab has created. But we don’t know when or where it will be used.”
And we didn’t know the why.
No one answered her for a few seconds, everyone lost in their own thoughts.
I jerked when Daniel’s phone rang. He lifted it and swiped the screen. “Ivan, I’m putting you on speaker.”
“Oh, okay.” He paused for two seconds. “Can I speak?”
Daniel chuckled. “Yes, we are all here.”
“Well, good morning, everyone. Did you learn anything from Doctor Novotný’s tablet?”
Daniel gave Ivan a summary of what I’d shared.
“Hmm.” Ivan cleared his throat after a pause that had Daniel and Colin exchanging wary looks. “Well, I would like for you, Daniel, to bring Genevieve, Colin and Manny to the police station. Tomas Broz has been asking for John Dryden since four o’clock this morning.”
“So early?” Daniel asked.
“Yes. And that made the officers suspicious, so they checked his cell and found a smartphone. The only calls were to and from his lawyer, which means the bosses are not firing anyone. Not yet anyway.” He paused. “But I need you to come as soon as you can.”
“We’ll be on our way within five minutes.” Daniel looked at me for confirmation and I nodded. “Five minutes.”
“Okay. See you soon.”
The call ended and Roxy leaned forward. “Am I the only one or did that sound very... secret-ey?”
“Secretive is the correct word.” But I hadn’t heard that in Ivan’s tone. I would’ve needed to see his face to ascertain that.
“Yeah, I heard it too.” Francine pushed her fingers through her long hair. “While you guys go and find out what secrets Ivan has, I’m going to jump in the shower.”
“I need three minutes to finish reading Doctor Novotný’s journal.”
“You can do that in the car, Doc.” Manny got up and waved his hand impatiently. “Come on. Let’s go.”
