They booked into a three-star hotel with ‘light’ business IDs, which for de Payns was Benoît Droulez, consultant. The hotel was four blocks inland from the horseshoe-shaped Port of Genoa, in the centre of the old town. Starkand’s phone activity had initially been identified at a cell tower in the business and tourist hotel district, which was where they would start their search.
Having showered and changed and grabbed breakfast at a cafe, they set up the Toshiba laptop that ran the spinning machine and positioned it on a table in the hotel room. Spinning machines were not as powerful as often portrayed. It was almost impossible to simply put someone’s cell phone number into a computer and determine its location, unless the phone itself was being tracked or was transmitting location data from a phone app. The aim was to use the spinner to first establish the tower that the target’s phone IMSI—the unique identifier located on the SIM card—was connecting to. Having established this location ‘bubble’, Lolo would trick the target’s phone into connecting with the spinner, which operated as if it were a cell phone tower. Phones connected to Lolo’s spinning machine would have their IMSI numbers displayed on the Toshiba’s screen, slipping off as they moved away and found another tower. By confining the target’s IMSI to the bubble created by the spinner, the target could eventually be identified.
Lolo activated the main screen of the spinner and after one minute there were twenty numbers connected to their closest tower. Some numbers moved off the tower, and others stayed connected. The phone number they were waiting for would appear in red when it connected to their local tower.
‘We’re up,’ said Lolo, confirming that the spinner was operational.
De Payns made coffees and they got comfortable, waiting for Starkand’s red IMSI number to show.
This finally happened just after midday. Lolo called de Payns over and they watched Starkand’s IMSI connecting on a single tower. For the next thirty seconds, other numbers on the screen changed as they came into contact with the tower and moved off, but Starkand’s number remained.
‘Where’s that tower?’ asked de Payns.
Lolo turned to another laptop and identified the Genoa tower number on a map. ‘North of here, nine blocks.’
De Payns stood. ‘Let’s have a look.’
■
They drove north, through tight streets, meandering pedestrians and unruly traffic. The old town of Genoa was five hundred years old in places, and it seemed to work better for pedestrians and scooters than for cars and vans.
‘You think he has a job?’ asked Lolo, as de Payns negotiated the traffic. ‘Or is he just walking around?’
‘Genoa is not used by arms dealers or terrorists,’ said de Payns. ‘I’m thinking he’s a working professional, but it’s just an assumption.’
‘We know it’s a he?’ asked Lolo.
‘No,’ said de Payns, eyes fixed on the pedestrian traffic.
They came to a major crossroad, with a museum on their right and a library on the left. There was a town square and the imposing lines of one of Genoa’s palaces.
‘We’re in the Big Bubble,’ said Lolo. ‘Starkand’s phone is pinging.’
They slowed and pulled to the right to allow a delivery van through.
‘Grab a table at that cafe,’ said de Payns, nodding at the outdoor tables beside the car. ‘I’ll be across the road.’
Lolo pulled on a dark green cap and walked to a table at the cafe, as de Payns pulled back into the slow traffic and drove. It was early afternoon in Genoa and the young scooter riders couldn’t get off their horns.
He parked and took a table at a cafe across the road from the car. He keyed his burner phone and Lolo answered immediately.
‘We have him,’ said Lolo. ‘He’s moved onto the spinner, so he’s nearby.’
‘When he moves off it, let me know,’ said de Payns, as a waitress came to his table.
The Company had a rule against OTs waiting in cars, so de Payns sat in the cafe’s shadows, sipped on his black coffee and wondered how all the threads would tie together. Johnny from the old days; a yacht called Azzam; a POI in Genoa mentioned in an adjacent piece of prod but not necessarily connected to the yacht … He’d been rushed into the field and he looked forward to Briffaut explaining what this was all about.
His phone beeped: Lolo telling him the Starkand phone had moved off the spinner, meaning he was moving out of their vicinity.
He left money on his table, strode back to the car and picked up Lolo on a nearby corner.
‘We’ll know in about twenty seconds if he’s on foot or in a car,’ said Lolo, referring to the typical cell tower coverage in European cities.
De Payns drove north and Lolo said, ‘He’s on foot.’
De Payns took a right and drove off the main road and onto a side street, the light dim because of the medieval houses pushed up to the street. As they reached the end of the lane, Lolo sat up. ‘Got him again.’
They looked and saw several pedestrians walking in the street. Lolo nodded through the windscreen. ‘Could be that guy, the overcoat.’
About thirty metres in front of them was a dark-haired man around six foot tall, wearing a taupe coat over a navy blue suit.
They idled slowly until the car behind them sat on the horn and de Payns pulled to the right again. The other driver revved through with a stream of Ligurian invective.
When they re-entered the flow of traffic de Payns scanned the pedestrians but there was no sign of the overcoat man.
‘Out you get,’ said de Payns. ‘Find him and keep visual. Call me on the burner.’
Lolo left the car and started walking.
De Payns avoided angry Italian drivers for two minutes, and then his burner phone rang.
Lolo said, ‘He’s crossed the square, going into a side street.’
De Payns swung left, swooped to a bus stop and Lolo clambered into the car. Across the square they watched the man in the overcoat walking into a street that joined the square. He had dark hair with touches of silver, cut short, late forties, walking with no obvious injuries. There was a black leather briefcase in his left hand.
‘Get close to him with the IMEI machine and confirm if you can,’ said de Payns. ‘I’ll keep driving.’
Lolo slipped out of the car once more with his IMEI identifier in his pocket and de Payns searched for a cafe. His burner beeped: Lolo wanting to be picked up again.
He stopped at a corner at the bottom of San Siro and Lolo got in the car with a satisfied thump on the dashboard. ‘It’s him,’ he said, holding up his IMEI device. ‘He’s carrying the phone identified in the phone environment.’
‘Where is he now?’ asked de Payns, accelerating into traffic.
‘I followed him to the Al Basilisco, it’s a private hotel on San Siro,’ he said, picking up his laptop and opening the spinner screen. ‘He grabbed something from a Fiat parked outside before he went into the hotel.’
‘Is he still moving?’ asked de Payns.
Lolo shook his head as he focused on the spinner screen. ‘He’s staying put.’
‘Time to eat and have a drink,’ said de Payns. ‘But before we go, you can put a tracker on that Fiat.’
Lolo shut the laptop and fished in his computer bag, pulling out a black plastic box the size of a USB memory stick. It had a powerful adhesive on the back of it. Lolo’s task was to attach it to the underside of the car, in one of the wheel arches.
‘You saw that cafe on Cairoli, the Gatto Bianco?’
‘Sure.’
‘I’ll meet you there in fifteen minutes,’ de Payns said. ‘And take the long way around.’
Lolo slipped out of the car and mingled with the shadows.
De Payns put the car into gear and drove away.