Leila was locked in a quiet windowless room, searching for inspiration. She could hear Wollerton’s breathing nearby and the low hum of activity coming from elsewhere in the building, but the technical analysis laboratory was otherwise silent and the microscopes, spectrometers and computer scanners stood idle. They were inside one of the most secure buildings in Cairo, the headquarters of Keta El Amn El Watani, the Egyptian National Security Agency. Many Egyptians referred to it as the Mukhabarat, a common catch-all term across the Middle East for the state intelligence agencies, but Egypt’s NSA was separate from the nation’s true Mukhabarat, the General Intelligence Directorate, in that it focused purely on domestic threats. Lacking the budgets and technological sophistication of its western counterparts, the Egyptian NSA still relied heavily on human intelligence, and Leila had heard rumours that it had over 100,000 informants concealed within the general population. She could only begin to imagine the complexities of managing a network of that size, but Egypt faced serious social and political challenges and was fighting an ongoing campaign against violent Islamic militants in the Sinai and elsewhere. The very foundations of its republic were under threat, so she could understand the resources the Egyptian government was prepared to throw at its intelligence organizations. She had lived through the failure of a state and had to cope with the aftermath every single day.
However large its network, the NSA hadn’t been able to identify the source of the canister lying inside the isolation tank directly in front of her. She had her hands inside the tank’s inbuilt rubber gloves, but had given up manipulating the canister – there were no machining markings or evidence of calibrations of any kind. The canister had been inside a false can of Coca-Cola, but that too offered no traceable secrets.
According to Amina, the lab technician who had gone for a coffee with their Egyptian handler, Sharif, the canister was made of steel and had been cast rather than milled, no doubt to further reduce the chances of its origins being traced. The trigger was an electrical charge delivered to a tiny quantity of propellant. It worked like a large party popper.
‘Anything?’ Wollerton asked.
Leila shook her head slowly. She was frustrated by the puzzle, but at least it took her mind off her sister. She couldn’t get over the ease with which they’d infiltrated Egypt’s NSA and was more convinced than ever that Kamal, the former colonel, and his associate had ties to the Egyptian intelligence community. Sharif had been able to get them into the building with no more than a coronavirus test and a quiet conversation with a senior executive. Leila knew familial and tribal ties trumped all else in the Middle East, but Sharif’s relationship and ease of access had to be based on something more. The nameless executive who was never introduced to Leila or Wollerton had instructed Amina to be their liaison and give them unrestricted access to the case files and evidence.
The young woman had the thoughtful demeanour of a priestess, but she wore a patterned floral dress and matching hijab, and stored her pens and personal tools in a large Minnie Mouse pencil case that looked out of place on the counter next to the isolation tank. Amina had told them that searches for the identities of the two men had yielded nothing; not a single photo match on any database the Egyptians had access to, or on the Internet.
Leila had been troubled by this digital invisibility ever since Blaine Carter had told them the American prisoner had no photo record of any kind. That sort of anonymity could only be achieved by one of the larger intelligence players – the CIA, America’s NSA, Russia’s FSB or SVR, or China’s MSS. And even they would struggle. Digital invisibility was almost impossible in the era of constant surveillance, omnipresent cameras and cloud computing.
There had been no physical evidence at the scene other than the men’s fingerprints, which had yielded just as much of a blank as their images.
‘No marks?’ Wollerton asked.
‘Nothing,’ Leila replied. ‘Just their prints, which lead nowhere.’
‘Why didn’t he use a grenade?’ Wollerton asked. ‘It’s mechanical, less to go wrong with it. Same result and you’d have the benefit of destroying the delivery device in the process.’
Leila pondered the question. People usually opted for the least troublesome, quickest solution to any problem. Wollerton was right, a grenade would have been the better option, so why use a bespoke canister? She picked it up and manipulated it with the thick rubber gloves. The lid contained a tiny lithium battery and wiring that ran to the interior charge in the base, but what if the button on the top wasn’t the only way to detonate the device?
Feeling a rush of excitement, Leila turned the canister over. The base was almost certainly thick enough.
‘Can you find Amina?’ Leila said. ‘Ask her if they’ve X-rayed it.’
Wollerton nodded, unlocked the door and left the lab.
Leila held the top of the canister in one glove and grabbed the base with the other. She tried to twist the base off, but it didn’t budge. She put the canister down, withdrew her hands from the protective gloves and locked the lab door. As she limped back to the isolation tank, she studied the grey receptacle. She pushed her hands into the gloves and picked it up. She gripped the top again, but this time she held the very edge of the bottom of the canister. She tried to turn the base, but it didn’t give. She tried the other way and a hairline appeared less than half a centimetre from the bottom. She hurriedly unscrewed the base and was gratified to see tiny wires running from the main chamber to something in the base. It was a computer chip. She took her hands out of the gloves, ignored the hazard warnings on the outer airlock and opened the isolation tank. The toxin within the canister had become a harmless carbonate, so the isolation tank was just a precaution. Or at least that’s what Leila told herself as she opened the inner airlock.
She heard the door handle rattle and turned to see figures in the frosted panel window. The door caught against the lock.
‘Leila?’ Wollerton said from the other side.
She ignored him and reached into the tank. She snatched the chip from the base and slipped it into her pocket.
Wollerton tried the door again. ‘Hello?’ he said.
‘I have a key,’ Amina told him, and Leila saw the figures shift position.
She hurriedly reattached the base to the canister and closed the inner airlock. She kicked her cane to the floor as she shut the other hatch. When the door opened and Amina, Wollerton and Sharif entered, she was stooping to recover it. The three of them looked at her in puzzlement and there was a trace of suspicion in Amina’s face.
‘Sorry,’ Leila said. ‘I dropped my stick.’
She didn’t care whether they believed her. All she cared about was the tiny silicon wafer in her pocket. Featureless metal containers couldn’t be traced, but computer chips left a trail she could read.