"Can he provide information to help us verify his story?" Bauer asked.
"I just fired off a secure email with everything he provided. I got tired of typing. He was about to provide his entire life story. When we busted into his apartment, he was playing video games and drinking beer with three other equally soft-looking techies. My gut says he's a dead end. I think we should cut his throat and dump him on the side of the road. Minimize our losses."
Farrington's voice rose as he made the last statement, turning nearly every head in the operations center, including Copley's.
"If you think he's a dead end, then dump him in the river," she said.
"Understood. We'll snip his fingers and cut off his face to buy us some time," Farrington said.
"What the fuck?" one of the analysts near Bauer said.
Bauer held out a finger to the analyst and cocked her head. They could all hear some pleading and fast-talking from the Frankfurt end of the connection, followed by an angry, muffled voice. Ten seconds later, Farrington's voice echoed through the operations center.
"He thinks he knows the group we're looking for at DBM, and I don't think he's connected with them. He seems more concerned that the group will retaliate against him," Farrington said.
"You can assure him that the group won't be a problem. Give me some time to verify Mazari's story. Can your team work with Mazari to identify the others?"
"Affirmative. We have full access to DBM thanks to Mazari's laptop…hold on a second…we have an address. All four of them are listed at the same location."
"How far away are you?" Bauer said.
"Not far. Ten minutes," Farrington replied.
"Excellent. Do whatever it takes to secure information regarding the shipments. Keep in mind that the FBI has tracked down two of the shipment batches, accounting for thirty-eight of the fifty-eight canisters Reznikov claims to have produced. Reznikov used two canisters in Russia, leaving eighteen shipped to an unknown location. You might be able to leverage the fact that several Al Qaeda cells in the U.S. were terminated by an unknown group. No canisters were recovered at any of the locations," Bauer said.
"Understood. I'll advise when we are in position. What do you really want me to do with Mazari?" Farrington said.
"Let me verify enough of his story to justify his release. I'm not sure how our system missed the fact that one of the Al Qaeda travelling companions is his cousin. Be prepared to drop him off with cab fare."
"Sounds like a plan. We're headed to the new target location," Farrington said, ending the call.
Copley muffled a laugh. "You had me worried there for a few seconds."
"I'm starting to gain a better understanding and appreciation for how Sanderson's people work," Bauer said, wondering if that statement would ever resurface in a congressional hearing.
"Keep a tight leash on that crew. Get the information required and pull them out. Their presence on foreign soil is a major liability for us, and it's only a matter of time before Stockholm catches up to them…and us," Copley said.
"I understand, sir."
Copley nodded his approval before turning to the watch officer, who quickly authorized his departure from the "fishbowl." Bauer let out a sigh of relief. She could feel the tension ease in the room as the door hissed shut, sealing them off from their director. His visit had been perfectly timed, leaving no doubt in her mind that it had been purposely planned. She constantly updated the director's digital feed from her computer terminal, so he would have known that Manning was in a separate meeting, and that the operation was in a critical phase requiring an enhanced level of accountability.
His presence had assured everyone in the room that he directly approved the methods employed by Sanderson's team, thereby diverting the undercurrent of doubt that had started to rise within the operations center. Like static electricity, this undercurrent would slowly build up again and be discharged by another well-timed visit. Even as the deputy director of the National Clandestine Service, she didn't have the clout or seniority to diffuse it herself. She just hoped that her boss, Thomas Manning, could do it. She didn't relish the prospect of frequent visits from Copley.
Chapter 6
Reinhard Klinkman turned the van off Goldstein Strasse and eased into a parking space just past the corner of Schwarzwald Strasse.
"Drop him off here," Farrington said, glancing behind them at the intersection.
Petrovich opened the right-side sliding door and gestured to the open pavement.
"Here? We're south of the river?" Mazari said, hesitant to step out of the van.
"Would you prefer we dump you in the river?" Petrovich said.
"Fuck you guys," he said, hopping out of the van. "I don't suppose I'll be getting my laptop back?"
Petrovich slid the door shut in the middle of Mazari's sentence.
"I'd get as far from here as possible. Remember, the river is always an option if you decide to contact the police. Take the train back to your apartment and stay there until it's time for work tomorrow. Fuck with me on this and you're a dead man. Got it?" Farrington said through the front passenger window.
"Yeah, I understand," Mazari said, barely raising his head to display a combined look of contempt and fear. "Not every Muslim is a terrorist."
"No. But every terrorist seems to be a Muslim," Farrington said, tossing Mazari's wallet out of the window onto the sidewalk.
The van sped away toward the new target building a few blocks west, which would prove to be a more complicated operation than Mazari's abduction. They now possibly faced an organized, highly trained Al Qaeda cell. Using Mazari's laptop as a breach point, the electronics warfare team based out of the second van had gained full, permanent access to DBM's computer network. Database records showed that the three men identified by Mazari lived in the same apartment on Jugenheimer Strasse. Two of them worked in the same department. Shipping. The third held a late-shift job in the medical specimen packaging department.
One of the two men, Naeem Hassan, worked in a supervisory role within the shipping and distribution department, which identified him as the most likely leader of the suspected terrorist cell. Of the three Egyptian men, he was the only one that had finished college, earning an engineering degree in Cairo. Six years later, he moved to Hamburg and started work on an advanced degree in construction engineering at "Terrorist U," but discontinued studies upon accepting his current position at Deutsche BioMedizinische.
Hassan's travel pattern didn't raise the same red flags as Mazari's, but a search of Egyptian databases showed that Hassan had bounced around from one unemployment line to the next during his six years in Egypt. Six long years of social humiliation, no doubt blamed on the West by the dangerous proliferation of radical Mullahs preaching jihad. Plenty of time to be radicalized by Al Qaeda recruiters and sent forth into Europe.
At this point, Hassan had been in Germany for nearly three years, while the other two men had been issued student visas last summer to attend Frankfurt Technical College. A quick search through the college's registrar database showed that the two had been dropped from student rolls after they failed to register for classes by mid-September. Notifications had been sent to German immigration authorities, but little would be done to track them. Petrovich wondered how many of these thirty-year-old college "students" simply disappeared into Europe, never to attend a single class. Too many, according to Audra Bauer.