With a sigh of frustration he looked up at his monitor and saw that Frieden was putting on his coat. Jack checked his watch and saw it was after five p.m. He’d been working on Limonov all afternoon.
It was time to call it a day.
Five minutes later Jack walked among the heavy pedestrian traffic on the Grand Rue, his mobile phone against his ear.
“Gavin Biery” answered the voice on the other end.
“Gavin, I just wanted to let you know that everyone here in Luxembourg is still talking about that dashing American who blew through town the other day.”
“Ha. I’ll bet the natives have erected statues in my honor.”
“There was already a Burger King here, so they’ll have to think of something else.”
“Somebody’s in a joking mood. You must have found a new lead. What’s up?”
“There’s a plane parked at the airport here. Privately owned. I drilled down into the ownership as deep as I could, but couldn’t find out too much. Still, I have a tail number. Will you be able to tell me when it leaves and where it goes?”
“If it publicizes its route, you can watch it yourself. But if they BARR the flight, then I’ll have to roll up my sleeves and do some real work.”
Jack knew what Gavin was telling him. While most private aircraft registered their flight numbers and destinations with air traffic authorities, certain private planes used the Block Aircraft Registration Request system to hide this information. Celebrities, corporations hoping to keep their competitors in the dark about their actions, and the über-wealthy who didn’t want anyone to know where they were simply requested their aircraft and destination information not be placed in the system.
The Hendley Gulfstream used this service every time it went on missions for The Campus.
“Yeah,” Jack agreed, “they might BARR it. But on the flight into Luxembourg they flew in the open.”
Gavin said, “No worries either way, Ryan. Even if they try to hide it, I can probably find it. What kind of aircraft?”
“A Bombardier Global Six-K.”
“Shouldn’t be an issue. I can find your Bombardier if it takes off and tries to go ghost.”
Jack said, “While I should probably just leave well enough alone and not ask you for details, I’m curious. How will you do it?”
“The FAA uses ASDI, Aircraft Situation Display to Industry, which is just a big public database so everyone can see what plane is where. When you use an app like FlightAware, it gives you information on where a flight is, although that is class-two info, which means the data is five minutes old. ASDI class one is real-time… It’s what the people in the aircraft industry see.
“BARR flights mean the aircraft disappears from the list, so we look for planes in the air that are not showing on ASDI, then employ advance machine learning and data analytics to suck info from other public sources. If I’m searching for a single plane I can find it by using times, refueling info, catering info, private car hire info at the FBOs. Much of it is done automatically through the system. I can put in a flight number and then, within a certain time period, it will tell me exactly where to look for it. From there, all I have to do is download audio from the suspected airport and use a speech-to-text app, then do a rundown of aircraft landing there. I’ll check every one that doesn’t match ASDI and figure out who’s who.” Gavin chuckled. “The bad guys can’t hide from me.”
“You’re awesome, Gav,” Jack said.
“Tell me something I don’t know.”
“Pretty sure that’s impossible.”
Gavin gave a satisfied snort. “What’s your tail number?”
“November, two, six, Lima, Charlie.”
“Got it. I’ll keep an eye on activity at Lux Airport. When it takes off we’ll track it, whether they try to go ghost or not.”
Just then, Jack’s phone buzzed in his hand. He looked down and saw it was Ysabel calling. “Sorry, Gavin, I’d better take this. Keep me posted on the plane.”
“Sure, Ryan. Tell her we all said hi.” Gavin hung up.
Ryan shook his head and laughed, embarrassed that Gavin had seen through him so easily, but appreciative of the man’s powers of deduction all the same. Quickly he switched to the incoming call. “Hey, there. How are you?”
“I’m great. Better than great, actually.”
“Really? Why’s that?”
“I finished early. Got the info from the last art gallery this morning.”
“That is great. Did you run into any problems?”
“Everything went fine. You should hire me, I’m pretty good at this.”
Jack laughed. “You are very good. Hey, since you’re done a day early, why don’t you try to get on a flight tonight? I just finished for the day. I can meet you at the airport and then we can—”
“I’m way ahead of you, Jack.”
Jack cocked his head and slowed. A grin grew on his face. “You’re already here, aren’t you?”
Ysabel laughed. “Guilty. Hope that’s okay.”
“Okay? It’s the best news I’ve had since I left Rome.”
“I wanted to call you and not just barge into your apartment. No offense, but I know how jumpy you were last week.”
Jack smiled wider, started walking along the Grand Rue again; he felt his feet pick up the pace automatically; he couldn’t wait to see her.
“I’ll be home in ten minutes.” There was a long pause, and this surprised him. “Ysabel? Did we get cut off?”
“You’re not at your apartment right now?”
“Not yet. Won’t be long.” After another pause on the other end he asked, “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing. It’s just… your doorman said you were home and I should go right on up. I’m standing outside your place now. I guess he was mistaken.”
Jack slowed a little. “You must have the wrong building. What’s the address?”
“It’s the address you gave me. Five Place de Clairefontaine. Apartment Four E.”
Jack Ryan, Jr., broke into a sprint. He tore down the middle of the pedestrian street as fast as his legs would take him. As he darted around the afternoon foot traffic, a sense of dread grew in the pit of his stomach.
Ysabel was in his building, but his building did not have a doorman.
30
As Jack ran he kept the phone to his ear and forced himself to keep his voice calm. “Listen carefully. I want you to step away from my apartment, but do not go back into the stairwell or the elevator. Just stand there, hang up, and call 112. That’s local emergency services. Stay on the phone with them till I get there.”
“What is it? What’s wrong, Jack?”
“Tell them you are being mugged.”
“Why would I do that? There is no one up here in the hall but me. What’s going—”
Before Jack could respond he heard a scream from Ysabel, and the phone clanged to the ground.
“Shit!” He ran as fast as he could, pushed aside pedestrians in his way, leapt over a bum lying on the corner of Grand Rue and Rue des Capucins. As he sprinted he dialed 112, the phone rang three times, and then it was answered in German. He told the operator he needed the police at his address, and he recited it slowly. He described the situation, a woman had just been attacked, but when they asked for more information, he just hung up. He wanted to free up his hands to sprint — he needed two free hands more than they needed any more information from him.
From his first day here in Luxembourg Jack had noticed how few police he saw around on the streets. Other than the occasional squad cars driving by at speed on the main streets and a few bored patrolmen at the train station, he had not encountered much law enforcement at all. That had been a benefit to his operation, of course — no one doing surveillance work likes to worry about roaming law enforcement bumping up against their operation — but now he wished like hell this little burg were crawling with cops.