Archie answered this one. “Too much hassle, I expect. There’s not a lot of oversight with that sort of thing here. A name and a credit card number is all it takes. Domain names can be registered in bulk and changed at the drop of a hat. No, the way this Bari fella does it is the way to go, at least here.”
Dominic said to Ghazi, “Who’s he living with? Any family?”
“Not here. A wife and daughter in Benghazi.”
“What’re the chances he’s going to be armed?”
“Bari himself? Very unlikely, I would think. When he moves about, he sometimes has protection.”
“URC?”
“No, no, not directly, I do not believe. Perhaps hired by them, perhaps, but these are just Medina people. Thugs.”
“How many?” This from Brian.
“The times I have seen him… Two or three.”
“Where do we find him?” said Brian.
By the time they dropped Archie back at the consulate, the sun’s lower rim was nearly touching the sea’s surface to the west. All across the city, streetlamps, car headlights, and neon signs were flickering to life. They’d decided that Dominic, who’d undergone the FBI’s defensive driving course, would be behind the Opel’s wheel. True to Archie’s prediction, the traffic had slackened somewhat, but the roads still bore more of a resemblance to racetracks than to urban thoroughfares.
Archie climbed out from the backseat and leaned his arms against the passenger door. “That map of the Medina you’ve got is a fairly good one but not perfect, so keep your heads about you. Sure this can’t wait till morning?”
“Probably not,” Brian said.
“Well, then loosen up and smile. Act like tourists. Window-shop; haggle a bit; pick up some swag. Don’t march through the place like diggers-”
“‘Diggers’?”
“Soldiers. You can park on one of the side streets near the Corinthia-that monstrosity of a hotel we passed on the way here.”
“Got it.”
“It’s visible from pretty much everywhere in the Medina. If you get lost, head for it.”
Brian said, “Damn, man, you make it sound like we’re walking into the lion’s den.”
“Not a bad analogy. All in all, the Medina’s safe at night, but word’ll spread if you stand out. Two more things: Dump the car if you have to. I’ll report it stolen. Second, there’s a brown paper bag under the tire in the boot with some goodies inside.”
Dominic said, “I assume you’re not talking about snacks.”
“That I’m not, mate.”
64
NAYOAN LEFT THE EMBASSY at five p.m., took the bus to a park-and-ride lot off Columbus, and got into a blue Toyota Camry. With Clark at the wheel, they followed him to a first-floor apartment on the southwestern edge of San Francisco’s famous Tenderloin district, between the City Hall and Market Street. It was arguably the city’s worst neighborhood, with more than its fair share of poverty, crime, homelessness, ethnic restaurants, dive hotels, and fringe clubs and art galleries. There could be only one reason Nayoan had chosen this area in which to live, Clark and the others decided: The Tenderloin had a fairly healthy Asian-American population, which would allow him to move about in relative anonymity.
After a couple of hours at home, Nayoan emerged from the apartment in a somber black suit and got back in the Camry. This time with Jack in the driver’s seat, they followed him back downtown to the Holiday Inn. They watched him enter the lobby, waited ten minutes, and headed back to the Tenderloin.
“Why’s it called the Tenderloin?” Chavez asked as Clark turned off Hayes Street and started looking for a parking spot. The car’s headlights skimmed over tipped-over garbage cans and shadowed figures sitting on front stoops.
“Nobody knows for sure,” Jack said. “Sort of an urban legend. Stories range from it being the soft underbelly of the city to it once being a hazardous-pay neighborhood for cops, who could buy better cuts of meat with the extra money.”
“Been reading the Frommer’s, Jack?”
“That and a little Sun Tzu. Know thine enemy, right?”
“The place has got character, that’s for damned sure.”
Clark found a spot under a tree between two streetlamps and pulled in. He doused the headlights and shut off the engine. Nayoan’s apartment building was one block down and across the street.
Clark checked his watch. “Eight o’clock. Nayoan should be at the reception. Change,” Clark said.
They traded their downtown garb-khaki pants, sweaters, windbreakers-for the Tenderloin attire they’d picked up earlier at a secondhand shop: sweatshirts, flannel shirts, ball caps, and knit beanies.
“Twenty minutes, then back here,” Clark said. “Three-block radius. Same drill as before. It’s a shitty neighborhood, so look the part.”
“Which is?” Jack said.
Chavez answered, “You don’t fuck with me, I don’t fuck with you.”
They met back at the car, then walked south half a block and stood together beside an empty stoop. Chavez started: “Only saw one police cruiser. Looked like a mandatory drive-through. Didn’t do a lot of looking around.”
“Jack?”
“Didn’t see any lights on in the apartment. There’s an alley on the back side and a crappy wooden fence with an unlocked gate leading to a concrete patio. Dogs two yards down on either side. They barked as I walked by, but I didn’t see any faces come to the windows.”
“Back porch light?” Clark asked.
Jack nodded. “Bare bulb. And no screen door.”
“Why’s that important?”
Jack shrugged. “Screen doors squeak; they rattle.”
“Man gets a gold star.”
Thirty seconds apart, they circled the block, then met in the alley. Chavez went through the gate first, up the steps, then unscrewed the lightbulb and stepped down. Clark and Jack came through. Clark went up the steps and spent ninety seconds crouched by the door, working the knob lock, then the deadbolt. He gave them the wait signal, then slipped through the door. He was back sixty seconds later and waved them in.
The apartment’s interior was a mirror image of the architecture: long and narrow, with cramped hallways, narrow-plank hardwood floors covered in worn carpet runners, and dark baseboards and crown molding. Nayoan wasn’t much on interior decoration, Jack saw: a utilitarian kitchen and bathroom done in checkerboard porcelain tile, and a front room with a sectional sofa, a coffee table, and a thirteen-inch television. Probably didn’t expect to be here for long, Jack thought. Why bother with anything but the necessities? Could that mean something? Might be worth checking how long Nayoan had left on his tour at the embassy.
“Okay, let’s toss it,” Clark ordered. “Everything back in its place when we’re done.”
They clicked on their flashlights and went to work.
Almost immediately Chavez found a Dell laptop on a card-table desk in Nayoan’s bedroom. Jack powered it up and started sifting through the folders and files, the Web browser history, and the e-mail backlog. Clark and Chavez let him work, spending thirty minutes dissecting the apartment room by room, checking the obvious hiding spots first.
“Okay,” Jack said. “No password protection, no key logging software… Aside from a standard firewall and an antivirus program, this thing is wide open. Lot of stuff here, but nothing that jumps out. Mostly unclassified embassy business and e-mails-some of it personal. Family and friends back home.”
“Address book?” Clark asked.
“Same there, too. Nothing we’ve seen from URC distribution lists. He cleans his Web browser history almost daily, right down to the temporary files and cookies.”
“‘Cookies’?” Chavez asked.
“Little bits of data websites leave on your computer every time you visit. Pretty standard practice, for the most part.”