No, he would attend a conference on marine safety to meet someone there. Patrick was now certain of it. Someone who had either information he needed, or expertise. Or both.
But Patrick wasn't going to catch him to ask him, at least not today. Maybe tomorrow, or the day after that, but that was then. He'd put everyone on the alert. All he could do now, maddening as it was, was sit back and wait for Isa to be spotted.
Maybe, he thought, just maybe he was looking at this from the wrong direction. Isa was in the wind. Someone might stumble across his path again, but the odds weren't in their favor. They'd been incredibly lucky in the two contacts they'd had, both by conscientious, practicing professionals, but it was fatal to depend on lightning striking that way a third time.
And besides, Patrick was tired of being a step and a half behind this guy. It was time to do a little backtracking, find out what made the guy tick so they'd have some idea of what he might do next, and where.
Chisum turned back to his desk and picked up the phone. This time he got the nation code right and Hugh Rincon's voice mail came on. He realized that it was after ten o'clock in London. "This is Patrick Chisum again. Who else attended that conference in Istanbul? I want a breakdown by names, professional organizations, and nationalities."
He hung up and frowned at the clock on his desk. The minute hand swept inexorably around, counting down the seconds, the minutes, the hours.
Like he needed reminding.
12
HAITI, DECEMBER 2007
It took him a pitifully short time to find what he was looking for in Haiti, which cost him in U.S. dollars the equivalent of a used car, which he found even more pitiful. While he was conducting his business he stayed in a modest room at a resort hotel, renting a girl for the weekend so as to maintain his cover as a car salesman on holiday. She was a straightforward businesswoman, with a refreshing lack of curiosity even that first night when he gently refused her sexual services and insisted she sleep in the second bed. "Arm candy only, then," she said, as if it wasn't an unusual request, and didn't offer a discount. Time paid for was time paid for. On a professional basis, he had to respect that. She insisted on half up front. He respected that, too.
After he concluded his business, he maintained his cover by spending the weekend at the hotel lounging poolside with his paid companion, taking an hour off to find a cybercafé and check in. Yussuf and Yaqub were in Canada, one in Toronto and the other in Vancouver. They reported all cell members accounted for and settling in to their various temporary lives.
On Monday morning he paid the girl the other half of her fee and checked out of the hotel. He took a cab to the airport, a flight to Mexico City, a second to Cartagena, and a third to Miami. It took two days for him to arrive at his destination, but he had never lacked for patience.
In Miami, he took an airport shuttle into town to one of the big box hotels on Miami Beach, took a bus back to the airport, and picked up a
nondescript sedan reserved in the name of Daoud Sadat. He drove south to an anonymous suburb bisected by a major arterial lined with big box stores, did a little shopping at Target, and then consulted a street map purchased at a gas station. He turned right out of the Target parking lot, turned left at the next light, drove down a series of quiet side streets, and parked in front of a shabby, ranch-style home on a large lot festooned with palm trees and a prowling bougainvillea barely restrained by a chain-link fence. The house two doors down had had its trim renewed, and across the street someone had just replanted their yard, brave in poinsettia plants and new grass, but the neighborhood had the air of fighting a hopeless battle, as if a wrecking ball and upscale condominium high-rises were just one developer with a vision and a city councilman in his pocket away.
His knock was answered by a young woman with a grave face. "Yes?"
"Daoud Sadat. I believe I am expected."
She nodded. "You are. Please come in, Mr. Sadat." She reached for his suitcase.
He waved her off. "Thank you. I'll carry it."
"It's no bother." Her eyes were anxious.
"For me, either." He gave her a reassuring smile, and was rewarded by one in return. The change it made in her face was extraordinary, lighting her eyes, lending color to her skin, dimples to her cheeks. Her teeth were white and even.
She looked, he thought with a faint sense of shock, like Adara.
"Please follow me," she said.
She led him through the house to the kitchen, a large room at the back with appliances of varying ages against the walls, the center of the room dominated by a large wooden trestle table with benches on both sides and a captain's chair at either end. "Mama, this is Mr. Sadat."
The kitchen may have been as shabby as the exterior of the house but it was scrupulously clean. The woman at the stove was her daughter again in face and form, with twenty years and twenty pounds added on. Her dark hair was knotted at the back of her head, her dress was buttoned firmly to her throat and wrists with a hem that brushed her ankles. She wiped her hands on the dish towel knotted around her waist and bowed her head in his direction. "Mr. Sadat. I am Mrs. Mansour. This is my daughter, Zahirah."
He nodded to both of them. "Daoud Sadat. I wrote about a room?"
"Of course. I will show you. Peel the eggplants, Zahirah."
"Yes, Mama."
Mrs. Mansour led him to a room past the kitchen. It was clean and pleasant enough, containing a full-sized bed with a firm mattress plentifully supplied with pillows, a small writing table with a straight chair in one corner, in another an easy chair facing a television, and its own bathroom. "There is no tub, only a shower," Mrs. Mansour said.
"It is no matter," AMI said.
"I'm sorry that there is no telephone, Mr. Sadat, but I have the number of the telephone company. The connection is here." She pointed at the box low on the wall. "All you have to do is call them and have it hooked up. It may take a few days." She straightened. "And as you can see, your room has its own entrance," she said, opening the door. It had a window curtained only in white nylon sheers, but the encroaching bougainvillea obscured the neighbor's house. He looked outside. A cement walkway led to the front of the house. "You can be as private as you wish here, Mr. Sadat."
He shut the door and smiled at her. "I can see that, Mrs. Mansour, thank you."
"The breakfast things will be on the table in the morning: cereal, rolls, fruit, coffee. I rise very early to go to work."
"Ah. Where do you work?"
"At a dry cleaner's. My daughter, also, will be gone very early, so you will have the house to yourself."
He smiled. "I will be at work early, too."
"You already have a job?"
"I do," he said gravely. "I am a software engineer."
She nodded. "For Lockheed, probably."
"Yes," he said, raising his eyebrows in well-simulated surprise.
She took it as an implied rebuke for curiosity into his affairs and apologized. "It's just that their headquarters are so near, I assumed-"
He patted the air. "It is no matter, Mrs. Mansour, I quite understand. Your daughter works as well?"
"My daughter goes to university," Mrs. Mansour said.
"You must be very proud."
"It is why we moved here. It has been… difficult, but it was her father's dearest wish."
He steered her off further confidences by inquiring as to how she would like the rent, suggesting cash since he had not had time to open an account in a local bank. He paid for a full month in advance, including the deposit, over her protests, and escorted her to the door.
He barely had time to unpack the meager belongings in his suitcase when a soft knock sounded. He opened it to find Zahirah standing behind it with an armful of fresh towels and two bars of Ivory soap still in their wrappers. "For your bathroom," she said.