Trackers (48 page)

They were Burzynski's seniors, she realised. Interesting.

Finally he looked back at Janina, and cleared his throat.
When he spoke, the annoyance was gone from his voice, it was suddenly calm and
serious. 'I'm going to tell you three things, Janina, and you should seriously
consider believing me, for the sake of your government and your country. Number
One: I don't know who this man is,' he tapped a finger on Becker's photo, 'but
if you want us to investigate the matter, we will. Number Two: we believe
you
have Osman, and we're very keen to get access
to him. And Number Three: your ship,
The Madeleine,
has completely disappeared. It's like it never existed.'

'You can't find it?' In disbelief.

'That's right. And to say we did our best is putting it
mildly. We want to find it, even more than you do. So, here's the deal: you
show me yours, and I'll show you mine.'

Tau Masilo had been following the full interaction with great
interest. At that moment his cellphone rang in his jacket pocket.

'I am sorry,' he said, took it out and checked the screen. It
was Quinn calling. 'This might be important,' he said, 'excuse me.'

Masilo got up and walked out quickly, closing the door behind
him, and then asked: 'Any news?'

'Osman,' said Quinn. 'He's in hospital. Intensive Care Unit
at the Chris Barnard Memorial. Heart attack. A man corresponding to Becker's
description dropped him off yesterday afternoon. Osman only regained
consciousness this morning ...'

Masilo laughed, abruptly. 'Unbelievable.'

'That is not the big news. Osman asked the nurse at Intensive
Care to phone Suleiman Dolly, via land line to his house. Probably he couldn't
remember the Sheikh's latest cellphone number. We intercepted the call. First
she told Dolly that Osman was in hospital. Then, and I quote "Mr Osman
asked me to say the dog has the laptop" ...'

Masilo quickly made the connection. 'Becker.'

'That's right. We suspect it was in the shoulder bag that
Osman was so attached to. The hospital staff said that was the first thing
Osman asked for when he woke up. But there is something else. The third thing
that the sister told Dolly was that "the dog is driving a blue Citi Golf,
CA 143 and another four numbers".'

'They're going to look for him.'

'I think so.'

'Do you have people there?'

'I have eight people at the hospital now, Osman is isolated.
In the meantime, Dolly has also arrived, threatening interdicts ...'

'Let him threaten, just keep them all away from him.'

iThemba Computers was on the first floor of Oxford House in Durbanville's
main road. The young man behind the counter recognised Milla, despite the
headscarf. 'Hello, Tannie,' he said, using the respectful Afrikaans form of
address.

'Hello,' said Milla. 'My neighbour,' she gestured at Becker,
'has a problem with his laptop ...'

'What can I do for you, Oom?'

'I forgot my Windows password,' said Lukas Becker.

'XP, Vista or Seven?' the young man asked.

Burzynski was talking when Masilo came back.'... have an
interest in Osman, so we both know this is about local Muslim extremism,
Janina. I really don't see the point of being coy about it.'

Masilo sat down, pulled his notepad closer and wrote the
words,
Osman found. In hospital. We have him under
guard.

Mentz read as he wrote, nodded slightly.

Masilo turned the notepad over

'You can't find the ship,' Mentz stated sceptically.

'We have located every single vessel of that approximate
tonnage not running LRIT and AIS. And believe me, it wasn't easy. The fact of
the matter is, there are three possible explanations. The first is that they
are hiding somewhere. Not terribly likely, I know, but if they've switched off
the transmitters, if they are completely stationary, and well camouflaged, they
might get away with it. The second option is that they've scuttled her. Which
begs the question of "why", of course, and we're not seriously
considering it. The third is that they're running a false LRIT, and if that is
the case, we're basically up the creek. It could take weeks to cross-check
every ship out there.'

'You said you want to find it even more than we do.'

'Yes.'

'Why?'

'We knew you would raise that question, Janina. I've been on
the line with Langley all night about this, and the bottom line is that I'm not
cleared to say more than this: we believe the cargo on
The Madeleine
is of vital importance to both
American and South African national security.'

'So you know what we know.'

'I don't know what you know. But let me formally and fully
introduce you to my two colleagues,' and he gestured at the two new people who
Mentz knew absolutely nothing about. 'Janet Eden is a senior analyst at MENA,
our Office of Middle East and North Africa Analysis. Jim Grant is at the Office
of Terrorism Analysis. And they both came to South Africa because of your SOLAS
request. Janet, would you do us the honour?'

She was a slim, attractive woman, well-groomed, in her
forties. 'Thank you, Bruno.' She addressed Mentz and Masilo. 'I'm not going to
apologise for the fact that we won't be able to share all our intelligence.
We're all big girls and boys in the same line of work. We know the rules.' She
was businesslike and self-assured. 'So let me tell you what I can. About ten
weeks ago, both Jim and I independently became aware of higher levels of
communication between suspected al-Qaeda cells in Oman, Pakistan and
Afghanistan, and, to our surprise, in South Africa, particularly Cape Town.
We've seen communication between Somalia's al-Shabab and Cape cells before, low
level, easily decoded, but the al-Qaeda stuff was very different. When we took
this information to our superiors, a task force was created to focus on the
matter exclusively, which also included Bruno and his colleagues down here.
Much to our frustration, the communication is using a cypher discovered by Dr
Michael Rabin at Harvard back in 2001, and it is probably unbreakable. I won't
bore you with the details - which you can Google quite easily - but it entails
two parties setting up a source of genuinely random numbers, then broadcasting
those numbers to each other ...'

'We know about the encryption,' said Mentz.

'Good, then I don't need to explain. Last week, we followed
the trail of the communication to, amongst others, Shaheed Osman, hence our
recent interest in him. But electronic communication is not our only source of
intelligence. Assets in Pakistan and Afghanistan have been picking up snippets,
and we accumulated enough to know that something very big is brewing, that a
fishing vessel is involved, and that it will happen within the next seventy-two
hours, in or near Cape Town. Bruno ...'

'Thank you, Janet. Janina, let me be frank: we want Osman,
and we want him badly. We have little doubt that he has the cypher keys, and
this is a real emergency situation, our time is running out. Yesterday, Langley
asked me to submit to you a formal request for the apprehension of Osman, with
your approval and cooperation. You can imagine our surprise when we received
news of his abduction late yesterday. We honestly believed it was you. That's
why we asked for this meeting...'

Burzynski stopped talking when he saw Tau Masilo writing
frenetically on his writing pad.

Mentz read the four words:
Becker
has Osman's laptop.
She looked up at the Americans. 'I'm going to need a
few minutes to think this over.'

It took the young man at iThemba Computers only eleven
minutes to retrieve the password for Shaheed Latif Osman's laptop. He wrote it
down for them:
Amiralbahr.

'There you are,' said Milla, with a happy, effervescent
feeling, as though she herself had provided the solution.

'What does it mean, Oom?'

'Nothing. That's why I forgot it. Thanks a lot.'

'Oom, should I leave the script like this?'

'What script?'

'The formatting script.'

Becker scratched his head. 'Remind me.'

'Oom, the script you have here that says,
control, alt
and
home
will format the hard drive, delete everything.'

'Oh, yes ...'

'And two wrong passwords too ...' 'You can take all that
off.'

'Bruno,' said Janina Mentz, 'you are playing a dangerous game.
Your man Becker has Osman's laptop, you now have the decryption key, and yet
you are sitting here, deceiving us, and wasting precious time. Why?'

Indignation infused Burzynski's face, he wanted to reply, but
Jim Grant got in first and spoke for the first time. 'Madam,' he said in a
deep, authoritative voice, 'I am the Deputy Director of the CIA's Office of
Terrorism Analysis. I am fully informed about every intelligence and
counter-intelligence operation the Agency is currently running in Southern Africa,
as well as every single agent and asset involved. And I wish to most
categorically state that this man is
not
one
of them. If he were, I would have told you right now, because the greater and
common cause necessitates it. If you're going to insist on doubting us, I'll
have to ask you to take this matter directly to your President. We might
respectfully ask that he calls our Secretary of State for clarification ...
But I beg you, if we go that route, let's do it immediately. As everybody seems
to be pointing out, we are running dangerously low on time.'

It was the combination of his gravity, authority and
solemnity, and their repeated denials, even though Becker had the laptop, which
made Janina Mentz wonder, for the first time, whether she might be wrong. She
hesitated a moment before she said: 'If he's not working for you, the next
question is, who
is
he working for?'

'We don't know. But we would love to find out, if you'll
supply us with more intel.'

'In that case,' she said, and leaned back in her chair, 'we
all share the same problem. We have to find Becker. Because he has the key.'

At the Bayside Centre in Table View she bought clothing and
groceries with cash she had drawn from an ATM in Durbanville. Then they drove
back to the Big Bay Beach Club, so she could cook, and he could explore the
laptop.

Lukas was quiet. She knew it was the circumstances, the odds
that he would be able to get his money back growing ever slimmer. She wanted to
encourage him, but she didn't know what to say.

Mentz and Masilo walked back to the PIA offices.

'You realise this is your fault,' she said.

'What?'

'Becker. And Osman's laptop. You wanted to keep Becker in
play, Tau. When I wanted him taken out. Neutralised. You hoped he would force
me to act.'

'Yes,' he said.

'I appointed you because you're not a "yes-man".
Because you're strong enough to disagree with me. But please do it openly and
honestly.'

'It was
a mistake. It won't happen again.'

At the deserted pavilion of the De Grendel Sports Complex in
Parow the informant smoked a cigarette in short, nervous puffs, blowing the
smoke out audibly between sentences. 'They say it's the Sheikh, calling in a
favour.'

'Suleiman Dolly.'

'They say he phoned Terror personally.'

'And?'

'The Committee is looking for a laptop, stolen by a whitey in
a blue Citi Golf, tall and dark, a Boer. Registration number is CA 143 and
something.'

'And Terror and the Ravens have to help look?'

'Ja
, that's the favour. And the word is,
they don't want the whitey alive, it's the laptop that counts. There's a
hundred K bonus for the one who brings it in, fifty more if you
blaas
the whitey. This news is travelling fast,
every wannabe on the peninsula has got his eyes open now.'

'Do you think they'll get the guy?'

'Sooner or later.'

Janina Mentz sent for Quinn as well, to save time. Now they
sat around the Director's round table with Rajkumar and Masilo.

'Our first priority,' said Janina, 'is to track down Becker
and Strachan. Quinn, I want their photos in the Sunday papers, supply all the
information: he's armed and dangerous, wanted for kidnapping and murder, she's
the accomplice. Publicise the Golf's details as well, but talk to the Western
Cape Commissioner of the SAPS, so that we work through their public relations
department.'

Quinn made notes.

'The first thing she'll do when she sees her photo in the
paper is phone her son. Are we prepared?'

'We are,' said Quinn.

'Keep the Reaction Unit ready, and tell the Police
Commissioner to keep their hands off. We will take Becker out.'