A Murder of Crows (32 page)

Roger rolled his eyes. “In that case, I’ll pour you a double. You’ll need it.”

This time, Hicks didn’t argue.

“I’
M AFRAID
there’s been a change of plans,” Rahul told Hicks on the phone later that night. “The Regent Star is due to dock this morning, not tomorrow as we’d thought.”

Roger’s double scotch hadn’t dulled the impact of the news. “How the hell is that even possible? Weren’t you were tracking the goddamned thing?”

“I
have
been tracking it,” Rahul explained, “which is why I know about the change in the arrival time. The harbormaster’s office is expecting heavier than usual outbound traffic tomorrow, so they’ve decided to bring the
Regent Star
in this morning.”

Hicks knew operational details changed on a dime all the time, but he didn’t like it had happened during this particular operation. There were too many moving parts and too many people who could have said the wrong thing at any time along the way.

But speculation wouldn’t solve anything. He focused on the problem at hand. “How are you handling the change?”

“Half of my men are on their way to the port as we speak. The remaining half is here with me, watching Shaban’s flat. He looks like he’s getting ready to go somewhere.”

“My money says he’s going to meet the ship.”

“As does mine,” Rahul agreed. “OMNI caught him hacking the Regent Transportation servers again last night. And he focused on the
Regent Star’s
position at sea. My guess is he’s getting ready to meet the ship in port. He also accessed full details on the ship herself, and I mean all of it. Technical specifications on the ship, engine speed, fuel capacity, cargo capacity, and the like. He’d also accessed the complete cargo manifest and a list of all the crew members. In fact, he seems to have done this several times, especially the crew list. I don’t know why. There’s no reason for it to have changed since the ship put to sea, but it holds some fascination for him.”

Why was Shaban was so damned curious about a common freighter out of Toronto. Was he part of a plan to attack it? Was there something in the cargo he was waiting for? He’d ordered OMNI to generate a detailed analysis on the cargo, but he hadn’t had the time to review it yet. He hoped Rahul had. “What kind of cargo is the ship carrying?”

“Spare parts for American cars sold in Europe. There rest is odds and ends, including some sensitive seismology equipment used to monitor earthquakes. It seems they don’t like to ship such equipment by air because the flight turbulence could ruin the equipment.”

Why would Shaban be interested in seismology equipment? “Did you check the manifest with the shippers?”

“I did and each bit of tonnage is accountable from the source. I can’t imagine there’s anything of interest to Shaban on that ship.”

As soon as Hicks seemed like he was making progress, he slammed into yet another brick wall. “What did you find out about the crew?”

“Now we’re getting to the good part,” Rahul told him. “The captain’s record is clean as is most of the crew. Some have been arrested in the past, some even for assault, but nothing to be concerned about. I was ready to give up when one name practically leapt off the page.”

Finally, a break. “Who?”

“A crew member named Feyyaz Arap. He’s a Turkish citizen who has been working for the company for over five years, but his last name struck a chord with me. Now the name ‘Arap’…”

“Is the Turkish term for ‘Arab’,” Hicks said. “I pulled a couple of tours in the University’s Istanbul office. Tell me more.”

“It’s not an alias, by the way. Feyyaz’s real last name is Arap. But our boy wasn’t born in Turkey. He was born in Birjan in the South Khorasan region of Iran. His family immigrated to Turkey when Feyyaz was a teenager. And guess who else was born in Birjan?”

Hicks didn’t have to guess. He had seen Birjan a couple of days ago when he’d first run a search on Shaban. He had been born in Birjan also. “Son of a bitch.”

“I’ll admit a common birthplace isn’t much to go on, but given Shaban’s interest in the ship Arap is on, it’s enough of a coincidence to give one pause. I was going have OMNI do a deeper dive on Arap’s background, but when the change in arrival time happened, I had to react to that instead.”

“I’ll worry about Arap,” Hicks said. “You concentrate on watching the ship and tracking Shaban. I want as many eyes on both of them at all times from now on. Something is about to pop and we’d better be ready for it when it does.”

A
FTER SENDING
Schneider a carefully redacted report of the information he had retrieved from Bajjah, Hicks reviewed the OMNI search results on Fayyad Arap’s life.

The merchant seaman was thirty years old and had been on and off several international watch lists over the years. His activities in Iran, even as a boy, had troubled SAVAK, the Iranian secret police. Records showed SAVAK had detained and interrogated Arap during his last trip back to his homeland about a year before. OMNI wasn’t able to locate any written records in SAVAK’s files on the results of the interrogations, which wasn’t unusual. The Iranians usually didn’t keep records of such sessions.

But a detailed search of Arap’s medical history upon his return to Canada told Hicks all he needed to know about the results of their interrogation: pain killers and penicillin.

Outside the normal immigration documents, the Turks didn’t have any many records on Arap either. He seemed to behave himself in his adopted country. However, The Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) had conducted tight surveillance on him for a time. They had tied Arap to various vocal radical Islamic sects in Canada. RCMP records showed Arap liked to attend meetings and rallies and hand out pamphlets on street corners, like Shaban. He’d been arrested five times in the past three years, charged with inciting riot and mayhem during various protests throughout Canada.

Hicks directed OMNI to access RCMP surveillance files on the cell phones Arap was known to have used while he was in Canada. Records showed Arap had used several devices during his various times in Toronto. Many had been used once, then discarded. They looked like obvious ‘burner phones’ to Hicks.

Arap was a man with a secret.

Hicks ran all the numbers through OMNI and did an extensive search on the activities of each number. RCMP records showed Arap had sent text messages from several burner phones to a jumble of numbers Hicks had seen in other OMNI searches he had conducted over the past few days.

Next, he cross-referenced Arap’s numbers with OMNI’s ongoing search of Jabbar’s network.

As OMNI’s search began, an innocent white line appeared from Arap’s numbers to other numbers OMNI had been tracking. The white line grew scarlet and began to blink.

Hicks pushed himself away from his desk.

Arap had direct contact with numbers directly associated with the Jabbar profile.

Arap’s texts with Jabbar had been to numbers located in Toronto.

Jabbar had been in Toronto after all, as OMNI had predicted.

One number was a year old, the other six months old, but OMNI should still be able to hunt down an approximate location. OMNI accessed local cell carriers in Canada and showed both signals had bounced to the same general location on the map: an office park area on Toronto’s west mall.

OMNI had long calculated a high probability of Jabbar being located somewhere in Canada.

Hicks had a lock on where the most wanted man in the world might be.

Jabbar.

It was a thin lead, but it was more of a lead than he—or anyone else in the world—had ever had before. It was something. And it was all his.

Hicks began setting protocols for OMNI’s detailed search and analysis of all digital traffic in the office park on the map. He knew it would give him more data than he could ever use, but he was looking for something specific. He was looking for a match to all numbers and accounts used by Jabbar.

Arap was tied to Jabbar. Arap was on the
Regent Star.
The
Regent Star
was of great interest to Shaban, a member of Jabbar’s network.

And with the
Regent Star
about to dock in London, he didn’t have a moment to lose.

Hicks flinched when he saw a new traffic alert from OMNI appear on his screen. Shaban had received a text message to his cell phone.

HOME EARLY. COME NOW.

Hicks’ handheld began to buzz. The screen on the desk set said it was Rahul.

“My man at the port called.” Rahul sounded winded. “He said the
Regent Star
is already in port. He doesn’t know how long it’s been docked, but there’s a chance Arap may have already left the ship.”

“S
HABAN GOT
a cryptic text message from a number we haven’t seen before,” Hicks told Rahul. “Another burner phone, but the message is real.” Hicks read it to him.

“That must be why the little bastard popped downstairs so quickly. He’s on the street now, and I’m following him on foot. I’ve got a man and woman cover team backing me up. Three others are trailing us in the van.”

Hicks checked the time. It was one in the morning in New York, so it was six in the morning in London. He hoped there was enough commuter foot traffic at that time of the morning to prevent Shaban from realizing he was being followed by three people and a van. But there was no record of Shaban receiving formal field training from any terrorist network. And Hicks knew Rahul was one of the best at this kind of work. He had to believe Rahul wouldn’t get burned.