A Murder of Crows (8 page)

But after spending six hours inside Bajjah’s damaged mind, Hicks could stand a little brevity.

Roger continued. “We cracked one hell of a tough nut today, James. I’d say the prick owes us a bit of thanks.”

“He won’t give a shit about anything unless we can authenticate the names Bajjah gave us and prove they’re connected. This isn’t math class. He doesn’t care how we arrived at our results. All he cares about is the results themselves.”

Roger pouted and went back to sipping his whiskey in silence.

Hicks kept typing.

Hicks was particularly interested in the London operative on Bajjah’s list—Shaban Ghasemi. Not because Bajjah had said he was in London, but because Shaban was the first name Bajjah had chosen to give them. In Hicks’ experience, the first name a prisoner gave up usually held some kind of importance. Sometimes, a prisoner used it to throw off the interrogator. Sometimes it was a slip of the tongue, but Bajjah didn’t misspeak. What was so special about Shaban he deserved top billing?

Hicks typed in the final name and location into OMNI and clicked on the SEARCH button. He sat back watched OMNI go to work.

Within nanoseconds, OMNI began accessing the databases of the world’s leading intelligence agencies to determine if the names on Bajjah’s list belonged to real people. If they were, the University may have uncovered elements of a new global terror network. The information might give the Dean enough leverage he could use to make Stephens and the Barnyard back off. The Mossad might not be happy about it, but he’d deal with it if and when the time came.

Hicks watched OMNI’s search results come in the way a political junkie watches the returns on Election Night. Roger looked on as well.

They knew the search was only the beginning, not the end of anything. If the names came back positive, a more detailed search would need to be conducted into the lives of each man to determine how they were working together.

OMNI may have been the most connected digital network in the world, but it was still only a tool. The Dean often pointed out how hammers and saws don’t build houses, humans do. He applied the same logic to technology. He believed a human perspective was needed to wield OMNI’s immense power in order for it to be truly effective. If the Dean had a motto, Hicks imagined it would be “Never let the computer do your thinking for you.”

The search took less than five minutes, which was an eternity by OMNI standards. One by one, checks began to appear next to each of the ten names Hicks had entered into the system. He didn’t react when he saw a green check appear next to the final name on the list.

Every name Bajjah had given them belonged to an actual person.

Roger cheered and slapped him on the back. “Ten out of ten! We broke him wide open!” He finished his drink and eagerly poured himself another. “Looks like Bajjah gets his shot at the forty virgins. Tali and the Mossad won’t like it, but I’m sure you and the Dean will handle it.”

But Hicks wasn’t opening any champagne bottles yet. He had to determine if Bajjah had merely spouted off a list of random names or if he had given up the men who belonged to his own network.

OMNI’s initial search showed each man had been flagged as a ‘Person of Interest’ by at least one intelligence agency somewhere in the world, but it was still the first name Bajjah had given them, Shaban Ghasemi, that caught Hicks’ attention. Shaban was living in London and was being passively watched by British Intelligence. Most of the remaining nine names on Bajjah’s list were already being tracked by multiple agencies at the same time. It was a good beginning, but now it was up to OMNI to determine if there were any solid connections.

The Dean would want more than a list of confirmed names. He’d want evidence of collusion. He’d want proof of Bajjah’s network. He’d want Hicks to have such proof by the time their conference call began in an hour.

He’d want hard evidence before he agreed to let Hicks kill Bajjah and violate their agreement with the Mossad and Tali.

Hicks opened a tactical search screen. OMNI generated a digital map of the world and quickly populated it with a passport photo or drivers’ license photo of each suspect in the state or country where OMNI had tracked them. All of the men were dark complexioned, bearded, and wore glasses. Their ages ranged from thirty to fifty-five, but the thick beards made it difficult to guess how old they were based on their appearance. Hicks knew part of it was for religious purposes but part of it was by design. A common appearance made it more difficult for Westerners to casually identify them.

Fortunately, OMNI didn’t do anything casually.

Hicks began typing in the commands directing OMNI to bore deep into the digital lives of each man on Bajjah’s list. Phone records would be analyzed, contents of emails and text messages would be scanned, online search histories and social media activity would be scrutinized for anything that might link these ten men together. OMNI would also delve into travel patterns, real estate holdings, and bank account balances to determine if there were any common purchases or payments or expenses. Even the cars they drove would be identified and tracked from now on.

Over the next several hours, OMNI’s search would burrow into the lives of each man, revealing more about these individuals than they knew about themselves. Hicks hoped all of this data would help him not only make connections within Bajjah’s network, but the network’s connections to other terrorist groups throughout the globe.

Hicks finally took his whiskey as he sat back and watched OMNI dig. There was no way the in-depth search would be done before the conference call with the Dean, but it would be underway.

Hicks sipped the whiskey as he watched hints of lines between each subject’s photo begin to appear on the map. They represented a vague connection between the men at best. It was to be expected. Since they were all on at least one terror watch list, they’d been on the same extremist email lists or visited the same blogs. Perhaps they’d been in touch with similar people.

But some of the lines became a lighter gray, showing OMNI had found a more solid connection between various men. Soon, each photo became connected to each other as a web of gray lines slowly spread across the digital globe. The lines gradually lighten to white, and yellow, as evidence of the connection between the men on Bajjah’s list grew deeper.

He sat forward as he watched the lines on the map suddenly turned red and began to blink.

Roger cheered and almost spilled his drink.

OMNI had found a rock-solid connection between each name Bajjah had given them. The Moroccan had told him the truth. He’d given them his network.

Roger toasted the screen with his glass. “Boom. Got the sons of bitches.”

But Hicks set his whiskey on the table. OMNI wasn’t done yet. “Wait.”

A single gray outline of an image appeared in the upper center of the map’s Atlantic Ocean. Hicks had seen this icon before. It was the default location for a suspect OMNI hadn’t been able to locate. An equally generic gray outline of a head appeared, the standard graphic for a suspect OMNI hadn’t yet identified. The system had found a common connection between the men and an eleventh party. It was working to define it.

The name appearing beneath this icon brought Hicks out of his chair. It wasn’t the standard ‘Subject Unknown’ or an established screen name.

The icon was associated with a profile already in the OMNI system. A profile without a photograph on file, but a profile existed in the database of every major law enforcement and intelligence agency in the world.

It was a profile of the most wanted man alive.

The name beneath the icon:
Jabbar
.

Roger let out a long whistle as the dark gray line between the ten suspects and the Jabbar icon brightened. “Well, look at that.”

Hicks knew not even OMNI could decipher the myths from the facts of the Jabbar profile. No two people who had admitted meeting Jabbar had ever given the same description of the man. No one had any idea about how tall he was, how old he might be, what he looked like or where he had been born.

OMNI’s analysis of all descriptions gathered by all of the leading intelligence agencies throughout the world put Jabbar at about sixty, but it was an educated guess at best. No one knew what sect of Islam he followed or if he was even a Muslim at all.

Every intelligence agency in the world wanted Jabbar, but only one had issued a shoot-to-kill order on him.

The Mossad, who were keeping quiet about Bajjah being in University custody in exchange for interrogating him later.

The Jabbar network was a web within a web spanning the entire planet. And Bajjah had given Hicks a way to track it.

Hicks had never paid much attention to Jabbar before. He’d always figured the Barnyard or another foreign agency would get him one day. Someone would talk or Jabbar might slip up.

But now, Bajjah may have given him a direct link to the most wanted man in the world.

Hicks figured this should be more than enough to give the Dean the leverage he needed to get the Barnyard to back away. And if not, he still had a hell of a problem on his hands.

And so did the University.

“What the hell is the matter with you?” Roger asked. “You’ve uncovered a network directly tied into Jabbar. A link no one else seems to have. You should be doing back flips right now.”

Hicks still hadn’t told Roger about his run-in with Stephens and the Barnyard. It had only happened earlier that morning. He could have sworn it had happened a month ago.

Hicks grabbed the whiskey bottle and refilled Roger’s glass. Bad news was a lot easier to take with a whiskey chaser.

“Uh oh,” said Roger. “If you’re pouring, this must be serious.”

Hicks filled his glass. “You have no idea.”

“G
IVE ME
all of the details on the prisoner interrogation,” the Dean said. “Assume I do not know anything.”

Hicks told him about the ten names Bajjah had given them and the results of both OMNI scans. But he made sure he followed the Dean’s rigid format while he did it.

Roger usually watched porn on his tablet and made vulgar gestures to distract Hicks during these conference calls. But that evening, Roger was quietly attentive—like a boy on the first day of school. He hadn’t even touched the whiskey Hicks had poured for him earlier. Hicks understood why. Finding out you’re a target of the CIA tended to have a sobering effect.

It took Hicks fifteen minutes to summarize the results of the Bajjah interrogation and the link to Jabbar. He told the Dean about the deal he had made to kill Bajjah if he had cooperated. He also reminded the Dean that Tali Shaddon of the Mossad was scheduled to interrogate Bajjah at the end of the week. Hicks made sure to not suggest the Jabbar information should be enough to get the Barnyard to back away. The Dean liked to arrive at his own conclusions in his own time, lest he felt like he was being led to make a decision.

The Dean was quiet for a time after Hicks finished his report before saying, “I watched your entire interrogation on OMNI as it happened, James. Exemplary work. Roger, my compliments to you and your staff on an effective rendition. I believe this is the closest anyone has come to confirming the existence of the elusive Jabbar.”

Hicks saw Roger looking at him. He knew Roger wanted him to ask the Dean about using Bajjah’s list as leverage to get the Barnyard to back off. But Hicks knew the Dean didn’t like interruptions. Hicks would have to wait for the right time to raise the question.