Covert Evidence (4 page)

“I see her,” Zack said a moment after the woman entered the hotel.

Ian jumped the fence and entered the building through the nightclub. He skirted the busy dance floor and headed for the hotel lobby.

“She just stepped out to the front driveway.”

Good. That meant the coast was clear for Ian to enter the lobby without being spotted.

Ian entered the opulent, brightly lit lobby. Through the glass door, he caught sight of the woman as she wheeled her bag to the front of the wide, circular drive.

“You want me to tail her from here?” Zack asked.

Ian hesitated. It could take her some time to get a taxi. “Wait with her. I need to talk to Hejan.”

“Roger.”

He turned to go to the woman’s room but paused midstep when Zack said, “She’s talking to the doorman.” A moment later he added, “She slipped him some money. He’s nodding and waving to one of the waiting cars.”

Shit.
Go after her or Hejan?

“The car is pulling up. What should I do?”

He had no choice. “Follow. Don’t lose her.”

“I won’t.”

Ian darted down the long interior hallway, then paused at the intersection with the wing where the woman’s room was located. A quick glance revealed an empty, quiet corridor. He treaded silently on the expensive Turkish carpets and came to a dead stop when he reached her room.

Motherfucker.
The door was ajar. A foot protruded through the opening.

“Zack. We have a problem. Do not, under any circumstance, lose sight of the woman.”

“What’s wrong?”

Ian pulled his Sig and shoved open the door. A man lay just inside the door in a pool of his own blood, glassy eyes fixed unseeing on the ceiling.

Chapter Three

“H
er name is Cressida Porter. She’s in Turkey on a student visa,” Ian’s boss, Stan Mott said, when Ian called him less than an hour later.

“Where is she now?”

“She went straight to the airport,” Stan said.

“Is she flying to Van?”

“Yes. I’ve got Zack booked on the same flight.”

“This is my op, Stan.” Ian stifled a curse. It had been necessary for Zack to follow the woman while he stayed back and photographed and searched Hejan Duhoki’s body, but Zack was backup on this. Hejan had been Ian’s asset; no way would Zack take the lead.

“We need to tip off the Antalya police about Duhoki,” Stan said.

“Not until her flight takes off,” Ian said. “Even though Hejan was alive when she left, you know they’ll detain her. We’ll never get the next link in the cell if she doesn’t go to Van.” He paused. “Get me a seat on her flight. The seat next to hers, to be exact.”

“You know I can’t do that. She saw you at the club.”

“She didn’t see me.”

“Zack said you held her back, during the fight. No way would she fail to notice you after that.”

Ian silently cursed Zack. The rat. “She was focused on the fight. I retreated before she thought to look.” He sighed and rubbed his chin. The beard would have to go, which was a shame. The extra-long beard helped him blend in in the Muslim world, and it was a shield against people noticing him. Supervisors had told him his face was too striking for covert ops, and he’d never go unnoticed, which was simple bullshit. His looks were nothing special in the Muslim world. But still, to get around that objection, he’d grown the beard and found it useful. “I’ll shave and put on glasses. Even if she got a glimpse, she won’t recognize me without the beard.”

“Zack is ready to go.”

“As backup. Zack’s language skills are weak, and he reeks of newbie.”

“Zack’s been in-country for months, and he aced every simulation the Company put him through.” Stan sighed. “But you’re right about his Turkish. You’re
sure
she has the microchip?”

“Hejan gave her an envelope marked in the corner, just like he promised. You and I both know whoever killed Hejan was probably after the microchip. Now they’ll be after her.”

“We should let the Turkish police nab her at the airport.”

“We might get her—and the chip—but Hejan was adamant that the courier would lead us to the next link in the chain, who will take us to the leader. We can take apart the entire network with this op.”

“Ian, you’ve been doing this too long to believe that fairy tale. It’s
always
the next one up the chain.”

Ian took a deep breath. He couldn’t put into words how he knew it wasn’t a bullshit lead. He just knew. From the moment he’d interviewed Hejan, he knew
this
was the informant, the man who would break everything open. Hejan was the real deal. All he said was, “This is it, Stan. She’s the key, and with Hejan dead, she’s the only lead we’ve got.”

Stan clicked his tongue. “You’re talking about using a civilian as bait.”

“There’s a good chance she’s in on it. And we aren’t the ones who put her at risk. Hejan did that when he gave her the microchip, and she accepted that risk when she took it from him. In a public place. In front of a hundred people. Get me a seat next to her on the plane. That will give me two hours to decide whose side she’s on and act accordingly.”

Stan sighed. “I’ll see what I can do.”

While Stan pulled strings, Ian took a long and involved Surveillance Detection Route back to his hotel so he could shave and prep for his role. Transformed, he then took another SDR, driving around Antalya, seemingly aimless. His role in the mission would have to be aborted if there was any sign he was being tailed.

Thankfully, after an hour and a half, he hadn’t spotted any followers. He was clear to head to the airport. He pulled into the airport parking lot and called the intelligence officer who’d been gathering information on Cressida Porter. “What can you tell me?” Ian asked.

“She’s here working on an underwater archaeology excavation funded in part by the Akdeniz University in Antalya, her graduate program at Florida State University, and the MacLeod-Hill Exploration Institute. One of our guys went out to the island where the crew for the underwater dig is living. Most were out—night on the town, just like Porter—but the professor running the dig was there. He’s Porter’s graduate advisor at FSU.”

“Name?” Ian asked.

“Dr. Steven Brenner. One of those academic types who insists on being called ‘doctor’—a real prig, according to our guy. He was none too pleased to be woken up early and questioned but eager to spill info on Porter. She’s not his favorite student.”

“Why’s that?”

“A few months ago, another graduate student, Todros Ganem—goes by Todd—stole the university’s new, state-of-the-art Lidar equipment. We’re talking upwards of a few hundred thousand dollars, including drones for aerial survey. The equipment was recovered from his house, which Ganem shared with his girlfriend, Porter. He was arrested and implicated Porter in the theft, saying she needed Lidar drones for her dissertation research. Tallahassee PD arrested her, and she was facing serious time, but—and this is where it gets interesting—none other than US Attorney General Curt Dominick ordered the FBI to investigate, citing counterintelligence concerns. Sure enough, the FBI found evidence Ganem had sent out feelers to associates in Jordan prior to the theft. No word on whether he planned to use the drones to map sensitive locations on US soil, or if he simply wanted to sell them to finance his own research. Political motives haven’t been ruled out. There was no connection to Porter’s research, and the FBI found no evidence other than Ganem’s word she was involved—he’d offered her up hoping to receive a reduced sentence. All charges against her were dropped. The university was forced to reinstate her.”

“But Dr. Brenner doesn’t believe she’s innocent?”

“No. He thinks she asked Ganem to steal for her and, when he got caught, let him take the fall.”

“What’s the scoop on Ganem?”

“His parents immigrated to the US from Jordan the year before he was born. He has an uncle in Jordan who’s high in the military. The uncle has made several inflammatory anti-American statements. It’s possible the uncle or his cronies wanted the Lidar and drones for aerial reconnaissance of the Jordan/Syrian border.”

“Where is Ganem now?”

“Also interesting—no one knows. He disappeared five or six weeks ago. Investigators think he’s in Jordan with his uncle.”

Ian frowned. “She decked a guy in the bar last night. Any chance that was Ganem?”

“Possible. We’re trying to locate the blonde—Suzanne Davis—to confirm the man’s identity.”

“Why is Porter going to Van?”

“A research trip to gather data for a grant proposal. She wants to convince the private exploration institute—the one that’s partially backing the shipwreck excavation—to fund a Lidar survey in southeastern Turkey to search for archaeological sites. She needs outside funding because FSU won’t let her use their Lidar equipment after what happened with Ganem. According to Dr. Brenner, she resumed planning this trip the moment she was reinstated at the university.”

Ian tapped the steering wheel. On one level, everything about Cressida Porter added up—she could be a squeaky-clean innocent grad student with poor taste in men—but throw the microchip into the equation, and nothing balanced.

“You should know,” the intelligence officer added, “Dr. Brenner believes her research will take her closer to the border.”

“Which border?”

“Southeastern Turkey.”

Ian paused. “You mean Iran, Iraq,
and
Syria?”

“Yes.”

“Holy fuck,” Ian said.

“Yeah, I thought so too.”

Ian had to admit, it was brazenly brilliant to use a woman—and an American woman at that—as courier. If he could pull off the academic angle, he’d have used the archaeologist cover himself years ago. Hell, covert reconnaissance missions with archaeologists likely predated T. E. Lawrence’s survey of the Sinai Peninsula for British military intelligence a century ago, when the man was supposedly looking for evidence of the Exodus.

“What’s her religious background?” Ian asked. “Are we dealing with a zealot?”

“We only know her mother’s side, which is mixed Christian and Jewish. No word on if she’s practicing either, so it seems unlikely she’s an extremist with an agenda. Which leaves stupid as the only other reason she’d head into the region alone.”

“The word crazy also comes to mind. And it’s too early to rule out extremist, no matter how unlikely. Keep digging. Send what you find to my email.” Call completed, Ian next dialed Stan. “What’s the word on my flight?”

“By the time the airline agreed to cooperate, the passengers were already boarding and the seat next to hers was assigned. We had to pull yet more strings to ground the flight and rearrange seating.”

“You got me in the seat next to her?”

“Yeah. They’ve switched planes, forcing a seating chart scramble. Do I need to remind you how much this is going to cost us? And I’m not talking money, I’m talking favors. I’ve burned through them all with this.”

“It’ll be worth it, Stan.”

Stan sighed. “Your ticket is waiting at the VIP counter. Hurry your ass up, the new plane will start boarding soon. We can’t hold the flight and don’t have any favors left. This is a deep cover op, Ian. You’re on your own once you board that jet.”

“I know.”

Chapter Four

C
ressida’s frustration simmered when they announced everyone had to disembark the jet on which they’d just embarked. She was tired and cranky and afraid the flight would be canceled. She grabbed her heavy suitcase from the overhead compartment and shuffled down the narrow aisle with the other passengers.

Nothing about this trip was going right. She was cursed. The universe was out to get her.

Stop being a narcissistic baby. This flight delay has nothing to do with me.

In the terminal, she made a beeline for the coffee stand next to the gate. She’d feel human with more caffeine in her system.

Coffee in hand, she settled into a seat. Exhaustion weighed on her like full diving gear. She’d actually fallen asleep underwater once. The hot Florida sun had beat down on the shallow water of the bathtub-warm Gulf of Mexico, and exhaustion mixed with heat had lulled her into closing her eyes, just to rest them for a moment…