MMORPG: How a Computer Game Becomes Deadly Serious (29 page)

When he was ready, there was a deep silence. “Shall I do it? This is our last chance. If we’re wrong, his account is disabled.”

“Do it!”

Robert hit Enter.

It was the right password. They were validated in a few seconds and promptly arrived at the familiar screen.

“We’re in!” Andy exclaimed. Rebecca cheered through the phone.

Robert selected Drimm and clicked on Enter World. A few seconds later, he was looking at the back of the hunter. He was in Ogrimmar.

He looked at the screen a few seconds and whistled.

“Rebecca?”

“Yes?”

“Did you say he was going to the station?”

“That direction, yes. We’re close now.”

“Well, he’s going to take the train, believe me. And so are we. We’re all going to Rotterdam!”

He pointed at the bottom of the screen, where the message box was taken up by a text in green color that signified an official guild communication.

“Look, Andy!” he said. The Dutchman read the text out loud, so Rebecca could hear it as well:

Guild message of the day: Cataclysm launch party! Binnenwegplein Rotterdam. Be there at 23:00. Meeting point Bram Ladage
.

Andy started to laugh. At Robert’s questioning look, he explained that Bram Ladage was a popular chain of snack bars. “Well, maybe they just like some French fries to go with it,’ he said.

~~~

Chapter XXV

It
was a ten minute walk from the train station of Rotterdam to the center of the shopping district. They were chilled to the bone by the time they arrived at the square. To their surprise an immense crowd had descended on this spot in the middle of the night. At least several thousand people were assembled outside the entrance of one of the largest electronics stores in the Netherlands. They were patiently waiting for midnight to arrive and their turn to be among the first to purchase the new expansion to World of Warcraft.

Bram Ladage was indeed a snack bar. It was right in the middle of the square. For the occasion, it was open at this time of night. Robert guessed they had hired extra personnel to keep up with the demand. They were doing a healthy business.

When the three of them drew closer, they saw that what had appeared a mass actually was a long queue. Fences had been placed to create a long mazelike corridor, just like at amusement parks.

“Ouch, this is going to be a long wait,” Andy said. “It’s going to take at least an hour to reach the front.”

Rebecca looked at her watch. “I don’t think we’re going to stand in line,” she said. “Our priority is to find the Hammer of Grimstone.”

After a short discussion, they fanned out among the people, circling the pack of humanity. It was immediately clear that it wasn’t going to be easy. Many people wore hats and scarves or had the lapels of their coats turned up to protect their faces.

“This isn’t going to work,” Rebecca said twenty minutes later, shivering from the cold. “We’ll never find them among all these people.” She checked the time again. “It’s only eight minutes to midnight.”

Behind them, the crowd cheered. All kinds of entertainment made the time pass quickly. In front of the crowd was a small stage where a man with a microphone was keeping everyone’s spirit up. There had just been a ‘dress as your favorite WoW character’ contest, and now it was announced that a quiz about WoW lore was starting.

In the end, they decided that Rebecca and Andy would position themselves near the exit of the store, where the lucky people who had obtained their copy of Cataclysm would emerge as soon as the sale started. Robert would join the queue to see if he could spot them from within the writhing mass. The endless line snaked all over the square between the fences. There was a fair chance that he’d spot them somewhere along the line.

It happened the other way around. Midnight had come and gone with a lot of fireworks and cheers. Groups of around forty people at a time were allowed to enter the store, where they were handled efficiently, judging by the swift turnaround time. Soon, the long line of waiting people came in motion, taking the slowly shuffling Robert deeper and deeper into the melee.

Suddenly, he felt a tug on his arm. When he looked up, he found himself looking straight at the face of Khalid. He was at the other side of the fence, in a line that went into the opposite direction. If the man was surprised to see him, he hid it well.

“Hello, I hoped I’d see you here!” Robert reacted, just like he had rehearsed several times. “I went by your room tonight, but you weren’t there.”

“Really? That could be.”

Robert looked behind his neighbor at the group of men who were obviously part of Khalid’s entourage. They were in their mid twenties to early thirties. All had a Mediterranean look, with dark eyes and black hair. The most common feature amongst them were the coats they were all wearing. They all seemed to be from the same make, with dark colors.
The Hammer of Grimstone. The Hammer of Righteous Justice
.

Several of the men were looking curiously at him, which made Robert more than a little uncomfortable. One stepped forward. He was a bit taller and older and carried an air of authority. Robert wondered if he was looking at Pharad.

He asked something of Khalid in a language Robert didn’t understand. Khalid took his eyes off Robert to look at the man. “Robert lives at the same place as I do,” he replied in English. “He’s from England. Also a WoW addict, but a recent one.”

The man nodded. Also in English, with a thick accent, he said, “How do you do. Nice to meet you.”

Without another word he turned away, making it clear that the conversation was over. Khalid nodded at Robert and turned away as well, engaging one of the other men in conversation. For a second Robert didn’t know what to do. At that moment, the queue started moving again, rapidly widening the distance between him and the Hammer of Grimstone. As soon as he was sure he was out of sight, he sent a text message to Rebecca’s mobile. Pressing the little buttons, he noticed that his hands were shaking slightly.

She shared his mixed feelings about the encounter.

“They’re way ahead of me,” he replied. “I think they’re fifteen minutes away from the store.”

“We’ll pick them up upon leaving the store and do the job,” was her short reply. A little disappointed that Rebecca had more or less decided that the covering of the Grimstones was over for him, Robert decided to stay in the queue.

Robert’s guess was right on the mark. A little over fifteen minutes later, he saw how Khalid and the other men were among the next group to be admitted to the store. He quickly counted the number of men he judged to be the companions of his neighbor. There were nine of them.

He updated Rebecca and Andy by text message. Almost immediately, he received a response confirming they had seen them enter as well.

The night may have been icy cold, but he noticed that he was sweating underneath all the clothes he was wearing. The tension was almost unbearable. It occurred to him how stupid and unprofessional it was for the AIVD people to be of reach for an entire day. The man should have given them an alternate phone number in case of an emergency, or in case of a development like this. Wasn’t it madness that they should be the ones to handle this? He swore he would get that Fitzgerald if something happened to Rebecca.

He didn’t see them leave the store, but he was notified by another text message from Rebecca. They had spotted them when they left the store. Andy had even managed to take some pictures of the group while they were standing in the lobby, backlit by the bright illumination from inside. While Robert shuffled closer and closer to the front of the line, his friends kept him abreast of what was happening. The group had split up shortly after leaving the store, and so had Rebecca and Andy. She was following the big man whom they presumed to be Pharad. Andy was on the tail of two of the Grimstones who seemed to stay together. They were going in the direction of the train station. Pharad was going in the opposite direction.

Right at the moment that he pocketed his change from buying two Cataclysm expansion sets, he got the message that Rebecca had nearly lost her target, but had picked him up again by pure luck when he reappeared out of a small café.

With nothing better to do, he looked for a pub to sit down and wait. He found one in a side street just off the square and seated himself at a table in a corner. He ordered a beer and put his cell phone on the table. Soon it lit up again. Another message: Andy had just gotten on a train.

The man who called himself Pharad in the virtual universe of World of Warcraft walked purposefully through the Dutch city. Rotterdam was close to a modern city as is so common in the United States, a spacious city center of tall modern buildings and even some skyscrapers worthy of the name. Most cities of any note in the Netherlands had old city centers, often dating hundreds of years back. Rotterdam, too, used to be famous for its magnificent historical city center, until the invading German army bombed the inner city in 1940 in a successful effort to force the stubborn neighboring country to surrender. Nowadays, only a few old lanes remained as a testament to the city’s stately past.

The stocky man knew exactly where he was going. He crossed the four lanes of the Westblaak without waiting for the pedestrian traffic light to turn green and ducked into the dark gallery that encompassed a large office building.

Rebecca trailed some twenty yards behind, keeping as much to the shades as she could. The man looked around once or twice, but didn’t seem to notice her. When he reached the end of the building, he lit a cigarette before crossing a small street. A peculiar smell reached her nostrils. It wasn’t the smell of ordinary tobacco, neither of a joint. It was sharp, spicy, and distinctive. She didn’t mind, as it gave her a beacon to follow.

In this manner they reached a large crossing. The man didn’t continue in the same direction. He turned left. Rebecca did the same a little later. She immediately saw that her quarry had quickened his pace as the distance between them had suddenly nearly doubled.

They were on a beautiful wide avenue. Majestic old houses flanked either side of a broad canal. Perfectly kept lawns with a width of at least ten yards formed the banks of the waterway. Rebecca left the paved walkway and stepped onto the grass and into the darkness. She could see Pharad clearly as he was walking in the illumination of the streetlights. Silently, she started to run.

Just when she thought there was no end to the street, it suddenly ended. She was alerted to this because the man she was following suddenly disappeared. Confused, she halted, unsure if she should move toward the point where she had last seen him. She strained her ears, trying to catch a sound.

Hearing nothing, she backtracked some twenty yards and crossed over to the paved walkway, starting to walk down in the direction where he had disappeared, acting as if she was just another pedestrian. Soon she reached the point where she had lost him. Now, she saw that the walkway ended in stairs leading up to a large road that crossed the street she was on. The streetlight at this point was broken. Fear gripped her. If something happened to her now, nobody would notice. Pushing that thought to the back of her mind, she mounted the dark stairs and emerged onto the brightly lit road above. Even though it was a four lane road, it was deserted. No cars, no pedestrians. She cursed. How could she have lost him in no more than a minute?

Suddenly, her eyes were drawn to a motion on the other side of the street. She squinted in an effort to penetrate the darkness on the other side of the street. She wasn’t sure, but it seemed as if someone was walking there. Since there was no alternative, she certified that there was still no traffic, then sprinted to the other side of the crossing.

She saw no one. Slowly, she continued down the street. She found herself in another part of the city, much seedier than where she was before. She passed several rundown bars and nightclubs on her right, some of which she suspected were actually brothels. Strangely enough, on her left were also some obviously upscale restaurants and shops. After two hundred yards she came to another crossing.

Rebecca hesitated. Which way should she go? She was just about to follow the main road, when she caught a whiff of the peculiar cigarette scent. It was brought to her by the wind that blew into her face from the sharp right.

This street was much narrower than the other one. It was a lot darker as well, even though this was clearly a neighborhood where people lived, not some industrial area. She passed many houses with multiple mail boxes, indicating that each was inhabited by several different people and families.

She found the place where he lived by accident. Apparently, she had made good most of the distance between them, because she suddenly heard the sound of a door slamming shut only some ten yards farther down the street. She halted in midstride, her heart in her throat.

When it remained silent, she stole closer. It was an old derelict house, with a door that had once been dark green. All the windows were closed, with role curtains drawn all the way down. Again, her nose picked up the strange cigarette smell. It seemed to come from behind her. When she looked, she saw a squashed cigarette lying on the ground, the tip still faintly glowing. With some distaste, she picked it up and held it to her nose. From up close, there was no doubt. It was definitely the same smell as before.

She looked at the door again, realizing that she had just stalked the leader of a dangerous and extremely violent terrorist group to his lair. The audacity of what she had done suddenly dawned on her. She memorized the house number and slowly backed away from the house, as if it were a dangerous beast that could jump on her if she made a wrong move. When she was some distance away, she stored the name of the street and the house number in her phone. Then she started running.