Trojan Horse (18 page)

Ahmed called Karim, who was standing watch, as if waiting to be picked up for a ride. “Soon, my brother. Pay attention.”

The city was quieter, clearly less lively than Prague. He leaned forward, watching closely. “Be ready, Ali. Any moment, I think.”

And there he was, walking with a woman along the broad pathway toward the street. Karim called him. “I see him. Do you? What about the woman?”

“Take them both. No more calls.”

Ahmed started the van, slowly exited the lot, then eased onto the street. Traffic was light. As he approached he saw the couple pass Karim, who then casually put away his phone, turned, and followed.

“Get ready,” Ahmed said. Ali grunted as he positioned himself. Just as he reached the laughing couple, Ahmed brought the van to an abrupt stop. “Now!”

Ali flung the passenger door open and leaped out. Ahmed pressed a button and the van’s side door popped opened. He forced himself to look away from the action, down the street and into the rearview mirror to see if they were attracting attention.

Daryl screamed when she was grabbed from behind. She was swept forward, strong arms holding her tight in their grip. A large man ran at them and went straight to Jeff as Daryl was all but carried to the open door of the white van. She couldn’t get her arms free but threw her foot against the passenger doorjamb and spun them off so the man holding her could not force her into the vehicle. She screamed again for help.

The man behind her grunted as he struggled, making no progress. Then another man was helping him and a moment later had her legs forced into the van and the two of them were holding her down, pinned to floor. Once she was under control, one of them left. Daryl struggled against the other man but he had both her arms pinned behind her, nearly to her neck. The pain was excruciating and she feared he’d pushed her arms out of their sockets.

On the street the large man had bowled over Jeff, catching him completely by surprise. His carrier slid from his shoulder and the laptop skidded to the side. The men rolled on the sidewalk as Jeff fought. The large slowly man gained the advantage but he could not manage to get the American to his feet. That was when another man came over and pressed a gun to Jeff’s head.

“Come, or I kill you, then kill the woman. We have her already.” His voice was calm, too calm for what he was saying, with only the trace of an accent. “Stop, I said. Or you die right now!”

Jeff ceased struggling and a moment later was inside the van. The door slammed shut, then the man with the gun climbed behind the wheel, and drove off.

“Jeff!” Daryl said before someone clamped his hand over her mouth. She bit him. He cursed, then struck her hard. Jeff kicked the man, then kicked him again as he struggled to pull Jeff back.

The mustached man in front shouted something in a foreign language and a gun was pressed against Jeff’s face. He could see Daryl, her eyes suddenly wide in fear.

The driver said, “Stop it or we kill you and dump your bodies. No more fighting. That is finished.” Then he snapped an order in the other language and the couple were quickly bound with clothesline and gagged.

Ahmed pulled onto Route de Meyrin, melding with the evening traffic. He watched the mirror closely but they’d attracted no notice that he could see. He reassured himself that as problematic as the snatch had been, it had taken less than one minute. In the dark, it was not likely that it had been noticed, or at least not sufficiently to summon the police in time to do anything.

But he had to get rid of the van at once. Fortunately, he didn’t have far to go. Within a few minutes he easily found the empty shop again. He pulled up to the garage, nosing the van nearly against the doors. He stepped outside, quietly closed the door to the van.

Nothing.

There were no sounds beyond the ordinary, nothing to see that wasn’t there earlier. He moved to the street itself and as casually as he could looked in both directions while he lit a cigarette. His hand was shaking slightly. Back at the van he rapped on the side door. This was the dangerous part. They had to get the couple into the back room without attracting attention.

Ahmed pulled out his gun, using his body to shield it from the street. “Cooperate and you’ll be free in a few hours,” he said evenly. “All we want is to talk to you. Struggle, we’ll kill you and leave you here. You understand?”

Jeff nodded. Daryl glared at Ahmed fiercely.
I’d better be careful of her,
he thought as he moved aside to let Ali and Karim pull them out. They then pushed and led the couple across the front of the store, along the pathway to the rear where Ahmed joined then. He put his gun away, then unlocked and opened the heavy metal door.

“Inside,” he said as the men shoved the couple in.

Once the door was closed Ahmed spoke to Karim. “Get the bag out of the van and bring it here. Then drive to the commercial district I pointed out earlier. You know where it is?”

“I do.”

“Good. Leave the van with the keys in the ignition. Perhaps we will get lucky and someone will steal it. Leave the driver window open to make it easy. Drive carefully but not suspiciously. Then take your time returning on foot. Make certain you are not followed.”

“I won’t be.”

“Good. Give me your gun.”

“What?”

“Your gun. You are not a gangster. You have no need of it now.”

Karim handed it over and went out to the Crafter. Ahmed heard it start, then move off. He turned his attention to the couple, thinking for a moment how best to do this.

GENEVA, SWITZERLAND

POLICE GENDARMERIE CORNAVIN

PLACE DE CORNAVIN 3

8:22 P.M. CET

Y
vette Chappuis had just made the turn onto the Avenue de la Paix when she saw it.

She slowed her car, gradually pulling to a stop, and watched in horror as two men struggled with a young couple, finally forcing them into a white van. She was certain she’d seen a gun. As the van pulled away she lifted her cell phone and made a call.

A sergeant at the Police Gendarmerie Cornavin, just down the street near the corner of Rue de Lausanne at Route de Meyrin, was soon speaking with her. The report of an abduction was always to be taken seriously—this was, after all, Switzerland—but one within a stone’s throw of his station and immediately in front of UNOG was priority. He took the vehicle description, handed the slip of paper to dispatch, and within two minutes of Yvette spotting the abduction an alert had gone out.

The sergeant then asked the citizen to describe what she’d seen in more detail, concluding the call by telling her an officer was on the way to take a statement.

Her call and the sergeant’s quick response was the last bit of luck the Geneva police would have for some time. No cruising police car observed the right van, though fourteen were pulled over in the next hour. None contained abductors or victims.

It wasn’t until shortly after midnight, many hours after the report, that a cruising Meyrin Commune police patrol car spotted the white Volkswagen Crafter van in the commerce center parking lot. The driver window was down and the keys were in the ignition. It had all the appearance of an abandoned vehicle.

The shift commander, Ulrich Spyri, went to examine the van himself. He stopped his car some twenty feet from it, then climbed out, stretching after so many hours in his office. He instructed the waiting patrol officer to search the extended area around the vehicle. It was dark, the sky overcast, the air chilly, clinging this hour to the winter so recently gone.

For centuries, Meyrin had been little more than a sleepy village. Then, almost overnight, with the construction of the nearby international airport it had ballooned to a population of twenty thousand. The commune police force saw to the routine duties of law enforcement: conducting patrols, maintaining order, enforcing traffic laws. And tonight they were assisting the canton police in locating a vehicle much like this one, reportedly used in an abduction.

Spyri walked slowly about the vehicle, playing his flashlight across the panels of white, examining each of the wheels carefully, bending down to look under it. Nothing.

Next, he carefully opened the left door and examined the driving compartment. Again nothing. He spotted the button for the side door and pressed it, heard the door unlatch and partially open. He went around the vehicle, leaned in, and took a long minute to examine the interior, moving his light from point to point. He spotted two liter bottles of a yellowish liquid, likely urine, and the discards from a meal for more than one man. He climbed in, held the flashlight low, then ran it slowly back and forth across the soiled carpet. “There,” he said under his breath. He reached out and lifted something up with his fingertips.

Blond hair. This was the van.

At his car, Spyri called in, alerting the canton police and dispatching a forensic team. Afterward, he stood beside his car and looked slowly about. They could be far away by now. They might have made the switch here, then driven off and were well into France or Italy by this time. Or they were not that far from here at all, hoping the police net would be extended and overlook them.

Whichever it was, or if it was something else, he was certain his men had no chance beyond blind luck in finding the couple. No chance at all.

The van was soon traced to the name of Franco Rivaz, reportedly a resident of Geneva, but no one by that name lived at the address given. Then word came from UNOG security. They were missing an American couple, computer experts. They’d left the building shortly before the abduction and never reached their hotel. A laptop had been recovered from the sidewalk near the street in front of the exit. The British Foreign office had been alerted.

The Geneva Gendarmerie remained on the case, joined by the canton police as well as by a detail from the UNOG Police de la Sécurité Internationale. One of those was Henri Wille, who’d learned of the abduction by telephone and had assigned himself to the team sent to locate them.

“They were a nice couple,” Henri said, shortly after meeting Spyri for the first time.

“We’re doing our best,” Spyri said. “Maybe we’ll find them.”

By now every officer in the region was on the lookout for the young couple or anything of a suspicious nature that might lead to them. But without more information, without an address, or even a part of the city in which to focus, there was little hope they would be found.

Henri drew a deep breath. “Sometimes miracles happened.”

Just then Spyri’s cell phone rang.

LANGLEY, VIRGINIA

CIA HEADQUARTERS

CYBERTERRORISM–COMPUTER FORENSICS DEPARTMENT

3:07 P.M. EST

F
rank Renkin drew a sharp breath at hearing the news. When he could speak, he said, “Are we certain it was them?”

“Regretfully, yes,” Yates said. “There is no doubt.”

“Any luck?”

“The local police located the van that was used but have absolutely no idea where they were taken. I hold myself responsible for this. I never imagined that something like this could happen.”

“Who would do this? Is it a street crime of some type?”

“In Geneva? In front of UNOG? Hardly. No, I’m afraid we must conclude that it is a result of whatever it is they were investigating. It’s very troubling.”

“How would anyone know who they were? Or that they were at UNOG? Or for that matter, what they were working on? This information has all been tightly held.”

“Yes, it is another reason why I’m so deeply distressed. It suggests we have a leak of some kind. I can’t think of any other scenario that fits. Mr. Aiken was kidnapped within one day of arriving in Geneva. All he did was sleep at his hotel and work at UNOG. Yet someone knew who he was, presumably what he was up to, and was able to snatch him. And Dr. Haugen, who was with him.”

“That all seems a bit of a stretch,” Frank said. “This could be completely unrelated.”

“I believe we must assume my analysis is correct until we learn more. I don’t see any other alternative. It seems to me that whenever we deal with the UN it leaks like a bloody sieve. I hardly know where to start.”

Frank thought a moment, then said, “Maybe our leak isn’t someone, but something.”

There was a pause. “You’re suggesting that our system is penetrated beyond this most recent incident?”

“Not yours, but perhaps UNOG’s.”

Yates seemed to moan. “I hope that isn’t true. I’ll request their IT people get on it.”

“They’ll be in ass-covering mode.” Frank wondered if the Brits used that expression.

“Yes, they most certainly will,” Yates answered, and Frank could hear the smile in his voice. “I’ll have to see how much pressure Her Majesty’s government can bring to bear. I’ll inform you of any developments as soon as I learn of them. I know you were friends with them both.”

They worked on the latest version of Project Elephant, publicly known as Stuxnet, Frank wanted to say. Elephant was the most secret project Frank had ever participated in. He and his counterpart in the Israeli Mossad had established the framework for the work and over the years it had gone well. No more than twenty software engineers knew everything and they served primarily as coordinators. Each aspect of Elephant had been parceled out to trusted individuals to write a specific portion of code. The control center was responsible for bringing it all together and arranging its release.