Maden Mike - Tom Clancy Firing Point

The Bluetooth Blonde arrived at L’avi approximately twenty-five minutes before Jack showed up. She first appeared in the camera as she entered through the only door and proceeded to the back, out of camera range. She returned about eight minutes later. Jack assumed that was a bathroom stop.

What stood out was the small backpack she wore when she entered the restaurant. He hadn’t noticed it when he saw her yesterday and now he knew why. She came out of the restroom still wearing the backpack but set it at her feet when she stood at the bar.

He enlarged the video image and replayed it several times. Owing to the poor image quality, he couldn’t tell if the backpack’s dimensions changed between the bathroom and the bar. He made himself a note to ask Brossa if they had determined the location of the bomb explosion. If the blast originated in the rear of the restaurant, especially the restroom, then Aleixandri would most likely be the bomber.

But there was something about the woman. She didn’t strike Jack as a suicide bomber. Most suicide bombers were visibly nervous just before an attack, fearing either detection or death or both. That was one of the reasons groups like ISIS often used unsuspecting children or mentally impaired people for such missions, their suicide vests detonated remotely by their handlers.

Aleixandri carried herself with confidence. If she had been nervous, she sure hid it well. In the moments before she died, she wasn’t shouting revolutionary slogans or behaving erratically in any way.

No, the more he thought about it, he was certain Aleixandri wasn’t the bomber because of her behavior.

All she was doing was watching Jack exit out of the door.

And talking.

That Bluetooth headset never left her ear. It looked like she was watching him exit the restaurant and telling someone about it.

Why? And how was the explosion connected to him leaving?

And if she wasn’t the bomber, who was?

—

He could think of a couple of possibilities. It could have been someone else in L’avi. Since Brigada Catalan had taken responsibility, then it would have been another Brigada Catalan member. According to the newspapers, it wasn’t a large group. Wouldn’t all of the Brigada Catalan members know one another?

Yeah, most likely, unless they were organized into smaller cells. But that was a long shot.

If the bomber was in the restaurant and Aleixandri knew him, she either never saw him—or her, Jack corrected himself—or didn’t know he had a bomb. Otherwise, she would still be nervous about being detected or her impending death. Or both.

Jack scoured the digital file several more times, searching for someone who looked like a bomber but nobody in range of the camera seemed to fit that profile.

Damn.

Even if the bomber wasn’t in the restaurant, the bomb was. And the bomb had to be detonated.

How?

A timer made sense if all you wanted to do was strike during the hours-long lunchtime to produce the maximum casualties.

The only reason to use a remote detonator was for a targeted assassination.

So the question really boiled down to this: Was a timer used for a general terror strike? Or a remote detonator to kill a specific target?

The latter seemed the least likely. A single bullet in the back of the head in a dark alley was far more efficient than an explosion in a crowded space.

All Jack knew for certain was that his friend Renée had been killed in the blast and that she was a CIA agent who came to the restaurant to meet with somebody she didn’t know. She arrived at the restaurant, and within minutes of her arrival, the bomb exploded.

If she was the target, then the attack succeeded. But why would Brigada Catalan want to kill her?

The CIA hunted down global terrorist organizations like Brigada Catalan. But why would a CIA agent based in California come to Barcelona to investigate a new, small, and regional independence organization that had no history of actual violence until the explosion itself? That just didn’t add up.

If the CIA wasn’t investigating Brigada Catalan, what other reason would Brigada Catalan have to kill Moore? He’d have to think about that one some more.

The other thing that bothered him was the timing of the explosion. If Renée was the target, why not explode the bomb the moment she came in? Why wait several minutes?

Jack replayed the entire tape all over again.

Aleixandri was clearly talking to someone on the Bluetooth, though infrequently. She could have been talking to her mother about her health or the utility department disputing an electric bill or selling phone-sex services right there at the bar.

But Jack’s gut told him she was talking to the person who detonated the bomb.

Jack really needed to figure out who that was.

He wished he could read lips—that would be a heck of a skill to acquire at some point. Of course, if she was speaking in Català it wouldn’t do him any good.

Gavin had talked about a program called LipNet. The software was more accurate than human lip-readers who only read and translated one word at a time. LipNet analyzed an entire sentence of spatial-temporal lip movements. It then decoded those spatial-temporal lip movements with a deep learning algorithm. In short, LipNet taught itself the “lip language” of the person it was observing as the person was speaking.

But the shitty video quality prevented that and the camera shots were all overhead from a static rear angle and didn’t capture enough of her mouth.

Another dead end.

Now what?

18

Jack yawned. It wasn’t time to throw in the towel just yet.

His memory was sharper than the crappy CCTV video files. Aleixandri had checked him out on several occasions in the mirror behind the bar. She was interested in him. But interested how ? His vanity last night assumed it was sexual. Now he wasn’t so sure.

He also remembered that Aleixandri checked out Renée when she came in. Was that because Renée was so attractive? Or because he and Renée knew each other? Or because she was obviously searching for someone else? Or was it all of the above?

Or maybe she knew Renée was CIA.

It was impossible to know the reason. All that mattered was that she was tracking Renée, and if his gut was right, doing it for the guy or gal on the other end of her Bluetooth.

Jack shook his head, frustrated. If she knew Renée was the target, why wasn’t the bomb exploded right then and there?

Because maybe Renée wasn’t the target.

Or maybe Renée wasn’t the only target.

Jack bolted to his feet.

Idiot! Why didn’t you see that before?

—

All Jack could find in the cupboards of his Airbnb apartment was Nescafé instant coffee but that would have to do. He boiled up a pot of bottled water and knocked back a couple of cups to clear his mind before dropping down in front of his laptop.

He ran the video again from the moment Renée came into view. There was no doubt in his mind that Aleixandri had a reaction to seeing Renée. That confirmed the idea that Renée was a target, but now the challenge was to figure out who the other target could be.

Jack played the video again. Aleixandri watched him the whole time. A few steps after he exited, the room erupted and the camera died.

Was Gavin right? Was he the other target of the bombing?

He played it again. No doubt about it. She was watching Jack exit the doorway, and moments later, the bomb went off.

But that made no sense. If he and Renée were both targets, why wasn’t the bomb set off when they were both inside the restaurant? Why set it off as he was leaving?

Was Aleixandri supposed to leave before the bomb went off? But Aleixandri made no move to leave at any point, not even when Jack was exiting through the door.