Maden Mike - Tom Clancy Firing Point

He gently swabbed the keyboard with three different swabs, then placed them in a plastic ziplock bag for storage. He then removed a latent-fingerprint-lifting sheet from his coat pocket, peeled off the protective paper, and carefully placed the film on the laptop surface on either side of the touch pad, then removed it. He grinned beneath his mask when he saw several partial whorls, most likely from the palms.

He stored that one away and placed two more lifting sheets across the bottom row of keys—the space bar, control, option, command, and arrow keys—then pressed the laptop lid down to put pressure on the lifting sheet. After carefully raising the lid a minimal distance again, he gently peeled away the lifting sheets and inspected them as well. He even captured a few partials on the lid itself.

Success.

Bykov headed upstairs toward the bathroom. There were plenty of places to check for more fingerprints, including the toilet’s flush handle and the fixtures on the bathroom sink and in the shower. But it was Ryan’s DNA he was looking for now.

Despite his personal distaste, he also gathered up the spent tissues in the wastebasket, pubic hairs in the shower, and bits of hair from Ryan’s electric razor—also a fingerprint source—hoping for any DNA samples he could find. Most security agencies kept DNA files of POIs. Maybe this Ryan character’s snot was on record somewhere his people could access. If nothing else, his people had access to several commercial ancestry DNA sites. It was hard for him to believe that people actually paid to give up their DNA and other important personal information to complete strangers, many of whom sold that information to interested parties.

The last thing Bykov did was plant a couple of voice-activated listening devices. Each was the size of a one-euro coin and had a twenty-hour battery life. He could record anything he heard with his receiver while listening live. Chances are they would yield nothing and it would require him to break into the apartment again to retrieve them. All that meant was spending another hundred euros of Guzmán’s money and thirty minutes of pleasure with the Guatemalan woman.

He was willing to make that sacrifice.

Bykov’s watch alarm signaled at exactly twenty minutes. He did another quick survey of the place to make sure he hadn’t disturbed anything and then checked the small hallway through the door peephole to make sure no one was outside. Satisfied, he exited the apartment, pocketing his gloves and mask before he hit the street in case a policeman happened to be driving past.

There wasn’t one. It was a clean op.

Or so he thought.

28

Jack met Brossa at a small family restaurant on the Carrer dels Banys Nous, a narrow pedestrian street in the old Jewish Quarter. They sat in a corner in the far back, away from the others. Jack sat with his spine against the rough-hewn stone walls, and he kept an eye on the far front entrance beneath the ancient timbers that lined the low ceiling.

“This part of the building was a cattle barn three hundred years ago,” Brossa explained as she dipped a fried churro into the cup of hot chocolate. “The restaurant itself is only one hundred and forty years old.”

Jack had the same thing in front of him—another Spanish delicacy he’d come to love. The chocolate was thick, almost like a liquid pudding, and made with only water—no milk. It wasn’t as sweet as American hot chocolate, and the churros were only lightly dusted with sugar, but it was plenty sweet. He’d just devoured a Spanish tortilla, another surprise he’d discovered. Essentially a slice of potato, egg, and onion casserole cooked in olive oil. It was a staple of Spanish cuisine—breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

“I’m going to be running a lot of miles when I get home after this trip,” Jack said as he plopped the last piece of churro into his mouth. He’d already run the beach that morning in Barceloneta to burn off yesterday’s calories. He thought he’d lost his appetite forever after jogging past the ancient nude sunbathers on the southern end of the beach near the Hotel W. They were all old men, mostly fat and leathery. A few of them were engaged in too-revealing Warrior poses or dick-flapping calisthenics. He was mad at Brossa, too, for not calling him back. He let go of his temper and recovered his appetite when she called an hour ago and invited him to breakfast.

“The voicemail you left on my phone last night said you knew how to find the bomber,” Brossa finally said, wiping her small mouth with a napkin.

Jack was surprised she’d taken this long to ask him. Back home, an agent in her position would have led with that question—and skipped the meal altogether. Another reason Spain was really growing on him.

“Yeah, I think I do. The clue we’re looking for is the phone Aleixandri was speaking on.”

“The one you said you saw—or, more accurately, the Bluetooth you saw. The one we couldn’t find.”

The edge in her voice was unmistakable. Did she doubt him? Or was it the obvious exhaustion that was wearing on her?

“I think you mean the phone that was taken from the crime scene,” Jack countered.

“Who would do that?”

“The guy on the other end of the call? Maybe he snuck back in during the chaos and grabbed it.” Or maybe someone in your organization, Jack wanted to say.

Brossa wiggled her head. It was cute. Her way of weighing something in her mind, he supposed.

“Unlikely. But I can ask some of the officers if anyone suspicious or unidentified came into L’avi that night.”

Jack handed her a piece of notebook paper.

“What’s this?”

“The address of the phone store where Aleixandri bought her burner phone.”

“And you know this . . . how?” Brossa’s dark-rimmed eyes narrowed.

Jack had thought about showing her the pictures and video Gavin had snagged from the traffic camera but then he’d have a lot of explaining to do, including Gavin’s criminal act of hacking the city’s computer network. He’d hoped the address and the approximate date and time of purchase would be enough to pique her curiosity.

Apparently, it had just pissed her off.

“My financial firm has certain technical resources . . .”

Brossa darkened. “Stop bullshitting me, Jack. We both know you’re CIA or some other alphabet agency.”

“No, I’m not. Scout’s honor. Hendley Associates does a lot of international business with high-net-worth clients. Some of those clients are victimized by criminal elements and we want to protect them. But in some cases we become suspicious about the origins of their high net worth, and that’s when we want to protect ourselves. For those reasons, we have developed a very competent security team—sort of like an in-house private-detective agency.”

Brossa crossed her arms, her face set in stone, obviously doubting every word.

“The location of the phone store with a time of purchase for Aleixandri is very difficult information to collect. I don’t believe a private company like yours could manage this.”

“Why is that so hard to believe?”

“Because you still haven’t told me the truth about yourself.”

“What haven’t I told you?”

Her face scrunched up in a half-frown, half-grin. “How am I supposed to know that? Don’t they teach logic in American schools?”

The Catholic ones I went to sure did, Jack thought.

“I haven’t lied to you, I promise.”

“I believe that. But I didn’t accuse you of lying to me. I said you haven’t told me the truth—the whole truth. That’s what they say on American TV dramas, yes? ‘I swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.’”

“You’re obviously driving at something. Spit it out.”