James Lilliefors - Viral

“…And, on the West Coast, software pioneer Perry Gardner is reportedly less than pleased with the assertions that the Gardner Foundation’s investment policies in Africa are somehow in conflict with its mission .

“An associate of Gardner is reportedly considering a point-by-point rebuttal of assertions in journalist Jon Mallory’s Weekly American blog last week, but is still counting to ten .

“J.M.—who, in the interest of full disclosure, is an acquaintance—promised some ‘new details’ in his blog today. But sources speculate that these ‘details’ may be delayed. We’ll stay tuned.”

Mallory felt a chill race through him. “May be delayed.” Who would have told her that? Did she make it up? An “acquaintance?” He picked up the office phone and started punching in her number, but then stopped, remembering that he was supposed to be mad at her.

Instead, he went back to the computer screen to search for flights to Saudi Arabia.

Douglas Chase still felt a rumble of apprehension every time he made the journey to the waiting room in Building 67. It was a privilege, of course, to be summoned. But he had made this journey so many times that it seldom felt that way to him anymore.

It wasn’t only the inconvenience—the absurd layers of security and secrecy and the wait, which could surpass an hour. It was also the man himself: a cold, complicated person who rarely showed gratitude to the people closest to him. A man he was to refer to only as the “Administrator.”

The Administrator had done some nice things for Douglas Chase, paying him handsomely over the years for carrying out what had often seemed routine negotiations. He had also praised him in ways that no one else had. That was how the Administrator hooked people: he made them feel special. That had stopped some time ago, and yet the man still had an inexplicable hold over him.

When the door to the Administrator’s office finally slid open, Douglas Chase stood and his apprehension evaporated.

He silently took a seat in front of the familiar desk and waited. His boss was reading a report. He would not look up or speak for seven minutes.

Finally, the Administrator showed his thin, flat smile.

“I need you to arrange for an unusual payment.”

“All right,” Chase said.

“It has to be completed quickly. Before October 5. You’ll have to deal with your fellow in Johannesburg on this.”

“All right. A payment to whom?”

“Isaak Priest.”

Chase nodded. The Administrator then gave him the details, none of which Douglas Chase was permitted to write down.

As he stood to leave, Chase decided to ask one last question. Occasionally, the Administrator allowed him a glimpse of the larger picture. “What happens on October 5?” he asked.

“The wheel of history turns,” his boss said.

As he left the office, Douglas Chase felt exhilarated. Such was the power of the man known as the Administrator.

JON MALLORY LAY IN bed blinking at the morning light. The air was cool through the window screen and he smelled something good cooking in someone else’s kitchen. Then he heard the sound again that had wakened him. He reached for his cell phone and saw the call was from Saudi Arabia.

Honi Gandera .

“Hello,” he said, sitting up.

Charlie had warned him to be careful, to use disposable phones and pre-paid calling cards. To avoid saying actual names during phone conversations. It had seemed a little paranoid to Jon at first. Not anymore.

“Jon?”

“Go ahead.”

“It’s Honi.” Jon winced. “I’ve checked around a little for you.”

“Okay.”

“I made some inquiries. I was able to find someone who knows your brother.”

“Really. Go on.”

“Has done business with him, anyway. I don’t think you’ll find him here in Saudi Arabia, Jon.”

“No?” Jon walked to the window, suddenly wide awake.

“His company is based in Riyadh,” Honi said. “With an office in Dubai. But their contracts, their business, is mostly elsewhere.”

“Where?”

“I’m told he had an ongoing project in Kuala Lumpur. But I understand he is, or was, in Nairobi most recently. I’m told he may be renting an office there right now, as well as an apartment.”

Jon squinted at the sunlight in the trees, feeling a surge of hope. “That’s quite a bit of information. How did you get it?”

“Good fortune. I located someone who worked with him. A subcontractor. All in confidence, of course. But a reliable man.”

“Any indication that he’s there now?”

“Yes. That’s what I’m told. I can’t vouch for it, Jon. He’s quite a mystery, your brother.”

“I know that. Do you have a contact? An address? Anything else?”

“Yes, actually, I do,” he said, and gave it to him—a street address on Radio Road, twelve blocks from the twenty-four-hour Green and White Club, in downtown Nairobi.

Jon jotted down the street number on the pad beside his bed and began to memorize it. “What’s he doing in Kenya? Do you know who the client is?”

“I can’t give you a name. This is the rest of what I was told: His company has been setting up surveillance systems outside of the city. Possibly for a private business moving to the Rift Valley. Apparently, he may have a message for you there, in Nairobi.”

“Really. A message?”

“That’s what I was told.”

“That he may have a message for me there?”

“Yes.”

Jon waited a moment, not sure how much of it to believe. “Okay,” he said. It was, in fact, a lot more information than he had expected, and he wondered about its integrity—if this might in some way be a trap.

Don’t try too hard. The information will come to you. Learn to identify it and understand it. Pay attention . Among the last things his brother had said to him.

“ Bettawfeeq , my friend.”

Good luck .

“Likewise.”

OUTWARDLY, THE TALL, STURDILY built man with short-cropped blond hair and a stubbly growth of beard seemed no different from the other passengers on the Metro train hurtling toward the suburbs of northern Virginia, fifty feet beneath the streets of Washington, D.C. Eyes slightly glazed, looking toward an advertisement above the doors. Holding onto a pole for balance as the subway car lurched side to side through the underground tunnel at sixty miles an hour.

But Charles Mallory’s mind was not in idle mode this afternoon. He could not afford that. Not after what had happened to Paul Bahdru. He was using the time in transit to work through puzzles. To think about three people who were going to figure in his life over the next several days. And to wonder about a fourth.

Charlie was en route to a meeting with Richard Franklin, head of the CIA’s Special Projects Division, his only remaining liaison with the intelligence community and his sole point of contact on what Franklin called “The Isaak Priest Project.” It was Franklin who had sent him to Africa to find Priest.

Mallory and Franklin had weeks earlier established a private code, a simple system of communication based on numbers. Six numbers, six meanings. Valid for six meetings, during the span of this operation. A system known only to them—although that was what he had thought with Paul Bahdru, too. And somehow that had gone terribly wrong.

The message Franklin had sent began, “Thought this was interesting.” Four words. Corresponding with a number. The number representing a meeting place that the two men had agreed upon and memorized. A code that existed only in their heads.