When the waiter had gone, Matt leaned closer and whispered to Natasha "There is a plug under this table. I may be here a while and I might need a diversion later."
With Natasha at the table as well, it was an easy matter for Matt to slide his cable into the wall plug and the other end into his computer. The terrible news was that there was no power point within reach of the table. At least the battery was full which would give him around an hour of access allowing for the extra power drain of the satellite unit. He wanted to keep it connected in case he needed to get an instant message through to Bill back at Langley.
Matt kept making small talk with Natasha so as not to arouse suspicion, while his fingers danced across the keyboard.
Luckily this port was patched to the data switch and he had access to the hotel network, however he still needed to find a way to access the information.
The first thing he noticed was that his machine had acquired an IP address from the server. That meant he could now communicate. When he fired up internet explorer, he was presented with the Caliph Hotel login page.
Matt’s machine was high speed, and there was a password generator program installed. It asked for background information then went about randomly selecting passwords based on the information given. Matt just selected the hotel internet page which he fired up in another window and cut and pasted it into the password generator program and pressed start.
A really sophisticated system would recognize a wrong password error after three tries and disconnect the port access. To get around this, the program disconnected the connection after every two tries and continued when it had acquired a new IP address and reset the password count. This could be slow going, but at least it was automatic.
After about forty minutes the system beeped and Matt was in. Matt noted the login and password for future access:
Login: caliphnet
Password: 18041956
This was probably the birth date of one of the hotel employees. Given that he was over fifty years of age, Matt hoped that he was senior enough to get access to the information he needed.
Matt wanted to get off the system as quickly as possible, so he copied everything he could find to his hard drive.
He was able to get access to the accounting system, and he found a way to access the audit trail, and copied the file. This was basically a list of numbers which covered all financial transactions for the hotel, both in and out.
The computer was beeping in protest and the battery was dying. Matt just had time to disconnect gracefully before his unit died completely.
"What did you get?" whispered Natasha.
"I am not sure yet, let’s get back to the room and check it out."
Chapter 87
Matt and Natasha walked back to their room holding hands, but with a spring in their step.
Matt noticed a Do Not Disturb sign on the door.
Natasha winked and swiped her key card.
Matt pushed the door open on the darkened room.
Natasha quickly yanked his arm and they both fell to the floor. She had left all the lights on.
A shotgun blast at chest height broke the quietness.
This was immediately followed by Natasha opening up into the room with a whole clip from her gun while Matt clawed at his computer bag trying to locate his weapon.
As Natasha ejected the empty clip and grabbed for another, she felt the wind blow from her chest and was pinned to the floor as a heavy body fell on her prostrate form. Matt had a gun barrel pressed against his neck. The gun was pulled from Natasha’s grasp and she heard a vaguely familiar Russian accent say "Aren’t you happy to see me? I was expecting you here sooner. I have been waiting for both of you."
Two figures dressed in full Arab garb tugged the pair to their feet. One turned on the lights and then pulled open his robe to reveal a leopard skin T-shirt. He pulled this up to reveal the surgically repaired nipple.
"I am not that easy to kill my friends" bragged the Leopard.
"We saw you fall from the helicopter" said Matt with amazement.
"That was my bodyguard Nicolai" spat The Leopard with scorn. He then pulled back his hood to reveal a hideously burned face. "It was me in the burning chopper."
"I will enjoy cutting your tits off after I am finished with you bitch" spat The Leopard.
Chapter 88
Matt knew that they were in real trouble. Natasha was on her feet, but was beginning to turn blue. The man falling on top of her cracked two of her ribs and her diaphragm was in spasm.
Matt yelled "Let me help her!"
The Leopard just laughed loudly.
Matt rolled over pulling out the Yarygin that he had managed to locate and shot the second man in the face. The white robed man fell on top of Matt and he was immediately shot again by The Leopard as he aimed at Matt.
Matt lashed out with his leg in a classic side kick. It was hard to get a lot of grunt behind it because of the dead weight on top of him. Regardless, it caught The Leopard right on the kneecap and he went down hard. As he hit the floor he squeezed off a shot which hit Matt in the shoulder before the gun caromed out of his reach.
Matt did not even realize he was hit. His training had always taught him not to get mad, and to stay in the mushin state of no mind, where things needed to happen unconsciously. But he just couldn’t do it. He rolled out from under the dead weight and kept rolling until he was beside The Leopard who had just fallen. Matt drew back his elbow and let go with a series of vicious strikes to the Leopard’s throat which smashed his carotid cartilage. This immediately filled with blood and securely sealed off the Leopard’s airway.
The man grabbed at his throat and tried to suck air. The only thing that could have kept the man alive was an emergency tracheotomy. This was the surgical procedure of making an incision on the front of the throat and inserting a tube to allow air to enter.
During Matt’s karate training he researched how to do the procedure and always carried a small knife and the plastic cylinder from a pen in the bag with his karate suit.
Unluckily for the Leopard, Matt was not carrying a knife and a pen. In truth, even if he had the tools with him, he was not sure if he would have helped out.
A gurgle was all that Matt heard as The Leopard drowned in his own blood.
Matt sprung to his feet ignoring the pain in his shoulder. He stood behind Natasha and wrapped his arms around her. He pulled in tight expelling the air from her lungs and triggering the diaphragm to release. When he let go and pulled Natasha’s arms back, fresh air flowed into her and in a couple of breaths her lips returned to pink.
She grabbed at the white robe from around the still thrashing Leopard and draped it around Matt to hide the blood from his wounded shoulder.
Natasha grabbed the computer bag and propelled Mat toward the elevator. The time for stealth was long gone and they now both had guns in their hands.
Natasha pushed the up button on the elevator and they rode to the roof where they waited for a couple of minutes before riding back to the ground floor. By then there was pandemonium in the lobby. There were alarms blaring and people were running around everywhere. Appearing nonchalant, Matt and Natasha slowly made their way across the lobby into a taxi and headed into town.
It was good tradecraft to always carry names of medical staff that could be trusted, and Natasha handed the driver the business card of a medical center that was well remunerated to help the Russian cause.