Cobb could only imagine how happy his family would be.
‘While you’re here,’ Cobb said, ‘I’d like to talk to you about Jasmine. I need to know that her money will make it into her parents’ hands. And not just the payment for our first mission, but all of it: two full shares, tax-free.’
‘Yes, of course. The entire amount will be transferred to her family.’
‘And they’ll still be brought to America?’
Papineau nodded. ‘The arrangements have already been made. First class. All expenses paid. The money will be waiting for them when they arrive.’
Cobb could feel the tension in his shoulders start to ease. Jasmine and her family had been weighing heavily on his mind since the desert. He knew that money wouldn’t make up for the loss of a child, but he was glad to hear that Jasmine’s efforts would not be in vain. Her family would have the life that she wanted them to have.
‘Did you tell them what happened?’
Papineau shook his head. ‘They know nothing, except that she will not be meeting them at the airport. I assumed that you…’
Cobb nodded. ‘I’ll take care of it. Thanks.’
Per their original agreement, Papineau didn’t actually owe anyone a full share for a failed mission, but in his heart he knew it was the right thing to do, particularly with the guilt that lingered in the back of his mind about Jasmine. He knew that he had failed her and the others by not detailing the violent outcome of Manjani’s expedition when he had briefed them in Florida. If they had been warned about the attack on Egyptian soil, Cobb would have handled things differently in Alexandria.
His omission had put the team at risk.
As Papineau stared at the sea in silence, Garcia poked his head through the door and cleared his throat to get their attention.
‘Jack,’ he said tentatively, ‘do you have a minute?’
Cobb nodded. He welcomed a distraction. Anything to take his mind off Jasmine. ‘Of course. What do you need?’
Garcia lowered his eyes in shame. ‘I know I shouldn’t be working at a time like this. But, you know, it’s who I am, and I needed something to do.’
Cobb stepped forward and put his hand on Garcia’s shoulder. Unlike Sarah and McNutt, the computer whiz had never encountered death in the field. ‘Are you okay?’
‘Yeah,’ he assured them, ‘I’m fine. It’s just, well, I was going through some things on my system, and I noticed something that I can’t explain.’
‘What kind of something?’ Cobb asked.
Garcia looked at him. ‘Can I show you?’
‘Of course. Lead the way.’
Cobb and Papineau followed Garcia into his command center and stood in front of the bank of monitors. Each screen was filled with streaming lines of codes, oscillating signal meters, and other images that were beyond their grasp. To Cobb and Papineau, it was hi-tech gibberish — a secret language that only hackers could decipher.
Garcia explained what he had been doing. ‘When we first tapped into the security at the bunker, the goal was to pull all the video feeds from their network, so we could see what they saw. To do that, I used a program that selected only what we needed. The criterion was simple: video signals originating from inside the compound. Everything else was filtered out into a digital scrap bin. With only two computers at the camp, I didn’t have the resources to sort and scan all the data, but I do now. Over the last few hours, I’ve been making my way through the trash. Most of it was digital garbage — just like I figured it would be — but then I came across this.’
Garcia tapped his keyboard, and the monitors switched from unintelligible streams of data to a webcam video of a panoramic desert scene.
It was so picturesque it looked like a screensaver.
‘Pretty scenic, eh?’
‘Very,’ Papineau answered. ‘When was this recorded?’
‘It wasn’t,’ Cobb said as he studied the image. He knew it had been dark when he had first tapped into the communications shed and the sun hadn’t risen until after the compound was destroyed. ‘This is a live feed.’
Garcia nodded, glad that Cobb had figured it out on his own. ‘You’re right. It’s a batch signal from an outside source.’
‘Define batch,’ Papineau said.
‘Eight in total,’ Garcia explained. ‘They cover a complete panorama.’
With the tap of a button, the main screen was split into a grid of nine boxes. The center block was empty, but the eight perimeter squares combined to offer a three-hundred-and-sixty-degree view of the desert.
The fact that the ground wasn’t smoldering and the air wasn’t gray with toxic smoke told Cobb that this was not being sent from the bunker site. ‘Where is this?’
Garcia clicked his mouse, and a map of the Western Desert appeared on one of his screens. A pulsating red dot drew their attention to a spot a few miles from the carnage. ‘It’s coming from right there.’
Papineau leaned closer, hoping to see something important.
But all he saw was desert.
He turned toward Garcia. ‘What are we looking at?’
‘Beats me,’ he said. He had stared at the images for several fruitless minutes before he had found the courage to bother Cobb and Papineau. ‘I can enlarge the frame a thousand percent, and it’s still the same damn thing. It’s just sand blowing in the wind. Why the hell would anyone take the time to monitor the barren desert?’
‘Bird watching,’ McNutt suggested from the doorway.
Cobb turned and smiled, appreciative of the levity.
McNutt made it clear that he wasn’t joking.
‘Seriously, chief, I’ve seen this type of setup before.’
‘Bird watching?’ Papineau muttered.
‘Not just birds,’ McNutt explained. ‘Alligators, elephants, unicorns — you name it. They put cameras like this in the jungle, so why not the desert? Anywhere there are animals humping, there’s a pervert who wants to watch. Trust me, I’m one of ’em.’
‘A pervert or a humping animal?’ Sarah asked as she entered the room.
Her presence was so surprising that it caught everybody off guard. She had been keeping to herself since their return to the boat, only emerging to use the bathroom in the middle of the night. Other than that, she had stayed in her berth.
‘Well?’ she demanded.
‘Both,’ McNutt said with a laugh.
From across the room, Cobb made eye contact with Sarah. No words were said, but a lot was expressed with a simple glance. He knew that she was still devastated over the death of her friends and understood that her humor was nothing more than a brave front for the sake of the team. He also sensed that she was looking for a distraction of any kind, even if that meant making fun of McNutt for an hour or two.
Meanwhile, Garcia focused on the problem at hand. He pounded furiously on his keyboard until he came across a secured website that seemed to address their needs. Though he couldn’t access the feed itself — the entire site was password-protected, and he didn’t have time to break the encryption with everyone waiting — he was able to read the message on the welcome screen.
‘You’re not going to believe this, but it looks like Josh is right.’
‘Bird watching?’ Papineau repeated.
Garcia nodded as he read aloud. ‘The Western Desert Observation Initiative is an ongoing effort to study the unique wildlife of the region… yadda yadda yadda… in cooperation with the Egyptian Ministry of State for Environmental Affairs… blah blah blah… rodents, snakes, and birds… and so forth.’
‘Told ya!’ McNutt bragged. ‘Granola-eating tree huggers are everywhere — even in places without trees. Tell me how that makes sense.’
Sarah shook her head. ‘It doesn’t. Wildlife studies concentrate on specific areas of interest like a nest, a watering hole, maybe a food source. That’s the exact opposite of this. You don’t put cameras in the middle of a giant void unless there’s a reason.’