"Damn," she muttered. "That's my screensaver. That's not what I was looking for. I wish Stephanie was here."
She tapped the keys and a prison mug shot of Patrick O'Malley appeared. Elizabeth scrolled down to his record.
"A mercenary," Nick said. "It figures."
"A hired gun from Ireland. He's on almost everyone's watch list as an undesirable. He did time in Dartmoor for aggravated assault."
"Sounds like a real winner," Selena said.
"The money in his wallet came through a bank in New York. A direct deposit was wired from abroad into his account. Guess where it came from?"
"Not Lebanon?"
"Straight from Beirut."
"Then this must be about that scroll."
Elizabeth nodded. "Nothing else makes sense."
"Not a smart move," Nick said. "They should have left well enough alone. We were at a dead end. I'm not so sure it was about the scroll. We could have been after Abidi for something that had nothing to do with the scroll. An arms deal, for example."
"How could they know who we were?" Selena asked.
"There were cameras in the nightclub," Diego said. "Someone could have gotten an ID on us from those."
"Selena, maybe," Elizabeth said. "Not you. You're too new."
"I'm not even officially part of the group."
"Do you want to be?" Elizabeth asked. "Now's as good a time as any to get that out of the way."
"When they seconded me to you, I thought you guys were just a bunch of civilians. Would I still be in the Army?"
"No," Harker said. "You'll be honorably discharged with all benefits and receive the same compensation as the others. You'll find it's quite a step up from a sergeant's pay. Nick will be your commanding officer in the field."
"The Army is my career," Diego said.
"You can go back to your unit and your involvement with us ends now. If you say yes and everyone agrees, this will be your new career."
Diego looked at her.
"Diego, things are getting complicated. We have to make plans and I need to know if you want in or out. Yes or no?"
Nick watched him. What would he decide?
"What the hell. Yes."
She looked at the others "Raise your hands if he's in."
All the hands went up.
"Welcome to the team, Boot," Nick said.
"All right. Let's move on," Elizabeth said. "Diego has a point. The only way someone in Beirut would know who we were is from what happened in the club. Who has the ability to identify Selena and make the connection to us? That would take familiarity with the intelligence world we live in. Who has that kind of knowledge?"
"More people than we can identify," Nick said.
"I saw something when you ran that Interpol file," Selena said. She pointed at the monitor where the file was displayed. "Scroll back up a little. It might not mean anything."
They watched the screen as Elizabeth scrolled up.
"There. That paragraph, the one about trying to get O'Malley to turn informer."
The paragraph was only a few sentences long. MI6 had interrogated O'Malley while he was in prison about his association with a known terrorist. The interrogation produced nothing of value.
"You think MI6 is the connection?" Elizabeth asked.
"Not the organization," Selena said. "I was thinking of whoever it was that interviewed him. It's a link between an intelligence connection and the ambush, the only one we've got. Someone from MI6 would know how to find out who we were."
"We need to know who talked to O'Malley," Nick said.
"Lucas could help." Elizabeth drummed her fingers on her desktop. "He's got the resources at Langley. I can't coax information out of our computers like Stephanie can."
"You give Lucas a lead, he'll run with it," Ronnie said.
"It's exactly what he needs," Nick said. "He can help us get these people. He's beating himself up because he didn't spot the ambush."
"No one could've spotted it. There wasn't any reason to expect it. It was just another truck on the side of the road."
"Yeah, but he thinks it's his fault Steph got hurt. This will help him get through it."
"You're turning into a shrink, Nick," Selena said.
"Being around you, I've had a lot of practice."
"I'm not sure how I'm supposed to take that."
Ronnie laughed.
CHAPTER 25
Addison Rhoades didn't know what was going to happen when he entered Al-Bayati's study. After the fiasco in America, his position was in danger. Al-Bayati didn't like mistakes. It made no difference that Rhoades hadn't been on the scene. He'd hired the team that had failed, so he was responsible. Just in case Al-Bayati lost control Rhoades had a Walther PPK tucked away at the small of his back, a favorite of the police since the early days of Hitler's Germany. A classic old school pistol, small, efficient and deadly. One .380 caliber round was enough to stop most people. With Al-Bayati, Addison thought it might take three or four. The pistol had served him well in the past. The hard metal pressing against the small of his back gave him comfort.
To his surprise, Al-Bayati was smiling.
"I have found the tomb," he said.
Rhoades forced himself to seem relaxed.
"You have? That's fabulous, Nazar. Where is it? How did you find it?"
"The second scroll that you retrieved in London contained a coded passage describing the location of the tomb. It's in Saudi Arabia, not far from Yemen."
"You know exactly where it is?"
"It's in an isolated location in the Habala Valley of Saudi Arabia, near Abha. The landmark described is distinctive. There's only one place like that in the country."
"That whole area is considered sensitive by the Saudis," Rhoades said. "The monarchy is worried about troublemakers out of Yemen. It's not going to be easy to get to."
"I have connections there. I can get us in."
"Us?"
"Do you think I would pass up the moment when the tomb is opened? I will be the first to enter."
"As you wish," Rhoades said.
"Yes. Prepare a team. Enough to transport whatever we find."
"We'll need equipment, weapons, vehicles."
"Make a list of what you need. Have it waiting for us when we arrive." Al-Bayati paused. "You did well in London. You failed in America. You had better hope that the Americans are unable to connect you to what happened."
"The men I picked were professional, the best in the business. The Americans were lucky. They'll never make the connection."
"That may be," Al-Bayati said. "Do not fail me again. Go. Make the arrangements. I want to leave in three days."
He waved his hand at Rhoades as if he were shooing away a fly.
Rhoades felt the Walther next to his spine, warm from his body and hard against his skin.
I'll kill him, the arrogant bastard. After we find the tomb and the gold.
As he left the room, Rhoades thought about the Americans. He hadn't been lying when he said they'd been lucky. He still didn't understand how they'd escaped. Instinct, perhaps, the instinct of the hunter who knew when he'd become the prey. Whatever the reason, there was no way they'd find their way back to him.
He turned his mind to the new task Al-Bayati had given him. Rhoades had spent time in Yemen before the fundamentalists had gained so much power. Before his career with British intelligence had gone down the tube.
The thought made him feel as though someone had wrapped his head with steel bands. He forced himself to stop and take a few breaths, to calm the flood of anger that had begun in Al-Bayati's study. His career had been ended by hypocrites. They'd supported his illegal methods, used what he'd gotten from the prisoners he interrogated to further their advancement and then pretended not to know how the information was discovered. Sometimes Rhoades fantasized about returning to England and walking into one of their exclusive meetings with enough firepower to obliterate every one of them.