Gavin said, “Some days I think I’ve trained you well. Then you go and say something so dumb I don’t even know why I bother hanging around you.”
Jack was used to Gavin’s style of admonishment. He didn’t take it personally, because he knew Gavin had spent his life with his head hunched over a keyboard, and social skills had never been his thing. “What did I say?” Jack asked.
“You don’t spend a lot of time on the dark web, do you?”
To that question, Jack asked, “And you do?”
“Hey, man. I do my job around here; it sends me down some creepy alleys. Anyway, you don’t search on the dark web. You have to have a specific address to type in to find something, and that’s how you get there.”
Jack said, “I get it. You don’t look. You are invited.”
“Exactly.”
“Oh,” said Jack, realizing for the first time that he had no idea how this worked.
Gavin leaned close and whispered to him. “That’s why they call it ‘dark.’” He was being a smartass, but Jack ignored it.
“So… If we have to get an invitation, then it’s hopeless finding the bad guy this way.”
“Not necessarily. What if we were able to hack into someone who our thief was in communications with? Maybe that way we could get information on how to see what he had to sell.”
“How the hell do we do that?”
Gavin looked down at his computer. “We don’t know who he talked to when he made contact with the Iranians, the Indonesians, the North Koreans, or the Islamic State.”
Jack understood. “But the Russian guy! Vadim Rechkov. He wasn’t aligned with anyone, as near as we can tell. He had his own personal axe to grind with his target.” Jack thought another moment. “And there is another way he doesn’t fit the mold.”
“What’s that?” Gavin asked.
“Money. All the other actors presumably could pay for the intel they were given. But Rechkov was a nobody. Not even working.”
Gavin was intrigued by this. “Very true. Why do you think he was given the data if he couldn’t pay for it like the Iranians and the others?”
Jack said, “Maybe Vadim Rechkov was someone the actual thief knew, or knew about, at least. For some reason, he gave Rechkov a freebie.”
His shoulders slumped a little now. “But I’m sure the FBI is looking into this already. They’ll have investigators taking apart Rechkov’s life and poring over his communications with everyone.”
Gavin brushed this away with a wave of his hand. “Yeah, but there’s something you aren’t considering.”
“What’s that?”
“Even though Rechkov is a piece of shit, and a murderer, and dead, and a foreigner overstaying his visa, the Feds will have to get court orders and everything signed off on before they even look under his doormat. Every step of the way the FBI will have to deal with the bureaucracy that will slow them down.”
Jack said, “But we don’t.”
“Nope, which means by the end of today we can potentially be further along in knowing who gave Rechkov the intel about Commander Hagen than the Feds who have been working on this the past two weeks.” Gavin smiled a little. “Unless you too are concerned about protecting the late Vadim Rechkov’s privacy by jumping through all the legal hoops the Feds have to go through.”
Jack looked at Gavin like he was insane. “Screw Rechkov. He’s a dead asshole, let’s crack open his life and see what falls out. If it can help us find who is behind this leak, and save others, I don’t give a damn.”
Gavin said, “Works for me.” He thought for a moment. “It’s safe to assume the person who passed Rechkov the intel about Hagen was a computer guy. Rechkov himself was a computer guy. I’ll see what message boards Rechkov hung out on, stuff like that.”
“Where will you get that info?”
“The FBI forensic team has his computer. I’ll get Gerry to ask Dan Murray for their findings. What’s the time frame we are working with here on the Rechkov attack?”
Jack thought about this. “Rechkov’s brother was killed, and seven months later he went after Hagen. Somewhere after the first event, and before the second event, the leaker made contact with Rechkov.” Ryan looked over the data he had on the Hagen case on his computer. Then he said, “Rechkov started moving from Portland to Princeton four days before he acted, so it happened before then.”
Gavin was looking at his own information on the case now. “Hagen’s sister booked the hotel rooms five weeks out from the trip. Before that, how would the leaker know to tell Rechkov that Hagen would be in Princeton, New Jersey?”
Gavin said, “I’m going to do some research on Rechkov’s online and e-mail activity in this roughly four-and-a-half-week time window. Maybe it will be a dry hole, but just maybe we’ll strike oil.”
29
Two members of Abu Musa al-Matari’s Fairfax cell rolled into the city of Fayetteville, North Carolina, just after eight p.m. Even though cell leader David Hembrick wasn’t with them, the men followed instructions he had given them, and they proceeded directly to coordinates programmed into their vehicle’s GPS.
Namir drove while Karim sat in the front passenger seat, his Uzi down between his knees in a gym bag.
They obeyed the traffic laws to stay out of any trouble, but as long as they kept their weapons hidden they knew they had little to worry about. Karim was Egyptian by birth, but he’d become a U.S. citizen at the age of eighteen. Now, at twenty-five, he was a college graduate with a degree in international studies, and he worked part-time as a waiter in a restaurant just outside Landover, Maryland. He paid taxes and he kept his documentation in order, and there was no reason for anyone around here to be suspicious of him.
Namir was born in the United States to Lebanese parents, he was a citizen and a high school graduate, and, like Karim, he’d been radicalized over the past few years by watching ISIS propaganda and slowly moving from mosque to mosque around the D.C. area, seeking out the most conservative teachings. They’d both found the same mullah in Baltimore, a man who’d directed them to an online ISIS recruiter promising them the peace and eternal bliss they would never find living in the belly of sin that was America.
They’d never met before the Language School in El Salvador, a testament to the mullah’s ability to compartmentalize his recruits in case one was ever rolled up by the FBI.
But now they were here, on their first mission. The other three had remained up in Fairfax County; the day before fellow cell members Ghazi and Husam had killed the DIA woman and were now back at the safe house, but Karim and Namir were told by David Hembrick that he had confidence in them, and the two of them could handle the Fayetteville assignment as a team.
The GPS took them down a middle-class residential street called Lemont Drive, lined with small 1960s-era homes set back on flat full-acre properties. There seemed to be at least one pickup truck in every driveway or carport, and U.S. flags adorned flagpoles in many of the front yards.
Namir was driving, and he also had his phone live-broadcasting video from his front breast pocket. He knew Mohammed would be watching the feed right now, so he was extra careful to do everything correctly.
“Very slowly,” said Karim as he scanned for the address he was looking for.
“Not too slowly,” replied Namir, as he kept the speedometer around ten miles per hour. “We don’t want to draw attention.”
“Yes, well, turning around if we miss it will draw attention, too.”
“Yes, yes,” said Namir, but he did not slow down.
The house was on the left, halfway up the street, and they almost did miss it, but they did not slow when they passed. A white Ford F-150 sat parked in the drive just outside the carport, and a bearded man in a dirty gray T-shirt and jeans climbed out of the driver’s side. In one hand he carried a bag of fast food and an extra-large soda, and in the other was a mobile phone; he was talking on the phone.