Jason wanted to get the photos he had taken of the diamonds sent to his man Warick as soon as possible, so he decided to head upstairs to the office Billman had set aside for his use while he was in London.

I found his relationship with Warick perplexing. I had never met a man as confident in his own ability as Agent Jason Kern, yet he seemed to defer to this contact on so many things—doubting his own instincts and, worst of all, ignoring any troubling behavior, such as Warick’s intimate knowledge of the attacks barely forty-eight hours after they had taken place. It was easy for the lines to become blurred when agents had contacts they worked with closely over a long period of time. What starts as a professional relationship soon becomes an awkward sort of friendship—but one where the agent ends up keeping secrets from his or her friend. Maybe in this case, Jason had become a bit chattier than he'd intended.

I decided I needed to know more about Warick—and about Agent Jason Kern. My career, and perhaps my safety, relied upon my ability to trust Jason; which meant I either needed to trust Warick, too, or figure out just what it was about their relationship that worried me.

I headed upstairs myself and popped my head in the door of Billman’s office.

“Is she free?” I mouthed at the secretary, who was busy on a phone call. She nodded in response and I headed in.

“Anything from the lab?” Billman asked me as soon as I entered.

“Maybe. Jason, I mean Agent Kern, wants to run a few things by his diamond contact first.” I paused.

“Something wrong?” Billman had always been able to read me like a book.

“I have a few concerns about his contact—a Brit by the name of Adam Alan Warick. He seems to have a lot of Jason’s confidence without giving a lot back in return.” I was unsure whether to tell Billman about the detailed information Warick had about the London bombing. Expressing my personal concerns was one thing, but if I suspected that someone—maybe even Agent Kern — was leaking information to an external informant, then the situation would soon escalate way beyond my control. I decided to keep quiet for now.

“He just seems a bit secretive about him, I suppose,” I tried to sound as breezy as possible. “I assume we’ll have a file on Warick, and I was hoping to get access to it so that I could learn more about him. Perhaps I could also get our file on Agent Kern, too?”

I hadn’t meant to ask for Jason’s file. It was a last-minute decision, and I wasn’t even sure why I’d asked. Was I suspicious of Jason’s close relationship with Warick, or was I suspicious of Jason himself? Maybe the real truth was that I wanted to learn more about the man I appeared to be falling for quite dramatically.

Billman agreed to have the files sent up to my desk and I headed back there, stopping on the way to fill up on yet more coffee. Eventually, I knew I would have to sleep, but while Al-Farook was out there, I was determined to keep going. Besides, there were so many troubling questions about this investigation, I was sure I wouldn't be able to calm my mind enough for sleep to come.

I spent a couple of hours looking over the files on Warick and Jason. Warick appeared clean as a whistle—or as clean as someone working in the diamond trade could be. He had a couple of questionable contacts in the industry—men suspected of smuggling or involvement in the blood diamond trade—but none of them had been convicted, and it appeared, on paper at least, that Warick had kept his own hands clean. He was Oxford-educated, from old money, had never married and had apparently devoted his life to his very successful career. He had money, lots of money, according to his financials, so it was unlikely anyone could buy him off, and there didn’t appear to be much to blackmail him with; he was too much of a workaholic for a seedy personal life.

Jason’s personnel file was equally reassuring. Steady start at the agency, only making waves when Al-Farook became a major target, and since then he had received commendations for his work on the investigation. I felt a strange sense of pride when I read his achievements, but I also felt relieved that my gut feelings about him were not entirely misplaced—just inappropriate for the workplace…

Seeing as the files were a blank, I went back to watching the Al-Farook videos. I think it was on my third viewing of the most recent video that something caught my eye. There was a strange sort of pattern to the blinking; no, not a pattern exactly. But there was a uniformity to it. He either blinked normally, quickly, or he blinked slowly. There was nothing in between.

I sat back. That almost sounded like it could be the dots and dashes of Morse code. Had Al-Farook been trying to communicate another message to us all this time?

I grabbed the phone and dialed the number for the hotel where Jason was staying, asking to be put through to his room. It rang and rang, and I was about to hang up, thinking he had gone out for a very late dinner, when someone answered.

“Hello?” I asked. Had reception put me through to the wrong room?

“What time is it?” a very befuddled and sleepy voice said. No, that was Jason. I smiled. He sounded so different from his normal, slightly brash, American self.

“It’s Christine,” I replied. “And it’s about 2am.”

There was no response.

“Did I wake you?” I asked cheekily.

“No, I was just… I just dozed off reading some files.” At the other end, Jason was slowly pulling himself together. I felt cruel. Jetlag was a bitch—but I knew he wouldn’t want to sleep through my latest discovery.

“I think I’ve spotted something else in the Al-Farook tapes.”

“Really?” I had his attention now.

“Remember the strange blinking I mentioned? Well, I think it’s deliberate. I think it’s Morse code.”

Jason was silent. “But why would he be blinking in Morse code? Why not just say what he wants to say?”

That was the one thing I couldn’t explain; the one hole in my theory. “I don’t know—but it’s worth looking into, right?

“Of course, of course,” Jason answered. “So, what’s he saying?”

I didn’t answer.

“Christine?”

“I don’t know Morse code,” I admitted eventually. “Well, I know a few key letters—SOS, that kind of thing—but not enough to translate a whole message.”

I heard Jason laugh on the other end of the phone. “Are you at the office?”

“Yes.”

“I’ll be over in a few minutes.”

* * *

Jason was as good as his word, and twenty minutes later he was being shown up to my open-plan office, bearing fresh coffee and doughnuts.

“Early breakfast,” he told me. “So, let’s see this Morse code.”

I glanced over at him. There was something a little teasing about his tone. Did he not believe me? I had probably pricked his professional pride by spotting it, but that was no reason to play down my achievement. Even if I was wrong, at least I was thinking out of the box; given that he had been chasing Al-Farook for years, it was probably going to take something unconventional for us to finally catch him.

I played the second and then the third videos, where I felt the blinking pattern was clearest; as his health deteriorated through the last two films, the eyes were less visible and therefore the pattern, if it existed, was harder to see. Jason was watching intently. After the first viewing, he pressed ‘play’ again.

Suddenly, he paled. “What’s wrong?” I asked.

“All this time, it was right there. Right there in front of us,” he answered cryptically.

“What was there? What are you talking about?”

He seemed to come back to earth at that point. “Look,” he began, moving the video forward to a specific spot. “This is the video we received after the attack in Chicago, right? I think you’re right about the Morse code—here”—he pressed ‘play’ and allowed the clip to move forward for a few seconds— “I’m sure he’s blinking the word New. As in New York.”

We both sat in silence as we realized the significance of Jason’s words.

“Are you sure?” I asked.

“Pretty sure, but I want an expert to look at all these tapes right away—especially the last one.”

I knew why Jason wanted the techs to look at the last video. If he was right, then Al-Farook had been warning us about his future attacks all along.

I called the techs immediately and told them about our theory. As soon as I hung up, I called Billman, who’d asked to be kept in the loop, no matter what time we got a result.

We waited in silence for several minutes, until my phone rang. With a glance at Jason, I picked up the handset.

“What did you find?” I asked.

“You were right,” said the voice on the other end. “Each of the last four videos warns about the next attack—city and date.”

I nodded at Jason who swore under his breath.

“And the most recent clip?” I asked urgently.

“It says: ‘not my doing, please help me, Antwerp, Thurs 18’”.

Thursday the 18^th? That was only a few days away. Al-Farook—or whoever was controlling him—was escalating. I thanked the tech guy and hung up.

“It’s not Al-Farook,” I told Jason, who shook his head in disbelief. “It never has been. But if we want to stop who is behind this, we need to get to Antwerp as soon as possible.”