? ? ?

The evening wore on, the crowd thickened, and the men at Court’s table kept drinking, though still, other than the Desert Hawks major, none of them appeared to be much affected by the alcohol. Walid was completely smashed now, and clearly he was an angry drunk, because he was telling Saunders a story in Arabic that involved the vast majority of curses Court knew in the language. The tale involved some battle he claimed to have taken part in, Court could tell, but he ignored the conversation and instead kept his head on a swivel, monitoring the actions of more than twenty people in the room. He looked at each person when they checked their phones, and he registered what kind of device they had. Court knew he could employ any phone in a pinch, simply by speaking in cached terms to Vincent Voland, but Bianca was going to have to pass over her physical home address, and Court would rather she didn’t do that in the clear. No, he’d much prefer that the phone he grabbed had some sort of encrypted service on board so he could communicate freely. He knew all about the pros and cons of different common voice and text services, and he tried to profile the men and women in the bar to focus on those he deemed most likely to have such a service on their phone.

Court knew he also needed to know if the phone had an automatic lock screen. If so, he’d need one that had a passcode and not a thumbprint reader, and he’d need to determine the passcode, and this had led to more than one near miss in the past half hour.

Looking again at the table near the stairwell, he noticed a physically fit Arab man in his midtwenties in the group, and not only did he have a phone in a back pocket, but Court also noticed the unmistakable printing of a handgun slipped in his waistband in the small of his back under his formfitting shirt.

As Court looked on, the young man pulled out his phone and tapped in a four-digit code to unlock it. Court had long ago made a parlor game out of deciphering keypad entries by others through the process of their finger or thumb movements, and through this acquired skill he determined that the code on the iPhone was either 9191 or 8181.

He couldn’t be certain till he tapped it out himself on the lock screen, but he was sure enough to give it a shot if the opportunity came.

The man looked at his phone for a few seconds, holding it with one hand while he drank a beer with the other, then locked the screen and put it down on the table.

One of the young Syrian’s friends called him over to the bar to help him carry drinks back for the ladies. He stood up and began making his way through the crowd of people there, leaving his phone near the corner of the table.

Court knew this was the best opportunity he was going to get. He stood up and walked across the room, blading himself to get through the crowd quickly, and slid the phone off the table with one hand without breaking stride.

The dozen others sitting or standing close by never even noticed him pass.

* * *

? ? ?

Court had planned on going down to the downstairs bathroom to look over the phone, but he saw that the stairwell led up as well as down, so he headed upstairs. Seconds later he found himself on the roof of the two-story building, standing alone next to a large water tank. He figured he had no more than one or two minutes tops before the owner missed his phone, so he knew he had to work quickly.

The first thing he noticed about the device was that the owner was a member of a military unit. The screensaver was a photo of the young man in fatigues carrying an RPK machine gun and standing in front of a T-72 tank. The symbol on the man’s uniform in the photo was a tiger, which told Court he was probably a member of the Tiger Forces, the regime special forces unit. This also explained the pistol under the man’s shirt.

Court tapped 9191 onto the screen, and then he breathed a sigh of relief when the phone unlocked.

Court quickly scrolled through the apps on the smartphone, hoping there was no phone tracker software that could easily ping his location. To his relief he didn’t find anything that could easily pinpoint him once the man realized his phone had been lifted, but to be extra thorough he went into the settings and disabled all the geolocating services. This added another barrier between anyone looking for this cell phone and its current location.

Then he scrolled through the apps on board the phone and was pleased to see he’d chosen his target wisely. The young soldier had installed a common app called TextSecure. This, Court knew, would work for his needs. It allowed encrypted voice and texts, so he’d be able to call Voland without too much concern about the communications being intercepted.

Court locked the screen, then stepped to the edge of the roof at the back of the building and looked down. A dingy cobblestone alleyway ran east and west, and a row of garbage cans sat just across the lane. The second-to-last can was open, and it was full of garbage.

Court tossed the phone underhanded; it sailed down through the dark and landed in the open can.

When Court returned to the second-story bar area, he saw he’d not given the Syrian soldier enough credit. It was clear the militiaman was already looking around for his cell phone. Further, it was obvious he was pissed off about his loss, and already suspicious that the device had been stolen.

A large group moved around the room together searching for the phone, the young girls all but forgotten. The men looked under chairs and on the bar, but they also began stopping people walking near their table or confronting bar patrons at other tables.

Court knew how to read a crowd, and he saw that this situation could quickly take a dark turn.

Within seconds the Tiger Forces soldier missing his device began upping his aggression, yelling at the girls at a nearby table, grabbing a passing server by the arm, and sticking an accusatory finger in the face of a man smoking a hookah at a couch against the back wall.

Court had slipped by the action unnoticed and was back at his table as if nothing was going on around him.

Another man in the Syrian soldier’s group shouted at people over by the bar itself now, and another confronted both men and women at a table just next to where Court sat. The conversation was in Arabic and Court did not understand, but the tone was clearly hostile. The men spoke with the authority of military personnel, even though they were dressed for picking up girls and having an evening out with the guys, not in their uniforms.

The KWA men at Court’s table noticed the commotion going on around the loud nightclub, and they all watched passively. Walid was too drunk to notice at all, still telling a story to the table, although it seemed only Saunders spoke Arabic well enough to understand him, and Saunders clearly was not listening now.

Court tracked the owner of the missing mobile phone as he made his way around the room for five more minutes, treating each patron he spoke with more harshly than the last. Finally a woman near the stairwell pointed over in Court’s direction. She alone must have noticed him leave the room and then return. Immediately the soldier turned Court’s way and stormed over, grabbing two of his friends as he approached the table of mercenaries.

He loomed over Court and said something; Court understood Arabic well enough to pick out the words “phone” and “take,” but he pretended like he didn’t understand a word.

Walid stood up on slightly wobbly legs and talked to the man a moment, then turned and spoke to Saunders. Saunders, in turn, looked to Court. “This asshole wants to know if you nicked his mobile. Walid told him you’ve been sittin’ ’ere the whole time.” Saunders flashed a hint of doubt when he said this, but he did not question Court.

A couple other men at the table backed up the assertion. It was apparent to Court that no one at the table had seen him leave the room, with the possible exception of Saunders, so there was no more suspicion on him than anyone else.

Walid and Saunders continued talking to the angry soldier, and Walid himself was getting pissed off about the exchange. The younger Syrian said something Court didn’t understand, and then Saunders turned back to Court. “Bloody hell. All these guys are Qiwat al Nimr. Tiger Forces.” Court knew that the man whose phone he’d taken had been a special forces soldier, but he hadn’t known that the other nine or ten guys with him were part of the same group. Saunders had explained earlier in the day that the Tiger Forces unit of the Syrian Arab Army were bitter rivals of the Desert Hawks Brigade.