Abuse of Power - Michael Savage [73]
As he stepped onto the sidewalk, he nearly collided with an olive-skinned man with a wispy goatee. The man was moving briskly, obviously in too much of a hurry to see Jack coming. For a moment Jack thought it might be al-Fida himself.
But no—this man’s face was older and more angular than the one in the personnel photograph, and Jack dismissed him as just another resident of the area. He muttered a quick apology that got no response, then crossed the street and headed in the direction the man had just come from.
Less than five minutes later he found al-Fida’s building and stood in the shadow of a large oak tree, next to the beige brick wall that bordered St. Angela’s.
He knew that al-Fida lived in Unit 2, which faced the street, but the window was dark now and it looked as if no one were home.
Jack tilted his watch toward the light of a street lamp and checked the time.
Nearly nine P.M.
Too early to go to bed, he thought, unless al-Fida was an early riser. Tucking his hands in his pockets, he leaned back against the wall and waited, hoping a car would come along at any moment and deposit al-Fida at his front door.
He was still waiting forty minutes later, increasingly convinced his target was either out for a late-night rendezvous or wasn’t coming home at all.
Jack was betting on the latter.
So what should he do? Abandon this whole crazy idea or ratchet it up a notch? He may have been without a witness—or suspect—to interview, but there was no telling what the man’s flat might reveal. Jack hadn’t scooped up a handful of paper clips at the business center for nothing. Plan B had been in the back of his mind all night.
He didn’t fancy himself a burglar, but he’d assisted in a few break-ins as a kid, when he and his friends got their kicks rummaging around in homes, raiding refrigerators and purposely rearranging furniture. They were harmless pranks, but Jack wasn’t particularly proud of that time in his life. His father hadn’t been too thrilled when he found out about it, either, and Jack could still vividly see the disappointment in his old man’s expression, and the verbal tirade he had to endure because of it.
His dad wasn’t likely to approve now, but the Reb’s words about the greater good kept circling through Jack’s mind. After waiting another half hour, as windows went dark up and down the street, he checked for any unwanted eyes then crossed to al-Fida’s building and went to work on the entryway door.
* * *
Getting into the flat was easier than he expected. Picking a lock wasn’t exactly like riding a bicycle, but with patience he was able to make do with a couple of the unfolded paper clips. The main parts of this type of lock are small pins. All he had to do was simultaneously push the ones on top up and the ones on the bottom down and the lock popped open. He credited his work with watch mechanisms for his success. Fortunately, he hadn’t encountered any curious neighbors from across the hall in the process.
Pushing the door open, he listened carefully for any sounds of activity, but didn’t hear any. Stepping inside, he quietly closed the door behind him and looked around at what appeared to be a modest one-bedroom flat. There was enough light from the street lamps outside to reveal that al-Fida had decent taste in furniture, but the place had a kind of stark, spare coldness to it that didn’t particularly appeal to Jack.
Not that it mattered.
The living room was to his right, and a small uncluttered kitchen to the left, and beyond that was a narrow hallway that undoubtedly led to the bedroom. He was hoping to find a computer desk out here, but no such luck.
Jack crossed to the hall and stopped, listening carefully for any sounds of breathing or soft snores that might indicate that al-Fida was at home and asleep.