Local time – 5:40pm, Sunday 17th June, 2011.
Islamabad, Pakistan.
‘We’re not going to be on this road for much longer. Should we decide what we’re going to do?’ Alex finally blurted out, after waiting for someone else to suggest something. Bernie always used to tell her to embrace the elephant in the room. Even feed it if necessary. And it wasn’t just the journalist in her acting now. It was her instinct for self preservation. Alex had enough of Henry and Josh’s blind obedience to Phil’s whims. It was plainly an awful idea to go to Kahuta. And it could get them all killed. Henry looked at her blankly, and then at Phil, ready for his retort. Surprisingly it was Josh who responded.
‘Unless you have any other suggestions, we’ll do as Phil proposed. The weapon is likely to be near the facility where it was made. Someone must know something.’ Alex couldn’t believe how weak these men were being. Weren’t they meant to be the best and the bravest? The types who put their lives on the line for the protection of their country? They weren’t acting like former spies, they were acting like complete pussies. Except Phil. He wasn’t being a pussy. He was just a moron. Alex sighed. She could see Phil’s eye brow twitching in irritation at her.
‘I just don’t think Bernie would have resorted to this. He must have had a destination, we just have to... ’ Alex was interrupted by a ping from her lap. The iPad wanted her attention. At first she thought she was looking at a text message. But it wasn’t that. It was a message to tell her she was in range of a new Wifi connection. This wasn’t an odd thing to see on an iPad. She was used to seeing the same message on her iPhone when she walked into her apartment every night, and into the office each morning. Did she want to join the Wifi connection rather than use the phone on 3G? It would have been a normal thing to see on the iPad, she realised, had she not also remembered why this message appeared. The device recognised this Wifi connection. Because it had used it before. And when Alex saw the label of the connection, she gasped loud enough to grab even Phil’s attention.
‘Oh my god! It’s Bernie!’ Henry looked at her like she was mad, and Phil instinctively put his foot on the break, as if asking the car what the hell she was talking about.
‘The Wifi. It’s already connected. There’s a stored password in here. And it’s called Magdala U D.’
‘Magdala? What do you mean?’ Henry slid across the seat so he could see what Alex was staring at.
‘It’s Bernie’s local pub. There’s no way this is a coincidence. I don’t know why it’s got U and D on there, but the name of the pub has to be right.’ By the time Henry’s confused expression turned to excitement, the Wifi connection had vanished. Even after breaking, they were still moving at 60 kilometres an hour. The range of the connection could only have been brief, and they had driven straight through it. Alex spun round in her seat to see where they had just been, as if the Wifi range would appear like a puff of smoke behind them. On the side of the motorway there were residential streets, with a few large warehouses scattered on the road’s perimeter. She estimated that the connection must have been set up in one of those buildings. She turned back to see where they were headed.
‘There! Exit there! This has to be a sign!’ Phil didn’t question it, having just enough time to turn. He was then forced to break quickly, as the slip road proved to be home to a short traffic jam, with a disorganised array of vehicles trying to go left, straightforward or right, without using designated lanes. The signs above the slip road indicated the direction to Rawalpindi, which looked like a huge city on Alex’s map. She took a moment to bring back the image of the warehouses to her mind, so she could orientate herself to find them again. Once she was sure where they should be going, she addressed the questioning faces, waving the iPad like a trophy.
‘It all makes sense. Bernie must have had help, he’s set up a saved connection in his iPad to lead him to the weapon. Magdala, it’s his local pub. But to anyone else, it wouldn’t be noticeable. Only someone who knew him would recognise the significance.’
‘If you’re right, this is definitely a break through,’ Henry said. Phil looked surprised, but any annoyance that his plan was superseded was quickly dispelled.
‘Where do you think the connection cut in? We need to go back there,’ he said, accelerating when the traffic started to thin.
‘If we go back down the road on the edge of the motorway, I’ll recognise a group of factories I saw, maybe a kilometre back that way.’ Alex felt a surge of adrenalin when she realised Josh and Henry were captivated by her instructions. Phil did as she said and turned hard right off the slip road. He drove quickly over the bumpy surface.
Rawalpindi stretched in front of them, a flat, crowded landscape full of factories that looked exactly like the one Alex held in her head. The road they were on snaked away from the motorway, and Alex’s heart beat faster when she realised they were heading into the sprawling suburbs. But Phil’s face was rigid with determination and he drove faster around the maze of side streets and traffic filled intersections until they were once again skirting the motorway. The distance that felt like only meters when travelling away from the Wifi connection took over ten minutes to cover on the back streets. But just as Alex saw the spot she recognised, her iPad pinged again. This time everyone in the car stared at it, even Phil, looking dangerously over his shoulder.
‘Pull over!’ Alex directed. Phil again did as she directed. They all stared out at the street, as if the weapon might be sitting there right in front of them. Alex couldn’t help but picture Bernie’s smiling face. She was sure he wasn’t watching them from heaven, as he wasn’t the type of person to end up somewhere he didn’t believe existed. But wherever he was, she hoped he was enjoying watching her follow his virtual map.
There was a group of about a dozen men standing outside one of the factories, some of them smoking, others laughing with each other. They all looked over at the black four wheel drive, conspicuously parked on the quiet street. It wasn’t that they looked menacing, but when Alex pictured getting out of the car and politely asking if they knew the location of a hidden nuclear weapon that could potentially save the world, like a lost motorist asks a passer-by for directions to the closest petrol station, she realised it just wasn’t going to happen. Whatever was there, they would have to find themselves. Josh and Henry seemed to have a similar reaction to the idea of getting out of the car, as they too sat still in their seats. Phil wore his most stubborn face, and looked to be readying himself to get out, undoing his seatbelt slowly. Alex was looking at the iPad, willing it to give her some more inspiration, when Josh asked if he could have a look at it. She handed it to him, and he clicked into the Wifi settings.
‘We need to keep going,’ he announced. ‘There’s five more Wifi connections saved in here. I’m guessing the others will take us where we need to go.’