Chapter 25. A tigers heart.

In a luxurious hotel room at the George V, the sound of frenzied typing and coding can be heard. As we enter the room, we see a young woman in a too large T-shirt supporting Tux, the Linux mascot. On top of a mountain of hard drives balances a pizza box.

"What do you think Mandy, is it AACS or a more standard AES their using?" The girl supporting Tux asked. On closer inspection we recognise Clover. If her employer would see her like this, her time as the face of "Elle Magazine" was over.

"Nah, no AACS, I bet on an AES and it even looks familiar to me! Remember we were testing the DEA encryption? It looks a lot like that one." Mandy wearing a long Apple I-pod t-shirt as a dress appeared with a Powerbook G4 balancing on her arm. Two flutes of champagne in the hand of that arm and meanwhile she was still typing with her other hand. "Here you are love, a nice cool flute of Champers."

"Thanks Mandy. I'd give a kiss, but I'm too busy." Clover answered while her eyes stay glued on the screen. Mandy didn't even hear what Clover said herself completely submerged in the breaking of the code.

The sound of the Rolling Stone's "I can get no satisfaction" makes the two young women look up. Damn, where's that X-powder again. "In the pizza box Clover!" Mandy shouted.

Why in hell did they put it there again?

"Yes miss Q." Clover answered.

"Good Lord Clover, how long has it been since you have seen your bed?" Terry asked wide eyed.

"An hour ago miss Q., when I went to the bathroom." Clover replied not at all understanding.

"Oh I see. Did you get anywhere with those hard disks?" Terry enquired.

"Mandy, the hard drives?" Clover yelled at her friend.

"Hello miss Q," Mandy didn't look any better then Clover, "I've ftped the relevant information. There's a list with all their bases and safehouses. Their main HQ is in Antwerp. Funny you know, it's next to a police station. All data are loaded into Woohp SQL-XB, security clearance red tape or FYEO. There is one other large safehouse that attracted my attention. It's situated in the harbour of Ghent. There are airborne, sea-way and cross-country get-a-way possibilities. It is rather open ground. I'd choose that one." Mandy summed up not stopping working on the encoding.

"We are also getting somewhere with their encoding," Clover took over, "It comes very close to the DEA encoding. I guess a few hours and we will have hacked it. We'll let you know as soon as we get there. Have a fine day." Clover closed the connection without further ado.

Terry looked at the now dead connection. They knew their job, but it didn't fit their everyday life. Her phone went. "Quant speaking" ... "yes" ... "perfect, thank you."

Her finger hit the red then the purple touch. Brittney appeared, next to her Donna with a tearful face. "Girls the location is uploaded to your x-powders. The full contingent and the Belgian back-up are go. Brittney, BOB is in charge off take over he should be leaving as we speak. You and Donna go save Alex." The girls were out before the communication ended.