Her name is Dr. Sabena Sanantoni. Running alongside her sadistic streak is her brilliance as a scientist and technologist. Her career spans various global research centers focusing on leading edge quantum mechanics for military applications. Something must have happened to push her over the edge. Reports indicate that just before she upped sticks and vanished from her position as senior research scientist in the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) in the Department of Defense in the US, she was submitting proposals and getting rejections for being too leftfield, and in some cases, downright crazy. The last report of her before she was recruited into Al Nadir was at a bar in Washington DC with an old Cambridge University flame, Zack Guttenberg. Soon after, she went off the grid completely.
Somebody should have checked up better. They should have known her background and her connection to Al Nadir’s founder. But the truth was, at the time she disappeared, Al Nadir wasn’t even heard of. There was only an indication of it around the late nineties when it was found to be a sort of naughty rich boys cult where the privileged could indulge their sexual fantasies and get as high as kites in the process.
It has only been two years since they fully surfaced. That’s a day I’ll never forget. Thirty cities around the world hit with multiple bomb attacks at the same time. I remembered the climate of the security agencies on that day.
Absolute zero.
The world went into a form of catatonic shock. Denial set in. And then accusations from the public began, aimed at governments who’d failed to protect them. Not only had Al Nadir done the unthinkable in the degree of human lives they’d taken that day, which ran into millions, but they’d also totally destabilized global governments, money markets, and stock exchanges. Everything went into freefall.
Billions were wiped out in a day.
Remembering the turmoil of Al Nadir’s launch, I still shiver.
Al Nadir had clearly bet against the markets and made a fortune from the misery. Their capability increased tenfold after that dreadful day.
The best financial analysts the intelligence world could buy tracked the money trails, but Al Nadir’s financial structures were woven too deeply in a web of legitimate global big businesses, complex bit-coin transactions with no sender or receiver, and funds within political regimes of questionable morals and intentions but who had diplomatic immunity to investigation and prosecution. The moment they seemingly got too close on a trail, Al Nadir would give up one of its links. They would lose maybe twenty or thirty million, and the analysts would think they’d made a breakthrough.
The truth was they’d barely scratched the surface.
We knew then that someone had to be on the inside, after discovering accounts within shell companies within legitimate businesses within country political fund structures. Up until then, it had just been a game that Al Nadir was playing with the intelligence elite.
That’s where I came in. I was to be the ‘someone on the inside.’ I was the one assigned to find those accounts. And to wreck Al Nadir from within.
I push the day of their launch to the back of my mind to concentrate. I invoke another file, and across the screen emerges satellite and ground surveillance intel. Sabena has been seen fleetingly in Rome, Milan and Turin, using her own face.
She hardly ever shows up with her own face. Most of the time, it’s only the super-powerful AI facial recognition systems we run at GCHQ that can detect her beneath the masks she employs. It’s currently believed that those masks are generated from a nanotech base, as recently, Al Nadir has been acquiring considerable assets and capability in nanotechnology. It also isn’t a coincidence that Dr. Hans Stein-Muller, the man of the moment in nanotech, has suspiciously gone missing.
But this sighting is different. She’s showing a bolder view. Taunting us.
A small army protects her every time she is in public, just like Salim Al Douri, the infamous global leader and founder of the Al Nadir brand. I say a brand as that’s what Al Nadir has become since their horrific emergence two years ago. We know that almost three-quarters of the world’s terrorist factions of any kind, religious, political or criminal, have been brought together under the banner of Al Nadir.
In Six, Sam calls them the Coco-Cola of terrorism. It’s an interesting analogy and actually, quite accurate, considering Al Douri’s innovative ability to develop its marketing, taking in drug cartels, people smugglers, sex traffickers, organized criminal gangs, white supremacists and religious fundamentalist. You name the crime and Al Douri has already snaffled it under Al Nadir. It’s about economies of scale. Al Nadir’s acolytes are in tens of millions. A conservative estimate of the people willing to die for the crazy bastard is around twenty million. But it’s growing every day.
That’s why Sam and I know we have to do something radical, and that’s why I’m here in this dingy bedroom staring at this intel.
This may be the only way we can bring down Al Nadir.
And it all starts with a flower.
Chapter 3
Two Weeks Earlier
I was a gardener, and a good one. Angie told me I had green fingers and could make anything grow. I loved the seasons. I loved watching the different plants blossom and flourish. Spring was my favorite. I enjoyed searching for the first glimpse of growth, indicating that winter was over.
I always searched for the snowdrop.
Due to the wrath and stranglehold Al Nadir had placed upon the world, we were in the middle of a terrible, devastating winter. But perhaps, we could find a way to bring forth a new spring.
“Matt and I have discussed this at length, sir. We think it must be infiltration. But not the usual kind. Something different. Something that will ensure Al Nadir are bought in completely.”
I listened to Sam and notice that M, Sir Justin Maide, the boss at MI6, nodded. For his age at nearly sixty, he was still a formidable character. Sharp intellect and piercing intensity from his unblinking brown eyes made him someone you’d never want against you.
The prime minister, Richard Ashton, looked solemn and thoughtful, but his eyes flashed with a fiery brutality. Ashton was a guy I could never completely read. I trusted him implicitly. If you can’t trust the leader of the state, who can you trust? But he was still a man with many faces, and I didn’t agree with all of them. The public saw the extremely attractive, youthful (despite being in his late fifties) affable family man with a perpetual tan. That day, I saw a man who’d had his fill of terrorists and wanted to annihilate them completely.
It was just the four of us. We kept it that way to ensure a tight mission. No other on-lookers or hangers-on. No ISC oversight. Just the four of us to keep the trust and faith in the true horrors we were planning to do in secret.
“I agree with Sam. We’ve penetrated Al Nadir, but our agents have been rooted out too damn quick. They’ve not held their nerve. Morality kicked in and killed them.”
I knew what I was saying. The few agents who’d infiltrated, but had been lucky enough to escape, told terrible stories of what they were expected to do to other agents. They just couldn’t stomach it. I guess they were only human.
For this mission, I knew I had to leave my humanity at the doorstep.
“You have to go all out and show that you hate MI6. You hate the UK Government, the establishment. You just want to bring them down. You’ve seen their corruption. You’ve seen how everyone is on the gravy train, and nobody gives a damn about the people of Britain. It’s all about their egos. Their pathetic passion to be celebrities. To go on some shit TV show watched by millions rather than have the decency to do the job they were elected to do. You are filled to the brim with hatred and you’re prepared to do anything to destroy them.”
Sam had hit the nail on the head. I must hate the UK Government and everything within it. Al Nadir must be one hundred percent convinced of this. Anything less and I’d end up served to Sabena’s Dobermans.
“They’ll test you. Are you up for what that means?” Maide stared at me coldly
as he asked that all-important question.
“You’re asking me, will I kill one of us? Another agent?”
“No, Matt,” piped up Ashton, his voice turning granite hard. “He’s asking, will you kill the British public?”
I thought about it for a moment. I had no problem with killing another agent. I’d reconciled myself to what it would feel like, and after putting the demons inside me to bed, I decided I could do it, and still maintain the integrity of my double agent identity.
But to kill an innocent individual? Or many innocents? Shit! That was something I hadn’t thought about. Rather naïvely, I realized that maybe this mission was more than I could take.
“Could you do it?” asked Maide. The force of his stare made me swallow hard.
I knew this was a mission that could end Al Nadir’s reign. For that, I had to be prepared to do anything. The greater good was at stake, and whatever happened, I always had to remember that.
“Yes. Yes, I could,” I stated finally, fixing each man with an icy, penetrating stare of conviction. I tried to hide my hesitation. Each word I’d just said had been pushed from my soul in a rejection of their true implication.
Ashton nodded, pleased by my agreement.
“Okay, let’s move to operational logistics.”
The prime minister didn’t even take a beat. He just wanted to move on to the next business. It shocked me. He could just accede to this operation, so blasé. I spoke out.
“Are you ok with this?”
“Yes. Why shouldn’t I be?”
Ashton’s cool, matter-of-fact nature and his cavalier acceptance of my agreement was more than chilling; it bordered on sociopathic. He displayed no emotion whatsoever. Inside, I was screaming, ‘This is the British public, Ashton, the people who elected you. Don’t you care?’
Sam picked up on my tension.
“Matt is right, Prime Minister. Civilian loss could be significant.”
Ashton squared up to me and Sam. His bulk pushed forward in a commanding statement. He rarely displayed such an aggressive stance in his political engagements. Indeed, although firm and strong, he always indicated a touch of vulnerability. I realized a while ago that it was his technique to keep the opposition distracted. It allowed them to believe his capabilities were much less than what they really were. Ashton, I knew, was quite a poker player when it came to politics. But I didn’t think the game would extend to people’s lives. Here in the Obsidian Cave, as I called it, the lowest level room in River House, far underneath the Thames and protected by a Faraday cage to keep out all prying ears and eyes, his show of utter ruthlessness was plain.
“Innocent lives will always need to be sacrificed to win this war. Al Nadir plays with their gloves off. We must do the same. We must not just match but surpass their brutality. They believe we don’t have the balls to do something like this. That’s our edge. Our competitive advantage. Do whatever is necessary, Matt. We know we’re out to break Al Douri, and that should be the only thing on our minds. Break him and Al Nadir falls like a house of cards. Analysis has confirmed that he’s their strongest and weakest link simultaneously.”
Sam leaned back in his chair, and I was aware of his slow examination of me. Then he looked to the side and raised an eyebrow at Maide. The Six chief nodded, dug into his briefcase, and produced a file. Placing it on the table, he opened the file and turned it around. I homed in on the photographs. And then wished I hadn’t.
“This is what happened to the last double agent who tried to do what we’re trying to do. These are the bits of him that were left on the main lawn at Langley. DNA tests matched the body parts to one of the CIA’s most experienced covert operatives who’d spent a lifetime in undercover double agent identities. God knows what they’d done to him before, but the PM showed huge cell trauma indicating he was probably still alive when they dismembered him. He lasted all of four months inside before he was killed.”
I knew Maide had to inform me of the risks, but really, I didn’t need to see that. Or hear it.
“Just so as we’re all clear, Matt. This is your choice. You still have time to pull out, to walk away. No one would blame you.”
Maide laid out my exit path if I wanted it. But I didn’t. I’d established the mindset. I’d walked through the mission in my head. Whatever I would be asked to do, I’d do it. No matter how heinous, how appalling a crime, I’d do it. For I knew that only absolute commitment to Al Nadir would win, and eventually ruin, them.
Ashton reached across the table and touched my wrist. I jerked back suddenly at his unexpected soft touch. He spoke with a finality that almost made me rethink the whole mission.
“Matt, I need you to understand that if you’re caught any time whilst as Al Nadir, you’ll suffer the same consequences. You’ll be seen as having gone rogue. You’ll be disavowed. No one will ever know that you are still one of the good guys. You’ll get the same treatment as an Al Nadir terrorist.”
I knew exactly what that meant.
“So, I better not get caught then.”
Sam smirked but I can see some resentment float into his face. He wanted to be in my shoes, and had it not been for a one in two probability, he would’ve been. When we began talking radical actions, Sam, from the start, believed he’d be the one to take the double agent identity. We’d argued and eventually flipped a coin. Heads gets the mission; tails uses the intel that would come out of the mission to undermine Al Nadir whenever possible.
I was heads, Sam tails.
Fate already had our fortunes written.
Maide’s lips smoothed to a line. He didn’t like our boy’s banter. It was a long time since he’d been in the field and the comradery Sam and I shared appeared lost on him. Ashton, however, recognized our closeness, and his mouth pulled at the sides in what appeared to be the semblance of a grin.
“Right, so now you know the operational parameters, here are the specifics.”
As always, Maide wanted to get on with the business at hand and didn’t want to countenance any detraction. I turned my chair inward and focused on Maide’s mission briefing.
“Chatter has picked up Sabena Sanantoni making overtures about a new tech weapon. We have reason to believe she is looking to buy Summanus, a lethal portable infrasound weapon, perfected by KGB scientist, Professor George Cain, a DARPA researcher who defected in the late seventies when Project Pandora lost its funding in 1969. When Cain died last year, his son, Ilya, a brilliant sound engineer, took the mantle and carried on his father’s work under the caring wing of the FSB. There are indications that Ilya has been using Havana in Cuba as a testing ground. These rumors are reinforced due to the spate of weird incidents of people in and around the US Embassy experiencing dizziness, nausea, severe headaches, balance problems and tinnitus. It’s clear an advanced infrasonic weapon operating outside our audible range is being used. Summanus is being touted as the next-gen wipeout weapon, and Ilya has set up in Florence to sell it to the highest bidder. Al Nadir don’t like being second best. So they’ll be there to make sure they get it. It’s highly likely, and the chatter definitely confirms it, that Salim will want Sabena there to secure the tech.”
“Are the FSB happy about Ilya’s free-market attitude?” I asked, already knowing the response.
“No. They’re furious. Our sources say they’re planning to rap his knuckles bad,” stated Maide. Then he continued to the meat of the mission. “But Ilya is only a means to an end. Our target is Sabena and Sam is going to attempt an assassination with Six operative, Daniel Carter. Obviously, Carter doesn’t know what’s really going down. Sam, you’ll be on Operation Aphrodite.”
I looked at Sam and saw he was uncomfortable.
“Something wrong, Sam?” asked Maide.
“It was only supposed to be Matt and me. Why does Dan have to be there? It’ll be a suicide mission.”
“It’s the way it’s playing. A mission within a mission. You always knew that’s how this was going to work. Aphrodite’s the mask
for Snowdrop. No other way. We can’t risk being compromised on Snowdrop. Sam, if you do your thing, it’ll all be ok.”
Maide’s voice didn’t sound convincing, and all four of us knew we were most probably sending Dan Carter to an early grave.
“So it’s going to be quite a showdown,” exclaimed Ashton darkly, suddenly speaking after a period of silence.
I brought my hands up and rubbed my face and eyes, unavoidably displaying a degree of weariness. And so the body count had started. I wondered where it would lead before Operation Snowdrop achieved its mission objectives.
“Matt, you’ll be attending the energy summit in Boston on the twenty-fifth, in line with your cover job in STEE. While you’re there, you’ll liaise with our FSB asset. His contact name is Vladimir Sokolov, and he is energy advisor to Mikhail Petrov, their energy minister. He’ll give you the latest intel on Summanus. It’s better that you go, rather than Sam, as it jives with your current role in energy in DC. You’ll receive final mission intel from Sam on the twenty-seventh. Then on the twenty-seventh, you’ll fly out to Florence. Ilya is staying there in the Presidential Suite, De Medici in La Palazzo. The auction is at twelve hundred hours on the twenty-eighth. All signs indicate Sabena will be there, but intel will confirm her exact location. We need to get her at her most vulnerable point.”
I interrupted Maide, knowing her reputation.
“Sir, has Sabena even got a vulnerable point?”
Sam smirked again. “Good luck finding it. Legend says it’s lead-lined.”
I grinned and clocked Maide as he raised his eyes to the ceiling, a tiresome expression erupting across his features.
“Gentlemen, this is a serious briefing. Can we keep to the matter in hand?”
Operation Snowdrop Page 2