by D S Kane
Cassie’s mind raced. “They’ve had a string of failures hunting us down. Maybe the mole isn’t giving them all the intel he gets, or maybe—”
“Not so, Cassie,” Lee interrupted. “Recall the email I tracked from the mole when you were at the Algonquin in Manhattan.”
Cassie nodded. “Of course. So then Houmaz just keeps underestimating our capabilities.”
There was silence at the table for a few seconds.
“There’s more,” said Lester. He polished his eyeglasses with his shirt and returned them to the bridge of his nose. “You already know Pesi Houmaz runs the front office in Riyadh, recruiting Muslim extremists, and his brother, Tariq, is in charge of ops and training. Tariq’s main force is located in an Afghanistan mountain cave system, very close to the old Tora Bora caves. Their father is a rich man, made his money in the oil business back in the 70s before Iran went fundamentalist. And there’s a third brother, now running the oil business as an OPEC director for dear old dad. His name is Achmed and we don’t think he’s involved with terrorism.”
Courtesy of her Mossad bodyguards, Cassie had enough intel now for a more detailed scan of Houmaz. She decided that if Achmed Houmaz was harmless, she’d let him live. But she need more intel on him to be sure and marked it as an urgent task on her to-do list. “It seems you five aren’t just bodyguards. Sounds like you have good covert skills as well.”
The five former Mossad operatives wore sheepish expressions as they looked at one another and broke into laughter. Dushov said, “In addition to reporting to ‘General’ Shimmel, back when he was just ‘Major’ Shimmel in the IDF, and then working for him at Mossad, each of us has a special focus area. For example, with me, chemistry, especially for interrogation and killing. For Shimon, a PhD in psychology and hypnosis, also useful in interrogation. Ari works in martial arts, Michael is a tech expert in telecommunications and hacking. And JD—Jacob David—knows both explosives and automatic weapons. We’ll serve you as bodyguards and can also fill in these other areas whenever you want.”
Cassie nodded. “Do you have access to Mossad’s labs?”
Drapoff returned the nod. “Yes, of course. You have need of the lab?”
She turned to Lee. “Give him the evidence you lifted from the agency’s basement terminal.” Lee disappeared for a few minutes, returning with the sheet of paper containing the slabs of Scotch tape. She took it and handed it to Michael. “Can Mossad process the prints and DNA contained here?”
Drapoff examined the evidence. “Yes, I think so. I’ll send it out express mail today to Captain Geller at the Ness Ziona in Herzliyya. It may take a few days.”
Cassie nodded. Shimmel had brought her so much more than he’d promised. “Well done, Avram.” She was grateful Lee had suggested promoting Shimmel. But then a dark thought grew within her. They were still so far away from success and so many things could still go wrong. Well, it’s up to me to keep that from happening.
CHAPTER 31
August 24, 8:12 a.m.
Aboard the freighter Jean Moreau,
70 kilometers from Toronto, Canada
The container below decks on the freighter was marked “Beluga Caviar.” Sultan Raman sat on a barrel serving as his chair, rocking his body to the motion of the boat as it traveled up the Saint Lawrence.
One of his men, Abu Aziz, huge and muscled, nudged his arm and pointed toward the door.
Raman could hear the scuffling sound, closer now. He put his finger to his lips. The team members froze to avoid discovery by the boat’s crew.
The noise was no longer just footsteps. The door handle moved. Someone was testing the lock. Whoever was outside was persistent. Caviar from Beluga was a valuable but perishable commodity. Pesi Houmaz had chosen this as their cover since he’d stated it might get them through customs at the US border from Canada. But one of the crew might be interested in smuggling out some of the nonexistent caviar jars as a “bonus.”
Raman signaled to Aziz. The big man unsheathed his knife and moved to the door.
The lock outside clicked in release and the door handle moved again. The door slowly opened. A crewman appeared in the doorway holding a broom. He reacted to Aziz’s knife by hitting Aziz in the solar plexus, doubling him over, then drew a throwing knife and aimed it at Raman. Raman ducked just in time but he’d been standing in front of another of his team.
Raman turned as the knife flew past him and watched it skewer his teammate just below the sternum. Blood sprayed as the man died before hitting the floor. The splashback flooded Raman’s eyes, blinding him. The crewman picked up the knife Aziz dropped before anyone could react and threw it toward Raman. Ramen ducked and twisted out of the way.
Aziz drew his back-up knife and slashed at the crewman. The man went down, his neck sliced all the way to his spine. But not before the knife he’d thrown at Raman hit another of the men in the arm.
Sultan stood there, stunned. In less than a minute he’d lost one man and had another wounded by an insignificant ship’s crewman. Now he’d need to keep two dead bodies in the freight container, decomposing and stinking, until they docked in Toronto. He ripped a strip of cloth from the dead crewman’s shirt, fashioning a tourniquet for his teammate.
What more could happen? If this was the will of Allah, then their mission might be doomed. He must prove this wrong.
Raman calculated he might still have enough manpower to complete his mission.
CHAPTER 32
August 24, 8:12 a.m.
Highlands Inn,
Carmel Highlands, California
Living with bodyguards was tougher than Cassie hoped. She suspected they knew more about her than Lee did. One of them stood on station outside their room all night and another waited “on call.”
She assumed they knew what Lee and she did alone at night, down to the details of their sex. Cassie suspected they’d placed vid-cams in their room but knew if she confronted them, they’d say it was for her and Lee’s safety. By the middle of the second day, she considered ways to use this inconvenience to her and Lee’s advantage. She asked Ari, “Can you give us both lessons in martial arts?” And she asked JD, “Can you give us lessons in automatic handguns and high explosives?”
Both were eager to help, and while their mercs completed training in the Ventana Wilderness, Cassie and Lee improved their self-defense skills.
JD smiled and pushed a large lock of red hair back in place. He shook his head. “You can’t hit the broad side of a barn, Cassie.” She knew it was true.
She wondered if her abilities were limited to computers, banking, and economics. She faced JD. “Well, I did. Once. In Manhattan a few months ago I killed three men with three shots in under five seconds.” She examined the gun as if the fault with her marksmanship today might be with it. “Damn.”
“Pure luck.” JD shook his head. “I’ll teach you high explosives but with a focus on a theoretical basis, to avoid having you become the victim of your own accident.”
* * *
Two days later, Avram Shimmel knocked on the door to their room. He moved inside silently, like a panther stalking prey. “Some news for you both. The men are ready. The three of us need to make logistic decisions for the two ops we’re to carry out.”
Cassie walked to a chair at the hotel room’s small kitchen table, and the men sat, one on either side of her. She pulled out her cell phone and turned it on. After pulling up the project management software, she frowned. “I’ll need just a day or two to finish arming and springing the trap. But please commence transport for the mercenaries now and have them ready as soon as possible. I’ve rented two jets, one for San Jose to Riyadh and one for San Jose to Jalalabad, Afghanistan. I’ll be done about the time your soldiers are in place.”
Avram nodded, and Cassie continued. “But I have to tell you about a complication I learned of this morning.” She pulled a single sheet of paper from her pocket and handed it to Avram.
He read the email, frowned, and asked, “Th
is came from your mole?”
She said, “Yes. As I told you, the mole is either a Dire or an Ass Dire at the agency, with access to intelligence most people at the agency can’t see. The mole can send and receive messages on terminals with special security clearance. That’s how my cover was sold to Houmaz. He or she set me up and had me fired, marking me as a soft target for assassination.”
Shimmel shook his head. “Typical of American intelligence. In the old days, the CIA would sell their grandmothers for a song, and so, I gather, nothing has changed. In those times, the KGB routinely killed their own. MI6 had spies spying on each other and spying for other intelligence agencies as doubles and triples. The French and the Italians, well, they always were and still are more interested in food and sex than intel. And the Germans are serious but not at all creative.”
Shimmel shook his head. “So this mole claims he or she’s repenting. Can you believe anything a professional liar tells you?”
She considered this. “The mole must be desperate. At the agency, they train their senior managers to be flexible, and I think the mole is at the end of his or her rope trying to find us. I wouldn’t be surprised if the Houmaz people threatened the mole’s family and the mole turned, helping us instead of trying to get us killed.”
Shimmel smiled grimly. “Yeah.”
She pointed to the papers. “Just look at the offer. The mole has given us the agency intel we need to take out the Houmaz brothers in both Kabul and Riyadh. The intel validates what we already know, so at least this much must be true. And we’ve been given so much more. All the intel on guards and armed personnel. And all their ordnance info, types, and quantities. It’s all here.”
She handed him the thick packet she’d printed from the attachment. “The mole offered to send us real-time satellite imagery with a twelve-hour lead time.”
Shimmel shook his head. “How many times has the mole given intel to those who want to kill you?”
She hesitated for a moment, mulling over Shimmel’s warning. “I realize the mole is only doing what’s expedient. And you’re right. Using the intel is risky but the entire operation is risky. Look, I hate this person. He or she ruined my life. I’ll get even someday. But anything improving our odds is welcome, even if it holds its own risks. If you agree to receive the intel, you’re still free to disregard anything we get.”
Shimmel turned to the window. “My advice, Cassie, is keep copies of this email, just as you have with the email Lee collected during the Algonquin Hotel assassination attempt. You’ll have enough leverage to use this person for whatever you wish, whenever you want, for the rest of their life.”
She nodded in silence. After all, it was still possible this was a trap. She was unsure whether to follow Avram’s advice.
During this exchange Lee kept silent. He shifted his eyes following their argument as if he was watching a tennis match. When they were both silent, he spoke. “Not to change the subject, but speaking again of intelligence, our own little Mossad branch has been cooling their heels and they got bored. Les and Ari hacked into Mossad’s intel systems and were able to download some interesting stuff.”
“Like?”
“It seems there’s a stream of payments between Washington and Riyadh, but not to the Saudi government or to the royal family. They didn’t have the hacking skills to go any deeper.”
“But I do.” Cassie made another mental note on her to-do list. She already suspected what she’d find. Were these payments the result of the project she’d declined when it was offered her by the West Wing?
* * *
Two days later, the trap was almost set. Cassie had worked faster than she thought she could, despite the fact she did it all alone, to give the independent hackers she’d hired deniability should they ever be questioned by the authorities.
She heard someone knocking on the door to her room. She opened it and saw Michael Drapoff’s smiling face. He handed her a manila folder. “DNA and fingerprint analysis. Arrived a few minutes ago. Your mole’s identity, but only if you can hack the agency’s records. That’s where you’ll find a match.”
She considered the problem. Lee was responsible for all the security hoops used by the agency. “Thanks.” She left the room after locking the door. She found Lee in the pool, lying on a float. “Sweetie, I need you right now.”
He smiled. “But of course you do.” He was already off the float and swimming to the ladder. “What’s up?”
She shielded her eyes from the sun. “Come back to the room with me.”
In less than five minutes, she’d closed the door. “We need to hack the agency and get to the personnel files. She held up the folder. “This contains the processed evidence, courtesy of Mossad.”
He turned on a notebook computer next to the one she used and together they began the process. “I set up the security and firewalls to keep something like this from happening. And I’m really, really good at my job.” Lee set up his notebook to emulate a mainframe terminal, requesting access, while she set hers to Google search mode, exploring a list of newsgroups with hacker solutions for bypassing passwords.
They worked steadily for several hours, but had nothing to show for it. As the sun set, Lee shook his head. “Sorry. It just ain’t working. I’ll need someone’s ID and password to do this.”
She nodded, but the little voice in the back of her head wondered if Lee had tried hard enough. After all, if he was the mole, it wouldn’t be in his interest to unmask himself. Was he lying to her, even now?
She put that thought aside.
* * *
Cassie researched the stream of Middle Eastern electronic payments. Soon she was certain they came from the system she’d declined to develop. She took special care to remain silent about the tasks related to discovering the West Wing’s involvement in funding the Houmaz Muslim extremists. She found hacking the West Wing much easier now. Their systems loaded all the security at the front end, almost all of it within the firewall.
Within the project documentation, she discovered the SWIFT wire transfer codes used, along with a listing of the bank endpoints. Cassie made copies of the files and found email memos approving the actual funds transfers—from the United States Treasury Department to numbered current accounts she knew belonged to Pesi and Tariq Houmaz. She copied these as well.
She’d believed the feds had been funding terrorists and then sending her to steal the money back. Now, here was the proof. It gave a new depth and dimension to the term “recycling.”
She feared there would be reprisals from the agency if they ever found out she knew. She felt disgusted with her government. How could they even consider doing something so heinous?
She’d need to hold this evidence as protection. But it would have to be done in some way that guaranteed the agency couldn’t kill her and bury her body with the threat her evidence posed.
She’d developed the skills to program a “time-bomb” to send all the intel files she had accumulated to every news service on earth, including Al Jazeera, the Arabic-language news network. And now she used those skills. The data would automatically be decrypted and sent if she didn’t key a numeric password every four days. And that password would be changed by the program using the date in a mathematical formula commonly used in financial calculations. Not foolproof, but good enough and easy for her to remember. She placed the program and the encrypted data in a hidden directory within her web server in Chechnya.
The idea of her government supporting terrorism was so difficult to envision, she wondered if she would someday conveniently forget to key the password and thereby trigger dissemination of the data.
Her West Wing hack gave her the endpoints for all the Houmaz bank accounts. What had they used the money for? She hacked into every major bank in the Muslim world, searching for the private bank accounts Tariq and Pesi Houmaz had sent the funds on to. Their primary bank was the Bank of Trade, and it had inferior security making it easy. The password for the bank’s Security
Administrator was set to “Mohammad.”
Cassie found Tariq Houmaz made routine payments for amounts in the range of about $25,000 each to three bank accounts every month. She tracked the cash through SWIFT’s bank-to-bank EFT network to its endpoints. Tribal leaders, men in Nangarhar province, Afghanistan, owned the destination bank accounts. She did a bit more research and discovered he had his camp situated in the Spin Ghar mountains, near the village of Upper Pachir.
Working with this intel left her feeling filthy, as if she’d immersed herself in sewage.
From her agency briefings, she recognized a few of the names owning the bank accounts as leftover Taliban gangsters. The power of these hoodlums depended on the size and proficiency of the armed gangs they ruled. Cassie guessed the cash Houmaz paid to the tribal lords was protection money.
Now I’ll steal and use their money. Removing the funds might remove the gangsters’ support. Cassie moved the money—all of it—from the accounts of the tribal leaders back to the Houmaz bank accounts and left a clumsy trail of evidence back. I wonder how long it will take for the tribal lords to discover the Houmaz brothers took back everything?
Next she moved everything from all the Houmaz bank accounts to one of the agency’s bank accounts, leaving a trail of SWIFT instructions pointing to the terminal in the agency’s basement. The total amount was well in excess of a billion dollars.
Then, using the typical system administrator’s ID and password, she moved most of the funds from that account to an unrelated numbered bank account she’d established with the password “Kahuna” for later distribution to her mercenaries, and then she prepared to hack SWIFT and deleted all the transaction trails.
She kept wondering what would happen if she failed in the crucial step of covering her tracks. Since SWIFT settles in net at the end of every day and not real-time, transaction by transaction, she had less than three hours remaining in the day during issuance of the funds transfers to wipe clean every instruction.