Sean would remember this moment forever. His first meeting with Dominic Atwood. The man with the flimsy toupee. Sean’s instincts kicked in when he met Dominic. His gut told him that Dominic was likely to be a career MI6 intelligence officer, probably operating under the more formal Embassy diplomatic cover to gain intelligence on the goings-on in Central Asia. Sean had met enough MI6 operational officers to know their peculiar traits, and Dominic exuded all of them. Particularly the pompous ones. Something wasn’t quite right about this man, but he couldn’t put his finger on it. There was an odd stand-off between the pair of them he thought, neither giving an inch of information to reveal their clandestine activities.
The cold air snapped at his lungs. The security gate gnawed on its icy cogs as it slowly drew open for the approaching car. Almaty was dark and bitter that night as Sean left the Defence Attaché’s house, content with his brief encounter with government staff and feeling that his lengthy chat with this curious fellow called Dominic Atwood had gone reasonably well. He headed back into the city to continue planning the next stages of his mission with the General – and his travel to Tashkent, the capital of Uzbekistan.
Chapter 3
Uzbekistan, 2002
Sean watched General Yuri Yakubova arrive at Tashkent train station just before eleven o’clock on the busiest day of the week. The station was awash with loud and vibrant trading activity at the stalls outside – reams of noisy traffic slowly bustled their way through the massed crowds. The dense smoke of breakfast stalls and barbeques lingered in the air as Sean greeted Yuri with a strong handshake and a pat on the back. Sean was unshaven, dressed in a black T-shirt, beige mountain trousers and sand brown desert boots and a large, black North Face rucksack. He looked to the entire world totally out of place as a Westerner amongst the large crowds of native Central Asians, all of whom were actively trading and bartering around the station. Sean was immersed in the quirky atmosphere but his senses were sharp, sharp to the fact they could be being watched or followed if anyone had latched onto the fact that Yuri was his agent, and effectively an Uzbek traitor.
Yuri looked around incessantly as he shepherded Sean towards the station entrance, his eyes glancing across the array of faces in the crowds. Yuri was smaller than Sean and slightly portly, wearing black square-rimmed glasses and conspicuous with his balding head. He was a calm and intelligent Uzbek, brought up at the universities of Moscow and well travelled throughout the former Soviet Union. He did, however, have a penchant for the good life but, for all his worldly goods, he simply wanted to escape to the West. He felt this was his opportunity to leave Uzbekistan for good.
Sean had finally recruited this charismatic Uzbek some months ago. It hadn’t been easy, and Sean had spent many a day verifying the secret data he had provided, his credentials and the veracity of his motivation. He had probed Yuri deeply in the safe house in Almaty and, in the end, it came down to Sean’s gut feeling and a provisional deal. The trust between them was nailed during the escape from the safe house. It relied on cash for General Yuri and a surreptitious escape from Uzbekistan for him and his family. But only if he provided evidence of the intelligence Sean needed on the smuggling of nuclear materials.
What the General had requested from Sean resonated deeply with him – he was empathetic to Yuri’s desire to make a new life in Europe or the USA. Sean found it incredible that he was now dealing with Yuri on intelligence related to terrorist improvised explosives devices. Not just normal IEDs, but highly sophisticated chemical, biological and, chillingly, radiological or nuclear devices. The extraordinary speed of events after 9/11 had propelled him quickly into this dangerous new era of covert activity to support the strategic aims of the US and UK. Sean’s world was intelligence. His life was counterterrorism. He had given fifteen years of service to HM Government, and they had bared his soul on more than a few occasions.
Sean and General Yuri boarded the cranky old train bound for Bokhara via the great city of Samarkand – they were destined to spend twenty-four hours together in a small double-bunk compartment situated in the second-class carriages towards the front of the train.
Sean entered the compartment, placed his rucksack on the top bunk and sat at the small table next to the window. The carriage windows had an ancient set of curtains pulled back on an old wire hanging by its threads, and the musty smell of the compartment lingered deep in the nose. The table held two small Uzbek bowls for drinking green chai, and a blue, mosaic-patterned teapot.
It wasn’t long before the train had rolled out of Tashkent on its way to the historic Islamic cities of Samarkand and Bokhara. The wide landscape of the Karakum desert provided the mysterious backdrop for Sean to quiz Yuri on the criminal underworld activity of radiological smuggling that was happening across Central Asia.
Yuri didn’t stop talking.
‘There’s an extensive network of cross-border smuggling going on, Sean, radiological sources moving across the region, and I’ve been monitoring exactly how it works.’
‘Great. You’ve developed this operation well, and we’re pleased with your work Yuri.’
‘I’m glad it’s to your satisfaction,’ Yuri said, in his slightly strained, but very understandable, English.
‘We pay people here, Sean. They are poor and, in this country, we trade in whatever we can. It might be furs, sausages, illegal drugs, vodka or even special nuclear material. It’s our way of life and bargaining markets occur all across the land where buyers and sellers will come. The illicit trade in caesium and even uranium is managed by the Russian Mafia.’
Sean was fascinated at the extent of the knowledge Yuri had – what he had been relaying back to London for the last few months was chilling. He leant back into the sofa opposite the bunk beds, whilst Yuri sat cross-legged on a cushion near the table. Yuri continued.
‘The Mafia use normal traders, low-level workers and simple men to try and sell the stuff. You know, hustlers. Middlemen. If they sell, they give the largest cut back to the Mafia – they are shit-scared of them and know they will be hurt if they try to renege on any deal and run off with the items.’
‘So, who’s buying, Yuri? Where is it moving to? And who are the end buyers and where are they from?’ Sean asked the questions, remembering the classified intelligence he had read of 220 specific cases of smuggling of special nuclear material across Georgia, Turkey, the Caucasus, Kazakhstan, Ukraine and Uzbekistan.
‘We only have a handful of deals that we’ve managed to uncover here but it moves across our territory into the Caucasus and Turkey and onwards to wherever the end buyer is. The stuff comes from our old refineries and metallurgy processing plants: some here, some in Kazakhstan. Everyone is corrupt and it’s easy for the Mafia to buy the stuff from security, the workers or even the police. Money speaks here. They then use the hustlers to move it across the deserts into Turkmenistan and then across to Georgia and Ossetia.’
Sean knew the hunting ground for the buyers was in the broken Russian states of Ossetia and Abkhazia and often over into the black market bazaars of Turkey. It was in these countries that you could buy anything from dried fish to gold, drugs and even weapons-grade uranium.
‘Ossetia is lawless and it’s the biggest duty-free market in the world,’ Yuri explained, gesturing with his hands. ‘The market bazaars are full of people who come from all over the region to buy everything from gasoline to pasta with no taxes that you’d pay in mainland Georgia.’
Yuri placed some Uzbek documents on the table and explained the case of Tamaz Davitadze. Yuri placed his picture on the table next to his Kent cigarettes, and placed another picture showing four vials of green, highly enriched powdered uranium.
‘He brought this through Bokhara three months ago,’ Yuri said. ‘We intercepted him to see what was happening in the wider network. We then allowed him to continue and Davitadze headed out of Bokhara towards the Uzbek–Turkmen border in an old Niva four-wheel drive with Vazha Lortkipadze, a corrupt, middle-ranking Uzbek Interior
Ministry official. They met with two Iranian agents just over the Turkmenistan border in Türkmenabat.’
Sean listened, aghast at the extent of duplicity and corrupt, state-sponsored activity. Yuri had managed a clever intelligence operation and had recruited Davitadze, who was now on his payroll. Yuri lit a Kent cigarette and opened the window. The desert wind whipped in. He then explained how Davitadze carried over four kilograms of the greyish-green powder – not quite enough for a nuclear bomb but, for a buyer with the right equipment and experience, a damn good start.
Yuri added some detail to the plots. ‘There was the problem of the Uzbek–Turkmen customs post, just a few miles from Türkmenabat. Lortkipadze smoothed the way with payments, probably on a regular basis, to the commandant of the flat desert outpost.’
‘They’re all on the take then?’ Sean asked. ‘Uzbek military officers and government officials? All easily bought off, I assume?’
‘Exactly. This means the Iranians can, and do, operate at will – masterminding their own nuclear smuggling racket,’ Yuri said. ‘I’ll introduce you to two of my agents from the criminal underworld in the Ferghana valley. They’ll be able to show you the evidence you need.’
The door creaked open. Sean glanced round. Was it a threat? No. Just Hazim the porter bringing them bowls of the local beef delicacy, bishbarmak. Hazim had a small kitchen towards the front of the carriage and it was his job to bring each compartment their chai, lunch and dinner and to provide them with any service that might be required on the long desert journey.
Hazim, a portly and smiling gentleman from Azerbaijan, set the table, allowing Sean to take a moment to revel in the spectacular views of the large desert. He marvelled at the huge desert vista brimming with heat waves seen low across the sands, giving him a sense of myopia as the horizon blurred. He felt privileged to witness the evocative and charming nature of the land as they travelled gently across the huge expanse of Uzbekistan towards the western frontiers.
Yuri pushed his finished plate aside. With a glance, Sean saw him pull out a hefty dossier. Yuri indicated to Sean that he should read the dossier he had compiled on the frightening magnitude of this illicit trading.
What Sean read, all fully translated, was alarming. He knew he would need to verify the intelligence but also knew there was enough there to mount major operations using US and UK strategic assets to precisely track and trace the threats. Yuri had provided him with a dossier full of illicit trading in special nuclear material – and everything pointed to Iran, not Iraq.
Two incidents stood out as he read. One was a report where Yuri’s intelligence officers had searched vehicles in the dead of night just outside Bokhara. Their equipment and searches had revealed a cargo of fifteen kilograms of zinc oxide destined for Iran with traces of caesium-127 emitting 240 microroentgens per hour. Border checks showed the transporter did not have the appropriate permits and was using falsified documentation to move from Uzbekistan and onwards through Turkmenistan the short distance to Iran. In the other incident, a cargo of molybdenum, a silvery metal used in metallurgy processes, was searched again at night en route to Iran via Turkmenistan – it contained within its load radium-226, uranium-234 and uranium-238.
The third incident that he read about made him shiver. Yuri’s officers had searched a car, based on a tip-off from Davitadze, where they had found a container with an estimated 2kg of caesium-137, alongside the special device for opening the lead container as well as a number of explosive detonators. According to Davitadze, his fellow hustler had received the container with caesium-137 from a member of the Uzbek Counterintelligence Department at the Tashkent district police headquarters. He was instructed to transfer the caesium-137 to an unidentified person in Bokhara, later identified by Yuri’s team as an Iranian agent. Sean could see immediately that the caesium-137 isotope could be used as a radiological dispersal device, a dirty bomb, and that this fitted with Iran’s capability of possessing a high-grade, state-sponsored terrorism threat.
‘Yuri, who else knows of this operation you’re running?’ Sean used both hands to drink the green Uzbek tea from the small blue mosaic bowl, awaiting the response.
‘No one other than my team at the moment,’ Yuri replied. ‘I thought it might be useful to you. I can’t trust anyone in government, but if they learn of what I’m doing, and I’m linked to you, I’m a dead man.’
Sean was astonished at the courageous risks Yuri was taking, driven by his motivation to leave the country and live in the UK. Yuri was despondent at the tyrannous nature of his country’s regime, who were quite obviously operating illicitly with the Iranians. This often crossed Sean’s mind as he continued to debrief Yuri.
‘Have you got any evidence that any of this stuff is going to Iraq and not Iran?’ Sean asked. ‘Any evidence of contacts or criminal activity linked to Iraq?’
‘None at all. Most of the linkages we’ve found are direct to Iran, except the criminal and Mafia movements of some stuff going into Georgia and Turkey.’ Sean knew this was now a critical source of intelligence for linking duplicitous Central Asian activity to the wider concerns of the West – and he started to think how he could exploit these leads further. London were desperately looking for an Iraqi connection to support the US-led war that was centred on Saddam Hussein having weapons of mass destruction, but everything here pointed to Iran.
The train lurched as it jogged slowly over some points, shaking the crockery on the table. ‘Yuri, here’s what we do,’ Sean said. ‘We develop this operation you’re working on over the coming months, and you keep reporting the leads and intelligence direct to me. We can’t get you out of the country just yet as we need you here to craft these new leads. When the time is right we’ll see what people think about defection but, to be perfectly honest, we don’t have enough yet.’
Sean wanted more on this journey to Bokhara. He was confident this intelligence would lead to critical results very soon. And he had a gut feeling that none of it would relate to Iraq at all. It would be some years on, and a few more intelligence roles, before he would uncover the truth.
*
God he was tired. Sean needed a break to think things through and to stretch his legs. He tugged the compartment door open and stepped into the narrow corridor connecting each of the individual compartments. A waft of Hazim’s cooking hit him as he walked to the front of the carriage and pulled the window down on the door. He needed some fresh air.
He had been reflecting on how the US had wanted a war for some months. And how they seemed determined to invade Iraq next. But first they needed the burden of proof that weapons of mass destruction existed in Iraq – even if their spymasters and mandarins had to manipulate, or invent, a trigger.
He fiddled with his lighter momentarily and recalled his last private chat with Jonny ‘Two Vests’ Bellingham in a secure three-metre-square room in Moscow. The room had been within another room and was the only place in the embassy where officers could speak on sensitive matters without fear of a bugged environment. Within those secure walls, Jonny briefed Sean that there were others, like Sean, on similar missions. Other carefully disguised intelligence officers were clandestinely employed across Turkey and Central Asia to watch, listen and try to interdict the illicit trade in nuclear material.
‘Read this file first, Sean,’ Jonny said. ‘And then these others in order. There are lots more you need to digest before your next steps south.’
‘Who knows all this, Jonny?’
‘It’s compartmented intelligence so I’m guessing only a few back at the centre will know the aggregation of all the material,’ Jonny said. ‘Add all this to your briefings in London and you have far more than I.’
‘OK, so just your immediate staff know of this then?’
‘Yes, but remember some of this is already widely known anyway. Kazakhstan and most of the other former Soviet Central Asian states still have access to stockpiles of nuclear resources. Most of it is still in a state of decay and poorly secured.
Worse still, Central Asia is the classic black market for this kind of stuff.’
‘Russian Mafia hands all over it?’
‘Precisely. You’ll see that racketeering and corruption is their way of life and sets the conditions for lots of unscrupulous trading in radiological sources.’
‘Not looking good at all then,’ Sean said, scratching his temple slowly.
‘Well, you know as much as me on that score. We know Al-Qaeda has tried many ways of getting the right radiological sources over many years from these markets.’
‘And our worry back home is they could easily get the right material to improvise a nuclear device. We don’t know how close they are to that.’
‘Put it this way, Sean. We know the trade is there and the Russian Mafia have no qualms at all about making a large buck from selling material to them. The question is whether the right material is for sale, of course.’
Sean leant back and glanced around the sparse room, which had an odd feel created by the ghostly flickering of the fluorescent lights. ‘The speed at which the Americans are moving is staggering,’ Sean said. ‘And political expediency has seen some very odd decisions being made in the dark halls of Whitehall.’
‘Pressure no doubt. Incessant pressure being put on Whitehall mandarins and then onto us.’
‘Yep, and it looks like the pressure is on to get the UN atomic and chemical weapons’ inspectors into Iraq as soon as possible,’ Sean said. ‘The start of the search to find smoking-gun evidence.’
‘Well I know they’ve just appointed Professor Margaret Wilshaw to start looking at that, Sean. A quiet, unassuming woman by all accounts. I read about her this morning. Woman in her mid-sixties from Gloucester and a nuclear expert.’
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