by Peter Parken
Chet entered a few more strokes. Ron was chomping at the bit. “Chet, tell me, for God’s sake.”
Chet sat back in his chair and stared at the screen. “We found this email. We have no idea who it was sent to, and there was no reply to it. He encrypted it, but we decoded it. And this email might have been why he was let go—and then murdered. I don’t know, maybe I’m reaching here. But the email is definitely in code; we have no doubt about that. Our coding expert has given me an opinion. But, let me first just read out what the email said:
“Hi there. Hope you’re well. I have to have an operation next week. Damn teeth. Hurting so much, infected, and I have to drink tons of water just to flush the puss out. Hey, did you know that eighty percent of the bottled water we get here in America is imported from Canada? Interesting, huh? I love Canada, don’t you? Such a beautiful country. I want to head up there this summer and hang out at the Great Lakes. I hear they have masseuses on the beaches that will also wash and scrub your back for you. Have you ever had a backwash from a beautiful woman before?”
Ron drained the rest of his beer. Suddenly, he was extra thirsty so he signaled to the waiter to bring them two more.
“That’s kind of a strange message. It seems pointless. But why can’t you discover who he sent it to?”
“He followed a certain path. It was routed through several different countries; different IP addresses, and then…ended up in Moscow. To an IP address registered to an Internet café. Whoever accessed this email did so by simply signing in with an account password.”
“Jesus! Do you think…Snowden?”
“That’s exactly what I’m thinking.”
The waiter served the second round and Chet paid him again. Ron took a long slug. “I’d have to stare at that message for a long while to see what kind of decoded sense it might make. So, why don’t you speed the process up for me, Chet, old buddy?”
Chet folded his hands together. “As you know, we have thousands of people in Anonymous around the world—but we’re still a tight-knit group despite the large numbers. I can tap into the skills of anyone I choose to, and we’re all kind of a…brotherhood, know what I mean? I think you do—it’s similar to the military. Anyway, we all know who’s good at what so I went to a contact in South Africa, a former CIA operative who went rogue, living now under an assumed name. He was one of their foremost decoding experts. Brilliant mind.
“Anyway, I sent this email to him and asked for his opinion. He says it’s definitely in code, and not that difficult. Done by an amateur, which of course someone of Dragunov’s rank at the NSA probably would be. The word ‘operation’ would be the first clue and his reference to teeth. My contact hacked into his dental records and there’s no record of any operation on his teeth pending—in fact, Dragunov hadn’t visited a dentist for over a year. The second clue that stands out is the unnecessary mentions of having to flush his mouth out with water and that Canada supplied the U.S. with most of its bottled water. Silly information that was out of context in an email that, as you said, seemed to be pointless to begin with. But…it wasn’t pointless.
“Then he talks about visiting Canada and going to the Great Lakes. Well, the Great Lakes are nice, but the water’s cold and the beaches aren’t that nice. These are big lakes, kinda like small oceans. If you wanted to visit the lakes in Canada, you’d go to the smaller resort lakes in Ontario or British Columbia. So, that’s a clue in itself.
“Next he talks silly nonsense about getting his back scrubbed and washed on a beach in the Great Lakes. My contact checked on that—there’s no such service on the beaches of the Great Lakes in Canada. And Dragunov ends the email with asking if the recipient has ever had a ‘backwash’ before by a beautiful woman. So—the words ‘wash and scrub your back’ get switched around to ‘backwash.’”
Ron looked at his watch. “I gotta run in a few minutes, Chet. Speed it up for me.”
“Okay. I think Dragunov had been in touch with Snowden all along. I think this email was sent to Snowden in Moscow, and I do believe that he set Snowden up with his relatives there for a place to stay once Putin granted him asylum. And…I think that Dragunov stumbled across something else, either at Snowden’s request or all by his lonesome. This email was trying to find out if Snowden knew about this other matter. Dragunov was waiting for a reply…which he never got.”
“What is that something else?”
“We don’t know exactly. But our decoding expert in South Africa is 100% certain that it at least pertains to water, pertains to Canada, pertains to the Great Lakes, and is known in official NSA channels as ‘Operation Backwash.’”
Chapter 34
Carl hated the look of these two guys. Sure, they were good at their jobs, but they looked weird. Tattoos up their arms, with a few other creative etchings circling their necks, in their ears, on the top of their bald scalps. They looked identical in that respect—maybe they got a two-for-one special at the tattoo parlor?
Carl was a bit of a conservative—he couldn’t help but look down on people who marred their bodies that way. A few of his teammates in the NFL had those damn markings too, and he had tended to gravitate away from them. Anyone with tattoos always made him think “trailer trash.”
No matter—these two were always reliable and creative in every challenge Carl threw their way. They’d never failed him yet. And he would need them to be that way once again. They were known within the intelligence community as two of the most efficient assassins on the market.
He passed each of them two photos with names and addresses written at the top. “Memorize these faces and their details, and then burn the photos.”
One of the guys frowned. “Isn’t this the guy whose house we blew up? You told us then that we had to draw him out of the house—which we did.”
“Yes, that’s correct. But the situation has changed and he has to be dealt with now. You have two choices for this man—an accident, or a suicide. But it can’t be seen as a murder. Clear?”
They both nodded their colored bald heads.
The other killer was looking hard at the second photo. “She’s pretty. Such a shame.”
Carl couldn’t resist. “That kind of lady is out of your league anyway, so don’t be too broken-hearted.”
The guy looked up at Carl and sneered. “No one is out of my league.”
“Sure. Okay, with this girl, it has to be an accident. Suicide wouldn’t be believable for her, not like it would be for the man. So, you only have that one option.”
“No problem.” They both rose to leave.
“Oh, one more thing.” He handed them each a piece of paper. “This information was lifted from their online calendars. It will give you a concise idea where they’re going to be and what they’ll be doing over the next two weeks.”
“Time frame?”
“I just told you—within the next two weeks. And don’t forget to burn those documents after you’ve memorized everything.”
As they left his office, Carl glanced at his watch. He had a meeting with two logistics officers from the Pentagon in about ten minutes. They needed an update to take back to their bosses, and Carl was glad that everything about Operation Backwash itself was on track. It was these damn loose ends that he hadn’t anticipated, but he had no choice but to just deal with them. Which was exactly what he was doing.
He opened the folder that he’d be referring to during the meeting. An ‘executive summary’ of Canada was at the top of the pile of reports.
Canada—a lovely place. He’d been there many times. And, my God, they seemed to have water coming out of their ying-yang. Canada actually owned access to about thirty percent of the entire world’s fresh water. And their citizens were spoiled by how much they had—rationing was seldom an issue in Canada. In fact, Canadians were one of the largest per capita consumers of water on the globe—a whopping 326 liters per person per day.
And the Great Lakes System was the mother lode of fresh water. With the exception o
f the Polar ice caps, the Great Lakes were the largest source of fresh water on the planet; a mind-boggling 95,000 square miles. Those lakes alone held twenty-two percent of the world’s fresh water.
And luckily for the United States, the five Great Lakes straddled its border with Canada. Four of them were shared equally with Canada and managed jointly between the two countries by the International Joint Commission, which was set up under the Boundary Waters Treaty of 1909.
The U.S./Canadian border, the 49th Parallel, ran directly down the middle of the most northern body of water, Lake Superior, then through the middle of lakes Huron, Erie and Ontario. Lake Michigan, the fifth Great Lake, was the only one totally within the border of the United States.
Lakes Erie and Michigan were the key aspects of Operation Backwash.
Lake Erie was the one that America would steal the water from, and Lake Michigan would be the site of a ‘false flag’ terrorist attack.
The Boundary Waters Treaty dictated how much water each of the two countries was entitled to, and it had never been renegotiated and it was unlikely that it ever would be. Canada was resource-rich, and it felt that it was entitled to keep its resources and its fair share of the water that the border defined.
Operation Backwash would basically redefine that border for them, and tell the Boundary Waters Treaty to go fuck itself.
America was running out of water—fast. And its relatively tiny neighbor, at least from a population standpoint, had resources that every nation in the world coveted. The lucky thing for America was that it shared a border with the most resource-rich nation on the planet. And the temptation was just far too great. The solution to America’s water woes lay north of the 49th Parallel. America had actually tried to take over Canada back in the war of 1812, but the damn British and French had held them off. Well, colonialism was dead now and Canada was on its own. Too bad for them.
Carl jerked out of his daydream at the sound of his office door opening. These guys from the Pentagon never bothered to knock.
He rose from his chair to greet them. They waved him back down.
The tall guy was General Tetford. The short guy was General Halperson. These dudes didn’t have tattoos.
Tetford started things off. “Okay, we’re getting close, Carl. We understand you’ve had some loose ends and we don’t want to hear about those. We trust you’ll just take care of them.”
“Consider it done.”
“Good, so, we need to report back to the top brass as to where we are right now on all of the preparations. Why don’t you start with the tunnel update first?”
Carl shuffled the papers in his folder until he came to the report that he wanted.
“The tunnel is almost finished. It’s been a five-year project—stretching from the Illinois River to the southwest tip of Lake Erie. When it reaches Lake Erie, it will be fifty feet underground, so when it punches through into the lake it won’t be noticed. That’s the eastern end of the tunnel. At the western end, it will have two branches—one diverts off through the banks of the Illinois River, which as you know feeds the Mississippi. The water levels will be dramatically boosted in the Mississippi, a situation that has been dire for us up until now. Not just water levels for drinking and irrigation, but also shipping up the Mississippi from the Gulf of Mexico has been dramatically altered due to the low water levels. Ships can’t be loaded to the same level as they were five years ago because the river’s so shallow now, which is causing shortages of goods to our northern cities.
“The second western branch of the tunnel dives down deep into the Cambrian-Ordovician Aquifer, which will flow from there into the nation’s most precious and crucial one, the High Plains Aquifer. This is one of the world’s largest aquifers, lies under eight states and underlies 17,500 square miles. And right now it’s only at thirty percent capacity—it’s the most important aquifer we have and it’s the most depleted. So, this tunnel branch from Lake Erie will dramatically boost the High Plains Aquifer—a major triumph for us. Agriculture and ranching will be helped tremendously, and we might even be able to start watering our golf courses again.”
Halperson finally spoke. “Any problems with the tunnel construction?”
“Not really any to speak of. The good thing is, and the reason we chose Lake Erie, is that the tunnel goes entirely under U.S. soil, so we don’t have to worry about Canadian officials asking questions about noise reports. Sure, we’ve had our own citizens complaining about mechanical noises underground and sounds of muffled banging—especially at night when it’s normally expected to be quiet. But, people all over the world have been complaining about noises like that—probably because other countries are building tunnels and bunkers, too. Usually, when these things get reported, municipalities pretend to investigate, and the nutbars start blaming the noises on aliens. So, thank God for the nutbars—they help us more than they realize.”
“What equipment have you been using for this tunnel? It’s going to be a long one—240 miles if I recall?”
“We decided to go with a Pipe Jacking system—less chance of collapse. It’s very simple, but slow as hell. Pipes are rammed through the bedrock by a pneumatic hammer at the rear. At the front is a Tunnel Boring Machine—the pneumatic hammer and TBM work in harmony with each other. The TBM in front cuts through the rock, while the hammer continuously rams the pipe forward. We built vertical shafts along the route from the top, so we could access the TBM for repairs along the way. And more pipe just gets added as the project moves along. Once the final stretch is completed and we burst through the banks of Lake Erie, the TBM will be shoved forward and down into the depths of the lake. At that time, the water will begin to flow in massive volumes, toward our Illinois River and High Plains Aquifer. Our problems with water will be largely resolved. And, you’re right, General, the tunnel is about 240 miles in length, traveling underneath parts of three states: Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio.”
Halperson nodded and jotted down a few notes on his pad. “Whereabouts will it punch through into Erie?”
“About halfway between Toledo and Cleveland.”
Tetford walked over to the coffee stand and poured himself a cup. “Okay, that all sounds good. How long until completion?”
“Should be completely done and ready to punch through into Lake Erie no later than a month from today.”
“Good, now tell us where we are on the other aspect of Operation Backwash—the ‘false flag.’”
“Okay—well, that part of the operation will be coordinated with the tunnel completion date. We’ll be using Lake Michigan and the areas surrounding it, which as you know is totally within our borders, so an attack on Lake Michigan will be viewed as an attack on the United States. We’ll be starting to leak information to the media that we’ve picked up “chatter” about a possible chemical weapons attack on the United States. We won’t say exactly where, but we’ll drop little hints. The objective of this is, once the attack happens, that we’ll be justified in lining all of the Great Lakes with U.S. troops—on our side of the lakes. We won’t be invading Canada, but we’ll have heavy troop presence on all five lakes, which will just be seen as logical defense. The citizens of our country will be appalled and be totally behind us, and our allies will sympathize with us after the attack happens. Our reason for being there will be declared ‘national security,’ which of course we’re entitled to do under International Law.
“Troop presence along the Great Lakes will then be permanent, and will delay any possible discovery by the Canadians of our tunnel—which by then will have already punched through into Lake Erie.”
“Won’t the Canadians notice the water level drop?”
“Not really—at least not for some time. And then we’ll just deal with it when that happens. What can they do anyway? Attack us? I don’t think so—they’re not equipped for that. The deed will be done and it will be the ‘new normal.’ The water levels in the Great Lakes have been dropping anyway for the last few years due to the hotter sum
mers, less snow, and dryer weather. And the Canadians have almost finished their plans for damming off James Bay from Hudson’s Bay. Since hundreds of rivers flow into James Bay, the dam project will turn James Bay from salt water to mainly fresh water. Then, the next step of their plans after that is to divert water from James Bay down to Lake Superior—which eventually flows into Erie. Voila! Water levels return to normal, and we’ll be then getting much more than the share we’ve been historically—and legally—allowed.”
“Sounds brilliant. Describe the attack to us.”
“The attack will come from the Canadian side of the border—so we’ll blame the whole mess on a terrorist cell operating out of Canada, and of course lament the weak security in Canada as being the root cause of a horrific attack on the United States. We’ve planted information relating to a plant that we leased near Sudbury, the largest Canadian city close to Lake Michigan. That plant has been leased in the names of some prominent Muslim activists in Canada—they aren’t aware of that, of course, but they’re going to become the most hunted people on the planet after the attack happens.
“That plant has actually been used by us to manufacture about a million little nanobots—the major components are nano in size, but the actual machines will be about the size of grasshoppers and, when they fly, it will even look like a swarm of grasshoppers. They’ll be loaded onto a truck and driven to a point on the Canadian side close to our border—then launched from there into the air, programmed for the western shores of Lake Michigan.”