Sandfire

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Sandfire Page 7

by Andrew Warren


  Delbridge walked Caine directly to the CIA wing of the Embassy, not far from cubicles occupied by DEA and FBI agents. Accessing the restricted area required passing through a series of unmarked doors. Each entry point required a PIN, biometric identifiers, and several other security measures.

  Finally, Caine was taken to the Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility. Delbridge left him with a middle-aged, stocky Latino woman who he introduced as Gloria. She appeared surprised when he said her name, but Delbridge didn’t stick around to explain himself.

  “I take it your name isn’t Gloria?” Caine asked when it was just the two of them .

  She rolled her eyes. “That's just Delbridge. He says I want to hog all the ‘glory’ around here.”

  Caine looked back over his shoulder, then turned to her and smiled. “That his idea of a joke?”

  “No one ‘round here gets Delbridge’s sense of humor.” She offered him a seat next to her cubicle. “You must be Thomas Caine. My name is Gabriella Castro.”

  “You must get hell for that surname.”

  She grinned. “I do, but not from Delbridge, oddly enough. It’s a common enough family name in Puerto Rico where I’m from. I’m just glad they didn’t station me in Cuba. Anyway, I hear you’re short on time. You’re here to find the DHC-6 Twin Otter that disappeared in the Empty Quarter three and a half weeks ago, right? Operation SANDFIRE?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Well, lucky you, Thomas. I’m your assigned Intelligence Analyst while you’re staying in Spa Sana’a. I suspect we have a lot to cover. You want a coffee before we get started?”

  He nodded.

  “Just so you know, Black coffee is the only option here. You don’t want to drink the local milk. Trust me.”

  “Black it is then.”

  Once they were settled with hot coffees in their hands, Gabriella fired up the considerable tools at her disposal. She had internet access, darknet access, and links to all major libraries’ online catalogues. She also had back door access into the databases of most intelligence agencies operating in the Middle East, and one into Moscow’s FSB. She could request intel from the NSA, FBI, DEA, the Pentagon, satellite imagery from the National Reconnaissance Office… Any of the agencies in the Five Eye’s group and several dozen more organizations—some of which Caine had never heard of, were at her fingertips.

  But after several hours of data crunching, they had still found no sign of the plane. Each grainy black and white satellite image looked the same as the last; a featureless, barren landscape. The pictures showed only an endless desert, a glowing white oblivion…

  The Empty Quarter.

  Caine leaned back in his chair, rubbed a film of sweat from his face, and sighed. “Looks like we've exhausted all of your intel sources, and we’ve found nothing.”

  She nodded. “A massive sandstorm covered the western half of the Empty Quarter a few hours after the plane went missing. It lasted two days. Wherever that plane went down, it’s long gone now.”

  “No images of it crashing I presume?”

  Gabriella gave him a sad smile. “Nada, I’m afraid. No low orbit reconnaissance satellites in range in time. We suspect it was shot down by a SAM because of the gossip in the Al Qaeda and Houthis’ chat rooms. But we don’t think either faction did the deed. They aren’t that sophisticated, and no one is claiming responsibility.”

  Caine was silent as he contemplated this intel. SAM was a common term for surface to air missile, a sophisticated weapon more likely to be in the hands of Royal Saudi Land Forces than terrorist groups. And the Saudis had motive to destroy whatever secrets Jarod Forster was carrying on that flight…

  Gabriella's fingers tapped across her keyboard, interrupting his train of thought. “There’s one last thing we could try. The only ones talking about this plane are the fanatics in the chat rooms. Why don't we ask them what they saw?”

  Caine frowned. “How do we do that?”

  “We boot up Mustang Sally, and off we go.”

  “Mustang Sally? What’s that?”

  “You haven’t heard of good old Sally? Its new software we’re testing. NSA developed it. We use it to hijack an insurgent’s online profile, and pretend to be them. We’ve had some success provoking infighting and manipulating terrorist cells into murdering each other. We made them think one of their own had turned traitor. We have to be careful though. They’re starting to suspect enemy infiltrations on their networks. Besides, I’m only authorized to ask questions, not start a riot.”

  Caine shook his head. “Let's hold off on that for now. What I really need is someone who was in the vicinity when the plane went down. Someone who knows the exact location of the crash site.”

  She rolled her chair back from her monitor. “Sorry to be the bearer of bad news. No source of SIGINT I have access to will tell you what you want to know. I’ve exhausted all Signal Intelligence options.”

  “What about HUMINT - Human Intelligence? Bedouin lead camel caravans through the Empty Quarter all the time. Spot any of them near where the Otter might have gone down? And what about the Saudis? Their military might have been in the region at the time, and it sounds like they had motive to shoot it down.”

  She shook her head. “The Saudis track our satellites. When they don’t want us to know what they're up to, they wait until we’re out of range.” Gabriella stopped, considered his request, then returned to her monitor. “There might be an option with the Bedouin though. I’ve mapped all the possible trajectories the Otter might have taken. I can run some algorithms. Pinpoint people or camels in the desert around the time the airplane went down. Then twenty-four hours after the sandstorm abated? But that’s still a big area to cover?”

  “Still, sounds like our best option so far.”

  She tapped the keys again. “We’ll have to look at each image that gets thrown up individually.”

  Caine shrugged, and took a sip of his now cold coffee. “I’ve got time.”

  For the rest of the day they sifted through the hundreds of images Gabriella’s algorithm flagged. Most were shadows that turned out to be nothing… small herds of large desert antelopes known as oryxes, dried grasses, odd rock formations. They found the occasional crashed aircraft or broken-down car wrecks, but the models dated back eighty years or more. They didn’t find any signs of the Saudi military, but they did spot lots of tire tracks in the sand .

  When they spotted Bedouin caravans, Caine took all those satellite images and studied each one in detail at his own terminal. After sifting through hundreds of photographs, he had still found nothing outside the ordinary. He looked at his watch. It was a little before five in the afternoon, almost the end of the office working day. Jet lag was catching up with him, and sitting around all day was doing nothing to help him remain awake and alert.

  “What about this one?” Gabriella called out.

  Caine walked over to her monitor. Gabriella zoomed into an image of a single Bedouin rider with two camels. He appeared to be heading south.

  “Can you get better resolution?” he asked.

  Gabriella ran a program that cleaned the image, sharpened its resolution. The details were still fuzzy, but something about the man bothered Caine.

  “Can you zoom in on the face?”

  She increased the magnification. The blurry features of the figure’s face sharpened and resolved.

  Gabriella whistled. “Well I'll be damned…”

  The figure they were both looking at was not a man. It was a woman, dressed as a man, riding a camel. Although the image was still pixelated, Caine could tell she was attractive. She had sharp, high cheekbones and smooth skin. He placed her age at mid-thirties. She was hundreds of miles from anywhere. He checked the longitude and latitude. Her location was approximately forty kilometers north of the Saudi-Yemen border. The date stamp was twenty-one days ago.

  “What’s a woman dressed as a man doing all alone in the desert?” Gabriella asked.

  Caine didn’t a
nswer. He examined the enhanced image closely, searching for further clues. He pointed to a small black blob, hanging off the camel’s side. “What’s that, in the saddlebag?”

  Gabriella cleaned the image as best she could. The detail improved. “They look like assault rifles. ”

  Caine traced the tiny black line of the weapon’s barrel with his finger. “American-made assault rifles. M4A1 assault carbines. At least two of them, maybe more. Are those the weapons Forster and Li would have had on the plane?”

  She took a moment to check the records. “Affirmative. Armory records show they were onboard.”

  “When was this image taken? What time?”

  “Twenty-three hours after the storm abated.”

  Caine thought for a moment. “If she found those rifles at the crash site, then the plane must be within a day’s ride from this location. This woman is the only person who might know what really happened out there. Can you run her image through your databases, see if we get an ID?”

  “Will do.” Gabriella loaded the image into her database, and began scanning records, looking for a match.

  Caine returned to his work station. He had a lead, but nothing concrete. Now he needed to refine his research. He focused on word matches, looking for anything that connected a Bedouin woman with American assault rifles, downed aircraft, illegal arms trade and the Empty Quarter. After a dozen search combinations, he noticed one name kept popping up…

  Kimberley Hustwait.

  He ran a search on her. The best match was an Australian. Twenty-eight. UNHCR aid worker based in Sana’a. In country two years. No criminal record, and she wasn’t on any of the foreign agent or terrorism databases.

  Caine studied her photographs, sourced from her Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn profiles. She had long, light brown hair, a tall slim build, hazel eyes and a button nose. She was pretty. Always smiling in her photos, and always surrounded by friends.

  He hacked into the UN intranet and found her employee files. Moderate pay package for someone her age, but nothing special. Good performance reviews. A note that she was sometimes a bit ‘too eager’ to speak her mind. Then he discovered she had recently visited Ma’rib Governorate. That region skirted the Empty Quarter desert…

  Can't be a coincidence, he thought.

  “Gabriella?” he called over his shoulder.

  “Yes, Thomas?”

  “I need everything you can find for me on a Kimberly Hustwait. I just forwarded you her Australian Tax File Number. I need to know where we can find her, and as quickly as possible."

  “Will do.”

  It only took a few seconds for Gabriella to get a hit. “Thomas, you won’t believe this.”

  “What?”

  “Ms. Hustewait is downstairs. She’s scheduled to see one of our Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers, Matthew Quinn. Her interview starts in ten minutes.”

  Chapter Eleven

  After months of frustration, trying and failing to secure a meeting with the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, Kimberly Hustwait was ready to give up. This had been another long day of waiting, with nothing to show for it. She was just about to leave the building, when she was suddenly ushered inside a secure meeting room.

  The room was bare and the walls were off-white. The only furniture was a table and three chairs. An aide instructed her to take a seat, then left her alone. Knowing that she was on American sovereign territory, she removed her headscarf. Here, she could be free of the concealing clothing this country demanded she wear.

  Thirty seconds later, a new man entered. Kimberley found herself staring, unable to tear her eyes away from him. She was surprised that someone of his physique worked for such an innocuous agency. The man was tall, lean and very muscular, built like a track and field athlete or a swimmer.

  His handsome face and strong jaw line were framed by thick, short brown hair. He looked about thirty… Maybe a little older, but not much. What struck her most about his appearance were his ey es… He had the greenest emerald-like eyes she had ever seen, and now they were locked onto her. His hand reached out to shake hers in a firm grip.

  “Matthew Quinn,” he said. His American accent sounded West Coast. “I’m from Immigration and Customs Enforcement. How can I help you today, Ms. Hustwait?”

  He sat opposite her, relaxed but alert.

  Kimberley didn’t know what to make of him. She had been a surfer most of her teenage and adult life. She had built up her muscle tone, and now worked hard with weights to maintain it, since there was no surfing in Yemen. This man looked like he followed a similar regime. He was no ‘gym rat’, but rather a natural athlete, who stayed in shape through the rigors of his day-to-day activities. He looked like someone who worked in the field in some capacity, a man of action. Perhaps even a former soldier.

  To Kimberly, he just didn’t seem to be the kind of man who interviewed people all day from behind a desk.

  “Call me Kimberley, please.” She was embarrassed to hear her voice crack a bit.

  “What can I do for you, Kimberley?”

  “Well—” She froze, and her voice trailed off… She didn’t know where to start. She hadn’t expected someone here to be this keen to hear her story. She took a deep breath, gathering her courage. “Let me ask you a question, Matthew. Am I talking to the right person? Do you have authority to do something about the pharmaceuticals that go missing from the UNHCR shipments coming into Yemen each week?”

  He smiled, and inside she swooned. When he smiled he was even more attractive. She hoped he was a surfer. That would be a good starting point for casual conversation later. Maybe a date, if the opportunity came up and if he didn’t turn out to be a jerk.

  “You know you’re talking to the U.S. Government?” he asked. “We have no authority over Yemen’s politics, or its police matters.”

  She grinned, expecting this response. “Of course, of course, Matthew. But I have reliable information that someone from your Embassy was checking one of our HCR shipping containers. In the Port of Aden, three months ago.”

  “You’re only bringing this information to us now?”

  She laughed, then frowned. It seemed like this Matthew was going to be a jerk after all. “No, I came to you about this three months ago. This is the first time someone senior has taken the time to speak with me. Are you in a senior position, Matthew?”

  Kimberley winced, as she realized she was repeating his name a lot. To her embarrassment, she was trying it out. She found herself wishing he wasn’t so good looking.

  “The authority I command is considerable, yes,” he replied.

  “That sounds like bureaucratic speak to me.”

  He laughed, as if he found her sense of humor refreshing. This was not going at all how she planned. “Well, let's see. What information do you have, Kimberley?”

  “I have these.” She passed over a stack of photographs she had brought with her. They were of an American she had secretly photographed three months ago, inspecting a row of twenty-foot shipping containers. These specific containers held pharmaceuticals for the UNHCR aid program. Vaccines to combat malaria, cholera and other debilitating pandemic infections.

  Rather than confronting the man, she decided to gather evidence first. The photographs clearly captured the man offering the port master—or whatever he was called—a thick envelope. No doubt it was heavy with cash.

  “You’ll notice the container was full when he inspected it.” She handed over more photographs. “Now later, when I came to collect the medicines, this is what I found.” The next series of photos showed stacks of empty crates.

  The man called Matthew examined the pictures. “I’m sorry for your loss, Kimberley. But what makes you believe this man works for our Embassy?”

  She grinned again, prepared for this question. She slid more pictures across the table. “Here, we see the same man entering the Embassy in the morning. And here is another photograph of him leaving in the afternoon, on the same day. I ha
ve the same photos taken over several months. He works office hours when he’s not at the airport, or in Aden.”

  For a moment Matthew Quinn looked concerned. When he caught her watching him, he masked his emotion and smiled at her again. “Seems strange, doesn't it? Out of curiosity, what do you think is happening here?”

  Now this wasn’t a question Kimberley was ready for. No one in the Embassy had been interested in her opinion before. She had her suspicions what was transpiring here, but she had no proof.

  Revealing suspected illegal activities of the U.S. Government inside their own embassy might land her in hot water. Jean Marchand, and others in the HCR, warned her that she might have stumbled into a covert operation run by the CIA. Or one of the American’s other, numerous secret organizations. Revealing what she knew might not fare well for her long-term career prospects. Or her health…

  But Kimberley refused to give up. She had joined the United Nations because she wanted to make the world a better place. A safer place, for everyone. If getting to the bottom of missing medicine shipments wasn’t doing that, she didn’t know what was.

  “I think someone in your Embassy is buying the drugs cheap. Flying them out of the country to somewhere like Dubai, where they are selling them for profit. Despicable if you ask me. Hundreds of refugees are dying without these medicines.”

  “I agree,” the man said, examining the new photographs. “If it’s true.”

  She nodded, conceding his point. “That’s right, if it is true. But you have to admit, I have enough here for you to be at least a little bit suspicious?”

  “Yes, but this is a very serious accusation. You have more information, I take it? ”

  She leant back in her chair. Matthew Quinn was very good at getting to the crux of the situation. It was both refreshing and alarming.

  He raised an inquisitive eyebrow. Those beautiful emerald green eyes wouldn’t stop staring at her. “Well?”

  “Um… Well, let me put it this way, Matthew.” There she was, saying his name again. “I’ve heard, from a reliable source, that one of your planes went down in the Empty Quarter about a month ago. It was carrying a full load of cholera and malaria vaccines. Exactly what the UN needs to stop a humanitarian crisis from unfolding in this country.”

 

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