by Brad Taylor
She had had the misfortune to be on duty for what was now being called the “blackout” the day before, and to say it had caused some consternation was an understatement. The echo went all the way to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, with her trying to identify the problem while simultaneously answering questions thrown at her by a multitude of people.
She immediately notified the Mission Commander, who ordered a status from the other system operators on the floor. Like last time, the network and mechanical functioning of the satellites were fine. It was just the signal. Unlike last time, it was only two satellites.
She waited for the other satellites to start going crazy and relaxed when they didn’t. Her squadron commander appeared above her shoulder, firing questions. He didn’t remain long, and she knew why: He now had to report to higher, and she was glad it wasn’t her job.
The Mission Commander had the Satellite Vehicle Operator pull the two offending satellites and ordered them to try to replicate the event.
Everyone began working the issue, but like last time, they got nowhere. She felt like Chevy Chase in Christmas Vacation trying to get the lights on his house to work but unable to find the magic switch.
The damn things just decided to put out a bad signal.
56
The light above the conference-room door began flashing, a red and white signal meaning someone uncleared needed to enter. Kurt Hale blacked his PowerPoint screen and quit talking.
An aide who looked to be about twelve came in, apologized, and ran over to the secretary of state, Jonathan Billings. After muttering a few words, he left again.
Billings said, “Sorry about that. Unfortunately, I have more going on than just this issue. Continue.”
Kurt turned on the Proxima projector. “As I was saying, the transfer was a success, and the Ghost is en route to Mexico City with Knuckles. Pike and the rest of the team are following in the Gulfstream. We’ve completed the initial interrogation of Hussein and have the instructions the Ghost is to follow once he gets there.”
“And you’re sure he’s not going to disappear?”
“Not if he wants to keep his feet.”
The secretary of defense said, “Billings, quit worrying about it. He’s only going to be on the ground for a couple of hours. Once he’s met them, we take them out.” He looked at Kurt. “Right?”
“Well, close,” Kurt said. “That was the original plan, but the instructions tell him to meet the Hezbollah guys first, then they’ll have a follow-on meeting with the American who has the hack. They want to ensure he’s who he says he is and that he’s got the money. They gave him some double-oh-seven instructions, full of tradecraft.”
The D/CIA said, “How long will that take?”
Kurt understood exactly where the question was directed. “We’ll still be within the window for Operation Gimlet. Shouldn’t be more than a day.”
Billings said, “Why would they do that? You’d think they would want to get the hack as fast as possible.”
“Because Hezbollah’s paranoid. I don’t know, maybe they’re worried that we’ll try to trick them with a plant.”
After the chuckling died down, Alexander Palmer said, “Okay, so we’re still tracking for Gimlet. What about exposure of the Taskforce? What’s the story on the YouTube video? Anything more?”
“We’re still getting probed, but we can’t pin it down. The real concern is that we’re getting probes on other cover organizations, including the Taskforce headquarters under Blaisdell Consulting. They’re making linkages somehow. Might just be guesswork, but with enough of that we could be in trouble. All they have to do is throw everything against the wall and see what sticks.”
The D/CIA said, “Great. This will be the Church Committee all over again. The press is going to explode with joy. And you know who’s going to get the brunt of this? Me. That’s who. It’s always the CIA that gets hauled in front of Congress.”
Kurt said, “We might have one lead. My guys have gone back and we did find an anomaly from right before all this started. We had some exploration into Grolier Recovery Services from an ISP in Colorado Springs. We don’t know the specific location, but it’s definitely Colorado Springs.”
The Sec Def said, “Not really. The flavor of the day is the NSA. My people.”
The D/CIA said, “And you think this is connected to the group Anonymous?”
“Better than that: I think it’s connected to this GPS issue. It’s way too much coincidence. I think we find the guy with the hack, and we find the YouTube people.”
“I don’t know about that. Seems like a stretch.”
Kurt said, “Schriever Air Force Base is in Colorado Springs. These probes began right before the first disruption. I don’t think it’s a stretch.”
“Say you’re right. How will you find them even if you capture the guy? I mean, they don’t call themselves ‘Anonymous’ for nothing. Your hackers can’t locate them through the digital trail, but you think this guy will be able to? He probably doesn’t even know their real names.”
“They had to talk somehow. We can’t find them through a digital trail going back from Grolier, but if we move forward from him, I bet it’s a different story.”
“Then what?”
“Then we take them down.”
Palmer said, “Huh? Here? In America?”
Kurt said, “Hell yes, here in America. Those little fucks are about to expose our most closely guarded secrets. They want to play with fire, I say let ’em get burned.”
The principals said nothing, looking back and forth to see if anyone agreed with the extreme measures before stepping into the water themselves. Finally, Billings said, “You know, Anonymous threatened Los Zetas a while back, and Los Zetas made an attempt to find them. When they said they were going to kill ten men for every person Anonymous exposed, the hackers backed off.”
Kurt said, “Yeah, what’s your point?”
“You’re basically saying you want to act like a drug cartel.”
“What the hell? You guys were the ones that didn’t seem concerned with any of that before. All you cared about was Operation Gimlet. What was it you said? ‘Better stop that YouTube video from getting out’? How did you think that was going to happen?”
Palmer held up his hands. “Hey, we aren’t going to solve that question with the principals. That’s definitely one for the entire Oversight Council. The president needs to be involved.”
“Well, you’d better involve him soon because we’re running out of time. We catch that guy with the GPS hack and you can execute Operation Gimlet as planned, but we’re going to need to squeeze him immediately to protect Project Prometheus. I can’t wait until after we capture him to begin debate. We’re—”
The light flashed above the door again, and Kurt cursed, exasperated. A man entered, looked around the room, then ran to the secretary of defense.
After he left, the SECDEF said, “That was from the Air Force chief of staff. There’s been another outage. Another test, but this time only two satellites were affected, which means he can pick and choose what he attacks. I hope it wasn’t a proof of concept for Hezbollah and they now have the hack.”
The comment brought a low murmur, with Kurt hearing the term Gimlet three different times. He attempted to calm them down.
“They can’t. They’re waiting on the money guy. They’re waiting on the Ghost.”
The D/CIA said, “I cannot believe the fate of our national grid and defense architecture rests in the hands of a Palestinian terrorist who’s sworn to kill us. I cannot believe I agreed to this.”
Kurt smiled. “Look at the bright side: This goes bad and the press finds out, nobody’s going to care what Anonymous does.”
57
Using the original reservation from the captured man and his new passport, the Ghost checked into his small boutique hotel without issue. In line two people behind him stood Mr. Black. Outside of the initial instructions in the bathroom, he’d said n
ot a word to the Ghost the entire flight, never even acknowledging that they had met. That fact gave him some confidence that the Americans wouldn’t do something stupid and inadvertently get him burned. He had enough to worry about trying to pass himself off as member of al-Qaeda without the Americans causing trouble. On top of that, he had to start working on a means of escape.
As instructed, he went to his room, opened up a prearranged Yahoo e-mail account, and sent an instant message. He waited for five minutes, then received his response from Mr. Black. An e-mail would be coming shortly.
He puttered around the room, unpacking his things and cataloging what he would need to do to evade the clever little net they had created for him. First, of course, he’d have to find a way to remove the two ankle charges he was wearing. It wouldn’t be easy, because they were banded to his legs with metal that utilized a laser-cut key. Not impossible, though. He’d more than likely lose a little skin in the process, but he was sure they could be cut. The problem was the time needed to do so. The Americans would know everywhere he went, along with any instructions he had been given, so somehow he would need to introduce a delay. A meeting of some sort where only he would be present. Well, him and someone with a hacksaw who wouldn’t ask questions when provided enough cash. He just had to make sure the meeting was somewhere near the one in his instructions. He had no idea what boundary that devil Mr. Pink had set and didn’t want to find out the hard way. All Pink had said was if he felt a vibration, he had three minutes to get back on the inside.
He’d toyed with the idea of telling the men from Hezbollah what was happening and securing their help — becoming a double agent, as it were — but ultimately discarded the idea. They were planning on killing the original man who came, and he was fairly sure they’d do the same to him the minute he showed them he was being tracked.
The second problem was securing a passport. Even if he managed to get out of his electronic bonds, the name on the passport he was using was poison. He wouldn’t get very far having it as an identity. On this point, he was fairly sure he could leverage Hezbollah.
The final problem was money, and he had already fixed that to a certain extent. He had the captured man’s credit cards, which still worked, as proven at check-in. The e-mail coming would have the bank account information for purchasing the nuclear secrets, and he had no intention of giving all of that to Hezbollah or whoever else was involved. Some of it would be his nest egg for a future life.
He heard the laptop ping with an e-mail and felt a rush, just like he had in the past before going operational. He read the enclosed instructions, seeing he had a little walk in front of him, along with some link-up instructions. Hezbollah didn’t have his flight itinerary and apparently wanted to make sure they met the right guy.
He sent an instant message confirming receipt and left the hotel room, feeling strange conducting a meeting on behalf of the Americans he despised. Strange for being used to turn on members of Hezbollah, whom he also hated, in order to prevent the transfer of nuclear secrets paid for by al-Qaeda, with whom he had no quarrel.
Strange indeed.
* * *
As instructed, he had the taxi drop him off in front of a Sanborns department store next to the independence monument on Paseo de la Reforma Avenue. Before continuing to his destination, he accessed an ATM located outside. He withdrew the maximum daily amount his credit card allowed, then began walking north, looking for the second intersection from the Sanborns. He passed the first — an alley more than an intersection — and glanced down the street, seeing a sign that caused him to stop in his tracks: VISA APPLICATIONS DONE WHILE YOU WAIT.
He debated, ultimately deciding he couldn’t pass up this gift thrown in his path. He rushed down the little street and entered the small kiosk, knowing it was a risk. Knowing Mr. Black would more than likely question what he had done, but he could feign being lost. After all, his destination was one more street up, and he’d never been in this city.
Five minutes later, he returned to the main thoroughfare, now armed with two passport photos of himself. He reached the second intersection and took a right on a street called Rio Lerma. After a hundred meters, he began looking for the restaurant, fairly sure it would be easy to spot. There couldn’t be that many Lebanese food vendors mixed in with all the taco stands.
He smelled it before he saw the sign, a refreshing blend of spices reminding him of home. He reached the entrance and read a cheesy sign in English proclaiming something about Aladdin’s carpet. Here he knew he had to be very careful not to let slip in any way that he was from Tripoli, no matter how much he would have liked to reminisce about home.
He parted the beads hanging from the door and went to the order counter, saying hello in Arabic. The man behind it beamed, asking where he was from. He stated Pakistan, then, before the man could engage him in conversation, he gave the phrase from the instructions.
The man’s smile vanished, and he told the Ghost to wait. He disappeared in the back, and when he returned, he carried a cell phone.
“Hit redial.”
The Ghost said, “Who am I calling?”
“The people you are to meet. I don’t know anything else. I just run a restaurant. Please. Leave before you call. Please.”
The Ghost did as he asked, dialing the phone from the sidewalk. A man answered and he repeated the phrase from the instructions.
The man wasted no time with pleasantries or questions. “Go to the Sanborns you passed on your way to the restaurant. Enter, move to the café in the back, and get a table. Place a newspaper on the table open to the front page and take a seat facing the door. Ensure the table is away from anyone else. When approached, give the security phrase.”
Before the Ghost could respond, the man hung up. The arrogance aggravated him. Pretentious kafirs. It reminded him of why he hated them. Convinced they were superior to any other group, they always acted like everyone else should bow before their almighty presence.
He was tempted to ignore the instructions just to set the tone but knew that would be asking for compromise. He was the one hiding something, not them, and making them suspicious or angry wasn’t the way to escape the grasp of Mr. Pink.
Fifteen minutes later, he was sitting as asked, wondering if buying a cup of coffee would set them off. The restaurant, set in the back of the department store down a small flight of stairs, was practically empty due to the time of day, with a few patrons drinking coffee or eating dessert, but not many. He’d scanned all of them upon entering, a casual once-over to determine if they were surveillance or security, but was convinced they were not.
He heard the front door chime and saw two men coming into the restaurant. They were dressed in western clothes but were not Hispanic. At least not to the eyes of a man who’d spent most of his life in Lebanon.
He didn’t stand, waiting on them to commit to his table. When they did, he uttered the phrase from the instructions in Arabic. The first nodded and sat down on his right. The other moved to his left.
“I am Farooq. This is Hashim. Thank you for traveling here to us. What shall we call you?”
For a split second he almost spit out Ash’abah — the Ghost — wanting to shove a little of their condescension back down their throats, as the nickname had been given because of his skill in Lebanon and even the mighty Hezbollah feared what he could do. But that would have been suicide, so he said, “Gamal Hussein,” just like his passport called for.
Farooq nodded, satisfied, and said, “Did you have any trouble coming through the United States?”
The Ghost thought, Well, yes. Gamal had an extreme case of travel sickness that caused him to be shoved into a giant garbage bin. He said, “Yes, as a matter of fact, I did. There was a tick on their no-fly list. I had to go through extra questioning before being let on the plane. Someone with my name from somewhere else is on their list. I do not want to use this passport to get home. Can you help with that?”
Taken aback, Farooq said, “Can’t
your people do it? We aren’t here to facilitate your travel.”
“My people aren’t here, in Mexico. You are, and you require my money. All I’m asking is that you help me return.” The Ghost slid across the two passport photos he’d taken earlier. “I don’t wish to sound demanding, but the price for me to help is a new passport. I don’t trust the one I was given anymore.”
Farooq stared at the photos for a moment, then passed them to the other man, Hashim. “Okay. But it will be a Lebanese passport. Is that an issue?”
The Ghost couldn’t believe his luck. “No. That will be perfectly fine, as long as it has a visa for the United States. I can’t get through their airports without one.”
At this, Farooq scowled. The Ghost said, “Given how much money I have brought, I don’t think that’s too much to ask. Especially since you and your leaders will benefit most from what I’m buying.”
Farooq said, “Yes, the device is very expensive, but it will help you out with your drone attacks more than it will us, which is why we asked for you to pay in the first place.”
Drone attacks? How will nuclear secrets help al-Qaeda stop drone attacks? And what’s this about a device?
He’d known all along that Mr. Pink was hiding something but never imagined it could be the very reason for the mission. He decided to proceed cautiously, not knowing what the real Gamal had been told.
“We’re happy to pay, depending on what it is.”
“It’s just like I sent in the e-mail. A way to stop the drones from operating.”
The Ghost relaxed. Whatever e-mail had been sent, it most assuredly hadn’t been directly to Gamal. There would be go-betweens, especially with how hierarchical Hezbollah was. They’d never let a nobody like this talk directly with anyone in Pakistani al-Qaeda.
He said, “I never got the e-mail. I was just told to bring a sum of money here and evaluate whatever it is that you found. Please, forgive me, but you will have to repeat yourself.”
Farooq smiled, pleased to explain what he was responsible for locating. “There is a man who has a way to turn off the GPS that the Americans use. Make it so it doesn’t work, which means the attack drones won’t work. He’s willing to sell it to us but wants a large amount of money. A million US dollars.”