The phone went quiet.
‘Hang on.’ The DD was preoccupied for about 30 seconds. Jane thought he was probably searching for something on his machine.
He continued.
‘OK. I now have a list of countries that make small-lift launch rockets. That is, anything that can carry a load of up to 2,000 kg, or 4,500 lbs, and chuck into low-earth orbit; say a navigational satellite. My screen gives me 16 operational rockets and nine in development. Have a guess what?’
A rhetorical question? She didn’t say anything. The DD continued.
‘Along with the obvious choices, including us and Russia, Iran and North Korea build rockets that can carry a small payload and send it up into space. It’s a bit like, “Rockets are us”.’
There was quiet for a second.
‘My list, of course,’ Jane said, ‘only includes the launches we’re aware of. I’m guessing you could probably launch from any spare piece of real estate that is away from prying eyes?’
‘Mmm. True. NASA should have something on that. You just can’t launch any old rocket and hope to get away with it? North Korea’s weapon’s programme is a case in point. We have a very tight handle on their airspace. I’ll get that looked into.
There was a longer pause as they both dwelt on where they found themselves.
‘What about the issue of trust, Linden? You mentioned it earlier.’
‘That’s more complicated. I have a hand-picked team working on this. Including someone in whom I have complete confidence at the Bureau. The problem we have is that every time we think we’re getting somewhere with the issue, the trail goes cold. I’ll give you an example. We’re doing some intel-gathering in Venezuela. As you know it’s a resource-rich country that’s going down the tubes. Which doesn’t make sense. So, we’re trying to establish what’s driving President Nicolás Maduro. For sure he’s in bed with the Russians and the Chinese, which is not great for us. But there’s something much murkier going on. Deeper.’ The DD paused, gathering his breath. ‘Anyhow, we were, very discreetly, mapping the far-reaches of the country using a UAV drone out of Creech.’
‘Mapping is a euphemism?’
‘You got it. Anyhow, the drone went cold - veered off into Colombian airspace. My Venezuelan team initially put it down to either driver error - or system malfunction. These things happen. The initial report backed that up. But when they asked for a detailed report, the whole thing was dumped in the freezer.’
‘You’re going to have to expand on that, Linden, sorry.’
‘The pilot was murdered - gunned down in broad daylight. No explanation. And the squadron’s commander is unaccounted for. He’s just disappeared. The base is covering any embarrassment by saying he’s been “relieved of command”. But they have no idea where he is.’
‘Could be a coincidence?’
‘I’m not sure. Ordinarily we would have just relaunched the mission. But the way the UAV failed, its sudden veering off, was so similar to the USS Beaverbrook crash, we’ve had to place it in the same pot. That is until, or unless, they can be separated.’
‘You’ve got a decent readout from the Beaverbrook incident?’ Jane asked.
‘Not yet, no. As you probably know, the Captain was removed from command within days of the incident. He was sent home - and, conspiracy of conspiracies - he was knocked down by a car in his home town the next day. He’s in a coma and is unlikely to wake up. Add to that, one of the ship’s nav officers, apparently the one man who could have easily stolen the GPS receiver data, has done a bunk. Nowhere to be seen.’
Bloody hell. Frank was onto something?
Hang on …
Jane remembered something that Frank had told her.
‘My analyst’s pal in your place, Ethan Woods? Well, Frank - that’s my analyst - told me that Ethan had become “uncontactable” a few days ago. Does that ring a bell?’
‘Whoa, Jane. The CIA employs over 21,000 people - unfortunately I don’t remember them all by name.’
In the distance Jane heard, ‘Benjamin!’, followed by a background conversation.
Then to Jane, ‘I’ll come back to you. Ben’s gone to find out … have we covered everything?’
Jane had struck lines through a list she had made in her pad as they’d been talking.
‘No. The threat. Can you give me something we can work on?’
‘Of course. Sorry. It was the reason I called in the first place. We don’t have much. But what we do have is potentially dynamite. Three separate sources - all low-level, but all on the same song sheet. One in the US, one in Eastern Europe and one in South America. I can’t share any more than that - you’ll understand?’
‘Sure.’
Rule one: never reveal your sources.
‘The sources are all independent; we can’t establish any cross-fertilisation. And it’s all cascon (casual conversation) stuff. On their own, each would have been disregarded. But together they can’t be ignored. We have: the target is the Mid-East, which from a US security perspective narrows it down to Embassies and military bases. The timing is immediate - in days. And, and this is why I’m phoning you and asking you to pull out every stopper you can, the perceived outcome - the ramifications of the attack, is thought to be worldwide. All three cascons have given the same message. Mid-East; immediate; and far-reaching. Hence, we need your help.’
‘And you think there may be a link between the threat and the compromised GPS.’
‘Maybe. The US source included an additional line. It said, and I quote, “Death from the skies”. If you can control a drone, you can control any aircraft. Smacks of a remote controlled 9/11 … excuse me for a moment, Jane.’
There was a break. Jane heard a distant murmur. Linden was probably talking to Benjamin.
‘Well, Jane. That just about secures it for me.’ The DD’s tone was flat
‘What?’
‘The issue of trust. Our man Ethan Woods, he’s a Grade-D intelligence analyst on the fourth floor. He was working in the GPS field. He’s not been in work for three days.’
‘Sick?’
‘No. There’s no doctor’s certificate. Our procedure is to follow up after day three. That’s today. The initial report from the team leader is that he’s not picking up his cell. They’re onto local law enforcement now.’
‘Blimey.’
‘Blimey, indeed, Jane. I think we have a problem.’
And that was that. They’d finished off by going back over what Jane could and could not share.
Once she’d received the DD’s document, which came through after 8.00 pm, she’d been able to start on her own report for the JIC. Before she left the office she’d put out a Charlie Charlie to all SIS sections to press their sources and informants for anything that was going down in the Middle East. There’d been nothing back overnight. The JIC report, which she’d have done by lunchtime, would get the rest of the intelligence community asking the same question.
The rain and the sleet was still lashing down. She really hoped her Gore-Tex jacket’s credentials were as good as the label.
As she entered Parliament Square her mobile rang. It was Frank. She found a nearby tree to shelter under and pressed the green, ‘Pick up’, icon.
‘Go secure, Jane.’
Jane dabbed at her phone. The low-level beeping started.
‘Having not heard from you, Frank, I assume you’ve had a busy night?’
‘I’d say. I’ve just pinged a requisition report to your desk which, if you have two minutes, I’d like to summarise now.’
Jane checked her watch. It was 7.45 am. The meeting started at 8.15. She had a couple of minutes.
‘Go on, Frank.’
‘Wolfgang has The Church’s complete structure - there are gaps, but it’s much more than we have. His database is huge. Too big for him. He is sensitive about sharing, mostly because of potential compromise.’ Frank was getting good at short, sharp verbal briefing. Well done him. ‘What he’s agreed to is sharing of all
of his phone intelligence. And then, between us and GCHQ, we will interrogate it and hopefully add some more structure and detail to what he has. It is, Jane, pretty wide-ranging, and pretty frightening.’
Jane turned slightly so her back was facing the swirling wind.
Where do I prioritise this?
‘OK, Frank. Look, I have a full day and some new intelligence from Langley about the GPS-compromise issue. Which, by the way, they agree with you. A big tick there. It’s all pretty intense and I think it’s going to keep the rest of us occupied for a while.’
‘The rest of us?’
‘Yes. Save you. I’ll send an op code through once I get off the phone. You’re on your own for a while. Use it to target what resources you need, but don’t be surprised if, in the first instance, people are tied up. We need to run a blanket-wide search for a CIA-declared-undefined, imminent, level 5 threat. Likely target is the Middle East. Possibly, “from the skies”.’
‘A 9/11 copycat?’
‘Maybe. That’s what we and Langley are onto now. In the meantime, you crack on with Wolfgang.’
‘So, you’re happy if I get our Consulate in Miami to issue Sam with a new identity? And let her have access to Cynthia from the same source.’
Jane thought for a while. A clump of wet hair was hanging below the hood of her raincoat. She pushed it up and under the lip of the material.
Bugger. I’d forgotten all about Sam.
‘Sure. Same op code. Is she OK?’
‘Chased off The Bahamas, as you know. And then pursued around Miami last night. The Church are onto her. We’re all pretty certain of it.’
‘“All” includes her German friend, Wolfgang?’
‘Yes. And Jane?’
‘Yes, Frank.’
‘He’s pretty sharp. Sharper than anyone in our building when it comes to hacking.
I’m sure he is, Frank.
Chapter 13
Flemingstraße, Munich, Germany
Wolfgang had Müller’s phone on his desk. Next to it was a cup of strong, black coffee. Elisabeth had called via the intercom a few minutes earlier; she had a tray. He climbed the stairs and went through the airlock to collect it. He’d asked about Inge. Elisabeth had replied that she’d gone shopping - and that all was well.
Frank was sitting next to him, his face glued to another monitor. He’d been on the phone to the British Consulate in Miami and, as a result of that call, had SMS’d Sam via Ginny’s phone that they were expecting her. He was now tasking GCHQ to explore and monitor the telephone numbers they had prioritised earlier. The top two numbers were: ‘Freddie’s’ Hrvatski Telekom's area code 61 landline; and the UK Virgin mobile number that had the 12 linkages - and had, three weeks ago, landed in Caracas. A second priority for GCHQ were the 12 connecting numbers linked to the Virgin UK mobile.
Frank had said that 14 numbers were 13 too many for GCHQ with their current workload. But he’d sent the list anyway. More interestingly he’d gone on to explain to Wolfgang that SIS’s mainframe, Cynthia, had a ‘cause and effect’ programme that, once fed with all of the numbers on his database - and where possible, the names - could produce an interconnection matrix. Where Wolfgang had been able to establish one ‘node’, say the Virgin UK number with 12 links, Cynthia would run a programme that could establish where there were more. He’d feed the detail into SIS’s mainframe once he’d finished tasking GCHQ.
Both Müller’s and snakeskin-belt man’s mobiles had been delivered half an hour ago. Wolfgang was now trying to crash the banker’s phone. As he had it in front of him - it shouldn’t be too tricky.
The first and quickest way to break into a non-Apple mobile was to guess the lock pattern. Whilst there were just short of 390,000 swipe permutations, most people kept their lock pattern simple - and associative. Lukas Müller might swipe an ‘L’ or an ‘M’ - or either letter upside down. Manufacturer-dependent, the Android operating system allows up to ten attempts before the phone locks for 30 seconds; at which point the phone gives you an option to login via your Google account without access to the swipe pattern. Wolfgang didn’t have Müller’s Google account details - that was the crown jewels. For that he needed to get into his phone.
By some other method.
He tried five sensible patterns and was locked out. He had a sip of his coffee, waited 30 seconds and tried five more. No good.
Plan B.
Next was to read the SIM card - this would give basic info, including the phone’s number. He took it from the back of the phone and put it into a SIM card reader he had set up earlier. A few keystrokes later and he knew the number and some other details.
‘Frank.’
‘Uh-huh?’ Frank was focused on his screen.
‘I’ve got Müller’s mobile number. You ready to copy?’
‘Sure.’
Wolfgang read the number out.
‘Can you put it on GCHQ’s list?’
‘Sure.’ Frank’s reply was distant.
Next was to clone the phone: make a facsimile of Müller’s mobile using its SIM. It wouldn’t enable him to get into the innards of the machine, but it would allow him to access previous phone calls and SMSs. Hopefully he’d be able to track whether RB, the missed call on the mobile, was Ralph Bell; and what his number was.
With the SIM in the card reader - that took a further 20 minutes.
Both he and Frank were using computer simulators to access the mobile networks. A mobile wouldn’t work in his cellar. There was too much concrete and steel. It was designed that way. If he couldn’t access a mobile signal from in here, then no one from the outside could get in. The system he had devised, which he and Frank were now using, was via a series of IPs. Safe; secure; impenetrable.
It took him a further 15 minutes to list Müller’s calls and SMS records. There was some interesting stuff here, including RB’s mobile number. It was a +1 US cell. Probably AT&T. He’d check later.
‘Frank.’
‘Yep.’ He didn’t look up.
‘I’ve got RB’s number. Do you want to add it to GCHQ’s list?’
Frank stopped working and looked over. They were a couple of feet apart. He smelt better after an earlier, quick dash to the washrooms.
‘Is it Ralph Bell?’
‘I don’t know yet.’
He looked disappointed.
‘OK. Read it out. I’ll put it at number four for the Doughnut.’
Wolfgang read it out.
What he really needed was to access Müller’s data traffic. SMSs were useful in a 918-character sense, but they were more of a chat medium than something formal. Email lengths were unlimited and allowed for attachments: photos; documents and spreadsheets. And it was very likely that, like him, The Church had a secure cloud facility somewhere - where they kept and shared instructions. Getting access to all of that was probably a day’s worth of work, if not longer.
He’d put that to one side - for now.
He turned on Sam’s original pursuer’s phone (what had she called him? Snakeskin-belt man?). He had no idea what his name was, so had nothing to go on.
He tried the ten most common lock patterns in order: C, O, N, S, L, M, W, U, Z and a backward C.
The ‘Z’ unlocked the phone.
Result.
Zorro?
He had the phone number in 15 seconds, the SMS list a few seconds after that, and the prize: a Google Mail account.
It was coming in a stream.
At first glance it was clear that snakeskin-belt man was not a kingpin in The Church’s hierarchy. There were driving and collecting instructions. Timings that were associated with boats and aircraft. And there were other admin tasks. And the recurring name from his email list was a ‘Janon Jobes’.
Janon Jobes?
The latest SMS was, as he expected, from ‘Ops’. Need to talk about equipment. He now had Ops’s number.
It was a UK mobile number - which he recognised immediately.
It was the Virgin UK mobile
number; the +44 7795 number.
With 12 known Church links.
Ops.
In the centre of things. Running an operation. And currently in Caracas.
He checked the emails again. Most of those associated with equipment were signed off by Janon Jobes.
Ops. Janon Jobes? Are they the same person?
‘Frank?’
‘Hu-huh?’
‘I’ve got something that we should share - right now.’
Samostan Monastery, Punat Bay, Krk, Croatia
Jakov was sitting opposite Karlo. They’d both chosen the same main course: spaghetti, meatballs and salad. It was perfectly adequate food; if bland. Like being at school. He’d chosen coffee - Karlo had tea. He thought there was some sort of rice pudding for dessert. That was definitely from the school meals’ menu. They had about 15 minutes before prayers. And then it would be ablutions and bed, with his only book: The Bible.
This morning he’d asked Karlo if he could join them for the evening prayers, to which the response had been a smile and a nod. Jakov wasn’t interested in praying. Although brought up as a Catholic, he was well beyond believing in God. Not now. Not here. His plan was to get to see - and to map - as much of the monastery as he could. Since yesterday’s violent epiphany, that is - get off this island or die trying (he was surprised at how his spike of anger was lingering; he must channel it), he had a single focus: escape.
Escape.
Reticently, yesterday evening, Karlo had given him a notebook and a pencil. At every break he’d used the front of the book to write inspirational quotes, with a Christian slant. Like: God make me a better person and Work sets you free! He knew he’d plagiarised the last one from above the entrance to Auschwitz, ‘Arbeit macht frei’, and was uncomfortable with that. But, frankly anything would do ...
… because the real work was happening in the middle of the book. He was using pages in the innards of the notebook to sketch out the layout of the place. Windows, doors, room numbers, which doors were fitted with locks - which had iris readers. Everything and anything. Every time he completed a page of sketches and notes, and he had five so far, he ripped it out. He then folded it and placed it between the pages of the bible in his room. It was, he thought, the last place anyone would look.
For Good Men to Do Nothing Page 25