by Powell, Mark
They each drew up a bar stool. McCabe ordered two Irish whiskeys.
He knew Stowe also loved Irish whiskey. In his view, it was worth giving Stowe a token of goodwill in order to gain some further insight into the operation he wanted McCabe to get involved with.
Their whiskeys clasped fi rmly in their hands, they sat at the bar and Stowe shared what he knew about the operation.
‘Well, from what we can gather, Afzal Jihad are now into industrial espionage. We have reasons to believe that they want to use the current fi nancial crisis as cover for some illegal funding of their operations.
We’re not sure yet what specifi cally they are up to, but when people like Aziz, with his track record of money-laundering for drug cartels, come on the scene, we start to get very interested. We suspect, because of Aziz, that there may be a link to a drug cartel in Asia. Not sure of the full facts as yet,’ Stowe said
McCabe was pondering the connection. ‘Drug cartel? Now that’s interesting, don’t you think? Why would Afzal Jihad be wanting drug connections?’
Stowe turned to McCabe. ‘Well, the cartel has billions in liquid cash quantum breach 290709.indd 88
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at their disposal. They want to make it work for them, I guess. The more political unrest there is in certain countries, the better for them.
It takes the focus off the drug running, not to mention they can fund attacks on governments that are less tolerant of drugs. It’s the perfect partnership.
‘Furthermore, the cash these cartels have is dirty, very dirty. They need to be able to clean it through the global banking system. Groups like Afzal Jihad have people who create the havoc and destruction these cartels wish upon governments. The cartels have been moving money around for decades, so sharing of criminal information is now big business amongst these bastards.’
Stowe started to tell McCabe all about Afzal Jihad, the fact they were now bigger and more active. Not so much into hijacks and bombs: they were currently more focused on a regime of undercover espionage and sabotage, targeting politicians and fi nancial institutions. McCabe was captivated. He found this interesting and, for once, was learning something new.
‘So this Aziz chap, where does he fi t in? You say he works in my bank?’
‘Yes, he does. A salesman for Commodities. We’ve been tracking him for the past three years. At one point he lived in London, so MI5
were all over him. He popped up on our radar when he was caught in a money-laundering scam for a Thai drug lord, a bastard by the name of Khun Surat. I came across his brother once, in Myanmar.’ Stowe paused.
Hearing this, McCabe shot Stowe a glance, knowing full well what he meant, but allowed Stowe to continue.
‘Anyway, he was opening up corporate accounts to house their dirty money before investing it in property funds, all a part of the layering process used to clean money and cover its original source. We wanted to see who his masters were but he evaded arrest and vanished without trace about two years ago. MI6 picked him up again via a CIA tip-off when he entered the US via Canada on a British passport. He surfaced quantum breach 290709.indd 89
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in Oman last month, and now here in Dubai. He’s changed his name at least twice that we know of. We suspect he is now a sleeper for Afzal Jihad, waiting for his instructions before he becomes active. Our guess is more money-laundering, but who knows.’
Stowe took a breath and lit a cigarette before continuing. ‘I have access to an informer, the same lady in fact that led us to Afzal Jihad last time. The Rain Angel, you remember her? I told you on the phone.’
McCabe frowned.
‘Anyway,’ continued Stowe, ‘my hope is that she may have information on Aziz or what Afzal Jihad is up to. For now, I need you in there checking to see if this guy is active. Or if, by some small miracle, he is now legitimate, which I doubt. Anyway, this is where you come in. We need you to track him on the inside. It’s a perfect situation. Do you not agree?’
‘Yeah, I’m in, Stowe. Thanks.’ McCabe was pleased and his face showed it. ‘Who is your boy on the inside now?’
Stowe looked at him. ‘Don’t miss a trick, do you, McCabe?’
‘No, I don’t.’ McCabe was almost surprised Stowe would think he would.
‘It’s a fellow called John. He works next to Ying. We poached him right out of Oxford. A very bright young lad.’
‘Okay, I won’t blow his cover … yet.’ McCabe winked at Stowe.
‘Right! Time for some sleep, so see you tomorrow, Stowe.’
McCabe got up and headed for his room.
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TEN
The sun was again high in the sky, its rays poking through the morning smog above Dubai. The shafts of sunlight that managed to carve their way through now bounced off the towering glass skyscrapers located in this desert oasis.
Aziz arrived at work as he always did, by car, driven by his own personal driver. It dropped him off right outside his offi ce at 8:00 a.m.
on the dot, which was quite a feat given Dubai’s hellish traffi c. He made his way into the building and on up to his desk located on the third fl oor. He had a view over the Emirates Hotel and the sky-reaching tower blocks just visible in the brown smog.
Aziz took out his water fl ask and carefully positioned it on one side of his desk. He then proceeded to log on to his computer and open his sales system. He was intently focused on the two very special deal structures he had to craft and execute: one for himself and one for Ying.
After a couple of hours, content he had the structure correct, he started to complete the mandatory term sheets, carefully entering the client’s name, duration of the contract and the price. The deal would be the fi rst of a two-sided transaction between his two shipping corporations to purchase forward oil contracts.
As he reached the data fi eld that required him to place his own name as the marketer of the transaction, which by default indicated that he had validated the credit limits, he deliberately left it blank. Aziz wanted quantum breach 290709.indd 91
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to see how smart Ying really was. Would she notice it was missing, given the next step was, in fact, to enter her name as the designated trader? He typed in ‘Ying Lee’.
Carefully, for the last time, he validated the trade details. It was going to be two forward oil contracts. The fi rst trade, for TJ Cargo, would purchase a forward contract in oil, worth US$50 million at a price of US$135 a barrel. He knew the price was set to move to at least US$145 by the end of the day. The second trade would be for Al Safad: this time he would buy a US$50 million contract using an infl ated price of US$175, knowing the price was expected to be lower. In addition, he would play the US dollar currency market, expecting the currency to move 20–40 basis points. The whole deal should create a nice loss for Al Safad and a handsome gain for TJ Cargo.
Once checked, despite his little oversight and trick on Ying, he made sure that he did, in fact, check the credit limit for each client, making sure it was within the agreed boundaries, as to breach this limit within the bank would trigger an internal enquiry—and he could not afford that. Given this was the fi rst pair of deals, he kept the notional amount small, set at US$50 million only. Once fi nished, he smiled to himself, thinking that his unoffi cial bosses would be very pleased with him: their fi nancial regime was now off and running. He hit the ‘Enter’ key. The deal was now on its way to Ying for deal entry.
A few moments later, given the real-time nature of the sales and trading systems within the bank, Aziz noticed that Ying had picked up the trade out of the pending work queue. This meant she would be preparing to book it.
Across the room, Ying was indeed studying the transaction. She noticed immediately that Aziz had omi
tted his name from the trade details. Ying was wise to this old trick; many a salesman had tried to pass that one off, too lazy to check limits, and the trader got the blame.
People tended to get fi red if credit limits got breached and she knew it was Aziz who had the responsibility to check. Not wanting to risk getting fi red for letting it go uncorrected, she rejected the deal. Not all quantum breach 290709.indd 92
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traders were as diligent as Ying, and they often never bothered to really check. The sheer volume, sometimes hundreds of trades a day, made it impossible to check every one carefully. The smell of commission often clouded their vision to such details. In addition, the bank’s systems were not STP (straight through processing), which meant manual checking and validation.
Aziz immediately saw the reject message appear on his screen. His eyes were smiling as he realised Ying was indeed on the ball.
He re-opened the transaction and entered his name and sales code, then hit ‘Re-send’. Seconds later, upon seeing the amendment, Ying smiled and booked the transaction into Tradex. The deal was done, at least barring any validation downstream by the bank’s Middle Offi ce department. They were one of the last lines of defence in the trade’s life cycle. But Aziz had that covered: his close friend was now working there. His job was to make sure the details were correct, as entered by the trader against the salesman’s term sheet.
Aziz smiled when he saw the deal confi rmation message pop-up on his screen. He carefully noted down the transaction number and then proceeded to make a phone call to a local number. A woman answered the phone with a blunt ‘Yes’.
‘It’s Aziz here. The pigeon has fl own.’ He then hung up the phone.
Immediately afterwards, he made a second call, to an internal number.
A man answered. ‘Aziz here. The pigeon is in fl ight.’ Not waiting for a reply, he hung up. The rest of the day was spent doing research. He was preparing for many more trades to come. As the day drew to a close, he shut down his computer and headed out towards the lift lobby.
Aziz exited the lift on the ground fl oor and hurried out of the front entrance. He was a man in a rush, sweating and looking very agitated.
As he waited for his driver to pull up, he noticed a man casually leaning against a pillar just a few yards in front of him, off to the left, reading a newspaper. He felt uneasy about this man; something about him made him feel wary. He deliberately turned away and looked for his driver. As his car pulled up, he opened the door and jumped in, not waiting as he quantum breach 290709.indd 93
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normally did for his driver to open the door for him.
‘Take me to the Dusit Hotel, quickly,’ Aziz commanded.
Stowe watched him leave and waved to his own driver parked only a few yards away. As he got in the rear seat, Stowe shouted, ‘Follow him!’
His car pulled out and followed Aziz at a safe distance.
After 40 minutes of tailing Aziz through the streets of Dubai, they fi nally arrived at the lobby of the Dusit Hotel.
‘Drop me off here and park around the corner,’ Stowe ordered his driver and got out.
His driver found the large sandy car park around the back of the hotel, a plot of land that had been turned over as temporary parking. He parked and prepared to wait. Stowe walked casually up to the entrance and in through the doors. There was no sign of Aziz in the lobby, so Stowe instinctively headed for the café situated towards the back of the hotel. He had been there a few times over the past month.
Stowe peered through a small iron-grilled window at the entrance to the café, made to look like a souk, an old Arabian market. Scanning the room, he noticed Aziz sitting with his back to him, a few tables in.
Aziz was not alone, however. Sitting opposite him was a well-dressed woman.
‘And who may you be?’ Stowe muttered to himself.
She was in her early forties by the looks of her, wearing a grey suit and with very neat silver-grey hair. A hard face, but still attractive, he thought. Aziz pulled out a fi le from his briefcase and set it in front of her.
‘Can I help you, sir?’ a voice came from behind.
Stowe slowly turned around, not wanting to expose his position and hoping to appear as if he was just a tourist looking for his friend. He was greeted by a beaming McCabe.
‘McCabe, what the fuck are you doing here?’
‘Following you, old mate. What are you doing?’
‘Come here. Look.’ Stowe gestured to McCabe to peep through the grill. ‘It’s Aziz, third table up, off to the left.’
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McCabe peered through the metal frame and took a good look at Aziz.
‘Ah, so that’s the pompous little prick. Who’s the woman?’
‘No idea, but we need to fi nd out.’
McCabe grunted in agreement.
Stowe then took out his phone camera and snapped a picture.
‘Now let’s see if you appear on our database, shall we,’ he muttered to himself.
As McCabe turned around to speak to Stowe, he found him gone.
Looking around, he noticed Stowe casually walking inside the café to get a better look. ‘Jesus!’ McCabe thought, as Stowe walked up to an empty table about 20 feet from where Aziz was sitting. Aziz continued with his conversation. He was animated and explaining something obviously important to the lady. To Stowe’s annoyance, he couldn’t hear the details above the noise from the other diners. They were talking in Arabic, which Stowe only understood the basics of, but he could make out the word ‘shipping’.
Then, suddenly, Aziz stood up and turned, directly facing him.
Stowe looked nonchalantly past him, as if trying to attract the attention of a waiter. Aziz paused as if to consider Stowe’s face, then turned and walked out, right past McCabe, who was now sitting in a chair reading the paper.
The lady who had been with Aziz gathered up the papers she had been given and stood up. Moments later, a waft of perfume caught McCabe’s nostrils as she strode elegantly past him. He was either getting too old, and was no longer attractive to women, or she had simply failed to notice him, slumped in that chair reading his paper.
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ELEVEN
McCabe and Stowe stepped outside the hotel and into the warm night air. Stowe waved to his driver who had parked a few yards away, down the hotel’s parking ramp. The navy blue sedan pulled up. Stowe and McCabe climbed into the rear and the driver headed off down the driveway.
The silence lasted only a few seconds, as Stowe turned to McCabe, his face showing a slight smile. ‘So you followed me, huh, McCabe?’
‘Someone has to keep an eye on you, Stowe,’ McCabe responded with a wry smile.
As their car pulled out on to the busy slip road leading to the main Al Fadan highway, the driver stared into the rear-view mirror, his eyes sharp and focused. Stowe glanced over the driver’s shoulder to look into the side mirrors. He saw the refl ection of the car trailing behind them.
Without warning, their driver accelerated slightly and pulled out into the stream of traffi c and behind a truck. Then, with another controlled burst of acceleration, he pulled out to the left and overtook the truck, sharply pulling back in front once he had passed it.
The atmosphere in the car suddenly grew very tense as Stowe had drawn his 9mm Browning from his shoulder holster. McCabe was also staring intently into the rear-view mirror. An old white Mercedes, the 1980’s model built like a small tank, was running up the outer side of the truck. It dipped slightly as it braked when the driver noticed Stowe’s blue sedan neatly tucked in front of the truck. This was all Stowe’s quantum breach 290709.indd 96
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driver needed to observe. He accelerated fast and pulled out into the outer lane of the freeway.
‘In there,’ shouted Stowe, pointing to the armrest on the back seat.
It was the type that had in-built storage. McCabe lifted the padded armrest to reveal another 9mm semi-automatic Browning pistol. He took it out and primed the weapon.
The driver was busy swerving in and out of traffi c, much to the annoyance of the other drivers who were honking their horns in protest.
The white Mercedes was gaining on them in pursuit, meaning that they were obviously being tailed.
‘Who are they, Stowe?’ McCabe asked, his eyes fully dilated. McCabe felt his adrenaline levels rising. He secretly loved it. No amount of currency trading could ever give him the same buzz. This was the drug he loved, and his body craved it.
‘No idea, but they clearly want us.’
‘Nope, just you. How would they know me?’ McCabe commented back sarcastically.
When they reached an off-junction, Stowe’s driver swerved the car over to the extreme left at the very last second, the car’s tyres screeching against the tarmac as they accelerated off into the slip road, lightly scraping the crash barriers. The white Mercedes skidded behind them, smoke coming off the tyres as its driver hit the brakes and followed in pursuit. McCabe observed that there were two occupants, both seated in the front of the car.
A few seconds later, the back window of Stowe’s car shattered with a loud crack. Shards of glass showered in on both Stowe and McCabe as they ducked their heads instinctively and crouched down behind the back seat. Stowe peeped up behind the back seat to fi re a shot which took out the offside wing mirror of the Mercedes. This was followed quickly by another round, which struck home in the left shoulder of the man in the passenger seat.
The Mercedes swerved unsteadily on the road to avoid being hit again.
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‘Go, go, go!’ shouted Stowe at his driver, who weaved their car expertly through the traffi c to avoid getting hit in return. The two cars were now barrelling down a small off-road which headed towards the sea.