by M G Leslie
BREAK-IN – by M G Leslie
Copyright
Copyright © 2015 M G Leslie
The author, whom retains all rights to this book, also owns the email address below and may be contacted directly using that means of communication.
All characters are a trademark of the author and may not be copied or reproduced.
No part of this publication may be reproduced or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the written permission of the author.
To seek permission to reproduce or copy anything in this book, please email: [email protected]
The characters and scenarios described within this book are completely fictitious. Any resemblance to the real world is purely coincidental.
This book makes reference to some organisations and places. Whilst some of the representations of these organisations and places may be correct, the author in no way guarantees that they are correct, as this book is a combination of publicly available information and complete fiction.
Preface
In the last few years there's been a lot of controversy over governments monitoring our telephone calls and Internet traffic. These activities have sparked a huge number of news reports and even public statements by senior figures.
This book depicts a scenario where terrorists are the ones breaking-in and intercepting global banking communications, then using this information to make huge sums of money.
The terrorists are traced to South East Asia and MI6 intelligence officers are sent to investigate – only to find they have more problems than just someone breaking-in to their global networks and banking systems.
As the story unfolds, old relationships come in to play and the true source of the terrorism starts to become clear to an officer known as Price – who works for a secret department within the UK’s Secret Intelligence Service (MI6).
I hope you enjoy the read – this is the author’s first book and is also intended to be the first part of an on going story.
This book is dedicated to my lovely wife and to my young son, who is 4 at the time of writing.
If you enjoy this book, you may wish to check out the sequel – called Mudada – my continuing story about the same characters.
Chapters
CHAPTER 1 – A LABOUR OF LOVE
CHAPTER 2 – HOME FROM HOME
CHAPTER 3 – EAVESDROPPING
CHAPTER 4 – CLUB ONE
CHAPTER 5 – FIRE DRILL
CHAPTER 6 – A TON OF TROUBLE
CHAPTER 7 – MARY
CHAPTER 8 – BLUE EYES
CHAPTER 9 – MYSTERY CALLER
CHAPTER 10 – CLOSE CALL
CHAPTER 11 – BACK HOME ONCE AGAIN
CHAPTER 12 – WATCHING
CHAPTER 13 – BREAK-IN
CHAPTER 1 – A Labour Of Love
Price opened his eyes and looked at his watch – it was just after 6am.
Turning to his left, he looked at the beautiful girl sleeping next to him. She had silky smooth slightly tanned skin, soft long dark brown hair, a stunningly beautiful face and what Price later described to a friend as, “A figure most women would die for.” Indeed, she looked amazing – even first thing in the morning after a night’s sleep.
Without thinking he muttered, “I can’t believe I’m getting paid for this.”
“That makes two of us,” she replied – much to his surprise, as he hadn't realised that she was awake.
“What can't you believe?” he asked.
“You didn't want to do anything last night. Or have I spoken too soon?”
Price smiled, “No you're fine. I was tired last night – and this morning I have things to do.”
“And you're getting paid for this?”
Now Price’s smile turned in to a laugh as he said, “I'm in the Philippines for work – I can claim back my expenses, is what I meant.”
“How will you describe me on your expense claim?”
“Very beautiful,” Price replied as he kissed her on the cheek.
The girl didn’t reply – she just looked at Price with a smile, as he sat up, swung his legs out of the bed and grabbed the bathrobe from the chair where he’d left it the previous night. Once he’d slipped his arms in to the robe and tied a lose knot around his waste to keep it closed, he walked over to the phone that was sitting on the desk in the hotel room, picked it up and pushed the ‘Room Service’ button.
As was typical of the Mandarin Oriental, it was answered almost immediately with, “Good morning Mr Price. This is room service, what can I get for you?”
“I’d like an American breakfast for two with toast, scrambled eggs, bacon, orange juice and a pot of very hot filter coffee with cold milk on the side please.”
The person on the phone repeated his order back to him before saying, “Is there anything else you would like Mr Price?”
“No, that’s all. Thanks,” he replied.
Price replaced the phone on the desk and walked into the bathroom where he shaved, showered and put on a pair of old Levi’s and a light cream-coloured t-shirt.
By the time he was fully dressed the girl had already started to get her clothes together. As Price looked at her again, he noted that she was quite tall for a Filipino girl at around 5 feet 8 inches, with a natural skin tone that women in the western world seem to spend a small fortune every year trying to achieve – whilst he also noted that Filipino’s, indeed many Asian’s, spend a small fortune trying to get whiter. He never did understand why they did that. It could only be what he called ‘The grass is always greener’ syndrome – meaning that people always tend to want what they haven’t got.
Price on the other hand, was well over 6 feet tall, a little overweight and gradually going grey and bald – although he wasn’t sure which one was winning – the greyness or the baldness. Despite that though, he didn’t really care, he just looked at her and smiled. She looked completely out of place, as she was wearing the same skin-tight black dress from the night before. And it left absolutely nothing to the imagination – particularly as she wasn’t even wearing any knickers or a bra.
Price was tempted to make a joke about her taking the idea of ‘Travelling light’ to the extreme. However, before he could, she started walking towards her high-heel shoes by the door and said, “I’m going home now. Can I see you again?”
“I’d like that very much,” Price lied, as he walked over to the room’s safe, retrieved his wallet and gave the girl some money. She counted it and thanked him. Then they exchanged mobile phone numbers and she left.
Five minutes later, a knock at the door signalled the arrival of his breakfast.
Price always tried to eat a large breakfast. A doctor he’d met on an assignment in Hong Kong some years earlier had drummed that into his head. He’d said, “At breakfast eat like a King, at lunch eat like a Prince, and at dinner eat like a Pauper.”
Price didn’t entirely agree with the ‘Pauper’ part as he did have a penchant for a well-cooked rib eye steak and consumed copious amounts of beer and red wine on a fairly regular basis. Indeed, he often joked, “Aside from all the red meat, beer and wine, I am very health conscious – if you ignore the chocolate, cakes and full English breakfasts. Oh, and you obviously can’t mention the traditional afternoon tea with scones, jam and clotted cream. But apart from that, I’m virtually an athlete.”
Nobody believed a word of it of course, and they were right, because whilst he looked slightly overweight and appeared to eat all the wrong things, in reality he followed a rigorous and brutal training program – he was in fact, very fit indeed – he had to be to survive.
As he sat down to eat on this sunny morning, Price started to think about his pl
an for the day and reflect on everything that had taken place so far.
Six months earlier the Bank of England and the UK Financial Services Authority (FSA) had become aware of a number of international money transfers that, as his boss put it, “Were totally messed up.” And then he’d added, “Something about, wrong people getting the money and nobody seems to know how – these bankers seem to lurch from crisis to crisis. Last year sub-prime and now this – Christ knows what’s next.”
“Messed up,” was a good description though because as it turned out, the wrong accounts were receiving money from some of the international financial transfers that were originating in London. Consequently, the banks were losing huge sums of money because the intended recipients had to be compensated for their loss. And worst still, the amounts that were going astray, seemed to be increasing.
An investigation had been started – initially as a set of informal meetings between the banks to determine if this was a mistake or the result of deliberate illegal intervention.
Three months later, senior members of all the banks impacted by the transactions, the head of the UK’s Serious Fraud Office (SFO), seniors from the Bank of England, the FSA and members of the UK Parliament’s Committees for Finance and Services and Foreign Affairs had met to review the results of the investigation.
At that meeting, the head of the SFO stood up and addressed the group in the imposing and luxurious surroundings of the boardroom in the Bank of England. The room resembled the interior of a palace with pillars, arches and carved stonework around the huge arched windows more than a traditional meeting room – even the carpet looked like something more fit for a King, with ornate red and cream coloured patterns.
“Gentlemen, I would remind you that you all signed the Official Secrets Act before entering this room. That act of parliament prevents you from discussing matters of national security unless you are authorised to do so. Please treat what I am about to tell you with the utmost secrecy and do not discuss the contents of my presentation outside of this room, as this matter very much concerns our national security. This is also why, each of you was asked to surrender your mobile phone and/or blackberry – my apologies for that inconvenience, but it cannot be avoided.
Three months ago, you’re aware that we started to see international financial transfers initiated from London being received by the wrong bank accounts in various parts of the world – mostly in South East Asia.
The first few transfers were in the thousands of pounds but rapidly increased to hundreds of thousands and most recently millions. We have records to demonstrate that the banks initiating the transfers sent the correct transfer messages. Similarly, we have records to demonstrate that the receiving banks received the messages, all of which were formatted and time stamped correctly. The problem we have is that the messages the receiving banks received were not the ones that were sent – indeed, the wrong banks received the messages. On the face of it, the message had been altered “in-flight” as it were, and to-date we do not know how.
Our attempts to trace the funds by engaging local law enforcement agencies have not been successful. The receiving banks did not notice any irregularity with the transfers and, therefore, have been reluctant to take action – and frankly speaking, I don’t blame them for that.
Unfortunately, whilst the UK and our European partners may have very thorough checks and balances in place before allowing individuals to open bank accounts and transfer large sums, this process is not the same throughout the world. So we have been unable to recover any of the funds that went astray.
Where we have been able to obtain recipient account information and determine who actually received the funds, we have found that the money was immediately transferred on to one or more other accounts, generally in different countries. From there, the trend seems to be that the money is withdrawn and all the accounts from the initial recipient to the final recipient are then closed, leaving us in the dark as to where the money really ended up.
Due to the nature of the transfers, this all takes place in a few days – each time with broadly the same pattern, but as I say, with different recipients in different banks, countries and/or accounts.
As I’ve said, whilst most banks have been reluctant to help, some have provided account information, and so far there’s no discernable pattern that could lead us to predict which accounts or banks will be the next recipients of these transfers. In all cases we have been able to verify, the recipient accounts used to-date were opened many months or even years ago. In other words, this is something that has been well planned for a very long time.
One piece of good news is that, checks on the individuals or organisations that initiated the transfers have been conclusive – we don’t believe the sender or the initiating financial institution is in any way at fault. We’ve also eliminated human error and software bugs and computer viruses.
In summary, therefore, I regret to inform you that there is no way to avoid the obvious conclusion. Someone has found a way to infiltrate our financial system in a most organised and potentially destructive way.
This is nothing less than theft on an extremely grand scale and if it is not dealt with, it could bring our financial system to its knees. Aside from the widespread panic if this became public knowledge, our financial markets rely on financial transactions for their very survival – it’s fundamental to its existence, as I am sure you are aware.
I have discussed this matter at the highest level. The Prime Minister, the Home Secretary and the Foreign Secretary have engaged the Joint Intelligence Committee to agree on our next course of action. I am not able to provide you with any more details at this time – suffice to say, they are taking this extremely seriously.
I have scheduled another meeting of this group for one-month time – my assistant will be sending each of you invitations in due course. Until then, as I said earlier, you must not discuss this matter outside of this room. All evidence of future irregularities should be sent directly to the Joint Intelligence Committee from where the investigation will be handled going forward. Whilst the investigation proceeds, the government has agreed that the Bank of England will underwrite any losses that you may incur.”
At that point the head of the Bank of England gently scanned the room with his eyes and nodded in agreement so that everyone was aware of his concurrence.
The room fell silent as everyone digested the information they had just received. There had been a noticeable change in everyone’s expression, from concern to shock, when the SFO head had mentioned the Joint Intelligence Committee – everyone knew that meant this was now being handled by the UK’s Security Services.
After a while the SFO head spoke again, “Unless you have any questions, thank you for your time ladies and gentlemen. The next meeting will be in one month. Good day to you.”
At that, everyone slowly stood up – a few stood around chatting to each other, but most just quietly walked out of the room, recovered their mobile phone and/or blackberry and left the building.
Whilst the briefing had been taking place, across London at Vauxhall Cross, the home of the UK’s Secret Intelligence Service (SIS), or MI6 as it is more commonly known, the head, or Chief as he’s referred to within SIS, was bringing an intelligence officer up to speed over an encrypted communications link – providing significantly more detail than the SFO had disclosed.
The SFO head had not been told that GCHQ, the UK’s Government Communications Headquarters, had been able to trace the final destination of quite a few transactions.
GCHQ intercepts communications traffic worldwide and uses super-computers and an array of mathematicians and analysts to de-code messages, determine if they are linked and identify patterns. In coordination with a government department simply called DI, which stands for Defence Intelligence, they use this data and any additional information received from allies and local and overseas agents, to formulate a picture of events that have taken place or are likely to take place.
On this occasion, GCHQ was already aware of a potential security threat in the UK. They knew that some kind of terrorist action was likely to be taking place because of intercepted communications. They’d been able to trace one of the sources of some of the communications to a bar in Manila in the Philippines. The super-computers had then worked their magic and identified a pattern of phone calls that potentially linked the withdrawal of some of the missing funds to the same bar.
As the Chief briefed his officer, he related a conversation between a GCHQ analyst, himself and the Foreign Secretary, where he’d said, “That’s pretty flimsy!”
But the analyst had been insistent, “People’s patterns of movement and communications are not random, no matter how much they may wish to think they are. The person who took the funds from the bank had a cell-phone switched on and travelled to the club in Manila. OK, there were probably lots of people in the bank at the time. And the fraud office are fairly certain the person was wearing a disguise, as they spoke to local police officials to try and get a look at cameras and the like. But it doesn’t matter. When we look at a number of the withdrawals from different locations and correlate them with different pre-paid cell phones, we see a clear pattern emerging – they take money to that bar, or they go their to spend it – one or the other – but either way, they end up at the bar.”
“But how can you be so sure?” the Chief had asked.
Undeterred, the GCHQ analyst had persisted, “Every time a person moves, their phone location, i.e. the cell they’re in, is recorded along with a date and a time and a bunch of other information about their SIM card and the handset itself – and that gentlemen, is going to give them away. People are creatures of habit – MIT in the US did some extremely valuable research in to this a while back, which is when we really started tracking calls in detail.
Even though, at least one of our potential criminals kept using different phone numbers and occasionally different handsets, he kept going to the same restaurants for breakfast or dinner and then ultimately to the bar. His desire to eat the same burger or rice or whatever it was, is going to be his undoing in the end. Trust me on this. Although, I’ll give him credit for not using his Visa or Amex card as that would have made it really easy for us to find him.”