The Cloud Collector

by Brian Freemantle

  Giovanni Moro spoke in impeccable English from behind a desk in an undisclosed room. The predominant, greatly enlarged photograph on the wall behind him was of his grandfather’s body as it had been found in the boot of a Renault 4 on Rome’s via Michelangelo Caetani. Beside that major photograph was a slightly smaller although clearly visible picture of a man its caption referred to as Steve Pieczenik.

  In a level, unemotional voice Moro said he had obvious personal as well as ideological reasons for his rejecting his country to live in exile in the Basque country of northwest Spain, and for his converting to Islam to embrace it and its opposition to the American-dominated West. His grandfather had literally been sacrificed in a plan orchestrated by the CIA—an intelligence organization matching in evil the then-Russian KGB and now its FSB successor—to prevent the Italian Communist PCI party from gaining a coalition position in the Christian Democrat government of the day.

  The man gestured to the second photograph, claimed to be that of Steve Pieczenik. This man, declared Moro, was the then-U.S. State Department official sent from Washington to mastermind the killing. ‘So blatantly arrogant were the U.S. government and its pernicious Central Intelligence Agency that this man Pieczenik openly admitted the crime,’ continued Moro. ‘He went on public record to boast, “We had to sacrifice Aldo Moro to maintain the stability of Italy.” What he really meant was to maintain the United States’ control of the affairs of Italy, a determination it retains to this day throughout the world, particularly against Islamic countries.’

  Moro was issuing the video for publication in the event of his death or capture, concluded his diatribe. If he was captured alive and put before a court, he would use the trial as a platform from which to illustrate further examples of America’s manipulative global interference.

  The U.S. State Department’s premature denial, within an hour of the Al Jazeera Qatar transmission, was directly and just as promptly contradicted by 1987 television news footage of Pieczenik actually making the quoted admission, adding a diplomatic dimension to an attempted act of sensational terrorism.

  Charles Johnston wasn’t sure if the current Colosseum attack and past incidents, both ultimately traceable back to the covert operations directorate, were a personal danger or potential benefit, but self-protective as always he ordered a full copy of the Al Jazeera transmission and the complete case records of the Aldo Moro killing. He took it as another sign of good luck that no-one had tried to retrieve the records ahead of him.

  * * *

  Five hours earlier Akram Malik, the new American, had put forward his suggested deciphering, which Irvine hesitantly accepted at Burt Singleton’s announcement that al Aswamy had turned his computer and cell phone on.

  ‘He could be getting ready to move!’ said Marian.

  9

  ‘What’s the most quoted eulogy for George Washington?’ rhetorically demanded Malik. ‘That of General Henry Lee—that Washington was “first in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his countrymen.” What’s beaten us all night, until now? The three different encryptions for the word first, then changing again the f and the t in fourth to stop us from getting a match with the letters in the following repetitions is as clever as hell.’

  ‘Isn’t it all too clever as hell from an Arab source, throwing our own history back at us?’ queried Shab Barker, also thinking like the American he had become.

  ‘I don’t think so,’ said Marian Lowell. ‘I’m reading it—interpreting it—as proof that it’s coming from NSA’s Iranian equivalent, which I thought we’d already agreed was the level of expertise we’re confronting.’

  ‘Can’t we get signal coordinates from al Aswamy’s computer and cell, now that he’s turned them on!’ demanded an anxious James Bradley, on the open line from Langley. ‘I got people on standby, ready to move.’

  ‘We’re trying to make out the coordinates, for Christ’s sake!’ snapped Irvine, encumbered by the telephone headset that left him hands-free for his computer. They were all wound tighter than springs; he didn’t care that his tension was obvious to the rest of his team.

  From the computer station from which he was monitoring the increased signals, Singleton said, ‘I’m worried al Aswamy’s deflecting attention from however they’re moving to a target elsewhere.’

  ‘They’ve only been turned on for four minutes.’ Irvine tried to calm down. ‘I’m into his Facebook and the cell: the first key he hits, I’ll know.’

  ‘It’s the Washington Monument, matching the arrogance of the Pentagon and the White House attempt of 9/11!’ insisted Malik. ‘The monument is actually in the White House sight line: the Oval Office would be hit by the shock waves of an explosion. The “fourth” referred to in their message signifies their move, in what they consider their war. Its success will be the “first” for their group.’

  ‘I’m not waiting any longer,’ insisted Singleton.

  ‘We’re not,’ agreed Irvine. Into his mouthpiece he said, ‘We’re going to warn Homeland Security.’

  ‘I already did, thirty minutes ago,’ admitted Bradley. When he’d tried to notify Charles Johnston, a secretary told him the covert operations director couldn’t be interrupted until further notice.

  * * *

  ‘It’ll be total lockdown,’ predicted Irvine, taking off the headset, in which he felt vaguely ridiculous. ‘An hour from now it’ll be on every news channel you can think of.’

  ‘Which is what it should be if the monument—with the White House in range—is the target,’ said Malik, considering the alert his vindication from the initial doubt of the others in the group.

  ‘What if it isn’t?’ demanded Irvine. ‘Al Aswamy will know now he’s being officially tracked, so he’ll abort any alternative. And we’ll lose him from this end.’

  ‘Losing him from this end is better than risking whatever might have happened in downtown Washington in full sight and blast range of the White House,’ said Singleton, not looking away from his computer screen.

  ‘Not if their suspicion goes as far as believing it’s at our level,’ persisted Irvine.

  ‘You sure you’re looking at this from the right perspective, Jack?’ Marian frowned, crossing to where the man sat. ‘It isn’t us five and a few at the CIA, Superman and his elves, battling global terrorism into imploding: “Hallelujah, Gotham City’s saved!” We’re a minuscule part of a microcosm, working an idea that had some early success—according to its doubtful justification—an idea that I, personally, still have some problems with. You waited too long on this. You’ve still risked God knows what and God knows how many lives if al Aswamy’s target isn’t the Washington Monument and he manages an atrocity someplace else. And if he does, I’m walking away from this because I think you’re on an ego trip for some personal reason and have forgotten what our function is.’

  ‘And in those circumstances, I’m walking with her,’ added Singleton at once.

  ‘I’m on NBC,’ announced Shab Barker, looking away from his computer screen. ‘They’ve just cut into the Today show with a news break: major terrorist alert in Constitution Gardens and the Mall. White House is in lockdown, as you predicted.’

  ‘And the targets are moving!’ declared Singleton, hunched back over his screen. ‘Both signals, but…’

  ‘I’ve got them on my screen, too,’ came in Bradley, from the speakerphone.

  ‘I’ve got a coordinate for Rhode Island Avenue and Utah…,’ cried out Malik, his voice trailing towards the end.

  ‘And Rhode Island and Windom,’ finished Singleton. ‘However many there are, they’ve split, going in completely opposite directions.’

  ‘I’m sealing Rhode Island Avenue in both directions,’ reported Bradley. ‘Got helicopters up, full liaison with Homeland Security, everyone involved who should be involved.’ Which included the CIA director, Bradley added to himself.

  Al Aswamy’s cell phone was found an hour later, wedged in the roof-mounted luggage rack of a Volvo heading into Washi
ngton. The computer had been lodged among a beet crop bound for Annapolis in an open-backed Toyota flatbed. Both vehicles had refueled at a gas station on the DC boundary.

  * * *

  At just after two that afternoon, English time, Jeremy Dodson arrived at Sally’s office, pointedly entering without knocking. Fluttering the papers he carried, Dodson said, ‘Forensic enjoyed the blue movies.’

  Sally sighed. ‘What did they find?’

  ‘Nothing. Complete waste of time.’

  Sally took the report from the man, skimming through its findings. Only one of the date windows she’d isolated on the wristwatches for particular examination showed a full legible number under maximum photographic enlargement: 31. Only a single digit—3—had been recovered from the chronometer of the second man. Reflected sunlight from the woman’s watch face had destroyed any possibility of a date being visible. Sally put the report aside, looking up to the man, who’d pulled a chair forward from the wall and appeared comfortably seated. ‘The thirty-first is today’s date.’

  ‘July had thirty-one days, too,’ retorted Dodson. ‘So that’s when your porn movie was made, if you’re trying for a significance. And the other guy probably had the correct date, too, just missing the one.’

  Nothing was to be gained by talking to this man, Sally recognized. ‘Is there anything else?’

  ‘I’m hoping you’ll tell me.’

  ‘Tell you what?’

  ‘What the hell’s going on! Did you include me in your complaint about Bradford?’

  Sally raised her hands in a warding-off gesture. ‘I don’t know what you did—or didn’t—do about the original NSA warning. I’m not interested. Far too much wasn’t done following the warning, which is why I’ve officially complained about Bradford. I’d expect there will be an internal enquiry, whatever the Sellafield outcome. I’m not interested in that, either. I certainly haven’t filed any personal complaint about you. If you’re curious about this morning’s breakfast with Monkton, I don’t know what the hell was going on there, either. Which does interest me. When I find out what it is, I’ll deal with it by myself, for myself, which is how I suggest you handle your uncertainties.’

  Dodson stared back at her for several moments, seeking a reply. ‘I see,’ he finally managed inadequately.

  ‘So is there anything else?’

  ‘You haven’t heard about Rome?’ Dodson stretched the incredulity

  ‘Obviously not, if it happened in the last twenty-four hours,’ said Sally impatiently. ‘I spent it isolated here, trying to work out what I’ve missed.’

  ‘There was an attempt to blow up the Colosseum; a relative of Aldo Moro’s is involved. There’s no other story on the news channels.’

  But there was.

  Sally’s office television came on as she tuned in to security-distanced helicopter footage of the White House and the eerily deserted surrounding area, occupied only by police and emergency vehicles, with a voice-over account of the president’s aerial evacuation to Camp David and the threat of an imminent terrorist attack.

  Instinctively Dodson said, ‘Good God!’

  David Monkton responded on the first ring. Sally said, ‘It’s tonight. It was planned as a concerted global attack.’

  Which it had been.

  * * *

  And would almost certainly have succeeded at Sellafield if the nuclear facility hadn’t been on the highest alert. The attackers came in from the sea, the weakest security point. There were twelve, in two rigid-bottomed ribs running at minimal speed on muffled outboard engines, which stopped yards from the beach silently to coast in on what momentum was left. To reduce any noise further, the ribs were lifted, not dragged, up onto the beach. All twelve wore black coveralls, backpacks, and gloves. Their faces were cork-blackened behind night-vision goggles, also black. No words were spoken: all commands were hand-signaled to marshal the group into two lines—a lead man slightly ahead of each—to move up the beach.

  The perfectly coordinated trap snapped shut when they were midway between the shoreline and the beach top. High-powered lights—blinding to night-vision infrared—burst on from a solid bank at the beach head, the signal for matchingly powered spotlights to blaze on from the Special Boat Service ribs that had followed in from the sea and now formed an unbroken line at the water’s edge. The white light was completed from above by three helicopters instantly launched from inside the Sellafield plant to hover overhead. The surrender instructions, in English and German, were sufficiently amplified over the rotor noise to be clearly audible.

  The disorientation was almost total, the blinded group snatching off their goggles and stumbling into each other in panicked confusion. Only three attempted any recovery, removing short-barreled Uzi automatic weapons from their backpacks as they discarded their goggles. Still blinded by the intensity of the light, two fired automatic bursts in the direction of the repeated surrender instructions. There was no overwhelming return fire. Three single marksmen shots brought down the two who’d fired; the third dropped his weapon and obeyed the new amplified instructions to separate from each other before prostrating themselves on the beach. Stun grenades—twelve to achieve temporary unconsciousness in such an unenclosed area—were dropped from the hovering helicopters. Several in the group were stirring, groping about uncertainly, but again sufficiently disoriented to be disarmed and restrained with wrist and ankle bindings.

  The terrorist attack had commenced at 3:00 A.M., the significance of which had only taken Sally Hanning minutes to realize when, during the assault, she received the full details of the horse and greyhound selections from GCHQ.

  That recognition fit all the other missing pieces of the failed jihad jigsaw over the following twenty-four hours.

  10

  The political decision, reached that same day by personal telephone link between president and prime ministers, was to claim the failure of the three attacks proved the overwhelming Western supremacy in its war against terrorism. What wasn’t agreed on in the hurry for public reassurances was a commonly worded statement.

  In its exaggerated satisfaction at unexpected international admiration, Rome boasted its total crushing of all terrorist activity and ridiculed Giovanni Moro as a politically confused anachronism, inadvertently diminishing Washington’s discomfort at its cynical abandonment of an Italian politician for similarly anachronistic reasons. At a glad-handing CIA/State Department meeting at Langley, chaired by Deputy Director Conrad Graham, Jack Irvine—while still not disclosing his Vevak entry—successfully argued that to divert Iranian suspicion of the level of their penetration, their public declaration should indicate the global plot had been detected by Britain’s GCHQ. Charles Johnston, the outsider from the president’s private praise, tried to get his involvement recognized by disclosing in a memo he security-limited to the White House and Irvine the secondment of a British MI5 officer to Operation Cyber Shepherd, correctly guessing it wouldn’t be challenged in the euphoria of the moment. That euphoria was mirrored in London, despite David Monkton’s irritation at Washington’s identification of GCHQ and MI5. It was mitigated, however, by the recognition of London’s speed in unraveling the international coordination of the attempted attacks; Sally Hanning’s contribution was acknowledged, by name, in a strictly restricted memorandum circulated to the White House and Downing Street.

  Sally’s quickly realized significance of the horse-racing forecasts—coupled with the set-in-advance 31 date on what turned out to be Horst Becker’s watch—was her ultimate breakthrough. The 31 showed not just on the Sellafield porn film but on the watch Giovanni Moro very visibly wore on his Al Jazeera video. Moro’s watch also registered a three o’clock time, as did that on Becker’s accomplice on the Sellafield film.

  The forecasted winner of the three o’clock race at Rome’s Capannelle meeting on the thirty-first was Centurion Revenge. That for the three o’clock at Maryland’s Laurel Park for the thirty-first was Washington Demise. The matching time and date prediction f
or Cumbria’s Carlisle racetrack was Atomic Disaster.

  The fitting, concluding irony was that none of the predicted winners placed.

  At Sally’s persistence, as the day progressed, the computer found among Giovanni Moro’s belongings and al Aswamy’s computer were subjected to the same forensic examination as that of Roger Bennett. Both hard drives contained the same intended horse-racing mockery. The major discovery was the identification of Moro and al Aswamy on the porn movies.

  It would take more than a month before every strand confirmed the extent of the global conspiracy and established al Aswamy’s leadership role.

  The more immediate, culminating sensation that day was the discovery during an obvious security check of two forty-pound bombs, constructed to Afghanistan IED design, within twenty feet of each other inside the Washington Monument. Both were primed by cell phone attachments to detonate when called from al Aswamy’s BlackBerry: only the two detonator numbers were stored in its memory.

  ‘You going to admit how totally fucking lucky we were?’ Burt Singleton demanded of Jack Irvine. It was the first time the man had ever cursed in front of Marian Lowell, who once again didn’t protest.

  ‘No!’ refused Irvine, drained of any satisfaction at the personal congratulations at the Langley meeting by the unimpressed reception of the Fort Meade team he’d briefed over the previous thirty minutes. ‘I delayed too long before reverting to Homeland Security procedure. That’s a mistake that won’t happen again. Nor, hopefully, will the CIA lose a target like they lost al Aswamy. But we recovered and that didn’t happen despite us: it happened through the professionalism of what we do and how we do it—your professionalism. From today, from today’s meeting at Langley, any uncertainty’s gone about Cyber Shepherd and its continued operational existence. We’re a confirmed, active unit that the president himself knows about.’