The Cloud Collector

by Brian Freemantle

  Marg bar Amrika, came the Iranian diatribe.

  Death to America, echoed Irvine in English.

  Inshallah registered on Irvine’s screen, which then blanked.

  ‘Fuck!’ Irvine said aloud.

  * * *

  Charles Johnston decided his newly formed relationship with David Monkton—hopefully to be continued through Sally Hanning—was emerging to be his ace in the hole. Two hours earlier the MI5 chief had provided more than Johnston would have imagined possible to assemble in such a short time.

  According to the UK dossier, Horst Becker had instantly been named by frightened members of the Sellafield attackers as the psychopathic killer of Roger Bennett, selected by Becker to be the disposable to-and-fro gofer once the three groups had been assembled. But the killing—and leaving the body as a warning to others in the conspiracy—had been ordered by Ismail al Aswamy when Bennett attempted to blackmail them after realizing the extent of the conspiracy. According to the Sellafield confessions—corroborated within the following hour by three statements from the arrested Italian group—al Aswamy had boasted of organizing other units for an already planned and rehearsed global jihad.

  Johnston prepared his memoranda with care, timing its circulation and ensuring all its recipients were listed on every copy to avoid any later accusation of the manipulation that he was, in fact, orchestrating. The White House chief of staff headed his distribution list, followed by Homeland Security and the State Department team that had attended that day’s joint meeting. Those he dispatched by courier. The remainder, to Conrad Graham, Bradley, and Irvine, he held back until the last internal mail drop, which wasn’t collected for delivery until 9:00 P.M., by which time he knew all three would have left the building.

  * * *

  Sally Hanning completed in a single day the formalities of closing down her Pimlico apartment, arranging the redirection of what little personal mail she received, and fixing drawing arrangement through Washington’s Connecticut Avenue branch of HSBC, her London bank, through which she established direct-debit settlements for the few continuing bills. She collected from Thames House the up-to-the-minute running dossier on the Sellafield investigation on her way to Heathrow Airport for the last flight of the day, picking up a selection of British and American newspapers from the Special Branch unit permanently based there, who’d extended the helpful colleague courtesy by getting her upgraded to first class.

  On the plane, the adjoining seat was unoccupied, removing the difficulty of her openly reading MI5 material with triple security classification in public surroundings. Al Aswamy’s claim to be masterminding other impending attacks would cause official panic, Sally knew. But she was reading an interrogator’s paraphrasing, not a verbatim transcript. If the word had been boasted, it could conceivably have been just that, empty braggadocio. But only just conceivable. It was vital that the near-hysterical publicity—more sensational in the English than American newspapers beside her—hadn’t in any way indicated the NSA’s original interception. Sally skimmed the sensationalism, knowing more than the self-proclaimed security correspondents, reading more closely the diplomatic reactions. There was total European Union condemnation of Iran, with unanimous support for the emergency UN Security Council debate America was instigating. Russia and China were indicating they would introduce their veto. Italy, Germany, and France were recalling their ambassadors from Tehran for consultation. During an emergency debate in the British Parliament, three MPs described the attack on Sellafield as an act of war.

  Sally left until last her Washington introductory file, belatedly curious at being attached for the first time to an overseas British embassy. In the Alice in Wonderland fantasy world of espionage, in which every host country knows every embassy intelligence officer, each of whom knowing their counterpart in every other embassy, the cover of Nigel Fellowes, MI5’s Washington station chief, was assistant trade attaché. His half-framed, coloured studio portrait showed a flaxen-haired, tightly mustached man in a country tweed jacket over an unmatched Eton tie. Attached beneath it was a printed-off personally addressed computer assurance to her that he was looking forward to her arrival, with a promise to do whatever he could to help.

  Sally hoped the promise was genuine, although she didn’t really care if it was or not.

  * * *

  ‘Totally confidential?’ queried Harry Packer, feeling the first stirrings of unease.

  ‘There’s a contract provision for that,’ insisted Burt Singleton.

  ‘I know.’

  ‘So that’s what this is going to be, a strictly confidential meeting?’

  ‘Of course, if that’s what you wish.’

  ‘I do. There’s no disloyalty to the team.’

  ‘Understood. So what’s the problem, Burt?’

  ‘I believe Operation Cyber Shepherd is illegal.’

  ‘For Christ’s sake, Burt, you all got praised by the president himself!’ exclaimed Packer, carefully using you instead of we.

  ‘That doesn’t make it legal. Nixon and Bush broke the law all the time.’

  ‘You want the full exoneration?’ demanded Packer.

  ‘With its acceptance signed by you, as the authorizing officer.’

  Shit, thought Packer. His name would be on a paper trail if the shit hit the fan and everything became public.

  12

  Nigel Fellowes had worn the same tie in the introductory dossier, and it still clashed with his broadly striped, dark blue suit that Sally usually associated with big-bonus City bankers. As he walked across the vestibule of the British embassy on Washington’s Massachusetts Avenue, Sally saw he was both slimmer and taller than she’d guessed from the head-and-shoulders portrait. He reached her with both hands outstretched to enclose hers: ‘Welcome to the capital of the free world, welcome, welcome … although October is the harbinger of winter here, and when it gets to November, you’ll know what winter is.’

  The softness of his hands was accentuated by their clamminess, and she was glad when he released her. ‘I’m not here on vacation. And it wasn’t necessary for you to get up this early.’ The plane had been delayed by headwinds, but it was still only seven fifteen in the morning.

  ‘Early birds catch the worms and all that sort of thing,’ said badly clichéd Fellowes, picking up her cases. ‘What’s it to be, the apartment that’s ready for you in the compound or a get-to-know-each-other chat?’

  ‘I managed to sleep on the plane,’ exaggerated Sally. ‘Why don’t we talk.’

  ‘First-class!’ enthused Fellowes, setting off deeper into the embassy, identifying various sections as they passed. Sally nodded but didn’t respond, deciding to keep the encounter short, thirty minutes tops. More people were in the corridors and open-doored rooms than she expected, but then she remembered the five-hour time lag between London and Washington, DC, and guessed that 7:15 a.m. hadn’t been at all early for Fellowes.

  Sally’s impression upon entering was that the MI5 rezidentura, on the second floor, was inadequately small. The narrow outer office, at that moment unoccupied, she assumed to be for a secretary, led into a suite only slightly larger than her own at Thames House. There were two unidentified side doors but no obvious corridor to the remainder of the section.

  Fellowes dumped the cases directly inside the door but didn’t go on to his immaculately uncluttered desk, instead putting himself between it and one of the unmarked doors. ‘My eagle’s nest!’ he announced. ‘The main rezidentura is downstairs, closer to the communications room. But according to London, yours is a very special assignment.’ He opened the closed door with a flourish, flicking on the strip lights. ‘Your office, with everything you’ll need: computer, secure telephone, copying facilities, Reuters-wire links. Anything missing can be installed in twenty-four hours.’ With another flourish he gestured to his desk. ‘And here’s where I am, always available as I promised in my note. It’s going to be a perfect working relationship, which I thought we’d establish more fully at dinner tonig
ht, if you’re not too jet-lagged.’

  Sally went slowly to the already-set visitor’s chair and didn’t hurry settling herself, using the moment to get her responses in order. She’d already decided Fellowes was a posturing caricature, probably assigned more for his diplomatic than espionage capabilities—for which others in the rezidentura could doubtless compensate—but she didn’t want a repeat of Jeremy Dodson’s distracting antagonism. ‘What’s London told you of my being sent here?’

  ‘Precious little,’ mildly complained Fellowes. ‘Obvious confirmation of its sensitivity, of course. Just the broad outline of it involving the three attempted attacks and that you were pivotal in their prevention.’

  ‘No running case notes?’

  ‘No details at all.’

  ‘What about my case officer?’

  The smile stopped just short of patronizing. ‘Me, naturally! I’m head of station here.’

  ‘That’s been confirmed by the Director-General?’

  ‘Of course it hasn’t! It doesn’t need to be. It’s standard operational procedure.’

  Why the hell did Monkton play these stupid games! ‘Nigel, I don’t want us to get off to a bad start,’ Sally began cautiously, nodding to the now open-doored side office. ‘And I thank you for all the trouble you’ve obviously gone to, fixing up my own office. But I’ve been ordered to deal directly with the Director-General, no-one else.’

  The flush of anger that began to form on his face while Sally spoke was complete by the time she finished, the colour heightened by the blondness of the man’s hair. ‘I don’t accept what you’re telling me!’ he said, discarding the earlier affectation. ‘If you’re seconded to my rezidentura, you come under my authority. Those are the regulations.’

  ‘I’m not aware of the regulations, but I can appreciate your difficulty,’ soothed Sally. ‘It’s possible I misinterpreted Monkton’s instructions. Why don’t you message him right now and get everything clarified while I settle into the apartment?’

  ‘You mean you’re not accepting my authority!’

  ‘I mean that to resolve any misunderstanding, which might well be my misunderstanding, I’m asking you to clear my terms of reference here with the Director-General.’

  ‘I’ve got every intention of doing just that!’

  He’d meant it as a threat, Sally knew; it sounded more like the class bully about to take his football home because he hadn’t been made team captain. She’d only used up fifteen of the thirty minutes she’d allowed for the encounter, she realized gratefully.

  * * *

  Jack Irvine listened just sufficiently to James Bradley to ensure he didn’t miss anything beyond what the CIA man had already told him, his concentration instead upon the significance of Charles Johnston’s sidelining Bradley, which was reducing the man to near apoplexy.

  If it was true that what had so far been prevented was only the beginning of a global terrorist onslaught, then losing al Aswamy was a disaster whose consequences were difficult to quantify. It reduced presidential congratulations and sycophantic backslapping to a piss in the ocean, a level to which he’d already relegated much of the earlier euphoria.

  ‘Isn’t there something a little more important than your being bypassed?’ he interrupted the other man.

  ‘What do you mean?’ demanded Bradley, halting the diatribe.

  ‘For Christ’s sake, it’s surely obvious what I mean!’ Irvine said, careless of his irritation. ‘We’ve got corroborated information from terrorist detainees of further terrorist attacks, and all you’ve talked about since I got here is being kept out of the loop overnight. Don’t you think it would be a good idea if we concentrated upon what’s really important, which is finding the guy who’s masterminding those other intended hits!’

  Bradley remained strangely still in his overstrained jacket, his face equally creased, head sideways in exaggerated curiosity. ‘Am I missing something here?’ The voice was that of a schoolteacher addressing the class buffoon.

  ‘Missing it completely. We left a loose end.’ Irvine hesitated, momentarily undecided. ‘You and your chosen team left a loose end, and if that loose end isn’t tidied up double-quick, I’d say you’re going to be sidelined a hell of a lot more than you are being now. But I don’t intend to be sidelined and see a functioning anti-terrorism operation get flushed down the toilet. You missing anything of what I’m telling you, Jim?’

  ‘I don’t believe I am.’ Bradley sat at last. The schoolteacher’s voice had gone.

  ‘You heard from Packer?’

  ‘He’s on his way. Should be here in an hour.’

  ‘Was I to be included in whatever you plan to discuss?’ demanded Irvine.

  ‘Of course.’

  Irvine didn’t believe the man. ‘That’s good to hear.’

  Both men were glad for a telephone interruption. Bradley picked up and didn’t speak until the end of the call, saying, ‘I understand. He’s with me now,’ before replacing the receiver. To Irvine, he said, ‘A meeting at two, the deputy director’s suite. You’re to be there.’

  ‘That’s good to hear, too.’ Still at a top table, Irvine reflected, and at once wished he hadn’t because it was how Bradley’s mind would have worked.

  * * *

  ‘Holy shit!’ was Burt Singleton’s response when Irvine finished talking.

  ‘Spraying in every direction,’ agreed Irvine. He sat lounged back in his Langley office, the telephone cradled in the crook of his shoulder.

  ‘They got any leads to al Aswamy up there?’

  ‘Not as of twenty minutes ago, when I left Bradley. Conrad Graham’s called a crisis meeting.’

  ‘At least Vevak haven’t taken al Aswamy’s site down.’

  ‘You checked this morning?’ There had been nothing when Irvine had logged on from Owen Place.

  ‘And with you, last night.’

  ‘You did…?’ began Irvine, but he stumbled to a halt, answering the question before asking it. ‘You hacked me!’

  ‘Hardly hacking when I’ve already got every available ASCII access code to get past your firewalls, but, yes, I guess it qualifies as that.’

  Irvine didn’t respond at first, his reactions colliding. The first was indignation, which was instantly confronted by the affronted hypocrisy at having had done to him what he practised every day as a profession. If he were a professional, why hadn’t he detected what was happening? Why hadn’t his firewalls been triggered? Because Singleton, with the IP codes, was a professional, too, Irvine supposed; a better professional. ‘Were you going to tell me?’

  ‘I just did.’

  He was at risk of being talked into a corner, Irvine recognized. ‘When did you start piggybacking?’

  ‘From the beginning, obviously.’

  ‘Through the cutouts then?’

  ‘How else could I have been with you from the beginning? You haven’t concealed them since telling us about Shepherd.’

  ‘So what’s your judgement about al Aswamy’s Vevak site still being up?’

  ‘I’m hopeful. But cautious.’

  ‘What about Moscow Alternative?’ tested Irvine.

  ‘Curious, aren’t you?’ tested Singleton.

  ‘Of course I’m curious,’ said Irvine, discomfited by the questioning switch.

  ‘About what, exactly?’

  This really was verbal arm wrestling. ‘“Where have you been?”’ Irvine quoted.

  The pause now was from Singleton’s end. ‘I couldn’t believe you’d missed it—didn’t want to believe you’d missed it—but I’m glad you didn’t. You engaged with Anis before?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Has he been listed there before?’

  ‘Not on the Action subcatalog. Can’t remember him on any other darknet, either.’

  ‘You’re sure?’

  ‘Positive.’ Singleton was still leading, Irvine accepted.

  ‘What about Object?’

  ‘I don’t remember Anis being there, either.’
/>   ‘Or Moscow Alternative?’

  ‘It’s a long catalog. I don’t recall it.’ Irvine wasn’t any longer lounged back. He was holding the receiver now, slippery in his hand, feeling—sure he was sounding—totally ineffective.

  ‘So how do you read that?’

  ‘There’s not enough to read, not yet.’

  ‘But you’re going back?’

  ‘Of course I’m going back.’

  ‘It could be a come-on, a poacher-turned-gamekeeper entrapment.’

  ‘I realize that. So could leaving al Aswamy’s site up.’

  ‘Why’d you piggyback me, Burt?’ abruptly demanded Irvine, impatient with the minuet.

  ‘Having someone riding shotgun is never a waste of time.’

  ‘You know I wasn’t detected, I—both of us—would have seen it before the cutout destruction.’

  ‘Not chased this time,’ agreed Singleton. ‘But if al Aswamy’s site was being monitored by Vevak, they’ll have your electronic fingerprint.’

  ‘Which will lead them straight to the second cutout, which will destruct before it can be recorded, with another cutout still in reserve.’

  ‘It’s impressive protection.’

  ‘You’ll tell me if you come along again, won’t you?’

  ‘Before I do it,’ promised Singleton. ‘Looking forward to hearing the outcome of this afternoon’s meeting.’

  ‘So am I.’ Irvine guessed at last why Singleton had electronically shadowed him. The man—maybe Marian and the other two as well—suspected he was being sidelined. Which was, Irvine reflected, how he himself had felt before the earlier confrontation with Bradley.

  * * *

  ‘I shouldn’t have been put in the situation,’ protested Sally.

  There was a hesitation from the London end of the security-guaranteed connection. Sally was boxed in a claustrophobically small, soundproofed cubicle in the embassy’s communications room. She wondered how difficult it was for David Monkton to remain at his desk for a telephone conversation this long; maybe he had a cordless phone, to enable him to do just that.