The Cloud Collector

by Brian Freemantle

  ‘You hear any chatter to support that, Jack?’ Sally asked.

  The phraseology more than the unexpectedness of her question surprised Irvine, who blurted, ‘No, there hasn’t,’ before wishing he’d given himself more time to formulate a response. With no alternative, he went on, ‘I spoke to Meade this morning. There’s been nothing from the usual sites that are the quickest to carry genuine Al Qaeda claims.’ There’d been no approach, either, from Anis to Akram Malik’s pre-dawn return to the Action chat room.

  ‘Nothing’s been registered by GCHQ, either,’ disclosed Sally, mentally crossing off an intercepted transmission hurrying Irvine to the NSA the previous evening. ‘And the naming doesn’t fit the pattern, does it?’

  ‘No, definitely not,’ recovered Irvine. Brains—if he’d needed proof—as well as beauty, for which he didn’t need any more proof, either, decided Irvine, studying the woman. He hoped the darknet reaction to the overnight attacks—and more particularly a possible re-emergence of Anis—wouldn’t keep him from the planned meeting with Sally.

  ‘What happened to the need to avoid misunderstandings?’ complained Johnston in clumsy irony.

  Sally intentionally ducked the question, deferring to Irvine; he had to be brought in, flattered, and the other two would more readily accept the opinion of a fellow American. And it was another chance, albeit slim, to get an indication of what had so fully occupied Irvine the previous night. The code-breaker said, ‘There’s customarily very quick Internet traffic about any outrage Al Qaeda genuinely sponsors from Yemen’s affiliated Ansar al-Sharia and al Shabaab in Somalia, as well as some Pakistani groups. That traffic’s usually on Arabic media and broadcasting sites we permanently monitor. We didn’t pick up anything overnight; still hadn’t when I spoke to Meade forty minutes ago. Sally’s just told you the UK didn’t pick up anything, either. And there’s a pattern to the Al Qaeda declarations, which doesn’t fit here. Genuine Al Qaeda claims never name individuals, as al Aswamy was named during the night, with Horst Becker’s added in Hamburg.’

  Intent upon getting the slightest indication that her previous night’s hunch had some basis, Sally concentrated upon Jack Irvine’s Arabic pronunciation as he talked: definitely Middle East, not Gulf peninsula or Maghreb, she determined. Not sufficient to confirm her suspicion about Irvine’s personal background, but an indicator that she could be right.

  ‘You telling us these weren’t organized terrorist attacks!’ demanded Bradley hopefully.

  Time to re-enter the exchange, establish her presence. Sally said, ‘No, I’m not suggesting that at all, and I don’t believe Jack is, either. The MI5 assessment is that the attacks were too quickly combined and badly carried out terrorist operations, the one in Germany—probably carried out by remnants of Becker’s original group—just slightly more professional than those in France or England. But that alliance wasn’t with al Aswamy or orchestrated from Tehran, which is the assumption we were supposed to make to fit a global campaign.’

  ‘That’s the evaluation I’m offering, too,’ confirmed Irvine.

  ‘NSA’s considered evaluation or just yours?’ challenged Johnston.

  ‘Mine, to be included in any NSA submission requested by Homeland Security,’ insisted Irvine.

  ‘And is it just your judgment?’ pressed Johnston, turning back to Sally.

  ‘What I’ve set out is also the opinion of my director-general; the MI5 assessment is being submitted today to the government and anti-terrorist committees, prior to the prime minister’s statement to Parliament.’

  Johnston was momentarily silenced by her answer, the effect Sally intended. ‘Is that what he’s actually going to say?’ pressed the man.

  ‘I believe the thrust is to be that despite the anonymous claims, there is no definitive evidence linking the London attempt to al Aswamy or Iran, and therefore no proof of a concerted, well-organized global terrorist campaign,’ paraphrased Sally, conscious as she spoke of the visible surprise on the faces of all three men—particularly Irvine—at her apparent high level of knowledge of government thinking. Sally knew from their earlier preparations that David Monkton would confirm that inference when Johnston spoke to him, which she had no doubt the man would do immediately after this meeting.

  ‘You think that’s enough to reassure people there is no international jihad?’ questioned Johnston, his tension easing. ‘They’re still acts of terrorism.’

  ‘It won’t reassure everyone; conspiracy theorists are always waiting in line,’ conceded Sally, wanting to move on. ‘But there are more than enough disparities to make the case for the majority. And there are other possibilities involving al Aswamy.’

  ‘What!’ immediately seized Bradley, coming forward in his chair.

  Sally staged the hesitation, wanting to register uncertainty in Johnston’s mind. ‘There could be further reciprocity between our two services.’

  ‘What’s that mean?’ persisted Bradley.

  ‘There’s been some discussion about prisoner access.’

  ‘With your Sellafield detainees?’ demanded Johnston, the tone and the immediate facial colouring betraying his ignorance of the higher-authority Washington request.

  ‘Everything’s still at a very preliminary stage: it’s not as straightforward as my coming here,’ said Sally, avoiding the positive answer but wanting to imply her personal participation. ‘Technically their custody is MI5’s responsibility: we’re conducting the interrogations at the moment.’

  ‘And you are aware of these discussions?’ pressed Johnston, as she’d hoped he would.

  ‘I’m included in the consultations.’ Come on, she thought, give me a way in!

  Irvine said, ‘Seems like we’re looking to you for quite a lot of co-operation?’

  Good enough, decided Sally. ‘That’s what we’ve agreed to, isn’t it? Total co-operation and intelligence exchange of everything?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Johnston. ‘That’s our agreement.’

  Jack Irvine only just held back from snatching for his muted cell phone, pressing into his chair to suppress its vibrating alert. He said, ‘I’m sure it’s going to work out just great.’

  James Bradley said nothing.

  * * *

  ‘He broke his own record: you could scarcely have shut the door behind you,’ timed Monkton.

  ‘He ended the meeting straight after I mentioned prisoner exchange,’ said Sally, back in the uncomfortably familiar communications cubicle. ‘I’m sure Johnston didn’t know.’

  ‘So am I, although he obviously didn’t admit it. Conrad Graham’s not doing a lot for morale.’

  ‘He’s doing a lot for ours, though.’

  ‘The PM took our lead for his Commons statement. And Berlin is dismissing any link between Hamburg and al Aswamy.’

  ‘What about bounty response?’

  ‘No-one’s bothering to count public-report sightings anymore. None we’ve got in custody have broken rank yet.’

  ‘How are you judging that?’

  ‘I want to think that the threat was an empty bluff, to achieve the reaction it has, but I’m keeping my options open. Nothing on al Aswamy?’

  ‘Not as of an hour ago, when I left Langley.’

  ‘Have we done enough to keep you in the loop?’

  ‘If it’s about al Aswamy, yes. If they get him, they’ll believe their immediate problems are over and want to tell the world. I’m still not learning anything about Cyber Shepherd: certainly not sufficient to understand what it’s been set up to achieve.’

  ‘You sure you’re right about Irvine?’

  ‘Not at all. It’s still a hunch, a feeling without anything more to it than the name and a Middle East connection, which could just be coincidental. But I don’t believe in coincidence.’

  ‘Pity there isn’t a photograph.’

  ‘It would be an old one.’

  ‘The ambassador’s protested to the Foreign Office at how you’re being allowed to operate.’

  ‘We expec
ted that.’

  ‘And Records have complained at your insistence upon having the material you wanted dictated on an open line instead of being scanned over. They claim it risked security.’

  ‘It would have been scanned to the communications room. Fellowes is the bureau chief, known and acknowledged. I’m not. I don’t believe the scan would have been sent solely to me, even with an Eyes Only restriction.’

  ‘What would the name have meant to Fellowes, even if he’d read it?’

  Sally was damned if she was going to be pressured by the man as he’d harassed Jeremy Dodson and God knows how many others. ‘Not a lot, to begin with. But what if he’d bounced it off one of his CIA or FBI friends on the cocktail circuit? And they’d asked around among themselves and discovered a resented MI5 officer—on an assignment her ambassador isn’t allowed to know about—was asking about a disgraced former ambassador?’

  Monkton was silent for several moments. ‘I don’t want to provide ammunition for continuing complaints.’

  ‘Neither do I.’

  There was further silence before Monkton said, ‘I thought you had a meeting with Irvine today?’

  She hoped Monkton hadn’t regarded the exchange as a contest. If he had, it was too bad. ‘He’s calling me; promised it will be today, sometime.’

  ‘I’ll wait to hear,’ ended Monkton, replacing the receiver in London without any farewell.

  Wait was all that she could now do, accepted Sally. And if she was right that the soft burr she’d heard from Irvine’s direction at the end of the meeting had been a muted cell phone, it might be a long wait.

  * * *

  Burt Singleton’s remotely accessed screen came into focus as the man picked up his telephone at Fort Meade. Instantly recognizing the images on his screen, Irvine said, ‘Tehran’s back on?’

  ‘Loud but not clear,’ confirmed Singleton. ‘Idrid@righttime.dj—Djibouti’s a first—is a new domain in the Action subcatalog. Not on our watch list, either. And we haven’t encountered the code before, either. Obviously it isn’t broken yet; it’s not going to be easy getting repetitions. Like the two that Malik picked up, it was originally in Arabizi. It was switched into Roman script at a Sana’a Facebook account. Which is where we lost it. I’m guessing a public-facility receiver, maybe a teahouse.’

  ‘Something—al Aswamy, most likely—is moving, from a message concentration like that!’ said Irvine.

  ‘No trail after Sana’a. The bastards have well and truly learned the memory-stick trick, haven’t they?’

  ‘It’s their job,’ said Irvine pragmatically. ‘And ours to beat them at. How do you rate our chances?’

  Irvine imagined the shrug that went with the pause from the other end before the man said, ‘Is it that twitchy up there?’

  Now Irvine frowned, discomfited at so unwittingly conveying the attitude at Langley. ‘I’m trying to keep our part of the operation afloat.’ Which might not be Singleton’s ambition, he thought, remembering the man’s initial reaction to his complete explanation of Shepherd.

  ‘If it’s to al Aswamy, we might pick up a response if the messages require responses, and if by the time we do that we’ve broken the new code, and if that reply establishes a route, and if that route doesn’t get broken by another memory-stick transfer…’ The pause now was for effect. ‘To save you the trouble, that’s five ifs.’

  ‘I kept up with the count and take your points,’ said Irvine. ‘No reappearance from Anis?’

  ‘Akram wants to know what to do.’

  ‘Go back into the room,’ decided Irvine. ‘Try one of the others you’ve isolated if Anis doesn’t show. And if Anis does turn up, tell Akram to wait for him to make the approach.’

  ‘You going to say anything about the re-activation?’

  ‘Not until we know more.’

  ‘What have you got to tell me!’

  ‘The Brits aren’t linking last night with a continuing al Aswamy campaign: they think they were opportunists, jumping on a bandwagon.’

  ‘Can’t see how that helps a hell of a lot.’

  ‘What you’ve just told me could change a lot of things,’ said Irvine, deciding against disclosing the potential prisoner access—and the inevitable rendition—to someone who already questioned the legality of what they were doing.

  ‘Is the British gal co-operating?’

  ‘On a political level she’s giving us more than we’re giving her because we’ve got fuck all to give!’

  ‘You going to tell her everything about Shepherd? GCHQ might have come across today’s code.’

  ‘It’s a thought,’ begrudged Irvine.

  ‘Then think it,’ urged Singleton. ‘Jesus had disciples, remember?’

  And one of Snow White’s little helpers was named Grumpy, thought Irvine.

  * * *

  ‘Didn’t think you were going to call,’ greeted Sally.

  ‘Got caught up in something,’ said Irvine, who like the rest of the Fort Meade team had failed to understand anything of the new Iranian code. ‘Didn’t think I’d still be at Langley.’

  Clumsy avoidance or even clumsier seduction pitch? Immaterial questions: she had him on the line, literally, and she wasn’t going to let him get away. ‘It’s only a little after seven. I don’t consider it late.’

  ‘We could meet in town.’

  Seduction pitch, she isolated; better, on balance, than heavy-footed avoidance. ‘Why don’t we do that?’

  ‘There’s a touring Boston Philharmonic at the Kennedy Center or jazz in Georgetown. We can eat at either.’

  ‘Georgetown,’ she chose at once. ‘Let’s eat first.’

  ‘There’s an Italian place on M Street and Wisconsin: Francesco’s. Eight o’clock?’

  18

  Sally was there by eight fifteen, determined to be first. But failed. Irvine had beaten her by what she guessed from his half-empty beer mug to be several minutes, maybe as many as ten if not more. Sally resolved the awkward hiatus of his rising to greet her simply by sitting down without offering a handshake or cheek to be kissed, which she guessed to be his open-armed expectation. The jeans were those he’d worn earlier, but the casual-necked, button-up polo shirt and Ivy League blazer, complete with heavily embossed, fake club badge, replaced the sweatshirt. Suspecting the preparations, Sally had changed, too. Her indigo Gucci silk shirt contrasted against the designer-faded jeans but matched the Chanel pumps. A cologne miasma smothered her Dior eau de toilette, so she guessed he’d showered as well.

  Sally thought, Zero for trying too hard, minus even that for over-confidence.

  Irvine thought, Good-bye empty bed, fingers crossed against my receiving a cell phone alert that spoils it all. Gesturing around the crowded restaurant, he said, ‘Much more conducive than Langley.’

  ‘Conducive to what?’ Rules of engagement from the outset, she determined.

  Right off the block, Irvine decided, encouraged. ‘Getting to know each other, working together. That’s the idea, isn’t it?’

  ‘Very definitely my idea. Is it yours?’

  The waiter’s arrival broke the moment. Sally ordered valpolicella. Irvine shook his head against more beer. Struggling for the innuendo, he said, ‘Do you take the lead in everything?’

  A lead she had to get absolutely right, she reminded herself, ignoring the clumsiness: professional business before private curiosity. ‘I appear to be providing all of that without getting anything in return.’

  Her obvious reference to the earlier Langley encounter momentarily confused him, but if those were the motions she wanted initially to go through, it was fine by him. ‘What other way is there except from you guys? All we’ve done is fuck up big-time and create an international crisis. And we sure as hell don’t want to talk about that.’

  Sally suggested they order when the waiter returned with her wine, guarding against interruptions. Not waiting for his agreement, she took linguine with clams. After a brief hesitation, Irvine chose veal and a bottle of the wine
she was drinking.

  Sally said, ‘I don’t want to talk about any of that, either. What I want to talk about is a secret covert operation conducted by a very select code-breaking unit that was pretty damned successful before the CIA fucked up, a fuckup that wasn’t the direct fault or responsibility of that unit.’

  Irvine looked sharply around the adjoining tables before coming back to her, genuinely off-balance. ‘You’ve forgotten we’re in a public place, for Christ’s sake!’

  ‘A very noisy public place. There are only two tables that could conceivably over-hear us, and I’ve tried very hard since I got here to catch a single word that either couple has said. And haven’t. We said “fuck” three times—that makes it four—and there hasn’t been the slightest reaction from any of them, which there instinctively would have been even though it’s an utterly meaningless and inoffensive expression outside of monasteries and nunneries and probably not even there. From now on we can talk in generalities that wouldn’t mean a thing if overheard. So let’s stop fucking about—there, I’ve said it again and no-one flinched—and you tell me what’s so special or different about what you’re doing from what NSA does all the time but which no-one is telling me, despite a supposed agreement. And despite, also, an exchange bargain that might solve your embarrassment.’

  She hadn’t been first off the block in the way he’d hoped, and his false start could have disqualified him, Irvine acknowledged. But it was recoverable. He smiled broadly and said, ‘That sure was one hell of a speech!’

  ‘Any part you didn’t quite understand? I do re-runs.’ Easy, she warned herself. He was back on track; she didn’t want to stir resentment.

  ‘I think I got it all.’ Why hadn’t he gone back up to Fort Meade to continue the code search instead of subjecting himself to this!

  ‘So do I get it all in return?’

  She really did have them by the balls, Irvine conceded, glad he’d already thought everything through. Fort Meade was occupying more of his thinking now than thoughts of an empty bed.