The Cloud Collector

by Brian Freemantle

  * * *

  Illogically, having made the discovery it had not until now occurred to her to pursue, Sally’s feeling was of anti-climax.

  It had proved remarkably easy, simply cross-referencing what she’d partially obtained from the long telephone conversation with London Archives against easily available American government records in the Washington embassy library. Which Sally could have done anytime, anywhere. That she’d been curious enough to do so now was the result of being, albeit minimally, in an embassy environment and making the connection to the Irvine name from the passing remarks about the code-breaker’s Middle East upbringing. All of which amounted to what? Certainly a bizarre coincidence for someone who didn’t believe in coincidence. But little else to any practical use.

  Taken to its paranoid extreme, it could be argued that her parents would not have died in the aftermath of U.S. ambassador Andrew Irvine’s deluded misconception of a Middle East peace process with Yasser Arafat’s Al Fatah. But by the same reasoning, they wouldn’t have died had they not chosen to cross from Jordan into Lebanon on the very day the fighting began between Hamas and Al Fatah, a direct result of Ambassador Irvine’s unapproved and misguided diplomatic initiative. In the current cynicism of the region their deaths were considered collateral damage. Which was not, nor could ever be, her cynicism. Only to herself—and definitely not to the psychiatrists and psychologists whose examinations she’d defeated—did Sally admit an early, unfocused determination to hunt down their killers by joining the security service. Her reaction then at learning Jack Irvine was the son of the disgraced American envoy to Lebanon would probably have been very different from what it was today. Now she realistically acknowledged the impossibility of ever finding the bomb throwers or the Kalashnikov marksmen. That realism did not mean, though, that she’d emerged from her aching grief, which she’d also concealed from her examiners. It meant she’d created her own impenetrable self-protective firewall from behind which to live.

  Confirming Jack Irvine’s background had been pointless, a self-indulged distraction; even arrogant, she accepted, remembering Nigel Fellowes’s accusation. Perhaps she was adjusting already.

  * * *

  ‘I asked to be kept in touch, remember?’ complained Harry Packer. ‘I’ve been trying to get you since yesterday.’

  ‘We spoke the day before yesterday. There’s been nothing on my voice mail since then.’

  ‘I want to speak to you personally, not through voice mail.’

  ‘We’re speaking personally now,’ said Irvine, irritably shifting the Langley telephone to his other ear. ‘What’s your problem, Harry?’

  ‘Not being kept up-to-date is my problem.’ How much easier would it be if he told Irvine that one of his team wanted out?

  ‘There’s no update since we last spoke. If there were, I’d have been the one to contact you.’

  ‘I’m talking about real progress, not all this bullshit stuff. Aren’t you picking up anything!’

  ‘Nothing that’s leading anywhere, not yet.’

  ‘So there is something!’ seized Packer.

  ‘When there is, you’ll hear about it,’ refused Irvine. ‘You know where we’re working from. We don’t see enough of you.’

  Motherfucker, thought Packer.

  21

  Jack Irvine didn’t interrupt Burt Singleton, not wanting the increasing irritation—now at being left out—to be obvious. Scrolling through the saved exchange, he said, ‘You’re right. Akram really got a handle on it.’

  ‘So’s Shab,’ said Singleton with unusual enthusiasm. ‘We’ve got a lot to work on, from the domain IP. It’s turning into a great team effort.’

  Without my being part of it, thought Irvine. ‘Why didn’t you call me?’

  ‘That’s what I’m doing now!’

  ‘I mean when it was going on.’

  ‘Marian called your Langley number: got no reply or switch-over and assumed you’d picked up the interception on your cell link and were on your way here. And it was going on: we handled it.’

  ‘And I’m grateful,’ Irvine retreated awkwardly. ‘You’re a hell of a backup, all of you.’

  ‘You coming down now?’

  ‘Later. There are things to do here first.’ Singleton was patronizing him, as Johnston and Bradley had, Irvine decided.

  ‘Seems constantly busy up there?’

  He must have been with Conrad Graham when they’d tried to reach him, his alerting cell phone connected to the Vevak botnet and his Langley line on divert. ‘Anyone pick up on something they didn’t expect?’

  ‘Like what?’ demanded Singleton.

  It wasn’t a bingo night quiz, thought Irvine. ‘Sally and I were put under CIA surveillance; not sure if it extended to you guys down there. If it was, it’s being lifted by the deputy director. But I want all of you to make sure that it has been taken off. And tell Packer, too—’

  ‘Son of a bitch!’ exploded Singleton. ‘What the fuck’s going on up there?’

  ‘Things you wouldn’t believe,’ dismissed Irvine, glad he’d redressed the lost balance. ‘How do you read Tehran’s silence about the bounty?’

  ‘Make a list, close your eyes, and stick in a pin,’ said Singleton cynically.

  ‘Look where you’re sticking your pin,’ insisted Irvine.

  ‘Why should Tehran bother to say anything publicly beyond their denial of the three original attempts? They know we haven’t got al Aswamy. They say anything more—or leak denials through their known ally countries—it’s a contradiction of that denial.’

  ‘What about Hydarnes?’

  Singleton paused. ‘I haven’t got any further on that; it’s my concentration, obviously.’

  ‘Let me give you another stick-pin list. Do you think Anis and Redeemer could be a new, emergency contact and control system for al Aswamy to resume operations? Or, alternatively, an entirely new Al Qaeda group, either for a completely new campaign or to continue what al Aswamy started but can’t continue any further because he’s too compromised?’

  The hesitation this time was longer. ‘Jack, this isn’t what we do! We intercept Internet traffic between bad guys and break their codes to find out who and where they are for law enforcement and spooks to take over if we can’t turn them against each other. Hydarnes could be any one of your speculations or none of them at all, something completely different still.’ There was another pause. ‘Let me ask you a question in return: Are you bouncing your different choices off me or are they those of the British gal, who, according to my recollection, wasn’t going to infringe on our part of the operation?’

  ‘We work from speculative analyses, hypotheses, all the time,’ weakly protested Irvine, accepting he’d been outargued.

  ‘I don’t have an opinion on any of your possibilities,’ positively refused Singleton. ‘I know we’ll crack Redeemer. He didn’t have a self-destruct firewall on any of his cutouts.’

  ‘It’s darknet traffic. They feel safe, untouchable, and untraceable.’

  ‘It’s still unusually insecure.’

  ‘You using my botnets to get to Vevak?’

  ‘You know I am.’

  ‘Thought you might have created some of your own, leave mine open.’

  ‘I don’t think we should risk interfering any more with what you’ve already established.’

  ‘We’re safe enough,’ accepted Irvine, backing off again. ‘It’s Vevak I’m linked to. Call me if there’s anything elsewhere, okay? I won’t again forget to put the Langley line on divert.’

  ‘It’s not tit for tat, Jack: you’re not being left out.’

  ‘That’s good to hear,’ managed Irvine, glad his internal telephone broke the conversation.

  * * *

  ‘You son of a bitch!’ erupted James Bradley, as Irvine entered the covert director’s office.

  ‘What is it about being part of an operational group that you don’t understand!’ took up Charles Johnston, so tight-lipped it seemed difficult for him actu
ally to get the words out. He was white-faced with fury, too, in contrast to Bradley, who was heart-attack red. Irvine had expected the confrontation with at least one of the men, but not that it would also include Harry Packer, who sat uncertainly in a side chair.

  ‘The part about paranoid members of that group putting official surveillance on other members not suffering the same problems.’ Irvine, still standing, turned to Packer. ‘Didn’t expect you here, Harry. Left a message at Meade for you to be told the watch was being taken off. Didn’t think you’d like it, any more than I or any of the others down there liked or accepted it.’

  ‘Surveillance…? What…?’ stumbled the uncertain man.

  ‘You know what surveillance is, Harry? It’s what the CIA mount on people, even though by law they’re not allowed to impose it on fellow Americans, but do it so badly it’s spotted right away and everyone ends up looking like assholes. As everyone’s looking like assholes for losing an international terrorist named Ismail al Aswamy.’ Irvine went back to the silenced Johnston and Bradley. ‘If you looked at your in-boxes this morning, you will have already read the e-mail I copied to both of you in which I was complaining to the deputy director. I also included Sally Hanning in the complaint. She had already protested, very forcefully, as I am sure you’ll both recall. You really expect to get a British detainee with their invited representative on a watch list! I don’t. Neither does Conrad Graham.’ Even as Irvine spoke, he realized he was being way over-the-top, but he didn’t care because it felt good to be the shouter.

  ‘I was under surveillance!’ demanded Packer, recovering at last although still incredulous. His concern wasn’t at being watched, but at the thought of its potentially discovering the financial shit and the ongoing alimony row with Rebecca.

  ‘You’re part of an operation carrying the highest security designation—’ groped Johnston, still tight-lipped.

  ‘Don’t come at me with that necessary-protection bullshit,’ cut off Irvine. ‘I’m not taking any of it. And I’m not going down the toilet with either of you. I’m going to entrap terrorists, hopefully with people from the CIA whom I can trust.’ He needed to take a breath. ‘I’m through. Anyone got anything additional they want to say?’

  No-one spoke.

  * * *

  Sally’s third conversation of the day was a foretaste of the lackluster initiative that was to follow, although it did confirm her earlier guess that the embassy confrontation stemmed from Sir Norman Jackson’s fear of being politically bypassed by London as well as by the U.S. State Department and Homeland Security. The ambassador had been mollified by Monkton’s supposed disclosure that MI5 didn’t believe the Iranian terrorist had genuinely been detained—that it might emerge to be a mistaken identity—and the agreement that the two men should personally liaise daily, to avoid further misunderstandings.

  Sally was one of the first of the straggled arrivals for that evening’s review meeting. Johnston and Bradley were among the last, both stone-faced, and to Sally’s complete disinterest they pointedly ignored her. By contrast Jack Irvine, even later, hurried to the seat next to her, whispering as he sat that he had something to tell her. Summoned first, Irvine told the meeting there had still been no Internet interception connected to al Aswamy. Johnston contributed to the depression by adding that there’d been no practical CIA developments: they were still waiting on access to London detainees. A procession of U.S. department deputies and directors sought answers to the avalanche of demands from foreign government counterparts, intelligence and security agencies, and world media. The repeated answer was to keep stonewalling. FBI director Frederick Bowyer warned future co-operation with The New York Times was jeopardized. Another meeting was scheduled for the following day; everyone had to remain on standby for any intervening development.

  As the room emptied, Sally said, ‘What’s there to tell me?’

  Irvine said, ‘Were you tailed coming here?’

  ‘I didn’t pick it up, but I didn’t try very hard. I’ve got a meeting with Johnston in an hour.’

  ‘I went over his head, to Graham. Got it taken off all of us, you particularly. I claimed we wouldn’t get our prisoner transfer if it wasn’t lifted.’

  ‘You think it will be?’

  ‘Look harder in your rearview mirror on your way back.’

  ‘We didn’t really get to the end of all there was to talk about at that dinner, did we?’ encouraged Sally, still unsure she’d learned everything about Operation Cyber Shepherd.

  ‘A rain check,’ avoided Irvine. ‘I’m going up to Meade. My team’s there. I need to be there, too, from time to time.’

  But not when that time would take him wouldn’t extend this late into the evening unless there was a good reason, thought Sally.

  22

  No-one looked up when Irvine entered the Fort Meade hub, and however illogically he felt like an outsider, which he supposed even more illogically was how they probably regarded him; certainly it was the impression he’d gotten from Burt Singleton during their telephone conversation. Marian finally realized his presence, saving him the further awkwardness of having to announce himself.

  ‘Everyone here this late must mean something?’ Irvine said, responding to the general greeting.

  ‘Could be something,’ said Singleton cautiously. ‘That’s why we’re all still here, waiting to go through it with you.’

  ‘Al Aswamy still tops the league table,’ prompted Irvine hopefully. ‘As of two hours ago, the CIA had nothing: it’s all foxes in the hen coop up there.’

  ‘Nothing here either,’ deflated Singleton. ‘We’re getting the odd letter, but it’s not leading us anywhere.’

  ‘Our botnet firewalls are still up: we’re not falling into a trap!’ pressed Irvine, the satisfaction stirring.

  Instead of answering, Singleton gestured to his computer screen, clearly displaying Irvine’s intact cutout protection.

  ‘That’s brilliant,’ enthused Irvine. ‘Either way’s a winner.’

  ‘Providing we get it right from the moment Vevak’s transmission starts,’ qualified Singleton even more cautiously.

  Irvine thought, annoyed, that he’d overdone the praise, like someone anxious to ingratiate himself. ‘I’m missing your point.’

  ‘I’m using your bots, into which we’re both still logged, waiting for their next move,’ reminded the older man, holding Irvine’s total concentration. ‘And you’re something like twenty-eight miles away in DC, sometimes not able immediately to react, which is how we’ve got to react when Vevak—or al Aswamy from wherever he is—moves. Down here, I’m set the moment that happens.’

  Singleton was right, Irvine at once accepted. There was no benefit, no useful professional reason, for the duplication. But he didn’t want to surrender the control. Everything was his. The idea was his and the project was his and its operation was his and the success had to be his; and when others got involved with their own agendas and ambitions and careers, it was his job to protect it. Matching the other man’s caution, he said, ‘You think we could get in each other’s way?’

  ‘Not working together, side by side, moving parallel with them. Reacting separately from each other, with no guarantee of being able instantly to communicate, we’re endangering what we’re trying to do.’

  From the intentness with which they were all looking at him, Irvine suspected that some if not all of this had already been talked through, such as Singleton’s earlier remark of Irvine’s not being left out and the minimal effort made to contact him when Malik finally got a reaction from Anis and then Redeemer. ‘That’s the first priority, not endangering what we’re trying to do.’

  It was his operation, his responsibility, Irvine told himself again. He could refuse to surrender control, as his father had refused to delegate: to share anything of what he’d tried to achieve diplomatically, determined to be the peacemaker where so many others had failed. Was that his motivation here, public recognition? Hardly. Cyber Shepherd could never pu
blicly be acknowledged, as he could never openly be identified as its architect. All of which was immaterial, Irvine recognized, dismissing another illogicality to bring himself back to those still looking at him, waiting. He wouldn’t be making any concessions. He’d be showing the mature responsibility of a team leader confident in his position, adjusting to the predictable expansion of a successful project. ‘I guess there’s more to tell me, but this is how I see this part of it going forward. Still outstanding is al Aswamy, who may or may not reappear through Vevak’s Hydarnes site in which we’re still embedded and, it seems, unsuspected. What we don’t know is whether the new stuff we’ve intercepted—but not so far broken—is linked to al Aswamy or an entirely new target through Redeemer and Anis.’ The concentration was relaxing, no longer challenging, gauged Irvine. ‘So here’s how we’ll cut the cake. You, Burt, will take over the Vevak-Hydarnes monitor. You, Akram, will handle the Moscow Alternative darknet with the Anis and Redeemer postings and its subcatalogs—which I’m still waiting to hear about—with Shab and Marian acting as backup to the rest of you.’ Irvine coughed, clearing his throat. ‘I’m spending more time in DC than I intended because of al Aswamy. The moment that’s resolved, it’ll reverse with my being back here most of the time. Until then, whenever I’m in DC, I want to be contacted, day or night, on my cell—which will never be switched off—the moment anything comes from anywhere that needs the sort of reaction Burt’s talking about.’ Irvine paused gratefully. ‘Anyone got an argument with that?’

  No-one spoke. Irvine was relieved.

  So, Irvine quickly decided, were most if not all of the others. Shab Barker began speaking, rehearsed but unprompted, as Irvine turned to him, appearing at first more anxious to move beyond the confrontation than talk of his pursuit of Redeemer. He’d taken the precautions Redeemer had ignored, assured Barker, establishing self-destruct firewalls in unsuspecting computer systems in Vistula, St Petersburg, and finally Helsinki. From Finland he’d chased Redeemer into the hacked mainframe of Malmö’s third-largest fish-exporting company, established almost a hundred years earlier and still controlled by a family directorship. The chain hadn’t progressed from there, nor had Redeemer returned to any Moscow Alternative subcatalogs since the first approach. Anis had not returned there, either.