‘But Malmö is where it begins and ends,’ declared Barker. ‘Malmö is where the group is located.’
‘Where’s the evidence to support that?’ at once challenged Singleton, the edge back in his voice.
‘I finally got lucky with Anis: randomly different digital selection, randomly different result. I got the numeric code and the IP. While Akram was double-checking it today, I compared it against Redeemer, just filling in time until you got here. They’re the same.’
‘You didn’t tell us while we were waiting with you!’ accused Marian.
Irvine was aware of Singleton sitting tight-faced except for an angry tic pulling the corner of his mouth down almost into a grimace.
‘Shab and I wanted to make absolutely sure before we started ringing bells,’ said Malik. ‘It’ll be a group privately sharing the same protocol on the Action darknet. Anis was the stalking horse, testing if there’d be any attempt to follow after he made the chat-room approach. Passed us on up the chain when he was satisfied we were genuine, not law enforcement. Redeemer didn’t bother with cutouts because he didn’t think he had to; he thought he was safe. It’s classic darknet macho bullshit.’
There was such a thing as darknet macho bullshit, a lot of it even, accepted Irvine, acknowledging, too, that the delay in attempting to follow Anis had more to do with the distraction of al Aswamy than allaying fear of pursuit, but he shared some of Singleton’s reservation.
Marian said, ‘It’s not classic, and sharing a protocol is not enough on a darknet site to justify your assumption of a Malmö base. The far more likely explanation is that everything was transferred onto a memory stick to be continued from a separate computer. That’s classic.’
‘I would have expected at least one protective cutout,’ contributed Irvine.
‘That worries me, too,’ picked up Singleton, still tight-faced.
‘Why should it be worrying any of us?’ questioned Marian pragmatically. ‘We’ve picked up something that’s worth taking forward. But it’s not in our backyard. So we pass it on to the Swedish authorities, as we passed on the UK and Italian intercepts that turned out to be the al Aswamy operation.’
‘If I’m wrong, if it’s a memory-stick transfer, we don’t know if it’s going to end up in our backyard or not,’ disputed Malik, disconcerted at the opposition.
‘We can get into his bot,’ reminded Irvine.
‘We didn’t do that with the intercepts in Italy or the UK,’ immediately confronted Singleton.
‘We didn’t have the protocol at the time to get into either. And we didn’t know we were looking at a jihad conspiracy,’ came back Irvine, just as quickly. He went to Malik. ‘You did most of the hard work and there’s no reason to stop now. Hack in.’
All the machines were connected to Malik’s by remove access, the screens filling simultaneously with Malik’s page.
Marian said, ‘A friendly backyard, but still no good to us.’
‘Oh yes, it is!’ said Irvine. ‘That couldn’t be better!’
* * *
Which couldn’t be said for the early part of the evening, he decided, easing the neglected, tappets-clattering Volkswagen onto the I-95 for the unplanned return to Washington. Irvine believed he’d come out as best he could from the Singleton confrontation, but it was obvious to everyone that he’d conceded. It had all been evened out, though, by the Pakistanis’ initial coup, which he’d confirmed by approving the hacking of Redeemer’s botnet. Irvine didn’t believe Shab Barker had only discovered that Redeemer and Anis were sharing the same darknet address shortly before his arrival, any more than Marian Lowell or Burt Singleton. And Singleton’s barely controlled annoyance at an announcement he wasn’t expecting more than balanced out whatever he’d achieved by gaining total control of the Vevak monitoring.
To what was he returning? wondered Irvine, welcoming the glow of Washington ahead. Conrad Graham’s reaction to Irvine’s Fort Meade telephone alert of Malik’s success had been far more subdued than Irvine expected. The deputy CIA director’s initial concentration must have been entirely on the following day’s specially convened meeting Irvine had been summoned to attend. At least he now had something positive to offer for a change.
At just past ten thirty, when Irvine got to Owen Place, he abruptly thought of calling Sally. Just as quickly he put the idea out of his mind, irritated that the thought had occurred at all.
23
It took a further year of fighting and dying after the Vietnam peace declaration before Hanoi and Washington diplomatically agreed to the shape of the table at which an accord was formally ratified, recalled Jack Irvine. That absurdity, according to his mother, began her husband’s professional disillusionment, later explained away—for diplomatically acceptable reasons, what else?—as an irrecoverable mental breakdown. Which of those currently assembled around the deputy CIA director’s conference table was beyond recovery? wondered Irvine, surveying the men opposite. It surely had to be James Bradley, as always tightly mummified as if in readiness for burial. Johnston was also looking nervously around, inviting reassurance. What Irvine hadn’t expected was being awakened at 5:00 a.m. by Harry Packer, whose NSA position couldn’t be endangered, on his way from Baltimore insisting he wasn’t partnered in internal manoeuvring with either Bradley or Johnston. Irvine felt comfortable in the knowledge that he was safe, eager to detail to Conrad Graham the previous night’s discovery.
Irvine suspected that Graham staged his late arrival for effect, which he immediately compounded by announcing that as of that moment he was personally taking control of Operation Cyber Shepherd. There were to be no unilateral actions that hadn’t first been approved by him, including the choice and delegation of all subsidiary CIA personnel. CIA surveillance upon anyone currently engaged in the operation had been lifted. None was to be imposed in the future. The open dissent and criticism of the control and command of Operation Cyber Shepherd from virtually every other Homeland Security agency had reached the White House, from where the instructions he was relaying had been issued. There were more than a dozen open threats of exchange withdrawal from foreign intelligence agencies with which they’d enjoyed close and useful co-operation, and The New York Times was now leading the worldwide media campaign for more information.
‘Don’t anyone misunderstand what I’m telling you,’ continued Graham. ‘We’re into damage limitation. What began well is now an unmitigated disaster that could get even worse if a Homeland group tries to save its public ass by burning ours.’
Irvine wasn’t feeling comfortable anymore, either. He was burning with frustrated anger at having everything he’d made successful—something the president himself had openly praised—endangered by incompetent assholes such as James Bradley and Charles Johnston. And it would be destroyed, Irvine knew. Damage limitation meant abandoning Operation Cyber Shepherd as a deluded aberration, which was how his father’s enterprise had been labeled and discarded. Irvine understood at last the deputy director’s almost disinterested response to his previous night’s phone call. Conrad Graham had formally approved Cyber Shepherd and briefly basked in the initial presidential praise; now he had a lot of distancing to achieve to prevent himself from becoming a victim of its debacle.
Graham’s curt demand—‘You have something to say?’—brought Irvine abruptly out of his reflection. He had to justify the operation, he determined; save it by convincing Graham that the situation wasn’t as desperate as the man clearly imagined it to be.
Irvine stepped cautiously out onto the verbal tightrope between restoring faith in Cyber Shepherd and keeping safe from Johnston and Bradley anything about Vevak and Hydarnes. ‘We can recover,’ he declared. ‘We’re following a new trail on a known terrorist Internet route. One of the targets is careless, hasn’t bothered to hide himself inside a host computer because he’s working through a darknet, an underground, no-questions-asked, hidden-identity site, and believes he’s safe. Which he isn’t. We’re not in a position to move yet, bu
t we will be very soon. We’ve already discovered a connection from Malmö, in Sweden, where we believe his group is based, with another cell in England. The indications are that there’s something being planned.’ Irvine paused, not anticipating any understanding from either Johnston or Bradley, but hopeful at least of some recognition from Harry Packer or Conrad Graham.
It didn’t come. Instead Johnston said, ‘What the hell interest is any of this to us!’
‘A potentially British-headquartered terrorist group is planning an action of some sort,’ patiently finished Irvine, depressed and disappointed in equal measure. ‘A British MI5 officer is holding us to ransom over access to detainees who conceivably know not just where al Aswamy’s hiding but where other American targets might be. Sally Hanning’s lost her ransom threat. It’s ours now. So are as many detainees as we want.’
‘Oh, yes!’ finally acknowledged a beaming Conrad Graham. ‘Now we’ve got her by the balls, and I want them squeezed hard to get us out of this mess.’
Charles Johnston said, ‘I’ve got yesterday’s postponed meeting with her scheduled in an hour. I’ll enjoy doing it.’
‘You and Jim,’ insisted Graham, the smiled satisfaction gone. ‘Nothing unilateral anymore, remember?’
Jack Irvine couldn’t believe he’d made the impression he’d hoped.
* * *
Sally gave no reaction because there was none to give: she was neither surprised nor angry at the reversal. The tables simply had to be turned back as quickly as possible, and from her experience so far of the two men confronting her, she didn’t imagine that would be too difficult. Except that they were the monkeys, not the organ grinder, and from what they’d already disclosed in their bullying eagerness to intimidate her, it was upon Jack Irvine and his Facebook intercepting team at Ford Meade that those tables had to be turned. Whatever else there might be for her to learn depended upon what Johnston and Bradley had been told, which she didn’t imagine to be a lot.
‘You haven’t spoken yet to my director-general?’ she prompted mildly.
‘I will,’ said Johnston heavily. ‘But knowing how closely you liaise, I didn’t think it essential that he was the first to be told.’
That was a lie of Pinocchio proportions, Sally recognized: Johnston obviously imagined it would be easier to intimidate her than to verbally confront David Monkton. Which suited her perfectly: always an advantage to be underestimated, she reminded herself. ‘I appreciate the courtesy of your telling me in advance, but as I’ve made clear from the outset, the decision about detainee exchange has to come from London.’
Bradley gave an overly pained grimace. ‘We want a detainee on a plane now!’
‘I’m sure you’ll make that clear to my director-general.’ Sally smiled. ‘I’ll reiterate it, of course, when I do speak to London. I’m as anxious as everyone to get this resolved: I certainly don’t want any obstacles to our continued co-operation.’
‘We want a response by tomorrow, better still before this day’s out,’ repeated a tightly red-faced Johnston. ‘You seem to be having difficulty understanding that continued co-operation depends upon an immediate detainee release.’
Neither of them was infuriated enough yet to let anything slip, but she was getting there, Sally decided. ‘There’s no misunderstanding. The problem, as it’s always been, is that extraordinary rendition is politically very contentious in the UK, as it is here.’
Johnston said, ‘There’s a terrorist cell in the UK that we can lead you to, for Christ’s sake! You really think you’ve still got a bargaining position!’
Getting closer, Sally thought. ‘Since the three concerted attacks, we’ve stepped up everything at GCHQ. I’d expect them already to have picked up something of what you’re indicating. And there’s the wider seine net of Echelon, but anything extra that NSA has would obviously be a bonus.’
Johnston visibly smirked. Bradley actually snorted in derision and said, ‘You really don’t understand, do you! The only way you’re going to get anything about a UK attack is through us, and the only way you’re going to get anything through us is by putting one of your prisoners on the flight we’ve already got fueled and crewed at Andrews air base.’
‘In fact,’ quickly took up Johnston, ‘I don’t think there’s an exchange limit anymore. We want them all.’
‘Something else to take up with my director-general.’
‘He won’t be surprised,’ said Johnston, the smirk still hovering.
Another snippet, gauged Sally: in addition to this pantomime, separate political pressure was being exerted. Enough, Sally decided. She had to find out more, but this wasn’t the place and these weren’t the men to provide it. ‘You’ve made yourself very clear. I’m grateful.’
‘Which we expect to be, too, ASAP,’ said Bradley, a bully imagining he’d won.
Sally didn’t hurry the return drive to Massachusetts Avenue, intentionally detouring twice to satisfy herself that surveillance hadn’t been re-imposed. Nigel Fellowes was leaving the communications room as she approached. When she reached him, the MI5 station chief smiled and said, ‘I’m damned glad I’m not in any way involved.’
Continuing on, Sally said, ‘Don’t you own another tie?’
* * *
‘A direct threat?’ demanded David Monkton.
‘Unequivocal,’ confirmed Sally. ‘All Hollywood tough-guy stuff.’
‘You don’t sound impressed.’
‘It’s difficult to be. It’ll be something NSA has picked up on, maybe from one of the anonymity-guaranteeing sites: GCHQ will know how difficult it might be to catch up. I’d guess virtually impossible. And I know there’s political pressure, although I can’t imagine official State Department involvement in extraordinary rendition. Johnston virtually turned political pressure into another threat, and Nigel Fellowes made it clear the embassy’s in the loop.’
‘The complaint at their being sidelined is at embassy to Foreign Office level, which is still astonishing if it ever leaks,’ confirmed Monkton. ‘It shows the panic that’s going to skyrocket at the thought of something else happening here.’
‘When’s the flight?’
‘Tonight. There’s an unmarked C-130 en route to Northolt as we speak. CIA, of course. Unfiled destination.’
‘Johnston said he wants them all.’
‘He tried that with me. I told him we couldn’t release any more until we’d finished interrogating them ourselves.’
‘I’ll be excluded from now on.’
‘Until we find a way to get you back in,’ said Monkton.
‘Until we find a way back in,’ echoed Sally in agreement.
‘What’s your next move?’
‘Getting myself invited out to dinner. But before that I’m going to try to talk to a man I only know as John at GCHQ.’
‘Let’s hope that’s enough to find him.’
It was.
* * *
That afternoon anti-terrorist police arrested the two men caught on CCTV running from the failed bombing of the London Eye. They were identified from that footage by a former IRA commander, now a Belfast city councillor, following a £10,000 newspaper reward. The two were members of the still-active breakaway Real IRA who’d intended the destruction as a pay-up warning to British Airways—one of the original sponsors of the tourist attraction—and Thames riverboat and ferry operators from whom they planned to extort operational funds.
Coincidentally, within two hours of the British swoop, an informant guided the DCR, the French internal-security equivalent of Britain’s MI5, to a planning session of an Algerian anarchist group in the Paris suburb of Neuilly-sur-Seine. Among evidence recovered were the blueprints of the original Eiffel Tower attack, including the names of its unsuccessful perpetrators, and even more detailed drawings of their intended second, hopefully more successful, attempt. As with the first set of documents, every attacker named was seized by the DCR.
The time difference between London, Paris, and Washington
, DC, enabled extensive background on both arrests to be established for the early-evening news that Sally watched in her embassy compound apartment. Government security ministers and spokesmen for both intelligence services appeared on every station through which Sally flicked, all emphatically insisting the arrests proved there was no organized global terrorist campaign. Without exception, the news reports also carried longer segments from other politicians and intelligence agencies criticizing the total news blackout of Ismail al Aswamy’s supposed arrest. Sally stopped bothering to count the open accusations that the FBI had got the wrong man.
‘Long time no speak,’ brightly greeted Sally when Jack Irvine answered his telephone.
‘I was about to call. You fancy the same place?’
‘It’s noisy enough not to be overheard.’
Irvine didn’t immediately reply. Then he said, ‘Eight okay?’
‘Check for company on your way from Owen Place,’ advised Sally, the idea prompted from her earlier precautionary drive back to the embassy.
24
Recovery—however, by whatever means—was Sally’s sole objective. She arrived thirty minutes early to her already-booked table, the one they’d occupied the first time, and had almost finished her first glass of valpolicella when Jack Irvine got there. She’d worn the same indigo Gucci silk shirt, faded jeans, and Chanel pumps. She guessed Irvine had left his apartment in what he’d been wearing—holed jeans, a blank sweatshirt, and scuffed loafers—when she’d phoned. She wasn’t overpowered by his cologne, either.
He smiled down, not immediately sitting. ‘This time you won.’
Sally smiled back. ‘By my reckoning I lost.’ As he finally sat, she said, ‘I didn’t know what beer to order.’
‘I’ll stay with the wine.’ He looked around at the closeness of adjacent tables. ‘It’s not as crowded as before.’
The Cloud Collector Page 18