by Henry Porter
‘Has he just offered me a platform to expose Mila Daus and her networks?’
‘Can you trust him?’
‘Shit, no.’
‘Then we go ahead and assume he is part of her network and is trying to draw you out. But it’s still an opportunity, if we can prove who she is.’
‘Wouldn’t it be something to get her there? I mean, actually in Congress. Get the bitch sitting where Denis was.’
He gave her a doubtful look. ‘How would that happen?’
‘When I get back I’ll talk to Shera Ricard, our representative in Congress. But we aren’t ready, and, shit, I’m not sure I can do this. I mean, you saw Speight chew Denis up on the stand. And it’s not as though he is the only one that can ask questions. Maybe he’s organising some kind of ambush with other members of his group.’
‘Look, we should go,’ he said, brushing down the back of his hair and looking around for his jacket.
She caught his hand. ‘Can we really pull this off, Samson?’
‘Let’s see what we’ve got. We’ll know in an hour or so.’
She held on to his hand. ‘Thanks for being understanding about things. It’s just not possible at the moment . . .’
‘However beautiful you are, however much I exalt in sleeping with you, I have to tell you that sex is the last thing on my mind.’
‘And I’m sorry for not telling you about the baby.’ She stopped and smiled shyly. ‘That’s the last time I mention it. I’ve recovered. I’m no longer crazy. That’s all in the past.’
Her attention went to the window, where a butterfly was trapped. She let go of his hand and took a few steps to let it out.
‘What are you smiling for?’ she asked.
‘I’ll tell you another time,’ he said. ‘We’d better get going.’
He dragged the desk back to its position and noticed that an envelope had been slipped under the door. Inside was a note from Ulrike explaining that she had changed the venue of the meeting. The address was on the other side of the old town. She stressed that particular care should be taken to avoid being followed.
Chapter 28
Open Toombs
Anastasia went on ahead. Samson paid his bill and joined the crowds of young Estonians in the streets of the old town on a warm spring evening. He’d gone no more than a hundred metres when an SUV pulled up alongside him and Frank Toombs got out. ‘You want to be shot, Samson? I mean, what the hell are you doing?’
‘Hello, Frank, what can I help you with?’
‘Get in the fucking car.’
‘I’m on my way to meet an old friend, so if you don’t mind.’
He opened the door. ‘You need to hear what I have to say.’
Samson climbed in and three younger agents got out. Toombs wore his usual expression of disdain, but Samson knew he wanted something. ‘Okay, I’m listening,’ said Samson.
‘You’re dumb to be walking around like that. You’ll certainly not survive the next twenty-four hours if you stay here. The place is crawling with Russians who want you dead.’
‘I hear you.’
‘What are you going to do with it?’
‘What?’
‘The information you have.’
Samson gave a shrug and looked ahead.
‘This is where we stand. I know that Robert Harland and Denis Hisami were in a position to reveal names of senior individuals in the US that have been compromised by Russia, or work for Russian interests as a matter of choice. We know that Congress was attacked to protect those names and, with Harland’s death and Hisami’s incapacitation, those parties believe they’re now safe. Yet they’d be a lot happier if you and Anastasia were dead, too, and there’s no doubt in my mind that they’ll achieve that aim within a very short time frame.’ He stopped and opened a window. It was warm without the car’s air con. ‘And I guess that applies to your people, too. They’d happily feed you into a woodchipper. But, hey, that’s the British for you.’
‘Maybe,’ said Samson.
‘Maybe nothing! They want to close you down – hence the arrest warrant – because they’re desperate to keep it away from the Russians. At least in my country we have people who remember what the Cold War was about – Russia, Russia, Russia.’
‘So?’
‘Let’s cut to it. This information is going to come out, and we need to know exactly who’s involved. I want a list, a heads up.’
Samson was silent.
‘In exchange, we’ll provide you with protection.’
‘Like the protection you’ve given me and Anastasia over the last few days?’
‘You don’t make it easy. By the way, I notice you never mention the kid – the Syrian kid.’
‘He’s unimportant.’
‘The hell he is. We know he’s crucial. We know, so please don’t fucking tell me otherwise. But right now my concerns are bigger than how this young man has been communicating with Mr Hisami. I’m here to protect the American people. It’s as simple as that. We can’t have a drug-dealing Balkan deadbeat walking into Congress with nerve agent again. It’s not going to happen and we’re taking steps to make sure that it doesn’t.’ He looked at his watch. ‘At this moment interventions are taking place in Ukraine to eradicate that supply chain. I doubt there’ll be many arrested alive. We’re not fucking about.’
‘And Anatoly Stepurin?’
‘We’ll get him. You were right – he’s the paymaster, the organiser and planner. And he was the one who supplied the nerve agent, so he’s a priority.’
‘No, Frank, he’s just a go-between and a slightly better class of assassin.’
‘Whatever. We’ll get him. Let’s get back on track, Samson. The grown-ups in the US government, and there aren’t too many of them . . .’
‘Try my country!’
He looked irritated. ‘The adults understand that foreign influence is preying on our weaknesses, corroding the foundations of the republic from the inside, whatever the folks at the White House say. We’ve got a problem with the British ambassador. He’s spinning a fantasy about gangsters and revenge to distract from the truth about Russian manipulation. The Secretary of State has bought it, and so has the White House. They’d rather do anything than offend Russia right now. So, if this material comes out half-assed, they can dismiss it and our only chance is blown.’
‘So what do you want?’
‘An agreement that you will give us notice of what you’ve got, and all of it!’
‘What do you mean by notice?’
‘As soon as you know – that has to be the deal.’
‘If we’re going to have an agreement,’ said Samson, ‘I don’t want you getting in the way. You will also tell me of any pushback you’re getting from the politicians. By the way, what’s the hurry?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘You seem nervous, Toombs. I mean, you’re pushing this.’ And then he had a second thought. ‘They’re going to shut you down now you’ve nailed the supply line, and you know there’s so much more. And you desperately need it to come out. They’re telling you – job done!’
‘Something like that, yes. But you have to tell me what you’ve got. I need to have ammunition and, in the meantime, I will guarantee your safety.’
‘Others have offered.’
‘Suddenly everyone wants you alive, Samson.’
‘Fine – it’s a deal.’
They shook hands and he left the car.
Chapter 29
Raw Data
The address on Ulrike’s note was a drama school. The entrance was barred by an elaborate art nouveau metal gate. Samson pressed the bell and the gate lock was released. He entered a short, gloomy passageway and, after being asked by a young black British woman to switch off his phones and deposit them in a box, was directed to a rehearsal room at the back of the building. ‘H
ave we met?’ he said. ‘I feel we have.’
‘Maybe my twin, Jessie? She was working at GreenState. I’m Joy.’ She led him to a rehearsal room at the back of the building, where Ulrike stood with her hands clasped like a welcoming headmistress. Behind her were the props from a production: an empty picture frame, suspended on wires, an animal skull on a cocktail table and a psychiatrist’s couch. The chairs were organised in a crescent. A portable screen had been erected and Naji stood at a flat lectern with an open laptop. He raised a hand without looking up.
‘This is Paul Samson, who some of you know,’ said Ulrike. ‘A dozen or more faces turned. Macy Harp gave him an awkward nod, and the Bird, still in his faded cap, performed a sort of salute. Anastasia, Zoe and Rudi were sitting together. Zoe got up and introduced the young people around her – Kurt, Joy, Jessie, Patrick, Craig, Leah, Magnus, Rose, Chris, Axel, Ibrahim and Marina. Samson lost track of who was who, but he logged that four were American, ‘Finally, this is Merlin,’ she said. Francis, the young gamer who had shared the overflow room with Samson at GreenState and introduced him to the concept of Düppel in the gamers’ pub, nodded and flicked back his hair.
Ulrike dimmed the lights with a remote and moved forward into a pool of light. ‘Samson is now going to take control of the operation. My husband would want this. I have spoken to Mr Harp and Mrs Hisami, and they’re in agreement and believe it would also be Mr Hisami’s wish.’
Samson turned to them. ‘Okay, so we need – I need – to know everything. I guess someone had better take me through it. Naji, can you do that?’
Zoe spoke. ‘We thought I would do the talking and Naji the slideshow, if that’s all right with you. I now know everything Naji does. Okay, so the first thing those of you who haven’t worked on this must understand is that the global environmental action group GreenState is a total fraud. All the marketing and branding says “We’re here to save the planet and we’ve got a whole bunch of dedicated activists working round the clock in every time zone.” That’s bullshit. GreenState is a scam. It’s a ruthless enterprise that soaks up money and data and allows Mila Daus and Jonathan Mobius to influence politics on both sides of the Atlantic, but, much, much more important, it is one part of their operation to gather high-grade intelligence for the West’s enemies.
‘GreenState is a brilliant cover operation, yet it provided us with a great opportunity to penetrate Mila Daus’s organisation because it has inbuilt vulnerabilities, not the least of which is its size. This was Robert Harland’s idea.’ She stopped, looked around the young people in her audience, who had not been at the funeral. ‘Most of you don’t know he was my father. I want to say right now he gave what little remained of his life for this work and, because of that, Ulrike, Rudi and I were never able to say goodbye to him. That’s one good reason why we absolutely have to see this through.’
She turned to the older faces. ‘But GreenState and Jonathan Mobius are not the only part of this organisation. There are three other individuals in the United States who run their own networks and are entirely distinct from GreenState. You should think of GreenState as just one of four separate operations – okay?
‘My father gave these four entities colour codes: ‘PEARL GREY, PITCH BLACK, AURORA RED and SAFFRON YELLOW. On top of the pile, receiving all the information and controlling everything, was Mila Daus. My father named her Berlin Blue.
‘What we did was to mirror Mila Daus’s structure to find out what we could about these individuals. Then all the information went to my father and Denis Hisami, who built a picture of Mila Daus’s activities. The people in this room – plus others who can’t be here – worked separately and we had little contact with each other. Only Naji, Rudi and I had contact with all of you.
‘It’s really important to understand that our task was to acquire the raw data, the leads, the connections, the copies of emails and text messages, recordings of video calls, information about the money transfers, the dates and venues of meetings, plus information on Mobius’s use of shell companies in London to launder money and distribute it. That was the basic material. We didn’t do the analysis or piecing together. What we are going to show you now are some snapshots of Mila’s network, but it is not – repeat not – the final product. I’m going to start with my own group, which investigated Jonathan Mobius – Pearl Grey.’
An organisational chart appeared headed by a photograph of Jonathan Mobius. He had changed little since the wedding of his doomed father to Mila Daus – slim, humourless and with a curl to his upper lip. Like his stepmother – with whom he still had some sort of physical relationship that Zoe described as ‘Oedipal habit’– he was interested in three things: influence, political intelligence and data. The key people in his network were old friends. He had met Anthony Jerome Drax, one of two special advisers to the Prime Minister, in St Petersburg in the early 1990s, when he was seeking to recruit mathematicians for his father’s business. Ben Bera of the Foreign Office and Joint Intelligence Committee – Samson had never heard of him, but Macy thought that maybe he had – was befriended at a party in New York a little later when Bera was working for the UN. Christine Carter, head of an Anglo-American trade organisation, Tanner Matlock and Jeff Koblenz – both from finance – all came later but were part of Mobius’s circle for at least a decade. Of these three, Matlock was the most influential. He was on the governing body of the BBC and also on the board of Luminescence Analytics. The common characteristic was that they were all off-the-scale right wing. Zoe corrected herself: ‘I’m not sure if it’s accurate to call them fascist, neofascist or whatever, but they do all have contempt for democracy and people. It’s all about power and winning.’
This power was exercised and extended socially with receptions at the Tate and the National Gallery, summer drinks parties in the Chelsea Physic Garden and seats at Wimbledon and Covent Garden. There were environmental awards, retreats and conferences; donations to think tanks located in the Smith Square area of Westminster, and favours done for members of the British political establishment. Near Arezzo, in Umbria, a restored Palazzo offered special respite to politicians, where it was likely they were compromised with young male and female members of staff, a mirror image of the operation at GreenState’s Clouds Ranch in Idaho.
Naji projected a photograph of the man in Number Ten. Drax was in his mid-forties, with cropped dark hair, a bulbous nose and watery blue eyes whose lower lids sagged and gave for an unsettling stare. They heard that he checked in with Mobius at the end of every week, and then Mobius reported back to Daus.
Zoe went on: ‘We’ve got emails and messages to receiving-only accounts that we believe belong to Mila, which usually followed these conversations. Of course, there is never any traffic from her. But the access she has to the inner workings of the British government is clear.’
Macy coughed and raised a hand. ‘So, all this information goes to her,’ he said, ‘but do you know what she does with it? Have you got any sense of the ultimate destination?’ He opened his hands and looked affably at the young people for an answer, and, there being none, continued. ‘Put it this way, you have described the sort of business network that I come across all the time. Companies, industrial sectors and syndicates often gather intelligence and seek to bend the will of governments. If you have evidence that this information was going straight to Russia, well, that would be a different matter.’
Zoe looked down to hide her irritation. ‘What we’re showing you here isn’t the final product, and, no, we don’t bloody well know the end user of the information. But how many companies can you name that have people killed and kidnapped, smear opponents, use intimidation and blackmail, bend elections, bribe officials, soak up people’s data without regard to law and regulation and use it against them? Even if this had absolutely nothing to do with espionage, you would have to classify what Mila Daus has created as a Mafia-level criminal enterprise. And no one has a clue about her, or who controls compan
ies like Luminescence MB, Luminescence Analytica, MBX3, or even Luminescence MXB3, same as they don’t know who actually owns GreenState, although we have established it is wholly owned by Daus and Mobius.’
She grabbed a bottle of water from her seat, swigged from it and resumed. ‘Now we are going to move on to the States.’
Under the headings, ‘Aurora Red’, ‘Pitch Black’ and ‘Saffron Yellow’ appeared photographs of three men: Chester Abelman, Erik Kukorin and Elliot Jeffreys. They had the country neatly divided up between them. Abelman was based on the West Coast, Elliot Jeffreys in Washington, DC, and Erik Kukorin in New York. They ran three distinct operations, and there was little or no contact between them. If connections needed to be made, they went through Mila Daus. Apparently, the three had no interest in business whatsoever – Mila and Mobius handled all that. But Abelman, Jeffreys and Kukorin had millions at their disposal and lived the life of the top one per cent of Americans.
Unlike the deep-cover illegals that Russia seeded in the US in the 1990s and in the early part of the century, all three were born in America. No infiltration from Canada was necessary, no marriages of convenience between spies, and no making do with scraps of intelligence from the bottom of the food chain. They formed Daus’s frontline from political conviction, which was about love of power and a straightforward loathing of liberal America.
‘But do they know they are really working for the enemies of America?’ asked Anastasia.
Zoe looked at the four Americans in front of her for an answer. The answer was – no, but Leah suggested that if they did know, it probably wouldn’t affect them because they basically shared the worldview of the Russian leadership.
The Bird and Macy Harp exchanged looks and shook their heads. This wasn’t a world they recognised.
Leah, Chinese-American, with a bob and eyes that shone from behind small, oval glasses, took over from Zoe to speak about Elliot Jeffreys. He was a lawyer from Chicago who had failed in the city’s politics and moved to set up a small political consultancy in the K Street area in DC, helping Conservative allies in Congress with data and election strategy. He was the most powerful of the trio, though you’d never guess it looking at him. In the several pictures of him, he was short and plump, with no neck to speak of, and an execrable taste in ties and pocket squares. On his books, so to speak, were Mike H. Proctor, Deputy National Security Advisor, and Kirsten Donnelly, a staff member at the office of the Director of National Intelligence, which gave Daus access to what was going on in the White House Situation Room and the most secret concerns of America’s Intelligence Community. His network included hundreds of people, who were attracted by his Conservatism, open wallet and cut-price consultancy fees. There was a dark side to Jeffreys, said Leah, and they had only got on to it through the suicide, a year ago, of a young Congressman named Sam Kuvin who they believed was filmed at Clouds Ranch with an under-age boy, then presented with evidence that not only had he had sex with him but had conspired in trafficking a minor from a neighbouring state. It was rare to acquire such detail, but Jeffreys had sent emails whose meaning could not be doubted, a rare lapse for him, and the boy, who was then sixteen, was active on social media. Leah said that the FBI were investigating and beginning to sniff around cases of entrapment by Jeffreys, their interest piqued by abrupt swerves in position, resignations, divorces and unaccountable wealth. Pointing to Jeffreys’s photograph, she went on, ‘This man right here is responsible for a lot of pain and corruption in America, but we believe that all the psychological pressure on individuals is orchestrated by Mila Daus. She picks the targets and works them over.’