Heroes Proved

by Oliver North

  An attractive, gun-toting receptionist wasn’t the only perk A. J. Jones enjoyed in Merida. Through a cutout corporation in Guatemala, his new employers paid the lease on a delightfully refurbished old downtown residence on Paseo de Montejo. From his upstairs sitting room he could see the steeples of the cathedral on Plaza Mayor, the oldest church in the Western Hemisphere.

  Two months into A.J.’s current assignment he updated the cathedral’s sixteenth-century architecture by covertly installing half a dozen miniature, solar-powered, omnidirectional, broad-spectrum, multiband receivers and tiny microwave relay transmitters in the bell towers for his real line of work. Two flat-plane microwave antennas hidden atop the cathedral beamed every signal intercepted by forty-seven receivers in northern Yucatan to the equipment A.J. installed in his attic.

  A tiny uplink antenna barely visible on the roof of his house on Paseo de Montejo broadcast the intercepted signals on a dedicated Ku-band “pathway” to the Ameri-Star 77 satellite in geosynchronous orbit over Puerto Rico. Four milliseconds later the intercepts were received in the DEA Special Operations Division (SOD) “wires room” in Sterling, Virginia.

  At SOD they claimed, “Our man in Merida knows what every drug lord in the Federation Cartel has for breakfast, how much cocaine they ship before lunch and who they will kill after dinner.” There was some hyperbole in that—but the intercept equipment A.J. placed in Merida and along the Yucatan coast, from Sisal in the west to Cerrito in the east, provided a near-constant stream of valuable, real-time intelligence on drug shipments, who was making them, and where they were destined. The fact that many of the Federation Cartel kingpins used Global Financial Services to move money served as added value for the raw information being fed to SOD—and afforded A.J. a certain degree of protection from mindless Mexican mayhem.

  Even in this lawless region of Mexico, Jones knew his dangerous job became genuinely life-threatening if he fell while installing a piece of intercept equipment—or if the targets of his surveillance somehow discovered his actual line of work. To guard against those possibilities he had a mountain climber’s obsessive attention to detail and planned each step of an installation as though he were making a solo ascent at fifteen thousand feet. He knew his physical limits, nearly always worked alone, and was careful to the point of being described as aloof, a recluse, type A, even anal.

  To prevent being identified and targeted by the Federation Cartel’s enforcers, he zealously avoided talking about his undercover work with others, shunned the expatriate social circuit, and carefully maintained his cover “legend.” On the few occasions when A.J. was cornered in conversation, his interlocutor was presented with a staggering array of incredibly wearisome macro- and micro-economic statistics and exchange rates befitting the manager of a financial services office. When pressed, he could also lapse into a mind-numbing soliloquy on ancient Mayan culture.

  A.J. usually managed to avoid festivities like the nationwide Independence Day celebration. He would gladly have stayed home this year but for encrypted instructions he received from SOD, directing him to report certain signals on specific frequencies along the Yucatan’s Emerald Coast.

  He initially intended to wait until after Hurricane Lucy passed, anticipating the storm would likely damage some equipment he’d already installed along the Gulf. But less than an hour after the message from SOD hit his computer, he received an inquiry posted at MESH://mayandigs.org, the MESH site for an amateur archeology club he had joined to enhance his cover.

  Transmitted in the clear, the communication looked like a simple request for information on Mayan maritime artifacts from a fellow club member. In fact it was a coded message from Senator Mackintosh Caperton, asking A.J. to do all he could to pick up any signals from the MV Ileana Rosario, the vessel’s lifeboat EPIRBs, and a PERT registered to Dr. Martin Cohen.

  * * * *

  Mack and A.J. first met nearly two decades earlier, when Caperton was a junior senator on the Armed Services Committee and Jones was working for NSA at Fort Meade, Maryland. They became close friends, shared a fascination with signals intelligence, and learned they both carried identical tiny metal fish on thin chains around their necks. Like most “People of the Book,” they trusted each other implicitly, regarded the words “How can I help you?” to be a pledge, not just a question, and found ways of staying in touch with each other over the years.

  Acting on the SOD’s orders and Senator Caperton’s “archeology message” required A.J. to drive through high winds and a monsoon-like downpour to his installations in Progreso, Telchac Puerto, and Cerrito. He took Marcia Quintero with him to ride “shotgun” and provide security while he was occupied recalibrating the equipment for intercepting and relaying emissions on the frequencies and bands requested.

  Returning to Merida after dark in the driving rain, A.J. dropped Quintero off at her apartment and went home to adjust the equipment in his attic so he would get a computer-generated alert if any of the three sites picked up EPIRB or PERT signals. A few minutes before 9 p.m. on Wednesday, 15 September, he hit pay dirt.

  The first intercepted signals came almost simultaneously through his Cerrito and Telchac Puerto facilities—a data stream SOS/Mayday on 406MHz and 121.5MHz from a CAT 1 EPIRB, MMSI #775-425921C. A few minutes later, the same two sites detected emissions from a second EPIRB and then both sites picked up the faint signal from an encrypted, Type B, military-series PERT, transmitting Dr. Martin Cohen’s ID and biometric data.

  Without waiting for the Semantic Fusion Framework software on the computer in his attic to decipher and analyze what was likely a fragmentary PERT algorithm, A.J. pulled a 1:100,000 scale chart of the Yucatan’s north coast out of a drawer, spread it out on his desk, and quickly calculated the azimuth from each of his intercept stations to the EPIRBs and the PERT emitters on the beach. He estimated they were within a few hundred yards of each other, about midway between Dzilam de Bravo and Cerrito. Jones immediately transmitted this news over an encrypted data link to SOD. Five minutes later he posted a manually encoded missive with the same information in a “draft” message on the “Mayan Digs” MESH message board and sent a two-word message to Mack Caperton: “NBA DRAFT.”

  Over the next twenty-four hours, A.J. used the separate channels to send a half-dozen updates to both SOD and Caperton. He reported the two EPIRBs to be stationary on the beach, the torturously slow inland movement of “the Cohen PERT,” and later, the fact the Cohen PERT had not moved since shortly after noon today.

  A.J. would still have been at home monitoring the signals for any changes but for a phone call he received from Marcia Quintero at 2030. She told him the legal attaché at the U.S. Embassy in Mexico City sent her a MESH-mail ordering her home ASAP in compliance with the State Department’s travel warning. She wanted to talk, so A.J. agreed to meet her at the consulate.

  Quintero was there waiting when the security guard admitted A.J. through the back door of the building and into the counsel general’s small conference room. His loyal receptionist was clearly agitated.

  “I’ve been ordered to depart on the next available flight to the U.S. from Rejon International,” she complained bitterly. “The only reason I don’t have to leave on tomorrow morning’s Delta flight to Miami is the airport is shut down because of the hurricane. Nobody has ever told me before I’m ‘nonessential.’ This will finish my future at DEA. I need your help getting these orders canceled, A.J.”

  “Do you have a copy of the MESH-mail you received?”

  She handed him a four-page printout from her office computer. The first sheet had a State Department seal in the upper left corner and was full of the usual bureaucratic travel jargon citing this and that appropriation authority. The final sentence instructed, “U.S. government employees covered by this order must retain PID receipts and file for reimbursement of out-of-pocket expenses from their respective departments or agencies.” The remaining three pages were an alphabetical list of more than four hundred Americans being ordered h
ome. Under “Q” he found “Quintero, Marcia D.”

  A.J. shook his head and said, “Marcia, you have to realize this is not personal. It’s compiled by some mindless clerk at our embassy in Mexico City.”

  “No, A.J., that’s not the case. There are no other DEA agents’ names on that list but mine. And I know why. The legal attaché is a worthless DOJ slug. He’s tried to get me into the sack every time I’m in Mexico City on DEA business. Because my husband and I believe the Marine motto, Semper Fidelis, is a way of life, not just a slogan, this useless toad is paying me back for turning him down.”

  A.J. sat down in one of the chairs and shook his head. This all sounded very much like one of the reasons he didn’t miss “new age” government duty. He asked, “Did you contact DEA HQ at Army Navy Drive about this?”

  “Not about the legal attaché trying to bed me, but I did talk to the Ops Center watch officer about being ordered home. He told me the administrator is out of Washington and will have to talk personally with the Attorney General about this on Monday, when they are both back in Washington. Well, if the weather forecast is right and this hurricane spins north or blows itself out, I could be either home or in violation of my orders by tomorrow night if you can’t get this turned around.”

  When he nodded in understanding, she continued, “Besides all that, you need my help, A.J. If I’m reading the official message traffic right—and the little trip we just made up north to the coast means what I think it means—things are about to pop here in the Yucatan.”

  Her comment elicited no visual or audible response from Jones, so she pressed on. “Look, no offense, A.J., but you’re no spring chicken anymore. I marvel at how inscrutable you are and what great shape you’re in. I couldn’t begin to understand all you can do with electronics. But I watched you climb that lighthouse in Progreso with all that wind and rain yesterday. When you got back to the car, you were bushed.”

  A faint smile appeared on A.J.’s lips and he said, “You weren’t supposed to be watching me, you were supposed to be looking away from the lighthouse and warning me if anyone was coming. But I take your point. I’ll contact some people in Washington to see what can be done.”

  After seeing Quintero out the door, Jones made two phone calls from the consulate’s communications center. The first was to Frankie Moyer’s government-issued PID. It didn’t answer, so he left a message. The second call was to the home phone of Senator Mackintosh Caperton. They spoke for less than five minutes about having Quintero’s travel orders rescinded.

  When it was all over, those who survived agreed that trying to help his loyal assistant was the only serious mistake Arthur J. Jones Jr. ever made in his long career.

  CHAPTER TEN

  LOYALTY TEST

  OFFICE OF THE CHIEF OF STAFF

  THE WHITE HOUSE

  1600 PENNSYLVANIA AVENUE

  WASHINGTON, DC

  FRIDAY, 17 SEPTEMBER 2032

  0625 HOURS, LOCAL

  Muneer Murad was proud of being described as “the most tech-savvy White House chief of staff in history.” He was secretly pleased when his detractors labeled him a “techno-geek.” His office, on the southwest corner of the West Wing, was crammed with the latest electronic gadgets, courtesy of WHCA—the White House Communications Agency.

  Along the wall where predecessors in the chief of staff’s office once had a bookcase, Murad mounted a four-foot-high, six-foot-long, quarter-inch-thick sheet of flat ceramic plastic serving as his “A-Viz”—the audiovisual device that replaced televisions a decade before. Powered by magnetic-coil resonators, it had no visible power supply, wires, or speakers. The device could be switched on and off and the volume adjusted using a PID, voice commands, or a card-sized remote. Sound was produced by invisible ceramic piezo-actuators that caused the plastic panel to act as a diaphragm.

  No paintings on loan from the Smithsonian or the Corcoran Gallery graced his walls. Instead, a half-dozen black ceramic-plastic sheets—digital image panels—displayed a constantly changing series of landscapes, photo portraits, and modern art. Many of the “digi-pix” images showed Murad with the president and her deceased husband-predecessor.

  Murad’s telephone—the latest voice-activated, wireless “telecube,” five inches high, wide, and deep—had no handset. The plastic box served as a speakerphone or allowed him to speak and listen through an earpiece. When he wanted to place a call, he simply said “call-clear” or “call-secure” and the name of the person he wanted to contact, and the six-sided device connected him—glowing red for an encrypted call and green for an unclassified conversation. If the party he was calling had the capability, Murad could activate the tele-cube’s embedded cameras, and with a wave of his hand, the device would display the person with whom he was speaking.

  * * * *

  At 0615 Murad turned to the tele-cube and said, “Call-secure, Jon Keker.” He listened as the phone he was calling rang once and a voice said, “Acting Director Keker is unavailable. If this is an emergency, please contact the FBI switchboard. Please leave a message.”

  In reply, he said to the box, “Jon, Muneer Murad, call me immediately.”

  The chief of staff stood behind his desk, impatiently waiting for the return call. Through the windows of his office facing the Washington Monument, he watched the streetlights around the Ellipse turn off as the first hint of dawn tripped a photo-cell somewhere on Constitution Avenue.

  Shaking his head to clear away fatigue and cobwebs, he sat down at his desk and scrolled again through the brief message from the Acting Director of the FBI displayed on his wireless, flat-panel computer screen:

  TOP SECRET/NOFORN/SIGINT

  EYES ONLY FOR POTUS & WHCOS

  DTG:

  171120ZSEP32

  FM:

  ACTING DIR, FBI

  TO:

  POTUS/WHCOS

  SUBJ:

  ELECTRONIC SURVEILLANCE OF DIPLOMATIC MISSION

  REF:

  [A] TITLE 50, U.S.C., PUBLIC LAW 95-511, “FISA”

  [B] PRESIDENTIAL FINDING #2032-09-16A

  1. IAW REFS [A] AND [B], FBI SIGINT FACILITY, WASH DC [SIG-FAC DC] COMMENCED INTERCEPTING VOICE, VISUAL & DATA COMMUNICATIONS TO/FROM THE EMBASSY OF THE ISLAMIC CALIPHATE [CAL-EMB] ON MASS. AVE. AT 0001 EDT 17 SEP.

  2. IAW REFS [A] AND [B], SIG-FAC DC IS ALSO INTERCEPTING PERSONAL VOICE & DATA COMMUNICATIONS TO/FROM CAL-EMB INDIVIDUALS LISTED IN APPENDIX 1 OF REF [B].

  3. UNODIR, SIG-FAC DC WILL PERMANENTLY RETAIN DIGITAL ELECTRONIC TRANSCRIPTS OF ALL INTERCEPTED COMMUNICATIONS SPECIFIED IN PARA 1 AND 2 ABOVE.

  4. IAW REF [B], SIG-FAC DC WILL PROV. A DAILY SYNOPSIS OF INTERCEPTED COMMUNICATIONS SPECIFIED IN PARA 1 & 2 ABOVE, EYES ONLY TO POTUS, NLT 1900 HOURS EDT/EST.

  5. ACTING DIR FBI HAS REQUESTED SSCI/HPSCI CLARIFICATION RE POSSIBLE INTERCEPTS THAT COULD BE PERCEIVED VIOLATIONS OF CONGRESSIONAL COMMUNICATIONS PRIVACY PROTECTION ACT [CCPPA].

  RESPECTFULLY,

  JON KEKER, ACTING DIR, FBI

  BT

  The tele-cube on the corner of Murad’s desk beeped once and glowed red, indicating an incoming secure call. The chief of staff glanced at the little six-sided device, saw “JON KEKER/FBI/HOOVER-WHCA SECURE VOICE,” touched the top of the cube with his right index finger, and said as calmly as he could, “Jon, are you alone?”

  “Yes,” came the voice—radiating from the plastic cube. “I’m in my new office here at the Hoover Building.” Then he added gratuitously, “You’re the first person I’ve talked to on this phone since moving into my new office.”

  “Good. I hope you get to stay there,” Murad replied sarcastically. “I’m looking at your message regarding yesterday’s presidential FISA finding. What the hell are you thinking?”

  There was a pause. Then the voice emanating from the cube said uncertainly, “What do you mean?”

  “What do I mean?” Murad responded, his voice rising. “Paragraph five. Look at paragraph five. You have to be more brain-dead than Vic Foster to go to
the congressional committees asking for ‘clarification.’ You’re creating an audit trail about this that the press and our political opponents will salivate over.”

  There was another long moment before the Acting FBI Director responded, “According to our counsel here, we’re required to put that paragraph in every FISA notification just in case we inadvertently intercept a call being made by or to a member of Congress. As you know, we’re not allowed to—”

  “Jon, I don’t need you to lecture me about what we’re allowed to do and not allowed to do.” Murad was standing now, practically shouting at the tele-cube. “The president named you as Acting FBI Director while Vic Foster is incapacitated because she thought you were smart enough to thread the needle over there.”

  Keker, playing defense, tried to justify the content of his message. “Well, you have to understand, mistakes sometimes happen in this business. This finding requires us to tap hundreds of phones and data ports. Last night when our SIGINT techs were setting this up, they inadvertently intercepted a phone call being made from Mexico to a U.S. senator. They were talking about the missing Dr. Cohen.”

  Now it was Muneer Murad who was silent for a moment before asking, quietly, “U.S. senator? What U.S. senator?”

  “That’s the kind of thing we’re not supposed to listen in on, even by accident,” Keker continued, oblivious to the chief of staff’s sudden angst. “We have to be very careful not to keep any—”

  “Jon! Shut up!” Murad shouted at the tele-cube. “If you want to stay as Acting Director of the FBI long enough to unpack your pictures from home and hang them on the walls of Vic Foster’s office, listen to me!”