‘Khan met two persons of interest at The Hague. Both of them work for companies that supply components to URENCO,’ Arora jabbered, his eyes sweeping the desk and the gaunt, bearded man behind it, catching sight of the crystal glass—half empty—resting precariously on a thick, brown manila folder, and returning to see Almeida staring at him.
Almeida pointedly held out his hand for the file Arora had brought with him, keeping his eyes fixed on Arora’s.
‘What exactly do these persons of interest do?’ he asked. ‘I mean, do they work in engineering or administration or—’
‘Sales. They’re...sales managers,’ Arora replied.
Almeida looked up from the pages in his hand, a smile forming on his face. ‘This is excellent news, Jugs. It confirms one of the hypotheses we had formed: they cannot build the enrichment plant by themselves even with all the blueprints Khan stole for them,’ he said.
Arora nodded.
‘It gives us time to find their facility, boss. Even with Khan’s help they’re not going to get a weapon anytime soon.’
‘Do sit down. Help yourself while I read this,’ Almeida said, handing Arora a bottle of gin, a bottle of tonic water, and a glass from a drawer in his desk.
Arora poured himself some gin.
‘If you forget the tonic water, my dear Arora, then you are just another alcoholic guzzling gin at eight in the morning,’ Almeida said without looking up from the file.
Arora grimaced but added a dash of tonic to his glass. Almeida read slowly, as if he were memorising each word. Arora drank. Small sips at first, then two large gulps to get to the bottom of the glass. He hated gin, but not as much as he hated tonic water. Ravana’s urine, he had once called it. But when the Chief asked you to have a drink, you had a drink and pretended not to be disgusted.
At length Almeida shut the file and put it down on his desk.
‘Right. What are your recommendations?’ he asked.
‘Infiltrate the two organisations, find out what the Pakistanis are after, and block the consignments before they leave the Netherlands.’
‘After what befell Malathi last year? I have never known a European intelligence agency—or the broader security apparatus—to be this cavalier with state secrets. Does NATO really rely upon these very people to fight back against the good men and women from Lubyanka? There is more to this than meets the eye. I have a feeling the Dutch are not doing this of their own accord. They have been asked to do this by someone they dare not defy.’ Then he saw Arora’s expression. ‘Is it not obvious who that is, Jugs?’ Almeida asked.
Arora shrugged. His knowledge of Dutch politics was extremely limited.
‘The Americans, my good man. It has to be the Americans asking the Dutch to turn Nelson’s eye towards the Pakistani operation.’
‘Why would the Americans do that?’ Arora asked.
‘The Soviets took our side in 1971 after the Americans chose the Pakistanis. With the Soviets upping their game in Central Asia, Pakistan and Iran are crucial for the Americans to counter them. I have had my suspicions about them for a while, but Malathi’s death and the Dutch reaction to it confirmed them for me. It has to be the Americans. Now,’ he paused to pour himself a drink before picking up right where he had left off, ‘given what you know and what I have come to firmly believe, do you think you can block anything going to Pakistan from that infernal country?’
‘We have to try, sir.’
‘And if we fail?’
‘Then we follow the equipment to the centrifuge facility,’ Arora said, ‘and we destroy it—one way or another.’
‘We destroy it?’
‘As a nation, sir.’
‘Send the orders. Hanau used to be part of your old hunting grounds if I remember correctly.’
‘Yes sir, for a few years while I was at Berlin.’
‘Do you know our Resident at Berlin?’
‘I know of him.’
‘Competent?’
‘Apparently he is, sir,’ Arora replied.
‘Good. Then the Hanau operation is his headache. Tell our man at The Hague to focus his energies on the FDO. I do not want to hear any excuses, Jugs. Funds will not be a problem for either of these operations. Find the bastards!’
‘Infiltrate FDO,’ Amit Kumar muttered to himself. ‘I suppose when you’ve been at a desk in New Delhi for so long that you’ve grown roots, such things begin to sound rather easy.’ He studied the cable he had just decoded, his irritation rising. ‘Sure, and while I’m at it why don’t I also infiltrate the Soestdijk Palace and report on Bernhard and Juliana’s pillow talk! I could weigh in on whether he has confessed to her about taking a bribe from Lockheed Martin, and how she feels about it,’ he mumbled, referring to the Dutch royal family.
Arora was asking for the moon, and he couldn’t figure out what the payoff would be. He knew he couldn’t deliver anything meaningful in the short time he had, not without taking a lot of unnecessary risks. Those risks would put his networks in jeopardy. He hated even the thought of doing that. But he couldn’t refuse an order that was authorised by his Section Chief. Residents who revealed their own limitations to their superiors tended, on an average, to not remain Residents for long. There were a lot of desk jobs open in New Delhi, in archival or liaison or something equally dreary.
‘Infiltrating the FDO will be a challenge. It will require large sums of money that I cannot spare from my budget,’ Amit Kumar replied. He wanted to gauge how serious New Delhi was, and in Socialist India money was the ultimate indicator of interest.
Arora wrote back less than five minutes later, as if he had been standing by the Teletext in New Delhi waiting for just such a response from The Hague.
‘Funds for this operation are not a constraint,’ the cable read. ‘New Delhi will provide. The operation need not affect your budget.’
‘The fat has-been is beginning to sound like the old man,’ Kumar muttered to himself.
But that was all he could do. If New Delhi was opening its purse strings for the operation then Kumar would have to deliver. After all, it wasn’t often that the stingy bastards marinating in luxury at headquarters said funds weren’t a constraint.
Shrugging off his own discomfort with the idea, Kumar began planning. He was half an hour into it when the Teletext clattered to life once more, banging out another cable at a hundred characters a minute.
‘Begin planning. Suggest you visit New Delhi to be read into the broader operation,’ Arora had written.
Kumar sighed. The has-beens in New Delhi were going to get his network killed or disrupted, and all for a person of interest that Kumar hadn’t even heard of before that anonymous asset of his predecessor had suddenly decided to wake up.
FIVE
After a heavy lunch of chole bhature the Duty Officer tasked with manning communications at the Wing’s headquarters had settled deeper into his chair in the dark room, getting ready for a languid afternoon, when the machine came to life with a characteristic whirring sound. He leaned forward and glanced at the text being printed by it. Gibberish. The Duty Officer sighed. Gibberish meant the cable had been encoded using a one-time pad, and belonged to an active operation. He waited for the entire cable to be printed. Two pages. The first sentence—although it appeared to be gibberish as well—was in fact a series of codes distinct from the rest of the cable. This series of codes was the equivalent of a postal address identifying the person or office for whom the cable was meant. It took just one glance at that sentence for the Duty Officer to jump to his feet and rush out, cable in hand, headed for the office of the Chief of the Pakistan section. There were protocols in place for dealing with such cables, of course, and none of them involved the Duty Officer rushing to deliver the cable. But he belonged to Mishra’s section himself and wasn’t about to waste fifteen minutes waiting for one of the clerical staff to take two sheets of yellow
paper halfway up Mt. Kailash.
After the Duty Officer had left, Mishra locked his office from the inside. He glanced at the first sentence of the cable and retrieved the appropriate one-time pad from the safe. Gingerly holding a pencil between three knotty fingers, he set about the dull task of decoding the message onto two fresh sheets of paper. When he had finished the last block of code, he first returned the one-time pad to the safe. Then he took the cable itself and filed it. Once he was certain that everything else had been put away, he turned his attention to the decoded message. It was from one of his top assets in Pakistan, someone with access to GHQ ‘Pindi, as the General Headquarters of the Pakistan Army were known. He read the message slowly, tracing each and every word with his pencil like a toddler who was learning to read. Then he did it again. There was a cultivated calmness about him that made his peers believe his patience was infinite. His subordinates knew better, of course. When he had assured himself that every word had been read and its import digested, Mishra took the pages and stowed them away inside his safe. Then he stepped outside his office.
‘Please enquire if Chief Almeida of the Europe section would find it convenient to visit me in my office,’ he said to his secretary.
The lady had spent nearly a decade at the Wing, but this was only her second week working with Mishra.
‘When, sir?’
‘Any time today would be fine. The sooner the better,’ he replied, turning to go back inside his office.
‘What should I tell him if he asks for an agenda?’
‘Tell him I’m inviting him over for a drink.’
‘I wanted to brief you on a flurry of activity that recently took place at GHQ,’ Mishra said as Almeida settled into a chair at the desk.
Almeida nodded.
‘I was told to expect drinks,’ he said, a wry grin forming behind the beard.
‘I’ve asked for tea,’ Mishra replied. ‘Are you familiar with a Brigadier named Sajawal Khan Malik?’ When Almeida shook his head, Mishra continued, ‘Brigadier Malik is one of the top officers of his rank in the Pakistan Army and has served in various positions of leadership—I will spare you the details. His colleague, Brigadier Zahid Ali Akbar Khan, is also known as a rising star in the Pakistan Army Officer Corps. Like Malik, he has also served in various positions of leadership. Both officers were posted, till August this year, at GHQ. While Malik was on the Engineer-in-Chief’s staff, Ali Akbar Khan was working in the Joint Staff Headquarters at Rawalpindi. As of last month, both these officers have been abruptly transferred. Orders to that effect came directly from the Chief of Army Staff, General Zia-ul-Haq.’
‘Is this intelligence reliable?’ Almeida asked.
‘Completely.’
‘It is curious, of course. Why would Zia personally direct the transfer of two Brigadiers? In the grand scheme of the military leadership, do one-stars rate?’
‘I’m not aware of the number of Brigadiers in the Pakistan Army, but I believe there are at least twenty-nine three-star and one hundred and fifty-five two-star officers that outrank these two.’
‘So why would Zia move these two from their postings? You mentioned that they were transferred abruptly. What is the basis for that assessment?’ Almeida asked.
‘Malik had spent a little more than a year—thirteen months and twenty days—at GHQ. The usual posting period there is two years for a one-star. The case of Ali Akbar Khan is even more curious. He was promoted to Brigadier from Colonel earlier this year, and has spent less than six months in ‘Pindi,’ Mishra replied.
‘Maybe Ali Akbar Khan was temporarily posted to ‘Pindi pending a suitable post opening up elsewhere—’
‘We considered that possibility, but discarded it. Not credible enough,’ Mishra replied.
‘I see. You must have had your reasons,’ Almeida said, pausing to see if Mishra wanted to elaborate on them. He didn’t. ‘Do we know where Zia has moved them?’
‘Ordinarily there would be a trail of documents in the M.S. branch of the Army. All bureaucracies are fundamentally the same when it comes to their love of paper,’ Mishra said. ‘But in this case it appears the document Zia signed has vanished into thin air.’
‘Document?’ Almeida asked, noticing the singular.
Mishra had slipped up. He maintained composure and carried on.
‘Yes. The movement orders for both Brigadiers was typed up on a single sheet of paper, we know that much. Unfortunately my assets haven’t been able to get their hands on it.’
Mishra paused, rang his secretary on the intercom and enquired about the tea. When informed that the tea had arrived about a minute earlier, he had her send it in.
When they were alone again, and after a few sips of tea from a china cup that he had considerable trouble gripping, Mishra continued, ‘It may just be a coincidence, but both officers happen to be engineers—”sappers” is the appropriate term, I think. Malik is known for his expertise in large constructions, whereas Ali Akbar Khan has recently earned a master’s degree in civil engineering. I am informed that his specialisation during this course was surveying.’
‘I think the evidence lends itself to the conclusion—provided the intelligence is genuine, of course—that they have begun building the enrichment plant. I can’t think of another large enough project that the Pakistan Army would be rushing into at this moment. And it would have to be a large project—why else would they move two Brigadiers? It is why I am here today, is it not?’ Almeida asked.
The words came out with barely any emotion, but Mishra noticed the glint in his eyes and smiled. ‘But I haven’t touched upon the most damning evidence yet,’ he said. The smile appeared incongruous on his face, a bit like a tourist visiting the crowded lanes of Chandni Chowk for the first time. Almeida mistook it for a smirk. ‘In addition to these two, an entire field company of the Corps of Engineers has been reassigned.’
‘No paper trail?’ Almeida asked.
‘It is becoming a pattern of sorts for the Pakistanis.’
‘Can your assets dig deeper?’
Mishra shook his head slowly. The source was one of his best assets, and he wasn’t about to risk putting him in danger, not without good reason. He had avoided giving Almeida the impression that all this intelligence had come from a single asset, carefully avoiding the use of the singular in favour of a more vague “assets”. A single asset with access to all this information would have to be someone embedded deep inside the heart of the Pakistani state. Mishra had just such a person on his payroll, but he wasn’t about to let on about it.
‘That is impossible,’ he said, his voice full of regret.
Almeida looked directly at Mishra, who stared back with eyes that gave nothing away. At length Almeida broke contact and asked, ‘What do you plan to do next?’
‘There are other networks that can be tapped for intelligence. The trouble is, Zia is keeping his cards very, very close. Without a paper trail, my networks aren’t going to find much. They don’t have ears in the P.M.O. Have Captain Sablok and that Desk Officer of yours—Chopra? Arora! Have Sablok and Arora found a way to identify the location?’
‘They are working on an approach. Their efforts are at a preliminary stage at the moment, which is why I have not invited you over for a briefing just yet.’
‘Wonderful. Let’s hope for a breakthrough. Your tea is getting cold.’
Almeida gulped the thick, sweet tea in one go. Then he cleared his throat. ‘I have some intelligence to share as well,’ he began. ‘Abdul Qadeer Khan visited the Netherlands a few days ago.’
Despite himself, Mishra sat up.
‘We had him under surveillance while he was at The Hague, and have identified two contacts. They are being placed under surveillance as we speak. The objective, of course, is to infiltrate the network he is using to import equipment into Pakistan.’
Mishra stared at the bearded
figure before him. Almeida stared back. Neither man was about to display weakness.
‘It would be helpful if we shared intelligence more readily,’ Mishra finally said. ‘And in a timely manner. Had we known Khan was travelling, we could have had him tailed from the airport. My network could have taken action.’
‘I doubt that General Jilani Khan would let you do—’
‘We could have tried,’ Mishra interrupted him.
‘Do you think their programme would stop if you eliminated Khan today? They have had a year to debrief him in Pakistan. I would bet good money that they know all that he knows about centrifuges and nuclear weapons. Probably even more. If we kill him now, the Pakistanis will replace him with someone else. If we are lucky it will be Munir Ahmed Khan or one of the other fellows we know. But knowing Bhutto, he will find someone we have not even heard of and then we will be back at square one.’
‘Action doesn’t always mean assassination. My networks could have trailed him, discovered where he’s working, possibly found the location of their plant.’
‘Let us not fool ourselves, Mishraji. Abdul Qadeer is almost as well protected in Pakistan as Bhutto is. And unlike Bhutto, Khan need not make public appearances. Your assets would have become compromised within a matter of minutes. It would have been a waste of a perfectly good network.’
‘Perhaps. But the decision to waste a perfectly good network was mine to make, Chief Almeida, not yours.’
‘It absolutely would have been your decision, Mishraji. But it would have had a substantial, perhaps even crippling, impact on my operations in Europe. As things stand, we now know who Khan has reached out to for equipment purchases. When that equipment is ready for shipping, we follow that trail. People are easy to hide. Equipment that takes half a ship to transport is much harder to keep out of sight. They will expect us to go after Khan, and any precipitate actions directed at him will be neutralised. But even if we discount the value of your networks and consider them expendable, what if they succeed? We will lose one of the major threads for unravelling this entire operation.’
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