‘Wouldn’t you just toss the letter in the dustbin, boss? I would.’
Almeida wasn’t about to give up. ‘That is a possibility, of course. But if you do not reply, can this economist not ask for a meeting in person?’
‘He could be declined.’
‘Perhaps. But what if it were a she, and what if she were very persuasive?’
‘Aren’t we drifting away from realism a bit, boss? Where are we going to find such an economist?’ Arora asked.
He was worried about the kind of swings he had just witnessed Almeida’s mood take.
‘We will find her in London, Jugs, where she lives. Her name is Nissa, short for Zebunnissa. You may know her as the woman who extricated Captain Sablok from Paris.’
***
The first thing Nissa did after she received Almeida’s orders was to hop onto the Tube and head to South Kensington. When she reached that affluent district in the western part of London, she walked to Prince Consort Road and into Beit Hall, a brick-red, early-1900s building that housed accommodation for students of Imperial College London. It was nearly lunchtime on a weekday and most of the building’s residents were out. She found some who were lounging about and struck up a conversation. A few minutes later she was trading friendly barbs with her hosts about their respective institutions when she broached the topic of her research, something involving logistics and technology in continental Europe, and asked if they knew anyone on the Engineering or Physics faculties. One of the trustees of the Imperial College Union, it turned out, was a PhD student in the Physics department, and her hosts offered to walk her there and introduce her.
She spent the rest of the afternoon and most of the next day picking the PhD student’s brain about research institutions in continental Europe. At the end of it all she had a list of fourteen such places. Number seven on that list was the FDO.
The next day she drafted a survey and a letter to accompany it. She began the letter by introducing herself as a postgraduate student of economics at the godless institution in Gower Street, then wrote about her thesis supervisor. She then mentioned the purpose of the letter—independent research in support of a doctoral thesis—and listed the names of every institution invited to participate in the survey.
She posted fourteen letters on Wednesday morning. Then she waited.
Replies began trickling in a week later. The first three answered the entire survey. One even carried a letter including a few additional details that the survey questions had not asked for. The fourth response she received was from the FDO. It expressed the director’s regrets for being unable to divulge the information requested, though it was clear that the response had been written by some flunky or the other and not by the director himself. She tossed it into her purse along with the first three responses received, grabbed a suitcase she had packed in anticipation, and rushed to Heathrow. Having a British passport made things easy.
On reaching The Hague, she changed into a fresh set of clothes—a navy blue bell-bottom power suit—and went straight to FDO headquarters. The security officer was unimpressed with her University College London credentials. Figuring that time was running out, she walked to the radiator in one corner of the room and pretended to warm her hands against it, deliberately shaking her shoulders a few times as if shivering from the cold weather outside. The security officer stopped short of asking her to leave immediately. That allowed her a small window of opportunity to engage him in conversation, beginning with the damned weather. A few minutes later she took out the letter she had received from the FDO and showed it to him.
‘It is very important that I get this information,’ she said. ‘These institutes have already responded. See—’ and she handed him three responses she had received from other institutes. ‘This is not secret information, really, and if I wanted it for myself I would get it from somewhere else—legally. But I have to ask for it. It’s for my thesis, you see. And if I don’t get the information formally from your institute then my thesis supervisor won’t let me use it. And if I don’t use it, then my thesis remains incomplete and I fail the year.’ She paused to see his reaction. He was listening, and she detected the slightest sliver of sympathy. ‘Can I please, please, please speak with someone from administration? Maybe I can explain this to them. It isn’t secret information, I swear. Take a look at the questions on the next page there. Read them for yourself. They are about logistics, not about the FDO’s business—’
The security officer wasn’t inclined to let her through, but she kept at it, pleading to be allowed just one conversation with someone in administration. Her tone remained polite and supplicant, and he couldn’t bring himself to kick her out. A few minutes later the middle-aged man tired of saying no and, apparently having exhausted his knowledge of English, asked a subordinate to escort her to the lobby and stay with her. He telephoned ahead and asked the director’s office to send someone to meet her there.
At the lobby, a small and unimposing room, she was directed to a sofa in one corner. The director’s assistant would see her soon, she was assured. Ten minutes later a tall young man dressed in a navy blue shirt and khaki coloured trousers greeted her.
‘Ah! Good morning Miss—’
‘Nissa. Good morning. I wrote to you last week hoping for some information crucial to my master’s thesis, and I was hoping I could ask you a few questions, Mr. Director,’ Nissa blurted.
‘Actually I am not the director. My name is Ernst Müller. I am the director’s assistant,’ he replied in halting English, a sheepish grin on his face.
‘Oh! I’m sorry, I’m so sorry. It’s just that you look so...well, never mind. My apologies,’ Nissa replied, looking flustered. She let the allusion hang in the air for a moment and saw it register in Müller’s eyes, before going on. ‘It’s just that this survey is really important to my thesis, sir. And three other institutions have already answered. Here...take a look,’ she said, handing him the letters.
He hesitated, then took the pages.
‘The information is not confidential at all,’ she added. ‘My survey clearly mentions it is meant for a thesis.’
‘Well if the information was voluntarily provided for a thesis, then I suppose I may read it?’ he replied.
‘Yes, of course. Completely voluntary...can we sit down, please? I have been travelling all night and—’
‘Of course,’ he replied.
‘Thank you. And the questions I’ve asked in the survey—they don’t relate to the business of these institutions. I mean, consider what the FDO does. Do these questions intrude upon your business secrets in any way?’
He shook his head, his eyes still scanning the letters she had given him.
‘Exactly. My thesis supervisor was very particular about that and, if I may be completely honest, a bit of a pain in the neck. I had to revise the survey four times before he would approve it. Anyway, I was really hoping the director of this institution would answer, but all I received is a letter expressing regret—’
‘I wrote that letter for him.’
‘You did?’
Nissa looked crushed. And all of a sudden the excited young woman who was explaining and asking questions with all the energy in the world fell silent. A few moments later he looked up.
‘What is the matter?’ he asked.
‘Oh, it’s nothing,’ she replied after a long pause. ‘It’s just...it was easier to cope with the disappointment when the person rejecting my request was a callous, faceless, pot-bellied, middle-aged bureaucrat who derives great pleasure from writing rejection letters to try and fill the void within his soul.’
Chuckling, he returned the letters to her.
‘We really cannot answer any questions, Miss Nissa. Our contracts with our partners forbid it,’ he replied awkwardly.
‘Please, don’t do this. My thesis...my supervisor won’t let me publish and defend it th
is year if I don’t have enough information,’ she pleaded.
‘I am truly sorry, but I cannot formally answer your questions,’ he said, emphasising the word ‘formally’.
She looked up at him and saw a glimmer in his eyes.
‘Okay, then, can I ask you a question? If I were running an engineering firm that produced large and delicate equipment—I don’t know what kind of equipment, really, but let’s assume it’s the kind you make—if I produced that sort of equipment and I had to ship it, which logistics company would I hire to do it?’
‘If I answer this hypothetical question of yours, Miss Nissa, do you promise to leave my name out of it?’
Nissa nodded.
‘If you had to ship equipment and you asked me for my personal recommendation, I would suggest that you visit Hans Brinker Logistics. I am afraid I have to go now.’
He rose to his feet. Thanking him for his time, Nissa put the letters back in her purse and walked out.
SIX
Frankfurt (West Germany)
The Hanau end of the operation was handled by Vikas Puri, Vice Consul at the Consulate General of India in Frankfurt. Following Abdul Qadeer Khan’s surprise visit to The Hague where he met with Gotthard Lerch, Almeida had directed Puri to set up an elaborate surveillance operation targeting the German. Over many weeks the surveillance operation had identified an individual, a South Asian, suspected of collaborating with Lerch in aid of the Pakistanis. Preliminary enquiries had revealed that he was a businessman of Pakistani origin. A resident of Stuttgart, the businessman travelled to Hanau to meet Lerch frequently. The two had dinner, often at Lerch’s residence. In a stroke of luck for Puri, on one occasion Lerch and the businessman decided to head outside for dinner at a restaurant. A member of the surveillance team followed them into the restaurant and eavesdropped on bits and pieces of their conversation over the next hour and a half, confirming suspicions. From the next day on, the businessman was placed under surveillance as well. It cost Puri dearly, but he had New Delhi’s assurance that it would foot the bill.
In the first week of November, on a Tuesday, the businessman drove down to Freiburg, a university city in West Germany seventy kilometres from Basel in Switzerland. Surveillance reported on Tuesday evening that he met an individual—likely a German citizen—for a few hours at Freiburg before heading back. By Wednesday afternoon Puri had confirmation that the man—his name was Albrecht Migule—was indeed a West German citizen. By Thursday evening—while the businessman was headed to Hanau to meet Lerch—Puri received a background brief about the new person of interest. Albrecht Migule owned an engineering firm by the name of CES-Kalthof GmbH. Kalthof was in the business of building factories, and had built a butter and margarine factory for General Ayub Khan’s son in Pakistan in 1967. The Vice Consul duly reported this information to New Delhi and continued surveillance on Lerch and the Pakistani businessman. On Friday the businessman drove down to Freiburg once again for a meeting with Migule that went on for three hours. He stepped into Migule’s house with a dark brown leather briefcase which was missing when he stepped out and drove back to Stuttgart. The surveillance team managed to get a few photographs of Migule.
It was obvious that Migule was now a person of interest as well, and the Vice Consul was faced with a difficult decision. While New Delhi had made clear that funds were not a constraint for this operation, there were other limitations. Puri’s networks were stretched thin running surveillance on two subjects—one in Hanau and one in Stuttgart. Placing a third person of interest under surveillance would mean recruiting more assets, training them in surveillance and, after being assured of their loyalty, deploying them to tail Migule. That would take time, and by the looks of how fast events were progressing, Puri knew he hadn’t much to spare. Considering how the Pakistani businessman appeared to be shuttling between Freiburg and Hanau carrying messages—perhaps acting as little more than a go-between—Puri made an educated gamble and reduced the surveillance on him. The resources thus freed up allowed him to place Migule under continuous surveillance in Freiburg from Tuesday afternoon, forty-eight hours after his photograph and the dossier about him had found their way to Almeida’s office in New Delhi via diplomatic pouch.
The gamble paid off a week later when, on the 16th of November 1976, one of Puri’s assets called to inform him that Albrecht Migule had just entered the international departures terminal at Stuttgart airport.
Puri sent a flash cable to New Delhi: “Albrecht Migule travelling. Destination not confirmed, likely to be Karachi or Islamabad.” At the end of the cable he included Migule’s physical description and reminded New Delhi that Migule’s photograph had been dispatched to Almeida’s office nine days earlier.
***
The flash cable was in Almeida’s hands five minutes after the Teletext at the Wing spat it out. He decoded it himself and read it twice over. Then he instructed his secretary to head to the Tourism Bureau, a small team of six Desk Officers who specialised in advising assets and officers on their operational travel needs. Among other sources of information, which included detailed files on various modes of transport in each country and region of interest to the Wing, they maintained up-to-date timetables for most major airlines around the globe.
‘Go in person and tell them this is a priority request directly from me. If an asset wishes to travel from Stuttgart in West Germany to Karachi or Islamabad, what are the options available to him? I want a detailed schedule of direct or connecting flights. Tell them I need the answer in fifteen minutes,’ Almeida instructed.
When she had left, he retrieved Migule’s photograph from the safe and studied it. Then he took Migule’s dossier and read through it. Nine minutes had elapsed. He read the dossier once again. He was on the last page when his secretary knocked and entered carrying a sheet of yellow paper with four detailed itineraries on it, each one beginning at Stuttgart airport and ending at either Karachi or Islamabad. She handed the page to Almeida and exited, closing the door shut behind her. Almeida studied the itineraries and quickly zeroed in on the one flight that was scheduled to take off from Stuttgart a few hours after Migule was reported entering the airport. Then he picked up the phone and asked to be put through to Mishra.
‘Mishraji, remember the last time we spoke? When we decided to share actionable intelligence on a timely basis...?
***
‘Kumar reports that Brinker Logistics—the logistics company that the FDO uses—is preparing a shipment to Karachi, chief. He suspects that it’s the FDO sending equipment to Khan,’ Arora said.
He was in Almeida’s office. It was late in the evening on the last Friday of November. A month had elapsed since Migule’s trip to Pakistan.
The yellow table lamp struggled to keep the room lit, but its writ did not run further than the edges of Almeida’s desk.
‘Are we certain? I mean, how certain is he about it being the FDO’s shipment to Karachi?’
‘Brinker don’t appear to have any other clients with business in Pakistan. Kumar is quite certain that this is from the FDO. He will know for sure when it actually ships. For now Brinker have only begun the process of insuring the—’
‘Do we have a destination address?’
‘Not yet.’
Almeida lapsed into silence. Arora sat staring at his boss, waiting for a cue to begin speaking again. When minutes passed without the slightest indication, he cleared his throat. Gently at first, then louder the second time around. Almeida snapped out of his reverie.
‘Has Captain Sablok been able to further refine the approach for finding the Pakistani site that the scientists at Trombay came up with?’ he asked.
‘We have tried, chief—’ Arora began.
‘No success yet, I take it,’ Almeida snapped. ‘Explain the whole thing to me once more, Jugs.’
‘We need information from their electricity companies. Enrichment requires large amou
nts of electricity and—’
‘How large?’
Arora sighed. He wasn’t used to Almeida displaying impatience.
‘Almost as much as our nuclear plant at Trombay produces, sir,’ he replied, wary of the slightest verbal misstep. ‘The hypothesis is that Pakistan must construct electricity infrastructure dedicated to this centrifuge facility.’
‘And your rationale for entertaining such a hypothesis?’
‘Their infrastructure is shaky, sir. Electricity blackouts are fairly frequent. When electricity is available, the voltage fluctuates. Our understanding of these centrifuges leads us to believe that they are delicate instruments. Only a complete and utter fool would subject them to frequent power cuts and voltage ups and downs. Given how much the Pakistanis are spending on this entire programme—’
‘How much are they spending, Arora? Enlighten me,’ Almeida remarked.
‘We don’t know, sir. But we can safely assume that it is a large sum of money.’
‘Too many assumptions...anyway, continue.’
‘If a government has committed itself to spending hundreds of crores of rupees on a programme of national importance, would it not spend a few crores more and build electricity infrastructure dedicated to that programme?’
Almeida stared back at him. A few moments later, he nodded.
Encouraged, Arora continued, ‘Our guess is that at the very least they will build a substation dedicated to serving this centrifuge facility of theirs. And that’s if Bhutto has had a sudden change of heart and is now pinching pennies. Considering the fact that he has been a vocal proponent of nuclear weapons for Pakistan—possibly the most consistent too—that possibility is very hard to believe. My own feeling is that they will build a power plant just for their centrifuges. But building something like that takes time. What does Bhutto do till then? Do his precious scientists and engineers sit twiddling their thumbs? No, sir. First they will build that substation and connect it to the grid—it shouldn’t take more than a few weeks unless they really are building in the middle of nowhere. Once that is done, the scientists and engineers begin building the centrifuge facility. Along come the electrical engineers to build a power plant, which comes on line around the time the centrifuge facility is ready.’
Let Bhutto Eat Grass 2 Page 12