Official Secrets

by Andrew Raymond

  Table of Contents

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  Official Secrets

  Part One - A Credible Threat

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Part Two - Black Crash

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Part Three - Superhack

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Part Four - The Evidence Game

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Part Five - All the Devils are Here

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Epilogue

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  Acknowledgements

  Author's Note

  Copyright

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  OFFICIAL SECRETS

  A Novak and Mitchell novel

  Andrew Raymond

  “In a time of deceit telling the truth is a revolutionary act.”

  ― George Orwell

  PART ONE

  A Credible Threat

  1.

  The outskirts of Szymany Airport, Poland – Sunday, 11:50pm local time

  TWENTY-YEAR-OLD ARTUR KORECKI bounded through the waist-high grass, holding onto his camera with an iron grip as the two American agents gave chase. They never identified themselves as CIA, but Artur knew, given what he had just seen, they were professionals of some sort: their dark suits; the way they held their slimline flashlights against the barrel of their handguns as they ran; the Gulfstream jet they had just landed in. The shackled man in the orange jumpsuit they had escorted down the jet’s stairs.

  Every few strides the agent in front shouted, ‘Drop the camera!’

  They’re gaining on me, Artur thought, too terrified to turn around. His head start had been halved in less than a minute, and now had barely one hundred yards on them. Just keep running, he told himself.

  Dropping the camera wasn’t an option. There were too many videos on the memory card that could be used to identify him. Even if he stopped and gave himself up there was no guarantee they wouldn’t just shoot him.

  As he hurdled through the grass – each landing a surprise as the terrain underfoot shifted unevenly, unclear in the darkness – his foot landed in a small depression. His knee buckled and he fell to the ground. He couldn’t get any purchase on the mud, his feet running a treadmill as he looked back: a pair of increasingly bright flashlight beams jerking in motion with the agents’ swinging arms.

  In that brief moment, all Artur could think about was how much he didn’t want to die. Not yet. Not before he’d made it out of tiny Szymany. Before he’d made anything of his life. He was going to show all those small-minded idiots back in town he had bigger dreams than taking a job in the dog food factory twenty miles away, then drinking the rest of his life away.

  He at least had his YouTube channel, TruthArmy. And he was going to get his message out to the world no matter what it took.

  First, he had to survive the next five minutes.

  He scrambled to his feet, but the short pause in running was enough to fill his legs with lactic acid – where the burn comes from during exercise. He tried to get his legs moving but he was going half the speed he was before.

  At the chain-link perimeter fence (topped with razor wire) he squeezed through the small hole he had cut an hour ago to gain access to the military airport grounds.

  For a few seconds the agents were close enough to see Artur’s terrified mud-speckled face through the fence in their flashlights, and the patch on Artur’s denim jacket. It carried the logo of his conspiracy theory vlog: an Illuminati pyramid with the words “Trust No One” inside. Below the pyramid, “TruthArmy on YouTube”.

  The agents lost time cutting a bigger hole in the fence so they could fit through. Sensing they were losing him, one of the agents called into his radio, ‘I have a clear shot.’ His voice was unmistakably American.

  The response came into his radio earpiece. ‘We need that video. Take it.’

  He flicked the safety off his Beretta 92 semi-automatic, his flashlight pressed against the barrel, the flashlight trained on Artur’s back.

  They had been running for five minutes in pounding, driving rain, which was no issue for his Spytac X-6 military-grade flashlight. It was so bright, if someone flashed it at you in broad daylight you’d be seeing spots for minutes.

  He had a clear shot, his trigger finger about to squeeze.

  Then Artur was gone.

  The agent flicked his light from side to side, but Artur was nowhere to be seen.

  What they didn’t know was that he’d fallen, and was now crawling to one side under cover of the tall grass.

  As Artur caught his breath, he thought about the terrain ahead. It was even deeper and thicker grass, and it lasted for miles. He knew he didn’t have that in him. If he couldn’t outrun their bullets, he’d have to outsmart the agents instead.

  He ran dead left, away from their flashlight beams, then crouched under the thickest weeds he could find.

  The senior agent raised a hand. ‘Keep your light low. If he’s hiding you should be able to see his breath.’

  The agents could no longer see the path Artur had taken, the grass so high it had just flopped back into place behind him.

  The senior agent made a helicopter blade gesture with his hand, meaning a three-sixty search of the area.

  During the agents’ confusion, Artur pulled out the camera’s SD card and inserted it into his phone, moving his most recent video clip there.

  With his 4G connection he opened a new email. He didn’t have time to write an explanation, only a subject line saying ‘Get this out there. TRUST NO ONE’ and formatted the email for encryption. He attached the video clip, then searched through recipients. It didn’t take long. He only had three in his whole address book: his mum, his friend Wally, and a man named Tom Novak.

  His mum couldn’t even work the toaster, let alone a laptop with an encrypted video file.

  Wally had been his only friend since they were little boys, and the last thing Artur wanted was to bring a whole lot of heat down on him.

  Then there was Tom Novak.

  Tom Novak had never met Artur, never spoken to him, and lived nearly five thousand miles away. Yet he was the only person Artur could trust now.

  He sent the email to Novak, then wiped his entire camera library and SD card. If they caught him, they at least wouldn’t be able to pin anything on him, except perhaps trespassing. The phone was encrypted, so no one would be able to read the contents of the message or view the clip. But he wasn’t ready for giving in. Not yet.

  Although it was two against one, Artur knew that if he could just get another head start, and the agents couldn’t tell what direction he’d gone off in, he might still make it home. What he needed was a diversion. And quickly. There were several more flashlights approaching in the distance from the airport runway: more agents were coming for backup.

  He wok
e up his phone screen, then tapped out an encrypted text message to Wally. ‘Call me in thirty seconds. life or death’

  They only ever communicated using encryption, knowing the NSA was capable of tracking any unencrypted text or phone call in the world. Even with astronomical luck and years of computer processing, it would take centuries for a computer to unlock an encrypted message. All Artur needed was thirty seconds.

  He hit send.

  It was going to be the longest thirty seconds of his life.

  He waited until both agents faced away from him. If he made the slightest sound while tossing the phone, the consequences could be fatal. Since 9/11 the American government and CIA hadn’t exactly been sticklers for due process. Artur had read enough from Tom Novak’s columns in The Republic to know if they got him now they might put him away for years before even the prospect of a trial reared its head. That was the risk he had accepted.

  After setting the volume to loudest, Artur lobbed his phone like a grenade as far as he could. It looped straight over the two agents, landing to their right. The gentle rustle of its landing was enough to make the closest agent jerk the torch towards the noise, his senses on highest alert.

  ‘Over here...’ he told his partner.

  Artur tried to keep a count down from thirty in his head but lost count somewhere around ten. His heart shivered like it had been packed with ice.

  He held his breath. If it was going to work, he couldn’t get away with even a second’s hesitation.

  Artur prayed silently. Come on, Wally. Don’t let me down. Not now.

  Buried down in the grass somewhere the ringtone – The X Files theme tune – came out muffled and quiet, but it was like a foghorn to the agents. They both whipped around, assuming – as Artur had hoped – that the phone was still in their target’s possession.

  They took several strides towards the noise – just what Artur needed.

  He leapt out of his hiding spot, and took off towards his hometown of Szymany.

  When the agent saw the lit-up screen down in the grass, he realised what Artur had done. He started a curse, ‘Motherf...’ then got on his radio. ‘He got away. Get me Dennis Muller at NSA.’ He turned to his partner. ‘Did you see that badge on his jacket?’

  They’d both clocked it. Even during heightened tension like a chase on foot through unfamiliar territory it was impossible to switch that part of their brains off. It was so engrained at this point they couldn’t switch it off even if they wanted to.

  The agent got back on his radio. ‘I need everything they’ve got on a YouTube channel called TruthArmy. I want names and addresses. And I want local assets up to kick in doors tonight.’

  CIA black site, Camp Zero, outskirts of Szymany – Monday, 1:03am

  Specialized Skills Officer Walter Sharp stared out the window of the CIA block of the Stare Kiejkuty military complex set deep in the forest, seeing only blackness. The Polish secret service, Biuro Ochrony Rządu, had operated from there since the Cold War, and had now turned over a large chunk of its incarceration units to CIA. What had started out as a temporary base during the early days of the War on Terror had turned into a seemingly permanent prison. A ‘terror hotel’ as Sharp called it.

  Camp Zero’s location in the heart of Europe was ideal for the Americans, who could rendition the most valuable terror suspects from the Middle East or Africa and have them on site within a few hours. Then the bureaucratic nightmare of figuring out where to send the suspects afterwards could begin. The White House had given spec ops permission to basically go anywhere it wanted, and take whomever they wanted. All with total immunity and secrecy.

  The closest anyone had come to unearthing where such black sites were was the U.S. Senate’s so-called ‘Torture Report’, following the Abu Ghraib prison scandal. But the report was so heavily redacted it gave CIA complete deniability on national security grounds of the most egregious human rights abuses. It wouldn’t even officially acknowledge the sites existed, let alone allow lawyers in to inspect conditions or prisoners.

  In Camp Zero, the rule of law didn’t exist.

  Apart from the barbed wire-gated entrance and double-row razor wire perimeter fence, from the outside it looked like a fairly anonymous warehouse with a low corrugated metal roof.

  Guantanamo Bay might have had all the notoriety, but that was only because its existence had been made so public. Hidden away in the dark, endless woods of remotest Poland, Camp Zero housed the worst of the worst: plotters who strapped suicide bombs to children then sent them into public markets for remote detonation; human traffickers and paedophiles the authorities were still gathering evidence on; war criminal fugitives from Congo, Sudan and Bosnia to name a few; the stars of beheading and ISIS propaganda videos.

  Put simply, it housed the scum of the earth.

  The interrogation block was made up of three different types of cells: the Soft Room, a large cell with prayer mats and a rug, was for cooperative, high-ranking detainees; the Blue Room had plywood walls painted sky blue and was smaller, six feet by ten, for medium-intensity interrogation, using the sort of techniques approved in the U.S. Army Field Manual.

  Then there was the Black Room, where interrogation techniques definitely didn’t conform to the Army Field Manual. In the Black Room, all bets were off.

  Twelve feet by twelve, painted black from floor to ceiling (including the door), with speakers in each corner which played deafening music – heavy metal being the favoured choice, as detainees were less likely to be familiar with it. A spotlight shone down from the middle of the room, and an air conditioner gusted on high, bringing the cell to a steady minus two.

  All day long, detainees would be shuttled from one room to the other – depending on cooperation levels – to show them how much easier life became at Camp Zero if interrogators heard what they wanted to hear.

  Cooperate and you get to sit on a soft carpet (while shackled) and pray; don’t cooperate and you get the Black Room and Slayer’s Reign in Blood on repeat for five hours.

  Sharp closed his eyes and leaned his forehead against the window. The coldness felt soothing, easing the headache that had been circling him the past hour. He listened to the throb of Metallica’s Black album coming from the cell behind him, knowing with each bludgeoning guitar riff the detainee’s resolve was withering.

  Sharp’s U.S. Army compatriot, Captain Luke Hampton, wanted to get straight to it, but Sharp insisted the suspect needed at least an hour for the confusion and disorientation to rise sufficiently. Sharp knew the drill by now: Where am I? What’s about to happen to me? How long will they keep me here? These are all good questions when you’ve been snatched on the edge of an ISIS stronghold in Nimruz province two days ago and haven’t seen daylight since. After about an hour you start to settle on more immediate questions of discomfort: How long am I going to have to kneel like this? What on earth is this deafening music?

  Sharp, dressed down in casual long-sleeve khaki shirt and dark combats, ran his hand through his long, thick beard as he read through the detainee’s file – slim as it was. What few details he had were sketchy to say the least.

  The Polish Biuro were so used to collecting CIA-renditioned prisoners from Szymany Military Airport they dropped them off at Camp Zero like they were delivering pizza. No records were kept on the Polish side. As far as the Biuro and Polish government were concerned, CIA did not exist there.

  Sharp had been living at Camp Zero for six months. No casual strolls off site. No holiday time. Just one day off a week. So he found himself in a similar dilemma as the prisoners: he had no idea how long he would be there for. The only advice he’d been given on the matter was from a colleague back in Virginia: ‘Make some valuable intel or break a case, Walt. It’s the only way out of a place like Zero.’

  Promotion in CIA had become so laughably rare in recent years, it bred resentment among mid-level officers like Sharp. The only way to get ahead was playing your politics smartly. And Walter Sharp had never shown much a
ptitude for that.

  Sharp turned the file towards Hampton. ‘Known accomplices are vague, any intel linking him to any known groups is either anonymous or obtuse, and no one we’ve spoken to has ever mentioned the name Abdul al-Malik.’

  ‘The lead is solid, sir,’ Hampton said resolutely.

  ‘How solid?’

  ‘Army Ranger unit says a man fitting his description was spotted near an IED blast at another checkpoint the day before that took out about a dozen friendlies.’

  Sharp exhaled, troubled by something. ‘We waterboarded Khalid Sheikh Mohammed here when he confessed to masterminding nine eleven. I’ve got a British ISIS executioner in cell three who every newspaper in the world thinks was killed nine months ago. And cell eight is a guy who was arrested in his car in Brussels with fifty Ks of C4, boxes of nails and razor blades, and a map directing him to the nearest Jewish kids’ school. I’m looking at this guy... He’s a parking violator compared to these creeps.’

  Hampton said, ‘He had a bag on him with multiple passports and some maps of the Pakistan border. God knows where he was going after that.’

  Sharp shook his head. ‘Something’s not right.’ He closed the file and went to the cell door, checking through the spy hole. ‘Did you see his hands when he came in?’

  ‘His hands?’

  ‘They’re soft. No calluses. You can’t live out in the shit in Nimruz with soft hands like that. They’re all farmers out there.’ Sharp kept staring at Malik’s face. ‘He’s hard to place isn’t he? Nationality-wise. He’d make a good grey man.’

  Hampton nodded.

  A grey man was what every intelligence recruiter hunted for: someone who blended in; who, after meeting them, you instantly forgot. They left no mark on the world.

  Malik looked in his mid-thirties. He was wearing only blackout goggles and a pair of white shorts. His feet were shackled close together, and he stood directly under the spotlight in the centre of the room in a crucifixion pose – as he’d been instructed – his arms trembling from exertion, the cold and sleep deprivation. There were fresh bruises all up one side of his body where he’d been taking sustained kidney punches, and the same on the backs of his legs from a wooden cane.