A Shadow Intelligence

by Oliver Harris

  One of them took me to Semey. Two men sat up front, with an AK-47 propped between them. The driver chainsmoked, glancing in his mirror at me then looking away instantly when our eyes met. The dashboard clock said 8 a.m. We drove back into barrenness: snow and rock. I checked my bruising in the rear-view mirror. I looked rough.

  Block 9 was a supergiant, the largest class of field, with 1 billion or more barrels of ultimately recoverable oil. Fewer than forty had ever been found, and two-thirds were in the Persian Gulf. People hunted hard, but for years the word was that there were no more out there. I did the maths. Even if the estimates were optimistic, it was vast. Thirty trillion cubic feet of gas, 5.5 billion barrels of oil: that would meet Europe’s energy needs for years to come. All buried 50 miles from the Russian border.

  I messaged Walker with an update and he rang back. ‘We got a call from Akan Satayev.’

  ‘What did you say?’

  ‘We told him not to kill you. What took you east?’

  ‘Block Nine, it turns out. You didn’t mention it.’

  ‘It’s incredibly sensitive. Are you able to get here?’

  ‘I’m sure I’ll find a way.’

  The more oil around, the less I trusted people, and my trust levels had been minimal to start with. But the hardest question was whether you could trust yourself. I thought through the exchange with Satayev and felt the ice of Christopher Bohren hardening around me again.

  I fell asleep, and when I woke Semey was visible on the other side of the Irtish river. Ten a.m. on the dashboard. The town looked innocent enough, in the way of medium-sized towns: snow-crested, a scatter of older buildings among the concrete, arranged between the river and the mountains behind. A suspension bridge crossed the river towards it. Population 300,000. No sign that twenty of them had been shot dead in the last forty-eight hours. I wanted to assess which way the wind was blowing. Whether they were ready to join Russia, who was steering this, how far they were prepared to go. Call it habit.

  We crossed the bridge, above lumps of ice floating downstream. The town was called Semipalatinsk until 2007: seven-templed city, named after the ruins of a Buddhist monastery. By the time they decided it was time for a rebrand the name meant nothing but nuclear tests. I’d met a nurse in Moscow who used to work in Semey’s central hospital and remembered terminally ill children running around the wards pretending to be radiation.

  Now Semey was metamorphosing again.

  I told the driver to stop once we’d crossed the bridge. I could already see police vehicles parked on the main road. It would be wiser to approach on foot. The men refused money. As soon as I was out the driver pulled a fast U-turn that left me wondering what I was heading into.

  I kept to back streets. The few who were out and about were moving quickly, nervously. Patrols of men, military and police, appeared every other block. Most shops were closed, phone signal intermittent.

  The main public square had been taped off, with teams of armed police at each corner. The ground had been hosed but broken glass glinted in the cracks between paving slabs. A block away I found a café open beside a small frozen park. A stone Lenin rose up above the cold shrubbery of the park, right arm thrust out as if seeking to shake hands. Most of these monuments had vanished over the last two decades, usually removed in the dead of night, and I wondered what kept this one here. Proximity to the Motherland? Distance from brave new Astana? I ordered coffee and a hot pastry, took a seat in the centre so I could see the windows but would be mostly obscured from those looking in from outside.

  I warmed my hands on the coffee, then sipped, my insides contracting in surprise. I ate the pastry slowly, then I ordered more food and another coffee. Events of the previous twenty-four hours repeated in my mind, with stabs of dread, interwoven with a sense that I was still walking in Joanna’s footsteps. When I had caffeine and carbohydrates inside me, I focused on the view.

  The patrols were a mix: local police, Ministry of State Security, Kazakh army. I wasn’t inclined to get involved with any of them. Enough escaping death for one day. I brought up a map of the town on my phone, checked the routes out, the location of the police station, the university. According to conversations around me, four bodies had been released to the relevant families. There were ongoing disputes over the rest: relatives were being told that their loved ones’ bodies wouldn’t be released until they signed waivers. Relatives had been arrested. A funeral scheduled for tomorrow morning had been cancelled. A mix of ethnicities had been killed.

  I assessed how easily the paving stones would come up. What other ammunition was there? No loose bricks, hardly any street furniture. I finished my coffee, walked up Lenin Street, past a T-34 tank on a plinth which turned out to be a monument to Kazakh independence. Small memorial stones lined the pavement, inscribed with the names of local military heroes. At the end of the road was a shabby department store. I went in, bought two rainproof jackets in green and black, a clean shirt, a black hoody, a grey baseball cap, a small backpack, then shaving kit and concealer cream from the pharmacy. At the shop next door I bought a disposable phone and pre-paid card.

  I spent a moment circling back alleys to make sure I was alone, then headed up Dostoevsky Street to the rundown edge of the city, past the apartment blocks rising from the snow. Set back, as if removed from the present, was a log cabin, its shutters and window frames painted green. A small sign at the front announced the museum, with a picture of Dostoevsky and a list of prices. It looked closed, but the door opened when I pushed and an old woman stirred in the half-light. She tapped a price list taped to the desk in front of her. I paid 300 tenge, took a ticket and walked in.

  It was empty. In the first room, a display of photos showed a dirt village, more wooden houses similar to this one, a horse in the street. I watched the reflections on the glass, listened for the drop of coins, the printing of a ticket. No one entered.

  They’d reconstructed a bedroom, sitting room and study. Simple but solid furniture, a chintz print, matching armchairs, bouquets of flowers. In the study was a walnut writing desk with photographic reproductions of the writer’s notes amidst stationery, as if he’d just got up. I tried to imagine him here. My movements were followed by a second woman who’d appeared, solid and suspicious, remnant of the Soviet Union’s weaponisation of nosy grandmothers. I considered the study dutifully, just reverentially enough, and thought of various other unlikely museums I had used as refuge and counter-surveillance.

  In the final room was an exhibition about his time in the gulag: portraits of prison labourers, quotations from The House of the Dead. Murals traced his journey through suffering to religion. What had Dostoevsky written? If they drive God from the earth, we shall shelter Him underground. I wiped dust from the window and gazed out across an empty square to the mint-green Tatar mosque.

  No one waiting, no one watching. I changed into my new clothes in the first-floor toilet, binned the old ones, and used the concealer to cover my bruising as much as possible. The gift shop contained an odd assortment of memorabilia: Dostoevsky’s works in multiple languages, postcards of the building itself, then general Kazakh souvenirs – boxes of chocolates, etched glass ornaments all bearing the yellow and blue of the Kazakh flag. You could buy pictures of Nazarbayev, of Astana’s skyline, and flags themselves, cheap nylon on plastic poles.

  ‘How many flags do you have in stock?’ I asked. I had to repeat the question a couple of times. The woman on duty showed me the wholesale box. I checked the supplier.

  ‘Do you have more?’

  ‘One more box.’

  ‘Okay, thank you. The exhibition was fascinating.’

  I cut south again, in the direction of chanting. There were coaches parked on back streets, blocking them. The passengers were men, all between the ages of eighteen and thirty-five or so, with military-style haircuts. Content to hold back for now. I walked past, listening to the accents, checking the shoes. Accents were Russian, footwear mostly combat boots. I kept moving. A few m
inutes further on, I found a crowd of thirty or forty locals across the road from the main police station, young and old, many of the elderly in conservative dress, white headscarves, fur hats. It was ethnically mixed. Flames licked from a brazier. Twenty police stood cold, looking reluctant, across the street from them. It was the old women who led the chanting, fists in the air. Placards had photographs of young men and women pasted on.

  I walked on past the university. A thin crowd of students braved the cold in front of the gates handing out flyers. I took one, checked the names. The image from my piece accusing Zhaparov’s anti-terrorist forces.

  A plump, bespectacled student appeared to be in charge, wearing a thick tweed jacket as if dressed for premature responsibility.

  ‘I am an English journalist,’ I said. ‘John Sands. I work with Reporters for Human Rights.’ I waved the flyer. ‘I’ve worked with Kaisha Atakhanova and Timur Bekmambetov. What happened?’

  ‘They’re in Dolinka prison.’

  ‘Both of them?’ I said.

  ‘Two days ago.’

  ‘For Christ’s sake.’

  I tried to read the crowd. The anti-Russian signs outnumbered pro-democracy ones. Fuck Putin. Hands off Kazakhstan. On one placard, I glimpsed a portrait of Raiymbek Batyr, my Kazakh warrior, on horseback. The faces were all Kazakh.

  ‘What are people saying in England?’ he asked.

  ‘They’re concerned, but not as engaged as they should be. We need to get images to them, stories. Who fired? Do you know?’

  ‘We don’t know anything for sure.’

  ‘What’s your plan?’

  ‘We are arranging more protests. We will resist the curfew. There is no going back now.’

  ‘How are you communicating?

  He showed me some of their software and techniques.

  ‘For tonight,’ I said, ‘If you’re organising protests, download GatewaySMS. They’ll cut the internet again but you’ll still be able to communicate with anyone in the group. And it’s secure.’

  I made sure he understood what I was talking about. He grasped the concept enthusiastically.

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘What do you want?’ I asked. ‘At the end of this?’

  ‘Justice. That is all.’

  ‘Have you thought about using the flag? Maybe the colours in it. Doesn’t the blue symbolise peace and unity? You’re proud of Kazakhstan. You want to defend it, defend Nazarbayev’s legacy, for everyone. The Western press understands that.’

  ‘Maybe.’

  ‘Any famous people supporting you? Celebrities?’

  ‘Not openly.’

  ‘Okay. Keep in touch.’ I didn’t feel optimistic for them, and wondered if they knew they were on a frontline.

  ‘Please, tell the world.’

  I went to shake his hand and he hugged me.

  I found Satayev’s armed guard a mile west of the city centre, as promised. It was a ten-minute drive to the airport. As we drove, I experienced the faint, flickering promise of redemption: this could be the good revolution I was owed, the one I’d been waiting for. The one that was going to go right.

  Which should have been a warning sign.

  Semey airport was small and low-tech. A side gate opened for us, well-rehearsed men averting their eyes as we drove straight onto the smooth tarmac of the runway. We passed helicopters and one IL-76 cargo plane, rolled right up to a crisp white forty-seat Tupolev jet, just as the cockpit lights came on.

  Once on board I was given a drink and code for the wi-fi. There were others travelling – three well-dressed men, none of whom spoke to one another, one of whom might have been a discreet chaperone. They glanced at me but seemed unfazed by my bruised face. A pilot with gold teeth shook our hands. A free newspaper told me the President was making efforts to address concerns around the country: long-serving men had resigned, though not Zhaparov. Independence Day was coming up on 16 December and would be an opportunity to show the world that Kazakhstan stood united.

  When we were in the air, one of the men gave me a folder. ‘From Akan.’

  Inside was a copy of a document from GRU’s Asian Directorate, carrying the CEKPETHO stamp for highest-level classified: Lt General Grigory Tanayev, to Anton Kirkorov, head of the Russian Federation Ministry of Energy. Timeline: 19:07, 25 November. Topic: Block 9 estimates.

  The intelligence came from an agent named SERENADE. It consisted largely of stolen hyperspectral data, translated into 3D sections of the Earth, veined with dayglo pinks and blues.

  This was the dream, that with equipment sensitive enough – with the ability to read the near-infrared spectral band – you might get a sniff of something to which your rivals were oblivious. Down beneath the abandoned Soviet tools, the skeletons of loyal comrades, in among the Miocene fossils: five billion barrels of light sweet crude. It was calling out to change history.

  At the bottom of the computer imagery it said Property of Auracle Inc. Someone had stolen it off Craig Bryant’s company, given it to Russia.

  FORTY-SEVEN

  The flight gave me time to think. I spent a lot of time studying the GRU report, piecing together a variety of potential chronologies. The one I wanted to counter: she chases Bryant; she sells the data. I kept seeing that CCTV, Joanna getting into the car, which I tried to analyse with a cool objectivity that I didn’t feel.

  Would Vishinsky trust her? If this was a long game, perhaps; if she’d been working for him for years. Meaning I would have been lied to for years. I dissected the past twelve months: my op closed down; her disaster in Turkey. Memory comes into its own when you’ve been betrayed. I saw details I hadn’t even seen the first time around. I thought through an interpretation of my life in which Joanna was working for Moscow: our relationship, its feints and circumlocution. Vishinsky had a file on us. She was tasked with getting close to me. She resisted. Finally, she was going to invite me over to the other side. I would have been good. I would have been tempted. Caracas. We’d need money.

  Or it was all very carefully constructed bullshit. Oldest psyops in the book: get departments to tear themselves apart over moles. You don’t even need to penetrate, just sow doubt. The Russians were old hands at that. It might have been what got Hugh Stevenson killed. My immediate mission was clear: stop their incursion.

  My gut instinct: this was Vishinsky’s idea of victory. Joanna had been working against him in some way since Turkey. Perfect Vision, whatever it was, represented that attempt. Vishinsky had ensured both Six and Vectis turned against her, closed down the Shefford operation. He not only destroyed her but who she was, her reputation. I knew he would make sure she was aware of this: her disgrace in the eyes of those who loved and respected her. Perhaps she was being made to watch it from her cell.

  The image I needed to understand was Aliya’s: the one of the Millennium London Hotel. I had a message from Aliya, sent while I’d been detained: How long are you in Astana? Let me know if you want another coffee. Got something for you. Nothing from Reza Nikfar; no lead on 4,000 kilograms of stashed explosives. Although it seemed I wasn’t the only one who felt an attack coming.

  We dipped towards Astana and the intercom came to life, the pilot clearing his throat and informing us that it was minus 8 on the ground and there were roadblocks around the city. The time was 3.15 p.m. Beneath us, two C-130 military transport planes sat fatly on the airport runway, a line of 50-ton army trucks parked along the perimeter fence.

  Touchdown was smooth. We exited via a lounge with car magazines and a white leatherette sofa. No passport control, no DV camera in the face. I was met by a GL5 Mercedes, with Walker in the back. I got in. We started heading around the outskirts of the city.

  ‘What took you east?’ Walker asked.

  ‘I was following a lead.’

  ‘And you found Akan Satayev.’

  ‘He found me. So did Russian special forces on Kazakh soil.’

  ‘Definitely Russian?’

  ‘Russian, Serb. Probably Sigma Group.’
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  ‘We’re going to the Saracen HQ. They need to hear what you saw.’

  I played along. I was being invited into the heart of a company whose actions threatened to provoke a Russian invasion. I needed to know what they were planning.

  ‘The President is terrified of upsetting Moscow,’ Walker said, after another moment. ‘That’s our problem right now.’

  ‘Does the Oil Ministry know how big it is? Over five billion barrels?’

  ‘As of yesterday, it seems. They’re asking 8.9 billion dollars. Saracen have secured credit up to eight. They’re trying to get it within that. Money’s not the biggest problem. If they get the Conqueror field for eight they’ve got a bargain.’

  ‘Conqueror?’

  ‘That’s what they’ve named it.’

  ‘Jesus Christ.’

  We passed striped office complexes, emerald towers, clouds held in glass, moving around corners.

  ‘Can I ask,’ he said, cautiously, ‘did you have any suspicions about her? Ever?’

  ‘No.’

  We pulled up in front of the Saracen HQ. There was already a wall of four armoured black Lexus limousines with motorbike outriders waiting.

  ‘I want you to meet Robert Carter,’ Walker said. ‘I told him you know what’s going on.’

  Armed guards searched my pockets, ran a scanner around my body then waved us through. Everything was calm until we got to the sixth floor, where over sixty Saracen personnel were working phones and computers. I was brought up to speed as we marched through, past geological surveys and dense spreadsheets. Experts across Saracen’s divisions had been ordered to abandon everything else and number-crunch the bid. The European Investment Bank had their own people coming over to conduct a feasibility study. On the plans I saw, wells stretched out in all directions once they got underground, thousands of feet long, running to multiple reservoirs. Tight oil: light crude held in shale, which meant digging deep and fracking.