Then I knew where I’d seen him. He’d been at the event where I’d first met Callum Walker.
I thought back to that night, which had been a memorable one in and of itself. Wilton Park was an eighteenth-century mansion in Buckinghamshire, used by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office for strategic forums, mostly focused on international security, bringing together big names from politics, business and academia. It had originally been commandeered as a site to interrogate German prisoners after the Second World War. I was thinking about this as I arrived and saw the place.
Helicopters on the lawn; inside the house, a sweeping staircase, an ornate room with Greek gods painted across the ceiling. Beneath the gods, international political figures, former heads of banks, energy companies, retired military.
Talks were self-regarding, centred on fantasies. Fantasies of Russian schemes and capabilities, of our capacity to respond, and visions of various futures in which it was too late. With the décor and candlelight, the whole thing felt like a strange form of court masque, an attempt at decorating power with ideas. It was a waste of my time, and I wondered why Alastair Undercroft had suggested I attend. After the final speech I moved to the bar, feeling superstitious and wanting to clear the foggy visions away with whisky. I was looking forward to getting back on a plane to Kurdistan. I met Callum Walker. His eyes were bright with drink. His business card was in my hand when I next sat down.
I checked Google’s cached pages for archived versions of the EFF website, then Wayback Machine, which preserved old or deleted websites. The Eurasian Futures Foundation website was there. It listed events, sponsors, speakers, attendees. I was scanning down names when one caught my eye in the list of sponsors: Talon.
Hugh Stevenson had been on his way to their offices when he was killed.
I called the number for Talon. A receptionist answered.
‘I believe someone at your company wants to speak to me,’ I said. ‘I’m not sure who. My name is Elliot Kane, and I believe they want to speak to me about Hugh Stevenson. It’s urgent, and I’d appreciate if you could identify the relevant employee.’
I thought I sounded insane. The well-spoken woman on the other end remained polite. She said she’d see what she could do. I didn’t believe her. I gave a number to call.
My phone rang in less than two minutes.
‘You know I can’t tell you much.’ It was a woman’s voice, rich, soaked in decades of power. I could hear birds chirping in the background.
‘Who is this?’
‘You don’t need my name. Hugh suggested you might call. He said if anything happened I should speak to you. You have to understand, I am not part of the privileged circle. But I was at the initial meeting. At the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, 1st March 2014.’
‘What happened?’
‘I was told it was going to be a closed conference on Central Asian policy, put together by the Eurasian Futures Foundation. There was an astonishing array of figures present: the Foreign Secretary and Chief of Six, the army chief of General Staff. There were representatives of the NATO Psychological Operations Working Group, individuals from Sweden, Finland and Croatia. Robert Carter, of course, along with the CEO of British Energy, the chief executives of Fortune Capital, Shell, Deutsche Bank.
Then a lot of foreign policy think tanks, Washington and Brussels as well as UK.
‘Eurasian Futures had arranged a presentation. We were shown data and forecasting on Central Asia, on Russian leadership and Central Asia, a set of scenarios that could unfold. All incorporated loss of Western influence, financial losses of billions, a complete shift of global power. Robert Carter had intelligence regarding a meeting in August between China, Russia and Iran. He claimed that Russia persuaded its allies that the West had become politically incapable of coordinated military response, and he believed they were about to take advantage of this to establish joint control of the region. More broadly, we lacked the means of responding to their psychological operations.
‘He presented data that showed Russian dominance of online media in more countries than not, said the effects of this would only be fully understood in the coming years. The argument made was that we needed to step up our own offensive psyop strategy urgently, before it was too late. The British government needed to take these warnings seriously. It was now or never.
‘I detached myself, so to speak, when they began talking about invading Syria and Iran. We would need Russia distracted etcetera. That was when I decided they were fantasists. Now I believe they had alliances within the MOD and beyond, in the States: individuals who backed a more aggressive foreign policy.’
‘How high up do you think it goes?’
‘I don’t know. I raised objections in the meeting. I was closed out. So I can’t say with certainty how things proceeded. I know Robert Carter bought Saracen a month later. Saracen hired the intelligence company, Vectis. Their founder, Callum Walker, had been one of the more positive voices at the meeting.’
‘Walker was there?’
‘He was there. I’ve no doubt his connections within the Secret Intelligence Service helped win initial support for whatever unfolded. The government did spend millions, I’ve heard. My own acquaintances were able to share that much. No other information came my way until six months ago when those acquaintances suggested my instincts had been right. The PM got cold feet, balked at the scale things had grown to. Perhaps they hadn’t realised that Kazakhstan was part of a much bigger play. You can imagine the government’s response to that. We can’t risk starting World War Three: thoughts along those lines.’
‘And then people moved out of Six,’ I said, as the pieces came together.
‘Quite an exodus. The big names associated with the project seemed to feel their time in state intelligence had come to an end. They went off in a sulk. Robert Carter ensured that most of them had a soft landing.’
‘Joanna Lake?’
‘Lake, yes. She moved to Vectis.’
I went to the motel window, stared at the car park as my mind reeled.
‘Do you think it was closed down?’ I asked.
‘What do you mean?’
‘Did they jump ship or just change ship?’
‘I see.’ There was a long pause. ‘I wouldn’t want to speculate. I’ve probably said all I can for now.’
‘I appreciate it.’
‘Hugh was a good friend.’
‘Mine also.’
She rang off. Olivia Gresham had messaged: Is this real? Reza Nikfar: Call me. I returned to the car and began to drive back into the centre. I called Reza first.
‘Got a possible ID for the attacker,’ he said. ‘We’re looking for Emad Sabri, Iraqi from Anbar province. Seventeen years old. Usual story: parents killed, spent time in prison, came out angry and possibly disabled. Next seen in Raqqa, learning how to take apart an AK-47. His brother was arrested last year, but Emad must have had some decent training as he’s been off-radar since entering Kazakhstan.’
‘Where’s he going to bomb?’
‘That’s the question. Would be nice to answer it before he does.’
I closed my eyes, tried not to see the aftermath of a suicide bomb: the body parts, the children, the bones through skin.
‘Listen, Reza, you said Joanna Lake put you on to this attack in the first place when she called. I think she’d just seen the plans – I think she’d accessed something that told her what was going to happen. She judged that it had gone too far. She was going somewhere to try to stop it.’
‘You think she got there? She got involved with terrorists?’
‘I don’t know. You’ve got the cell number she rang you from; you may have her last location.’
‘Give me fifteen.’
‘Five.’
‘Five.’
Gresham was still trying to get through. I answered.
‘Where are you?’ she said.
‘Astana.’
‘You’re on the news.’
‘Ignore
the news.’
‘Are you okay?’
‘No. What have you heard about the situation?’
‘The President might be dead.’
‘The President is dead.’
‘What about the deal?’
‘Up in the air.’
‘I’m hearing five billion barrels, I’m hearing three billion, then zero billion; I’m hearing a line into Turkey, then people saying that’s a no-go. Others telling me the field’s sixty million years out, and the oil’s gone.’
‘Who’s saying that?’
‘Smart people. Apparently there’s been drilling around Block Nine for years. The fossils coming up are Cretaceous rather than Miocene – so say people who know about these things. It’s clay all the way down.’
‘Saracen have new remote sensing technology,’ I said.
‘Auracle.’
‘Right.’
‘Start-up snake oil. No one had heard of Auracle or their drones until two years ago. Now they’ve vanished off the face of the earth.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Try calling them.’
‘I will.’
‘Are you really on a wanted list, Elliot?’
‘So it seems.’
I promised I’d message with an update asap and hung up. I was a few blocks east of the Special Economic Zone. I could do better than calling them. I turned the car around and headed for their office.
Astana’s citizens were out in force. Many carried flowers or wreaths. I passed two satellite broadcasting vans, then heard the first chants. At the corner of Independence Square I saw the crowd: two thousand or so men and women drawn together by shock. Police lines protected the governmental palace. Military groups waited beside armoured vehicles at the corners of the square. Taking up positions: Zhaparov’s national guard, balaclavas covering their faces, fingerless gloves on assault rifles.
Three security police waved me away. I turned east, kept going, into narrower, poorer back streets, turned another corner and saw two black Land Cruisers, ten black uniforms. A man was down on the snow, clutching his face, eight more individuals with their hands on their heads, noses pressed to the wall. An open doorway led into a tatty prayer hall with overlapping rugs on the floor, a speaker on the wall, prayer books in a case by the door. I checked the uniformed men. They looked sharp, well equipped, with Glocks and MP3s. Looked like Zhaparov’s personal unit.
I reversed fast, circled back to the gates of the economic zone. Two guards kept uneasy watch. They asked for my pass.
‘I’m visiting Auracle.’
‘Gone,’ one of the men said. ‘No visitors today.’
I talked my way in by virtue of being a white European and passing them my last handful of cash. Besides, it wasn’t a day for excess propriety.
The businesses were housed in identikit warehouse-style buildings and it took me ten minutes to find Auracle’s unit, not helped by the fact that their signage had been removed.
The door to the office was locked but no alarm went off when I smashed a back window. Inside, it was bare bricks and trailing cables beneath empty desks. The desks were askew, bins filled with shredded paper. A whiteboard had been smeared. The small kitchen contained bags of unused stationery and stacks of plastic cups. In a back room was a snub-nosed drone with its wings off.
I sat down in a swivel chair at an empty desk.
‘They have software that can tell you how long a relationship will last,’ she said.
‘What does that allow you to do? What are we, marriage guidance?’
‘It means, theoretically, if you wanted a relationship to end, you could run the program backwards and see what steps would engineer that outcome.’
My phone battery was low. I brought up real-time satellite imagery of the Kazakh border with Russia. This was what Joanna had been doing in the internet café, I realised now: watching the creep of war. The hacked data showed her something that had got out of control.
Imagery was vague; Russian troops were more than capable of going invisible if they chose. There were no more updates from Aliya in Astana, or her other personas. No reply when I messaged her, which was understandable. I logged into her phone, switched the mic on, heard a crowd chanting. She had joined the protest. She could have chosen safety and she chose history.
I tried Walker, then the Vectis office. Both lines were dead. I stood at the window and stared out at the corrugated walls of the industrial estate. According to local news, Zhaparov was due to address the Independence Square crowd in an hour, flanked by senior officials from Russia. He was branding it a mass vigil, an attempt to keep the square occupied by grief rather than anger: Kazakhstan united against terrorism.
In 2014, ISIS published instructions for building and deploying vehicle-borne explosives. They encouraged targeting mass gatherings. They advised on components that weren’t going to trigger security tripwires, and suggested waiting to construct the device until just before the operation for maximum discretion.
Police had seized a laptop containing research on fuel-air bombs along with a detailed satellite image of Astana and surveillance photographs of public squares.
Fuel-air meant thermobaric. Thermobaric explosions were unlike anything else. Mix in enough petrol with your military-grade explosives and you got a second blast wave as the air itself caught light, sucking up all the oxygen. Most forms of defence were useless; the fuel cloud flowed around objects and into structures. What tended to kill people wasn’t just the pressure wave but the subsequent vacuum, which tore lungs apart.
In a crowd like Independence Square, there would be more than five or six hundred in the kill zone.
But how would you get the vehicle through? No parked cars, area checked by sniffer dogs, airspace closed. Blocks on every approach road. I sat on a swivel chair in the abandoned office, hearing the peace outside. I made a fist of my left hand then opened it and stared at the scar.
Reza called.
‘We have the last location of Joanna’s cellphone.’
FIFTY-TWO
The location was two miles out of the city. I coaxed the car to seventy miles per hour, prayed that its wheels would hold on the icy road.
The coordinates led me into nothingness: salt flats as far as the eye could see. I considered the possibility that Reza’s readings were out, or even that GPS signals were being scrambled, which wasn’t unheard of during states of emergency. A mile later, as I was about to turn back, I saw something.
It looked like a village in the distance, with low, brown buildings. As I got closer I saw it was a cemetery, mud tombs surrounded by a low metal fence. Not a soul in sight.
I left the car by the fence and walked in. Graves were snow-capped, some domed, others square mausoleums of stone or clay. That was what had made me think it was a town. The graves were carved with images of camels and swords and inscriptions in Arabic. Poles jutted out of the snow, tied with bundles of horse hair. A low tree in the centre shrieked with coloured rags that had been wound around its dead branches.
Families had cleared snow from some of the graves. A path had been dug to a small brick mosque with barred windows and a crude water pump beside its door. A few hundred metres behind the mosque were the low concrete ruins of a collective farm.
I knocked at the door of the mosque, then turned back towards the cemetery and considered my next move. A few hundred metres to the right of where I’d parked there was a glint of what looked like water. Which was impossible. I walked over. As I got closer I saw it was something hard, reflective: a panel of grey metal. I kicked it with the toe of my boot. I thought it was a car door, and wondered how it had become detached, then realised it was the car’s roof and it hadn’t.
Heart thumping, I went back to the mosque, knocking hard on the door. When no one answered I pulled on the handle and it opened. I walked in, looking for a shovel. A figure moved. It was an old man, head shrouded, face sunken. A caretaker of some kind; scared.
I tried various langu
ages before realising he was deaf. I mimed digging, then pointed out, towards my car. That did the trick. He disappeared into the shadows and came back with an ancient-looking spade. He followed me, and seemed curious when I started digging.
The Chevy Equinox sat in what must once have been a hollow. There was a ridge of earth on at least two sides. These would have obscured the car from the road, but also left it exposed to the east – the direction that the snow had blown in – and had served as a trap.
After ten minutes digging I had the top of a window. I crouched to try and see through but it was too dark inside. The caretaker watched as I dug furiously. I shone my phone light through the glass, couldn’t see anything. When I had another few inches of window exposed I took the shovel and smashed the glass in.
The car was empty but for a laptop and the contents of a first-aid kit spilled across the front seats. Down by the pedals was a nylon pouch used for carrying a spare box magazine for a handgun. The grey fabric of the driver’s seat was bloodstained. There was blood smeared on the window and the door handle.
The caretaker called out. He stood between the car and the cemetery, waving for me to come over.
A few metres away from him, I saw the fabric showing through the snow.
I dug with my hands, not minding that they went numb in seconds. I uncovered strands of hair, then skin, clearing the snow gently around her closed eyes. Joanna lay on her side. The snow remained pink around her right arm where she’d bled from beneath a shoelace tourniquet. Her lips were parted, frozen.
I crouched with my face to the exposed skin and felt the illusion of warmth. The caretaker muttered a prayer in Arabic. O God, forgive our living and our dead … Yes, I thought. I’d heard that prayer too many times but the words had never felt so necessary. The stupid game. She knew that and she’d kept playing. I saw the girl at the recruitment interview, climbing through the window and out of her life. I had loved her then. I couldn’t remember why we had waited. Why had we let them rob us of our lives?
A Shadow Intelligence Page 36