by A. M. Murray
Fontaine ended the call and sent photographs of Jarhead, Flathead, Sakata, and Isa Kato to Dubois. “From Gare de Lyon, they could take a bus to Charles de Gaulle airport or transfer by subway to Gare du Nord to take the Eurostar to London. Now we wait for those frames.”
Fifteen minutes later, his phone buzzed again. He looked at the number displayed on the screen, and said, “From our Marseille office.” When the brief conversation ended, he downloaded an email to his computer and said to Slade, “We have matches for our two unsubs. Flathead is a former US Marine, Todd Maine, discharged dishonorably from the military for killing a man in a bar fight. He has form for disorderly behavior and aggravated assault. Jarhead is a former CIA operative. His name is Hank Fox. Not much is known about him, but from his level of security in the files, my colleagues think he was deployed in black ops as a sanctioned assassin. He retired at the relatively young age of thirty-nine for unspecified reasons a couple of years ago.”
“Just the sort of people Aculeus loves to employ,” Slade said. “Alex, are you into the Aculeus site yet?”
“Not yet. It’s heavily wrapped. Their security’s tighter than a champagne cork.”
“When you are, see if these guys are on their payroll and look for anything else of interest about them,” Slade said.
“Their files will have a pretty thick firewall, especially if they have questionable operations. And they’re using military-grade encryption. But I’ll access it eventually if you give me enough time.”
“‘Eventually’ sounds like a week or two. How long do you mean?” asked Slade, impatient to make progress.
“Twenty to thirty minutes if I’m lucky. More like an hour. In the computer world, that’s half a century,” Roche said, grinning.
“Let’s stay a while longer here in the business center,” Slade suggested. “Ben, you and I can jot down what we know in bullet points on the whiteboard, and try to make sense of it while Alex carries on with his cyber-research.”
“Okay. You give me key items, and I’ll list them up,” Fontaine said.
Thirty minutes passed while they summarized events and findings on the board. They were struggling to find a link between them when Fontaine received a short call, this time from Inspecteur Détective Dubois.
“He’s sent me security camera frames from Gare de Lyon in Paris,” he said. “I’m putting them on the screen now.”
They looked first at frames from the platform where the train from Nice arrived at thirteen-eleven. They saw Isa with her steel-blue bags pass the camera in the first sequence of frames. Maine and Fox walked past many frames later, one carrying the red-trimmed black briefcase and the other carrying the overnight bag slung over his shoulder. Frames from the main exit, with timestamps starting from ten minutes later, showed the two Aculeus operatives leave the station building without the bags and turn at a sign directing passengers to the airport bus.
“Ben, can your researcher check to see if Maine and Fox left France from Charles de Gaulle Airport today and, if so, where they went?” Slade.said. “Where’s Isa?”
“There she is,” replied Fontaine. “She’s also leaving the station minus bags, ten minutes after the Aculeus guys.”
“Do we have any frames from the station’s storage lockers?” Slade asked.
Fontaine fast-forwarded the frames. “Here they are.”
They watched for several minutes until they saw Isa take a bunch of document folders from her purse, place them in one of her travel bags, and pull out a map from another. She studied the map for a few minutes, stashed it in her jacket pocket, and stacked her bags in two lockers.
Slade felt uneasy about the frames he’d just seen.
“There’s no sign of Maine and Fox at the lockers,” he said. “So what did they do with Hewitt’s bags? Isa doesn’t have them. They didn’t carry them out of the station.”
“Maybe they handed them to another person out of camera range or dumped them in the station,” Fontaine said. He fiddled with his computer to find a telephone number and made a call to the Lost and Found office of Gare de Lyon.
“Thank you. We’ll send someone to pick them up.”
Slade raised his eyebrows. “Are we in luck?”
“Yes and no. The goons discarded Hewitt’s bags in a cubicle of the station’s toilet. But they won’t be of any use to us. The briefcase was empty, and the small travel bag contained a few items of clothing and toiletries. I’ll ask Dubois to have them picked up and sent to our Marseille office. We can, at least, check them for fingerprints.”
CHAPTER 29
(Sunday Afternoon— Monte Carlo)
“I ’m in,” Roche said. “Give me a few more minutes, and I’ll tell you if Maine and Fox are on Aculeus’s payroll.”
Roche’s tussle with layer upon layer of security measures embedded in the Aculeus site had paid off and pushed him through the firewall. Once in, he found a ton of useful information.
Slade and Fontaine moved from the whiteboard to stand behind him and look at his computer screen.
“Voilà! Here we are,” Roche said. “They’re both listed as regular employees and pulling pretty hefty paychecks according to these payroll files.”
Slade and Fontaine stared at the computer while Roche played with the keyboard and a series of incomprehensible codes and hieroglyphics shot across the screen.
“I’ve also decoded email addresses of a few relevant folks, like Maine and Fox, who received encrypted emails. Here are emails from their Aculeus handler, a guy called Miller using a generic email address,” Roche said. “I haven’t had time to decrypt the content of the emails, but the email titles suggest our two Aculeus players are assigned to an operation referred to as CS.”
There was a brief silence while he scanned the screen.
“I think CS is an acronym for Clear Skies. There’s a protected file created three years ago with that title. It could be a code name for an operation we might have stumbled into.” Roche looked apologetic. “I need more time to access the CS file and decrypt the emails.” He looked at Slade and hesitated. He frowned and said, “Isa’s name appears in HR and payroll records as a contract employee.”
“Unsurprising, since Aculeus recruited her to infiltrate Palmer’s Tokyo household and monitor her activities in Japan. We knew that already,” Slade said. “Try to crack the Clear Skies file as soon as possible.”
He faced the whiteboard again and stared at their scribbled notes, but revelations remained evasive. With luck, the decrypted file would help them connect the bullets on the board.
“Will do, but I want to focus a while longer on the emails now that I’ve unlocked their encryption code.” Roche continued to work his keyboard for several minutes. “Carol Palmer’s name appears in address and sender lines of emails starting from one year ago, but there are no emails in the three-year time frame to or from Chloe Harris.”
“Curious. I wonder why there’s no correspondence using her Chloe Harris name in the older emails before she married, moved to Japan, and changed her name to Carol Palmer. Any emails to Richard Palmer?” Slade asked.
“BFI and Richard Palmer’s name appear in the titles of a few emails related to CS. So his involvement is clear, but how proactive, I can’t tell you yet. There are plenty of emails to and from Tony Hewitt, though.”
“Anything explicitly incriminating in email titles you’ve seen so far?” Slade asked, eager for more information.
“A couple have loaded overtones, but unless we know what Clear Skies is about, it’s hard to tell. I have no idea what most of the titles mean out of context,” Roche said.
“They’ll never write incriminating messages in emails or document files.” Fontaine smiled at Slade and Roche. “Instructions will be delivered using burner phones or clandestine face-to-face meetings. We learned that in Communications 101 when we joined the Bureau.”
“Everyone involved in this operation will have concealed their email traffic when sensitive communication was needed a
nd voice contact wasn’t possible.” Roche rubbed his chin. “Rather than transmit emails to another operative’s inbox, they’ll have left them in a draft folder or an electronic dropbox on one of Aculeus’s email servers. The other person logs into the same account and reads the emails waiting there in the draft folder, so they don’t create a traceable email trail for outsiders like us to intercept or follow. But if they’ve been doing this, I’ll find it eventually.”
“You’re right. There’ll be hundreds of relevant messages in there, but whatever’s in that CS file, it’s a lot more than we know now,” Slade said. “So Alex, stop working on the emails and get into the CS file. The fragments we have may fit together if we know what it’s about,” Slade said.
“Okay. Tout de suite. I’ll decrypt the content of the emails and look for their dropbox later tonight while you watch the poker game.”
Slade and Fontaine continued to discuss their bullet points until Roche cut in.
“Gentlemen, good news first. I’ve accessed the CS file and decrypted it, and it’s coming up on the screen right now.” He looked pleased with himself.
“And the bad news is . . . ?” asked Slade.
“The size of the file. It’s a memorandum less than two pages in length. We might not learn much from it.”
The memorandum was short but clear. It laid out a simple strategy. And if the strategy worked, Slade thought the result would be astonishing. It could give the US unrivaled military supremacy in the air over potential foes and allies alike, for the next ten years at least.
The plan, drafted three years ago, called for BFI to submit a tender in response to an expected call from the Japanese government two years later for procurement bids to replace Japan’s entire fleet of aging fighter aircraft. Because of Japan’s economic downturn, its domestic defense contractors had focused on the low-tech aeronautics parts market and delayed development of the country’s own fighter aircraft. This forced the government to procure ready-made fighters from a foreign supplier for the short-term future.
BFI was to submit a bid that undercut competitors but was not so cheap it would raise eyebrows. The linchpin was irrefutable fringe benefits. Fighter planes on offer from BFI would be based on the company’s technology employed in the existing air fighter fleets of the US and the UK. To be sure of winning the bid, BFI would take covert action unknown to the US to transfer black-box technology, never before made available to any other customer, to key personnel of Japan’s Air Self-Defense Force and its industry contacts. This strategy would allow them to manufacture replacement parts if not the entire aircraft in the future, confirming the scrap of intelligence gleaned by the US embassy in Tokyo.
The plan hinged on the complicity of both Richard Palmer and Hewitt with a woman described in the report as the future Mrs. Palmer, the relevant matchmaking a vital part of the overall strategy. The operation would proceed after they married through a series of bimonthly, compromising social gatherings with a supply of top-class Western escorts at the Palmer residence in Tokyo. Her model agency, to be set up for this purpose by the Palmers, would provide high-end prostitutes, who she’d register as runway and photographic models under the cover of legitimate business.
A second and major prong of the plan called for the covert supply of the same fighter technology to the Chinese air defense industry. Unlike Japan, China did not intend to procure manufactured planes, but reliable intelligence sources believed they were seeking the technology platform of the US and the UK via furtive means, before replacing their own air fighter fleet through domestic production. If their military industry could improve on the technology base of its potential antagonists, China would gain superior aerial attack capacity. For China’s military leaders, this was a critical goal because they expected the US air force to support if not lead Japan in any defensive response to Chinese military aggression in the Far East.
A Chinese DIA cutout would plant the seed for this arm of the project among Chinese industry players. Technology transfer would be carried out in secrecy using the Palmers and Hewitt. The Chinese would be fed a cover story about Richard Palmer’s personal debts, verifiable through simple internet research, as the reason for selling classified information despite the risk of exposure as a traitor. To convince the Chinese of the value and authenticity of the technology on offer, Palmer would ask them to pay a premium price at clandestine and again compromising bimonthly exchanges on his superyacht. There, Chinese aeronautic engineers would have a chance to examine the files before handing over the fee for each installment of the technology.
By the time Slade read to this point, he felt he’d been punched in the gut. To think the DIA with the help of Aculeus planned to sell the technology underpinning US and UK air defense capability. But then he moved on to the final section of the file.
BFI and AAC had collaborated on top-secret development for the US Air Force of a new-generation air fighter concept based on a massive sea change in the technology platform. A complete shutout of any information meant only the deepest insiders knew of the project, which three years ago reached the prototype stage.
The new plane would make the technology of existing fighters anywhere in the world redundant. Able to land on a dime in seconds and made from highly lightweight yet super-strong materials, the supersonic-range aircraft would be undetectable at any height or speed in flight. Powered by a novel renewable energy source providing unlimited flying times and distances, the aircraft would integrate airfoils, propulsion, energy production, storage, and control into one seamless design without conventional moving parts.
A dark and compelling work of military art, its attack capability would have unimaginable precision due to laser and microwave weapons and sensors with a resolution so high their development had never been envisaged before. Even more compelling, it could launch electronic attacks by jamming and inserting software viruses into enemy radar equipment during flight. BFI and AAC had developed a fighter vehicle bearing no resemblance to any aircraft in use to the present time.
A fleet of these fighters would give unparalleled military advantage to any country’s air force equipped with them. The DIA wanted that country to be the US and no other. The end result of Clear Skies would see the Japanese and Chinese defense departments misled into spending their stretched procurement budgets in tough economic times on superseded aircraft and equipment, giving the US unmatched military superiority in the skies. Even the UK would not have access to the new technology for five years.
Slade thought a scheme this outlandish could only be mounted by one man, Neil Ashton, in his single-minded quest for the directorship of the DIA as his last step to the country’s top intelligence position. With resources of the country’s clandestine services at his command, he could pull it off and ensure his place in the history of America’s defense sector.
For a wild moment, even Slade thought proper control of the operation could make the enormous risks involved worth the end result. But when the Japanese and Chinese authorities discovered the duplicity, diplomatic repercussions could be catastrophic and their retaliation remorseless. While the concept had a touch of genius, the planned objective—to trick the top brains of China’s defense sector into handing over mega-money for what they’d soon learn was outdated technology—was a stretch of anyone’s imagination.
With escalating disquiet, Slade suspected that another arm of the plan existed, but the brains behind the operation had chosen not to spell it out in the memorandum.
CHAPTER 30
(Sunday Afternoon— Monte Carlo)
Slade inhaled deeply. He tried to connect the Clear Skies operation with the recent killings and came up empty.
Roche broke the silence. “I’m curious about why there’s no mention of Chloe Harris in this crazy plan. Where does she fit into all of this?”
Slade faced the whiteboard and stared at it for several minutes. He clapped his hands and said, “What if we’ve got this whole thing ass-about-face?”
He l
ooked at Fontaine and Roche. “Let’s recap. At first, we assumed the dead woman in the Tokyo apartment was Chloe Harris, resident of the apartment and married to Richard Palmer. However, based on what we’ve learned here, we changed our conclusion and pegged the dead woman in Tokyo as the younger of the two Harris sisters, Carol Harris. Carol is her birth name. We didn’t know why, but she had plastic surgery to look exactly like her older sister Chloe, maybe driven by the age-old emotion of jealousy.” He paused to reflect for a moment.
“The older sister’s birth name is Chloe Harris, and we thought she’d changed her name to Carol Palmer when she married Richard Palmer and set up a business in Tokyo. I can understand why her family name would change from Harris to Palmer, but I never swallowed the reason given for changing her first name from Chloe to Carol, despite the more agreeable phonetics for Japan. We’ve speculated that, for an unknown reason, the younger reconstructed sister, Carol Harris, slipped into the apartment last week and was killed after the older sister, Chloe Harris, aka Carol Palmer, left for Europe to join her husband and spend time in Monte Carlo.”
“Where are you going with this?” asked Fontaine. “You’re repeating what we worked out already.”
Slade looked at the ceiling for a few moments.
“We need to attack this from the other flank. What if we were wrong and the deceased younger sister, Carol Harris, and not Chloe was the one married to Richard Palmer, and her name legitimately became Carol Palmer as one might expect when she married? What if she’s the one who resided in that apartment, ran the model agency front in Tokyo, held lavish dinners in her home for Japanese military industrialists and stunning prostitutes, took bimonthly trips around the French Riviera on her yacht with her husband and Chinese aeronautics defense personnel, and employed Isa as a part-time maid? All of this as planned and set out in the memorandum, except for Isa’s involvement, which seems to have been a DIA afterthought.”