Johnson stroked his chin and caught Jayne’s eye. “You know what? It would be a terrible waste to have gotten all the way through security into the building and not make use of our time.”
Jayne grinned. “Yes. I was trying to think of a reason not to slip up the stairs and look for his office, but I can’t. Maybe we might find his address or phone number there.”
Chapter Seven
Thursday, May 30, 2013
Kabul
Johnson and Jayne moved into the corridor of the Ministry of Mines and Petroleum and waited near the elevators at the bottom of the stairwell while having a casual conversation about their favorite film stars. In the meantime, they kept a close watch for internal security patrols. There appeared to be none, although a security officer did appear through the swinging doors that led to the reception area, walked to a nearby toilet, and went inside.
“Let’s take the stairs,” Johnson said. He turned, took his phone from his pocket, and adopted one of his favorite strategies: pretending he was on a call in the hope that it would dissuade anyone from challenging him while he was in an area he shouldn’t be. Jayne did likewise, and the two of them climbed past the first and the second floors.
A series of people passed them on the way down, mostly Afghans carrying small backpacks and briefcases. A couple turned and stared, but nobody challenged them. Everyone was heading home for the evening.
Johnson checked his watch. It was now nearly quarter past six.
On the third-floor landing, there were sets of double doors to both the right and the left. Johnson, spotting that the decor to the left appeared more luxurious than the right, chose to go that way. “He’s senior, so I guess he’s got a nice office,” he said.
An expanse of open-plan office cubicles, all around two meters square with desks and ancient-looking computers with old-style bulky monitors, stretched away in all directions, most of them unoccupied. There were piles of paper, books, staplers, pens, and notepads everywhere. Almost everyone had gone home. However, there were two late workers still there. Johnson strode purposefully up to one of them, a man who looked to be in his thirties and was glued to his computer screen.
“Hello, I’m looking for Kushan Mangal’s office, please, or his assistant’s desk,” Johnson said in Pashto. “I have a delivery for him.” He raised his bag slightly so the man could see it.
The man looked up and raised his eyebrows. “Do you know him?” he asked, furrowing his brow and fixing Johnson with a stare.
“No. But I have some documents he requested.”
The man turned to Jayne. “And what about you?”
Jayne, who had also learned to speak fluent Pashto while in Afghanistan with MI6, said, “We work together.”
The man put on a quizzical expression but pointed. “He sits over in the corner office, there. His assistant sits in the cubicle just outside.”
“Thank you.”
Johnson, followed by Jayne, turned to walk in the direction the man had indicated. He had taken two steps when he felt a sharp tug on the back of his shirt.
“Stop,” Jayne hissed. “Look.”
Johnson looked toward the office they were aiming for, and then he saw why Jayne had pulled him back. Sitting just twenty yards away from them, in Kushan’s office, on a chair next to a filing cabinet, was a woman in a blue shalwar kameez and a pale blue hijab: Safia Joya.
She had her back turned and was rifling through papers in the filing cabinet, one of which she took out and began to read. Johnson watched for several seconds, making a mental note of the drawer from which she had taken the paper.
“Let’s get away from here,” Johnson murmured. “We can come back when she’s gone.” As they turned to go, he could see Safia holding her phone above the paper. Was she photographing it?
They walked at a normal pace to the other end of the office and out through the double doors through which they had entered. Leading off the landing area, adjacent to the elevators and the stairwell, were three meeting rooms. All of the doors were open and the lights were off.
“In here,” Johnson said. He slipped into the center meeting room ahead of Jayne, then pulled down a blind to cover the half-glazed window, but he left a crack at the bottom. “She’ll have to come out this way, so let’s watch.”
Johnson pulled a chair up and positioned himself so he could glimpse through the crack.
“We’re absolutely going to get killed if we’re found in here,” Jayne said.
“For God’s sake, Jayne. We’ll just say we had a meeting scheduled with Kushan and that he still hasn’t turned up. Now shut up and let’s just keep watching.”
A couple of minutes later, the two men who had been working in the office area came out together and walked down the stairs. But there was still no sign of Safia.
After another ten minutes, Johnson stiffened and lowered his head slightly as Safia appeared.
“She’s just walked out,” he murmured to Jayne. “Now she’s pressed the elevator button and she’s waiting.”
There was another pause, probably only of about thirty seconds but which felt much longer to Johnson. Then Safia entered one of the elevators and the doors closed. He turned to Jayne. “Gone.”
They waited another couple of minutes, then Johnson opened the door. “Come, let’s go.”
They walked back through to the open-plan office, which was now deserted. Johnson strode purposefully to the door of Kushan’s office and tried to open it. It was locked.
Johnson swore. “She must have locked it when she came out.”
“Well, did you bring your tool kit?”
“Yes, I’ve got the tools. The question is whether to use them in here.”
It was almost a rhetorical question. Since starting private investigation work, Johnson had gotten into the habit of always carrying around a small tension wrench and a couple of rakes that would fit into his wallet. They had been useful several times: Jayne had seen him in action using them.
Johnson examined the lock, which was of the standard pin tumbler variety. He looked around. The office was definitely empty, and there was no sign of internal security cameras, but then, he didn’t expect to find such equipment in an Afghan government building.
If he was going to do it, he needed to work quickly. “Jayne, just watch the office. I’ll have a go at it,” he said. He took his wallet from his pocket and removed the small tension wrench and pair of rakes.
Johnson inserted the small end of the L-shaped tension wrench into the bottom of the key hole and, using his left hand, applied a little pressure to the handle until he felt some resistance. Then he selected the shorter rake with three ridges and with his right hand inserted it at the top of the key hole. Johnson repeatedly pushed and pulled the rake in the keyhole, applying some upward pressure as he withdrew it each time.
Despite varying the amount of pressure with the tension wrench slightly, the lock wouldn’t budge. “Shit, damned thing,” he said.
He pulled the wrench and the rake out and started again. This time, he managed to get the amount of torque he was applying to the wrench just right, and eventually, as each of the spring-loaded pins were pushed up by the rake, he was able to open the lock.
“About time,” Jayne said. “You’re losing your touch.”
He replaced the tools in his wallet and pocketed it.
“Right,” Johnson said. “I’ll go through the filing cabinet. See if you can spot anything with an address or phone number on it in the assistant’s cubicle.”
Unlike all the offices and cubicles on the third floor, Kushan’s office had no papers, books, or other paraphernalia lying around. It was spotless. Johnson went straight for the second drawer down in a gray filing cabinet, the one he had seen Safia extracting a document from earlier, while Jayne moved outside and began sifting through a pile of documents on the assistant’s desk.
There were a few hanging files in the drawer containing documents and folders. Johnson removed some documents from one of the files a
t random and glanced through them. They were publicly available International Energy Agency reports on Afghanistan’s oil and gas reserves. Nothing of interest there. He replaced them and tried another. This time they were investment bank analysts’ reports on the oil and gas sector.
Johnson spent the next few minutes going through each of the files, now working more systematically. There seemed to be nothing personal and nothing confidential. Perhaps Kushan kept the crucial ones elsewhere. But in that case, why had the deputy minister been in his office going through his papers?
“There’s nothing here,” Jayne said from outside the door.
Johnson continued going through the hanging files. The second from last one had just one sheet of paper in it, which he removed.
It was a curriculum vitae, printed on both sides of the single sheet, with a name at the top that caused Johnson’s eyes to widen abruptly: Javed Kushan Mangal. He knew that many Afghans had double first names.
The CV showed he had briefly attended a school in a place called Wazrar and then another in Khost, followed by universities in Khost and Kabul in the 1970s. It stated that he belonged to the Mangal tribe and gave a home address on Street Ten in the Taimani area of Kabul, together with the name of his home village, Wazrar, but no street name.
Johnson turned the sheet over. Next came a list of employers: it stated that he worked at the Afghanistan national electricity utility, DABM, followed by a spell with an energy company in Khost until 1989. There was a gap until 1991, when he had begun work with Dark Star International Oil and Gas, based in Houston, Texas. That role had lasted until 2004, and the next job listed, as head of financial transactions with the ministry in Kabul, began in 2005.
There was no cell phone number listed, but right at the bottom of the second side of the paper was a Hotmail email address.
Johnson stared at the email address for a moment and frowned. It was [email protected]. Surely that confirmed it, but then again, the last name at the top of the CV, Mangal, was wrong.
“Jayne, come here a moment,” Johnson called over his shoulder.
Jayne came into the office and he handed her the CV. “What do you make of that?”
She scanned down both sides of the sheet. “Looks like it might be him, doesn’t it? Compound first name, Javed Kushan, then he’s using his tribal name as his last name.”
“Ah, yes, of course. The tribal name. And the email gives it away. Hasrat. It’s him. Got to be.”
“I think so.”
Johnson took out his iPhone and used it to photograph the CV, then replaced it in the file.
He quickly ran through the other documents. There was nothing else of interest. He closed the drawer and checked the drawers of the desk. There was only a collection of the usual office paraphernalia: pens, staplers, notebooks. The computer on the desk looked archaic. He doubted that Javed ever used it; presumably he had his own laptop.
“Better get out of here,” Johnson said. He turned and walked out of the office. Jayne followed and closed the door behind them. It clicked shut as the lock re-engaged.
“I’d be interested to know what our friend Safia was searching for in there,” Johnson said.
Jayne shrugged. “Yes, indeed.”
As they left through the swinging doors, the man who had originally pointed them toward Javed’s office came back in, carrying a sandwich. He stared at them. “Did you find Kushan’s desk?” he asked.
“Yes, thanks,” Johnson said, not breaking his stride. “We dropped the delivery off.” Without looking back, he continued across the landing and down the stairs, Jayne right behind him.
“I knew it was him as soon as I saw him on that video,” Johnson said. “Now we just need to go find him. I’ll send him an email for starters, and we’ll go check out his house.”
Five minutes later, they were sitting in the rear of the embassy car, en route to their villa.
Johnson glanced at Jayne. “What do you think?” he asked.
She folded her arms. “First, I was impressed that the Afghans are happy to promote women into that type of ministerial job. And what do I think about our task? I think you’re going to do this job for Rice. Otherwise you’ll die wondering.”
Johnson nodded. “Yes, you’re right. I’ll confirm it with Rice. We could get Haroon to work with us. His face fits into the crowd, unlike ours. He’s not an obvious target for the Taliban on the street, like us.”
“I think that’s a good idea. He’d enjoy it.”
Johnson leaned back in his seat.
Javed and Severinov. This is just intriguing.
He took out his phone and sent a short text message to Rice. We’re on board. We’ll do your job.
Johnson turned back to Jayne. “Step one. If we’re going to do this properly and start picking up evidence against Severinov, we need to track down Javed.”
“Agreed,” Jayne said. “If he’s on vacation out of Kabul, maybe we should go and try his home village. These guys usually gravitate back to where they came from. They all have a big extended family.”
She was right, as usual, Johnson thought. “The village is on his CV—Wazrar, in the K-G Pass. But let’s find his Kabul house first.”
“The K-G Pass? Better pack our flak jackets,” Jayne said. She wasn’t smiling.
Chapter Eight
Thursday, May 30, 2013
Moscow
More than two-and-a-half thousand miles northwest of Kabul, Yuri Severinov sat at his desk overlooking the Moscow River and studied an email he had just received on his phone. It made for interesting reading.
The note, sent from a private email address, contained a photo attachment showing a document: a curriculum vitae for the man handling the Afghanistan oil and gas exploration investment round, Kushan Mangal.
Severinov had only met Mangal in person twice, when he had gone into the ministry for briefings. He was a Westernized Afghan, with only a stubbly beard rather than a full-length one, and spoke English with an American accent. But there was also something about the man. Severinov’s old intelligence officer’s instincts had picked up on the way Mangal looked at him with a certain emotion in his eye that he was trying but failing to hide. Was it recognition, envy, or simply instant dislike? Severinov hadn’t been sure, but he had felt that he should find out.
Therefore, Severinov had requested the CV and other background information on Mangal as part of the usual thorough preparation and planning process he went through on all Besoi Energy’s major acquisitions, of which there had been several. That was how he had grown the business, which had begun with three huge oil and gas fields in western Siberia but now encompassed oil and gas production in Kazakhstan, a 40 percent stake in a gas pipeline from Turkmenistan to China, a large refinery on the Black Sea coast, and gas-fired power generation facilities in Thailand, China, and the Philippines. Overall, it had generated a profit of $1.4 billion in 2012.
His financial analysis and business development teams were all going through the potential future performance numbers for the Afghan assets, but Severinov liked to do his own homework and then test his conclusions against those of his staff.
But apart from the numbers, he wanted to know as much as possible about the people who were running the process so that he could tweak his bid and get his proposals in line with their particular prejudices and interests. He also needed as much detail as possible on his rival bidders. Given the laser-like focus that Putin and Medvedev had on the Afghanistan project, he didn’t want to leave anything to chance.
The sender of the CV had written a short note. I am attaching the document you asked for. I hope this helps.
Severinov tapped on the attachment, enlarging the two-page image so he could read it properly on the small screen.
At the top was the name Javed Kushan Mangal; then came details of schools attended in Wazrar and Khost and universities in Khost and Kabul. There was the name of his tribe, Mangal, and an address in Kabul.
His employment record sh
owed he had worked in the US for some time. That would explain his accent and his Westernized appearance, Severinov thought.
Severinov scanned the document to the end, where an email address was listed. He read it slowly out loud to himself: [email protected]. He scrolled to the name at the top of the CV, then back to the email address again.
“Javed Hasrat, Wazrar,” breathed Severinov, as he realized. “So that’s who you are. My God. I thought you were dead.”
He paused, then yelled out loud at the top of his voice to the empty study, banging his hand down on his desk, “Ni khuya seb! No fucking way! You bastard.”
He stood and walked around his office, kicking the carpet as he went. Eventually he calmed himself, sat down, and read the rest of the note.
If you were thinking of contacting Kushan, you need to know he has gone on vacation for a few days. I don’t know where. Also, this might not be relevant, but an American named Joe Johnson and a British woman Jayne Robinson came to our offices today for a meeting scheduled with Kushan. I met them instead. Johnson said he was doing some research work for the International Criminal Court and needed to speak to Kushan. He is also linked to the US embassy. Regarding your query about the Swiss bidders, ZenForce, I do not yet have the detail about the key people involved on their side but am hoping to get it soon. I will be in contact again soon.
Severinov put his phone down and leaned back in his seat. His recruitment of Safia Joya was continuing to pay dividends and had been easy enough to negotiate: her monthly salary as an Afghan government minister, equivalent to $2,100, made the money Severinov was offering too much of a temptation.
Now, among the other inside information she had provided about the bidding process, which would give Severinov a major advantage against the competition, Safia had unwittingly come up with a gem of much greater interest.
Severinov’s mind went back to the events of 1988. Then he was working in Afghanistan as an officer in the KGB’s Line PR unit, which was responsible for military intelligence and active operations.
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