“For a digital and machine-readable, good-quality Canadian? I don’t know. Probably 250,000, maybe 300,000, approximately. It might be more. That would depend on the vetting though. I would confirm afterward if you check out 100 percent.”
The conversation had continued for a few more minutes, but Johnson turned off the app and just looked at Din. “Is that enough? You don’t think that sounds like you?” he asked.
Din threw up his hands in a gesture that smacked of surrender. “So what do you two snakes want?” he asked, eyeballing Haroon.
Haroon stared back at him. “You know what we asked for last week. Abdul Akbari. You were going to check in your old ledger. Have you checked?”
It was obvious to Johnson that the answer was no.
Din said nothing but walked to the back of his store and disappeared behind a curtain.
“Are we just going to let him go?” Johnson said.
“I don’t think he will run away,” Haroon said. “Just wait and see.”
They stood there for another ten minutes. The heat in the shop was stifling, hardly made more tolerable by the four-foot fans suspended from the ceiling that turned at a snail’s pace. There was nobody else in sight, either staff or customers. This was the most old-fashioned of shops, even by Kabul standards.
“Three hundred thousand afghanis for a Canadian passport,” Johnson said. “That’s what? About four thousand dollars?”
“Yes, probably ten years’ income for most people here,” Haroon said. “It’s a limited market.”
Finally, Din returned, carrying a cardboard-backed notebook whose cover was dog-eared and split. He put it down on the counter and opened it halfway through, then flipped over a few yellowing pages and ran his finger down a column. Then he looked up at Johnson, his eyes still at boiling point.
“So, what have you got?” Haroon asked.
“It’s here. Abdul Akbari.”
“Yes. What passport and where for?” Johnson asked.
“It was 1989. A French passport. And an Afghan passport.”
“Two? And in what name?”
Din pointed to a line in the ledger. Johnson leaned over to look. In the first column, written in a spidery hand, it said Abdul Akbari. In the second it said France and Afghanistan. In the third was the name Abbas Ahman.
He looked up at Din. “Abbas Ahman. That’s the name the passports were issued under?”
Din nodded.
Johnson looked at the ledger with a growing feeling of disbelief. “So, you keep a written record of every fake passport you have issued?” he asked, taking his phone from his pocket.
This would be dynamite for any intelligence agency.
Din scowled and jabbed his finger into the pages of the ledger. “Are you stupid? This is my insurance. If a customer tries to screw me, I can screw them.”
From Din’s point of view, it obviously made sense. If his customers found out, they might be less understanding. Johnson nodded to Din. “Thank you for cooperating. If what you have told me turns out to be incorrect, we will be back.”
Johnson lifted his phone and snapped a photograph of the page in the ledger, then took another one of Din himself.
“What are you doing?” Din said, raising his voice. “Delete those photos. That’s private. Did you hear me?”
“That’s my insurance,” Johnson said.
As the two men exited the shop, Johnson turned to Haroon. “France. That confirms what Ali Jadoon told us,” he murmured. “I’m going to ask Vic to check this out.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
Wednesday, June 5, 2013
Brooklyn, New York
Watson turned his chair, looked down at Zilleman’s laptop and sipped his glass of sauvignon blanc as the speech began on the screen. Across the wine bar table, Zilleman also focused on the main speaker, the US secretary of state, Paul Farrar, as the cameras zoomed in on him. Flanking him at the lectern was the Silverson Renwick chief executive, Richard Lorenzo.
The bar, 7 Old Fulton, a few yards from the Brooklyn Bridge, was a meeting place they had used a couple of times, years earlier. It was across the road from a furnished apartment Watson had taken on a two-week vacation rental, using his Dirk Leman cover name, after leaving his rented house just outside DC.
While a Yankees baseball game continued behind them on a television built into an ornate wooden frame above the bar, the two men hunched over the laptop, focusing instead on live coverage from the international security conference in Delhi.
Watson had to be careful about visiting places where he might be recognized. But he gauged it highly unlikely that he would be remembered here.
Watson had moved to New York partly because Zilleman was basing himself there for a week for meetings with investors and partly because he wanted to minimize his time in DC, where the likelihood of bumping into ex-colleagues was far greater.
The two men had spent the previous three hours in Watson’s apartment poring over spreadsheets detailing projected costs for oil field development in the hydrocarbon blocks in northern Afghanistan being sold by the Kabul government. They had moved to the wine bar in order to relax a little and to listen to Farrar’s speech.
The secretary of state and Lorenzo were delivering a joint address on Afghanistan that spanned business and political issues.
“Both Richard and I traveled here last night from Kabul. And I would like to reiterate, as our president has made clear, that America will complete its mission in Afghanistan, which has the key objective of defeating the core of Al-Qaeda,” Farrar said, looking around at his audience. “We’re committed to helping build a self-standing, unified, and sovereign Afghanistan.
“The message I gave to President Hamid Karzai at our meeting yesterday is that we intend to increasingly give the Afghan security forces more of a role in their own country. We will step back and take more of a support function, helping train the Afghan army and delivering counterterrorism measures to drive out the remnants of Al-Qaeda. That will allow us to bring thousands of our troops home. But we will need to maintain some presence to continue to support our Afghani allies. That will be important, and it is something I will be pushing for in negotiations.
“Beyond the security and military function, energy will also be a key part of Afghanistan’s security—it can help provide independence in financial and business terms as well as just keep the lights on. Isn’t that right, Richard?”
The secretary of state gestured with his right hand toward Lorenzo, who stepped up to the microphone.
“Thank you, Mr. Secretary,” Lorenzo said. “I have been spending increasing amounts of time in Afghanistan as we step up our presence, and I can say that we are encouraged that the Afghan government is bringing private investment into its oil and gas production industry.
“However, it needs to be done in the right way so that Afghanistan maximizes the opportunity and brings in the right expertise—and that it does not allow the wrong influences to gain a foothold in the country. American and European energy companies, several of whom are clients of Silverson Renwick, are ready to ensure that happens.”
There were loud cheers from some members of the audience, clearly audible over the laptop sound feed. The camera panned around the auditorium as one man yelled, “Keep Putin out!”
On the platform, Farrar looked up. “I’m making no comment, but I’m sure you know what my stance is on that.”
There were more loud cheers. Watson glanced at Zilleman, who had a faint smile on his face. “Good messages,” Watson said. “Let’s hope Kabul is watching.”
Zilleman nodded as Lorenzo continued.
“If Afghanistan can successfully develop its estimated 1.6 billion barrels of oil reserves and 15.7 trillion cubic feet of natural gas, that will utterly transform the country’s energy and economic prospects. They may not be huge reserves when you compare them with, say, Iraq’s 115 billion barrels of oil, but for Afghanistan, it is potentially a big deal, believe me.”
F
arrar stepped forward once more to conclude the address. “My message to the Kabul government today is: do the right thing, but more importantly, do it with the right people. Thank you for listening, and have a good day.”
Zilleman looked around. The bar was filling up, and people were now sitting at the table next to them, whereas the place had been far quieter when they had arrived. He turned the laptop off and put it into his bag, drained the remains of his wine, and stood. “Come on, let’s walk and talk. There are a few things we need to discuss.”
Watson nodded and also finished his wine. He glanced up at the old clock with Roman numerals hanging from the paneled ceiling. It was nearly half past three. They walked past the crowd of afternoon drinkers huddled around the polished mahogany tables and continued through the twin half-glazed wooden doors into an open-air patio area sheltered by two huge trees. Old Fulton Street was busy with the usual crowd of tourists.
Watson took off his nonprescription tortoiseshell glasses and replaced them with a pair of sunglasses. The two men turned right, following the path beneath the high stone arches and soaring steel beams of the Brooklyn Bridge. The skyscrapers of the dramatic Manhattan skyline were laid out ahead of them across the other side of the East River.
After following the footpath round the grassy oval of Empire Fulton Ferry State Park, Watson casually looked around him, his right hand shielding his eyes from the sun like a tourist. There was no sign of any surveillance, not that he had expected it. Then he led the way to a long bench on some wooden decking next to the river, the bridge now on their left. They sat down.
“The only thing that still bothers me,” Zilleman said, “is what we were discussing last time: the risk of our friend’s cover being blown, but also, what if someone latches onto the fact that you’re advising ZenForce and your background comes out?”
“This was all twenty-five years ago,” Watson said. “There’s nothing documented that would incriminate any of us. It was all paper-free at our end of the operation. The only slight risk back then was that the KGB files got into the wrong hands amid the chaos as the Soviets pulled out of Afghanistan. But when the withdrawal happened, all the files were incinerated. We’ve had that confirmed by moles in the Kremlin.”
“Not that you could be incriminated any more than you are already,” Zilleman said.
“No. You’re right there,” Watson said with a grimace. “Although having said that . . . ” He let his voice trail away.
“Is there any word from your NDS contact on whether he’s managed to track down Johnson?” Zilleman asked.
“Burhani? No. I’ve heard nothing from him in the past few days, which is a little worrying.”
Zilleman scratched his chin. “Let’s hope he comes up with something. We need to have a final meeting between the three of us to finally decide whether to go ahead with this bid, though, and at what level. I’m a little nervous.”
“Agreed,” Watson said. “I hope he can meet here—that’s better for all of us.”
Wednesday, June 5, 2013
Kabul
The paper trail had been longer and more convoluted than Vic Walter had expected. The man calling himself Abbas Ahman and using a false French passport in that name had indeed moved from Kabul to Paris in 1989, he explained to Johnson.
“Is he still in France?” Johnson asked over the encrypted cell phone link. He had the phone on loudspeaker so that Jayne and Haroon, who were sitting next to him in the villa in Kabul, could join in the conversation where necessary.
“No,” Vic said. “He spent a short period there, then he used the French passport to enter Canada, where he applied for political asylum. While that process was going on, he was able to stay in Quebec.”
“And he’s there now?” Johnson asked as he stirred some sugar into his tea. He pushed the sugar across the table to Jayne when he had finished.
Vic gave a sardonic laugh. “No. From Quebec, six months later, it seems he used a fake birth certificate to obtain a legitimate Canadian passport, which he then used to enter the US.”
“Birth certificates are such weak documents,” Jayne said.
“Yes, useless,” Vic said. “No photos, no fingerprints. Anyway, when he was in the States, he applied for asylum and got it, eventually. We don’t know how he persuaded the authorities. To the best of our knowledge, he’s still living in the US and has been since about 1993.”
There was a pause as Johnson digested the detail. “So where is he now?”
“We don’t know yet. Don’t worry, we’ll track him down. The Canadian passport was in the same name, Abbas Ahman, and so was the US asylum.”
“So he’s gotten past three different immigration authorities,” Johnson said.
“Clearly his fake passports and birth certificate were very good,” Vic said.
Haroon leaned forward. “He’s ex-KHAD and KGB-trained. Doubtless very good at maintaining a cover story under pressure, and I’d guess he knew what to do to minimize the chances of being pulled over in immigration queues. He was a complete professional. That’s why I spent so much effort and took so much risk trying to recruit the worthless bastard. What a waste of time that was.”
“It was obviously easier then to get through the immigration system with fake documents than it is now,” Haroon added, “although it’s still far too doable.”
He was right, Johnson thought. Machine-readable passports, 9/11, global terror. All had combined to make things more difficult for those seeking to completely change their identity and their country. But not impossible.
Johnson shook his head. “I can’t wait to find out what he’s been doing in the States for the past couple of decades.”
“Probably working in the White House or something,” Jayne said. She grinned.
Vic didn’t laugh. “It’s actually worrisome that our people are not on top of this.”
“Yes, well, don’t raise it with your superiors yet, will you, buddy,” Johnson said. “I don’t want anyone sticking their nose into Akbari’s situation until I’ve properly checked him out. And I’m not optimistic about this. The fact that he’s in the US probably means he’s going to be a dud, from my point of view. The likelihood that he took any old files out of Kabul, to France, and then to Quebec, and then to the States, is going to be—”
“Somewhere between zero and outer space,” Vic interrupted. “Yes, unfortunately you’re right. But don’t worry, I’ll keep our wolf pack away from his door until you’ve been there. Now we just need to track him down. I’ve got one of my guys on the case—he’s good, so I think it’s only a matter of time.”
Wednesday, June 5, 2013
Kabul
Javed looked up on hearing the knock at his office door to find that Safia Joya had opened it and walked in without waiting to be invited. Her lack of manners and condescending air were just two of the things that annoyed him about the deputy minister of mines and petroleum.
On top of that, he had returned to work that morning to find that someone had been in his office while he was away. A couple of the documents in his filing cabinet were in different folders. Safia was the only other person he knew of who had a key to his office.
“I hope you had a productive break, Kushan,” Safia said, then continued without waiting for him to answer. “I also hope you’re going to be ready for Thursday next week?”
The final presentations to the ministry team from potential investors in the oil and gas blocks were due to take place that day. The outcome depended on bidders making intelligent proposals for development of the blocks, maximizing the advantage to the Afghan state and its people, and at the right price.
“I’m ready, of course,” Javed said. He deftly toggled his laptop screen away from an email from Joe Johnson that he was about to respond to and switched to a financial spreadsheet. “I’m looking forward to it. I think we should get a good outcome. There’s a lot of interest—European, American, and of course the Russians.”
Safia placed a folder of
documents, marked Attention Kushan Mangal, on his desk. “I’ve had a few questions from the investment bankers representing a couple of other potential bidders. They’re in the folder there. Would you be able to get answers from the team downstairs and reply?”
Javed picked up the folder and flicked through the printouts, which were all from Safia’s emails. Although highly intelligent, she was notorious for asking her secretary to print out all her emails rather than answering them on her own PC, which Javed found laughable. He suspected it was purely to demonstrate her ranking and power inside the department and not because of any inability to use technology.
“Sure, I’ll answer them. Do you want me to send the answers back to your secretary, and then she can email the people back?”
“Yes, that would be helpful. Thank you.”
She turned to leave.
“Oh, by the way,” Javed said. “Did you come into my office while I was away? Some of my documents in the filing cabinet weren’t as I left them.”
Safia turned abruptly and did something of a double take. “I—well, yes, I did actually. I was looking for one of the investment bank analyst’s notes on the sector, which I knew you had. I did find it. Hope you don’t mind?” she said.
Javed shrugged. “Okay, no problem.” He turned back to his laptop, and Safia continued out the door.
He switched his screen back to Johnson’s email.
Hello Javed, yes I knew what your role is. I think I know the Russian you’re referring to. Your old friend Mr. S? I have something I urgently need to discuss with you about him but not in an email. I would also like to know about the American investors you’re referring to. Can we meet before your investment process is complete? I am now back in Kabul so can see you anytime—name your time and place and I will aim to fit in. Please do give me a call on the number below. Regards, Joe.
At the bottom of the email Johnson had included his cell phone number.
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