Mission Compromised (67 page)

“Yes sir.”

“Good. Now the number you just called is my satellite portable. I always have it with me and it's always on. That's how you get hold of me. If you get in a real bind, close to the border or on this side of it, maybe we can launch our Air Force SAR birds and come get you. I'd
like to pull a Marine out of the soup and kill a few of Assad's goons in the process. OK?”

“Roger that, sir.”

“Don't hesitate to call. Out here.”

As Newman terminated the call, he looked across the room at Samir, who was flailing his arms wildly. Newman had been so engrossed in the phone call that he hadn't heard the sirens. Some kind of police, fire, or emergency vehicles were coming their way, and by the sound of the sirens, they were getting close—fast.

Samir grabbed the phone, slammed the receiver down, and pulled the EncryptionLok-3 from the wires. “This is how they find you!” he shouted. “You must destroy it.” Samir threw the EncryptionLok-3 to the floor and stomped on it. As he was stomping the instrument, it suddenly began to smolder.

Newman stood there dumbfounded, but immediately knew that Samir's intuition was right. Somehow they must have changed the EncryptionLok-3s so that they could track him when he used it. He heard the police car squeal to a stop outside. Grabbing their things, Newman pointed Samir to their only possible escape—the window. It overlooked a flat roof that was thankfully over the empty kitchen and not the manager's quarters. The two men could hear the police or soldiers downstairs, banging on the manager's door. They dropped the five feet from their windowsill to the roof and then ran to the edge.

“It's too far down,” Samir whispered to Newman as the two men peered over the edge. A puddle of light suddenly appeared on the ground below as a light went on in the manager's quarters.

“We have no choice,” Newman said. He shuffled along the edge of the roof to where a large tree overhung the structure. He flung himself out, clawing for a large branch. Pain raced through Newman's burn-damaged
arm as he moved hand over hand to the trunk and then slid down to the ground.

A few seconds later, he heard Samir grunt as his body hit the tree trunk—and then he, too, was down. The pain in Newman's injured hand was intense, but the sounds from inside the hotel were enough to motivate both men to keep moving.

They could hear the voices of the police shouting at the innkeeper to reveal what room the American was in. He knew of no American, the innkeeper protested, and told them that only two rooms were occupied, number one on the ground floor and number three, on the second floor.

The authorities then spent several minutes banging on the door to room one and rousting out the newlywed couple—who were terrified at the intrusion of their honeymoon.

The police finally burst through the locked door to room number three and rushed inside, guns drawn, ready to shoot. Finding the main room empty, they checked the bathroom. In a small wastebasket they discovered a pile of bloody, pus-encrusted bandages. In the bedroom, the telephone had been knocked from a small table on which it had rested, and some of its wiring looked as if it had been ripped out of the phone. On the floor beside the telephone was a pile of smoldering rubbish that smelled acrid and its lingering smoke hurt their eyes. Then they noticed the open window and went to look out.

Meanwhile, Newman and Samir were half-stumbling toward the river. They clambered into the boat and began to paddle as silently as they could toward the middle.

Their breathing sounded as loud as a sawmill to Newman. When they were in the middle of the river, Samir pulled on the cord to start
the motor. Nothing. He pulled again, and the old motor caught. Newman thought its sound was as sweet as a symphony, right at that moment. Samir pointed the bow upstream.

By now there were more than a dozen Syrian Interior Ministry police officers searching the buildings adjacent to the small hotel. It did not occur to them to search the river until they heard the sound of a motorboat starting up, well out on the river. Several of the officers raced to the water's edge but when they arrived, though they could hear the faint hum of the motor, it was impossible for them to tell if the boat had gone north or south. The officer in charge of the police detail was furious. Damascus had said that an “American spy” was at the hotel. Clearly someone had fled the room that his men had searched. He had to bring back something to show that he had made every effort to capture the American. So he had his men arrest the night manager.

Newman sat in the bow with his head in his hands. They had escaped again—by an even narrower margin than last time. Would they be so fortunate next time?

 

National Security Agency

________________________________________

Fort Meade, MD

Wednesday, 8 March 1995

1750 Hours, Local

 

Jules Wilson hung up his phone and stared out the window, mulling over what he had just been told by an old friend.

Lieutenant General George Grisham had been brutally frank: “Jules, there is something terribly wrong with your EL-3 encryption systems, and I'm ordering all Marine units to cease using them effective immediately until you get to the bottom of the problem.”

Grisham had gone on to specify for the number-two man at the National Security Agency what he had learned from Newman. Grisham was convinced that “his Marine in the field” was being compromised by the EncryptionLok-3 device that he was using. So, he had called Wilson to check on it.

Grisham's call didn't alarm Wilson about the EncryptionLok's cipher having been broken; he was convinced that was impossible. Instead, Wilson had asked where the Marine had gotten the device he was using.

Grisham replied, “I don't know. I'd guess that they got them from the NSC or the Special Ops people down at Bragg.”

But a quick check of the EncryptionLok-3 inventory in the NSA's master computer index showed that Newman didn't have an EL-3 signed out to him. And then a subsequent call to WHCA confirmed that all of their EncryptionLok-3 devices were accounted for.

Could the UN have EncryptionLok-3s without our knowledge?
Wilson wondered. He had come down hard on Silicon Cyber Technologies when they tried to sell the device to the UN and NATO, and assumed that was the end of it.

Now, alerted by General Grisham's call, Wilson swung into action. He picked up his phone and called the NSA Operations duty officer.

“Major Hammond speaking, sir.”

“Major, Deputy Director Wilson here. I need you to check something for me. Within the last two hours, an EL-3 encrypted call was made from overseas to the deputy chief of staff for Operations and Plans at the Marine headquarters. I want you to find out the GPS location for that device—from the EL-3 systems tracking profile—and get me its registration number… .” Wilson gave the duty officer the phone number where General Grisham had received the call.

In less than fifteen minutes, Wilson had a computer-generated report:

 

EL-3 LOCATOR NO. DGL/94IS00033744 IS AN UNASSIGNED DEVICE. IT WAS USED FOR A TELEPHONIC VOICE TRANSMISSION TO THE NUMBER INDICATED IN THE TIME FRAME OF YOUR QUERY. GPS DATA FOR THE UNASSIGNED EL-3 UNIT INDICATES THAT THE CALL ORIGINATED FROM SYRIA. INITIAL INSPECTION OF DGL/94IS00033744 INDICATES THAT IT HAS BEEN MONITORED BY UNKNOWN SEQUENCER/INQUIRER LOCATED IN VIC OF 1600 PA. AVE, WASH, D.C.

IMMEDIATELY AFTER LAST GPS INQUIRY, THE WHITE HOUSE SITE EL-3 MADE A 2MIN 31SEC ENCRYPTED VOICE TRANSMISSION TO A SECOND UNASSIGNED EL-3, LOCATOR NO. DGL/94IS00033753, THAT APPEARS TO BE CONNECTED TO AN UNKNOWN MOBILE SATELLITE VOICE PHONE IN VIC OF LEONARDO DA VINCI AIRPORT IN ROME, ITALY. AFTER TERMINATING COMMS WITH THE WHITE HOUSE SITE, THE ROME DEVICE IMMEDIATELY MADE AN EL-3 VOICE-ENCRYPTED TRANSMISSION TO ANOTHER SATELLITE PHONE CONNECTED TO A 3RD UNASSIGNED EL-3, LOCATOR NO. DGL/94IS00033537, WHICH APPEARS TO BE LOCATED IN BAGHDAD, IRAQ. UNKNOWN INQUIRER AT WHITE HOUSE MADE THREE (3) GPS INQ LAST 48 HRS. OF DGL/94IS00033744. UNASSIGNED EL-3 NO. DGL/94IS00033744 DESTROYED PER SOP 8331.

GPS LAT/LONG AND UTM COORDINATES WHERE DEVICE WAS LAST USED ARE PRINTED BELOW UNDER SENDER'S LOCATION.' REQ ADVISE ACTION TO BE TAKEN RE EL-3 DGL/94IS00033753 AND EL-3 DGL/94IS00033537?

 

Jules Wilson could not believe what he was reading. First, the unassigned EncryptionLok-3 that Newman was using had a serial number that was not even in the range of those that the NSA had authorized for purchase. Second, there were other unassigned EL-3 devices being used in that same serial sequence, and if those numbers were correct,
there must be additional thousands of them circulating in the world. He felt a shiver of alarm running down his spine. “The UN has EncryptionLok-3s!” he said out loud, though he was the only person in the room.

The watch officer's initial assessment also indicated to Wilson that the unassigned EL-3 that Newman was using had been queried for its GPS location at least three times in the past two days—from the White House. The final piece of information was that the NSA Operations Center had, in accord with established standard operating procedures, initiated a command-destruct signal for the EL-3 since it was in an area where no EL-3 units were authorized.

Jules Wilson decided to act. First, he called General Grisham back and told him what he had discovered, and warned him to tell Newman, if he could, that up until the time it was destroyed, the Marine's EL-3 had been GPS-tracked by someone at the White House.

Wilson then made a second telephone call: to the senior FBI agent serving with his “Comm Hawks.” When the agent returned his call, Wilson was customarily blunt: “David, I want you to quietly open an espionage case against the officers of Silicon Cyber Technologies, the manufacturer of the EncryptionLok-3 device. I have reason to believe that the company may have intentionally compromised U.S. encryption technologies in violation of U.S. law.”

 

Newman Home

________________________________________

Falls Church, VA

Wednesday, 8 March 1995

2015 Hours, Local

 

General Komulakov didn't have many of his former Department V officers in the U.S.—but two Russians—who happened to be running
drugs in Brooklyn for the Russian mafia—jumped at the chance to be of help—for a fee, of course. Aleksandr knew the general through a former colleague in his old Dzerzhinsky Square office. Aleksandr had provided the second man—his own son, Vasili. Komulakov had offered each of them one thousand U.S. dollars to clean the Newman house.

They knew, of course, what their assignment was and started immediately. Under his father's watchful eye, Vasili packed a small aluminum suitcase, lined with lead, that contained some unusual tools, along with their pistols, ammunition, and silencers—and checked it as baggage on their flight from Newark to Dulles.

They arrived a little after 2030 hours, rented a car at the airport, and bought a local street map at the Dulles Airport gas station. The father-son team then drove directly to Falls Church, found the Newman address, drove past it, and parked several doors away.

There was a light on in the Newman's bedroom, but none in any of the lower story rooms. They found where the telephone lines came into the home, and cut them, to forestall both a silent alarm to a security company, or a call to the police by a frightened victim.

Then, following his father's instructions, Vasili forced a basement window on the side of the house that was not illuminated by the street light three doors away. Aleksandr went to the back door of the garage and, using a large pneumatic tube wrapped in a piece of blanket, punched the dead bolt lock through the door with hardly a sound. A second punch took out the doorknob. In less than five seconds, he was inside the garage. He noted that there was no car parked there, and since there was none in the driveway or on the street, he didn't expect anyone to be home. But to be safe, he did his best to muffle the noise as he used the same procedure on the interior door from the garage into
the kitchen. Ten seconds later he was inside the house and the kitchen door was swinging uselessly on its hinges.

The older man took out his silencer-equipped automatic pistol and quietly chambered a round. He switched on a laser-sight and crisscrossed the room with it, seeking a target. He began to silently climb the stairs. He was halfway up to the bedroom level on the second floor when Vasili came up from the lower level. There was enough light coming through the living room windows for them to see each other. The blond killer shook his head; no one was downstairs. Aleksandr pointed in the direction of the closet and bathroom doors off the kitchen. The younger man crept up on each door and, holding his Glock 9mm pistol in front of him, threw each door open. Both rooms were empty. Aleksandr continued up the stairway toward the lighted master bedroom. He had to be careful; military wives often knew how to use handguns. If the woman was inside, she might have a gun pointing at the door right now.

He crouched, away from the door, by the wall, and quietly listened for any sound coming from the other side. If Mrs. Newman had been aiming her pistol, she'd have three or four rounds off through the door by now. Or she might be in the bathroom and couldn't hear the sounds of their forced entry. Vasili was behind his father now and flat against the wall, covering the older man's back. They both moved away from the door, on either side of it. The son slowly and silently turned the knob. He dipped his head to mark the count of three, then swung the door open and they both raced into the room. The son fired four shots from his silencer-equipped automatic into the bolster lying lengthwise on the unmade bed.

The two of them looked in the bathroom, the closets, and then they went outside the master bedroom and searched the other rooms
and closets, but found no one. Relaxing once they had confirmed that the house was indeed empty, Aleksandr took out his cell phone and dialed. He spoke briefly in Russian.

“Wait until she comes home? Why? We should leave immediately.” He listened a bit longer, then shrugged and ended the call.