The Cloud Collector (20 page)

 

19

They would obviously have met earlier, if only to agree to her presence, and it clearly wasn't the full crisis committee. But it was still a far higher table than that at which Sally or David Monkton had expected her to sit. In addition to Conrad Graham there was a man she knew without introduction to be retired admiral Joshua Smith, director of Homeland Security, who sat facing her. He was flanked on his left by FBI director Frederick Bowyer and on his right by State Department deputy secretary Wilbur Denver. Charles Johnston, Bradley, and Jack Irvine were spread out farther around the oval table. Immediately behind Graham was an official recording bank of two stenographers, supported by four sound technicians independently keeping a backup audio transcript.

Everyone visibly showed the tiredness of a much-interrupted night that had only allowed a maximum of three hours' rest between various meetings, which had included arranging this limited gathering and a conference call between Sally, Monkton, and an anxious, promise-guaranteeing Johnston.

Conrad Graham concluded his formal introduction of Sally by identifying her as the MI5 officer who'd prevented the attempted UK attack and whose experience—‘your thinking and your analysis of this worldwide Al Qaeda assault'—they considered invaluable. Sally acknowledged the tight-faced nods from the three new government officials, fully aware as she did so that it was an unthinkable concession for an agent from another intelligence service to be co-opted at such an echelon. Inconceivable, that is, but for the largely self-induced panic from which everyone was feeding. In addition there was the benefit of their having a readily available scapegoat for inevitable mistakes.

‘Where's your evidence for an attack!' demanded Smith, an indulgently large, red-faced man.

Graham deferred to Irvine, who twice cleared his throat in surprise before saying, ‘There's a pattern. A buildup of traffic that matches what we discovered when we reverse-analyzed the volume that preceded the previous attacks, not just here but in the UK and Italy.'

‘You intercepting this new traffic?' picked up FBI director Frederick Bowyer, a diminutive, round-faced, round-bodied cottage loaf of a man, frowning in similar doubt.

‘Some. We haven't yet deciphered it.'

‘My bureau needs to be involved if there's an attack within America,' insisted Bowyer. ‘That's our remit.'

‘Let's establish if there's going to be one or whether we're crying wolf here,' said Smith.

‘I'm formally registering the responsibility,' insisted Bowyer.

‘It's registered,' promised the Homeland director.

Was Irvine crying wolf? wondered Sally. He hadn't gone into detail during their various exchanges during the night, but she'd expect more than what he was offering now.

‘If it's al Aswamy, we can get the son of a bitch!' intruded the guilt-heavy Bradley. ‘We can trace him through his e-mail address!'

‘No, we can't,' refused Irvine. ‘Al Aswamy's not using the e-mail address we had; he knows it's not secure anymore. He actually left his computer on a beet delivery truck, remember?'

‘So you're telling us you believe there's going to be another attack, but that we
don't
know where, when, or how! And that we don't have a chance in hell of finding out!' demanded Wilbur Denver.

‘Yes,' said Irvine flatly. ‘The only chance we've got of locating al Aswamy through his e-mail traffic is to intercept another message that we can read and then follow to its end. Or in reverse, catch one of his to Tehran.'

After a long moment of receptive silence, Denver said, ‘There's got to be a public warning!'

Admiral Smith turned to Sally from a cupped-hand exchange with Bowyer and said, ‘We need your detainee! Now!'

We want your experience, your thinking, and your analysis,
recalled Sally, all watch-and-wait resolutions discarded. ‘What you need is a lot more considered thought and far less knee-jerk panic.'

The brief silence this time ranged between surprise, astonishment, and affront. Smith's face became redder. With difficulty he said, ‘You have a point to make?'

‘Several,' replied Sally, hurrying past the outburst. ‘It would be the worst possible mistake to renew a public alert linked to an apparent new threat. What would it achieve? More panic to compound the hysteria created by a ridiculously high bounty producing a response too great properly ever to be analyzed—conceivably, even, overwhelming any real sightings or locating information.'

She was being too forthright, Sally realized, but she was too committed now to bite back the words: everything that David Monkton had warned her against. As well as being too negative. There had to be a balancing, positive contribution. She wished at that moment that she could think of one.

‘It's my opinion, my judgement, that the most recent attacks weren't anything to do with al Aswamy or Al Qaeda,' Sally resumed. ‘Al Aswamy is our concentration; he's state sponsored, Al Qaeda connected. Which means it's organized, well planned, despite our managing to intercept and prevent the three original attempts. Al Aswamy wasn't in direct command in Italy or the UK. He had to rely on others, who weren't as good as he is. Which he knew and possibly made provisions for, in the event of their failing.'

‘What the hell are you talking about now!' demanded Denver, irritated at the criticism of his new-alert suggestion.

‘It isn't professional for the leader of a current militarily organized group to discuss future operations in which that current group isn't involved; not even if they
were
to be involved,' set out Sally simply. ‘It endangers those intended operations if they are caught, which both groups were in Italy and the UK.'

There was another punctuating break. Johnston said, ‘You're contradicting yourself. You started off saying al Aswamy's a professional, now you're saying he's not.'

‘I'm doing nothing of the sort,' corrected Sally, welcoming the proposal at last formulating in her mind. ‘I'd consider it extremely professional to insure against the failure of something you can't personally command by carefully planting stories of further operations—'

‘Planting!' seized the FBI director. ‘You saying you don't think any more attacks are planned! Where's your evidence for that?'

‘I don't have any evidence for that,' admitted Sally easily. ‘I'm simply putting forward an alternative to what everyone's convinced themselves is going to happen, something that's also completely unsubstantiated by any evidence.'

‘What about this!' demanded Irvine, gesturing with his own message copy.

‘Indeed, what about it!' echoed Sally, waving her own slip as if answering a flag signal but then reading from it. ‘Addressed to Hydarnes, Persia's—now Iran's—legendary warrior.' She hesitated, realizing her own oversight or again something further she hadn't been told. ‘What was al Aswamy's operational addressee name on the original intercept?'

‘Jamshid…?' responded Irvine, turning the identification into a question.

‘Another legendary Iranian warrior king,' completed Sally.

‘Precisely why I said an hour ago that if al Aswamy isn't still operated by Hydarnes, then there's another cell we don't know anything about and have every reason to worry ourselves shitless,' said Irvine.

Sally looked down momentarily at the paper slip, folding it into concertina strips. ‘Iran's the third-largest Internet user in the world—in addition to its own Halal or darknet Web usage—isn't it?'

‘Yes?' confirmed Irvine, still questioning.

‘What level of expertise and competence would you put them at, compared with NSA?'

Irvine hesitated. ‘Maybe a tad short in actual technology. Operationally about equal. They recovered far more quickly from our Stuxnet malware than anyone expected, years earlier, in fact.'

‘Tehran planned a world spectacular, as spectacular had all three succeeded as America's 9/11 or Britain's 7/7. One failure, one possible electronic interception, would professionally be built into that planning. I've already suggested how al Aswamy might have expected it. But if I were sitting in Tehran, analyzing how all three misfired'—Sally looked at Graham—‘and don't forget you've asked for my analysis … I'd conclude that three failures are too great a coincidence to be simply unlucky. I'd suspect that my communications chain's been compromised—'

‘And if I were sitting beside you in Tehran, I'd close it down!' Irvine fought back.

‘Because you think like a cryptologist, not as an intelligence officer who spends most of his or her time second- and third-guessing what your opponent is doing or might be doing,' capped Sally. ‘Second- or third-guessing means working out how you lost three out of three operations to prevent your losing any more. What I'd do in Tehran is bait a hook—continuing the warrior code names, which almost makes it too obvious a bait—and cast it into cyberspace, counting the number of cutouts it passes through to discover how badly I've been compromised. Hydarnes was still on the Halal net at Cairo. If you react with a warning, it'll tell them you're that close. By successively reducing the number of cutouts, it'll also tell them if you're getting even closer still. And throughout all that time the panic and chaos already generated by twenty-million-dollar bounties and describing al Aswamy as public enemy number one will be compounded by renewed official warnings.' Sally intruded an emphasizing pause. ‘Terror achieved without even bothering with a terrorist act. A perfect misinformation coup.'

‘That's total hypotheses, from start to finish!' dismissed Joshua Smith. The uncertainty in his voice didn't match the intended rejection.

‘No more than believing what the detainees are saying, which at the moment is nothing,' retorted Sally.

‘You can't seriously be arguing that there shouldn't be a fresh public warning,' persisted Denver.

‘I'm totally serious in arguing just that, and I've already told you why,' insisted Sally.

‘I don't want to be told what we shouldn't do!' complained Smith. ‘I want to hear what we
should
do!'

‘Play the misinformation game against them,' declared Sally shortly.

‘Go on,' urged Smith hopefully.

‘You've got media sources through which you leak unattributed stories to spur bad guys into detection reactions, right?' Sally asked FBI director Frederick Bowyer.

Smith impatiently overrode Bowyer's hesitation. ‘Of course he has!'

‘Use a prestigious one:
The New York Times
or
The Washington Post.
But only one. It's got to be believed. The story is that al Aswamy has been detained and turned, that he's co-operating with the bounty guarantee and a new and safe life in a witness-protection programme. And then have every Homeland Security agency refuse to comment—but not deny—in the media rush to catch up on the story, which will be interpreted as confirmation that it's true. It'll dampen down the public frenzy, which needs capping. More important still could be a response from al Aswamy, desperate to let Tehran know he hasn't defected.'

The stir moved around the table, the frowning Joshua Smith the focus. Before Smith could react, Bowyer said, ‘What happens when it's shown to be untrue, if there
is
another attack to prove it isn't true!'

‘The story was unattributed; every Homeland agency refused to comment. We're not responsible. So what that it was untrue! It still gives us a chance—and more time—to get al Aswamy.'

‘It's still “what if?”' said Bowyer.

‘Okay,' said Sally, thrusting back into her chair. ‘Someone come up with a better idea.'

*   *   *

‘I may have been a little too outspoken,' admitted Sally.

‘You were, and I warned you not to be, at that level,' said David Monkton.

Not for the first time Sally wished for more inflection in the man's flat-tened voice to get a better indication of his mood. ‘There was no point in my being here without knowing everything, which in the beginning I didn't. I'm still not sure I know it all now.'

‘And trying to take over the meeting was the way to get it?' asked Monkton, heavily sarcastic.

‘I didn't try to take over the meeting. I was invited to give an opinion, which I did. And then to put forward a proposal, which I also did: the
only
proposal.'

‘That, hopefully, will keep us where we are,' allowed Monkton doubtfully.

‘When the meeting broke up, it was only being considered?' qualified Sally.

‘There was a fuller meeting immediately afterwards where it was agreed.'

‘Was it Johnston who complained about me?' demanded Sally. ‘Or someone higher?'

‘Johnston. And it hardly amounted to a complaint: it was a comment during a longer conversation.'

‘About what?'

For the first time there was hesitation from London. ‘They're desperate to get one of our prisoners.'

‘I thought that had been decided?'

‘I'm delaying as long as possible to keep us—which means you—where you are now.' Monkton paused again. ‘There's also further Foreign Office pressure over your independence from the embassy. Have you had any fresh approaches?'

‘I got back to a message from the first secretary, asking me to call. I haven't responded, obviously; waited until we'd spoken.'

‘Don't agree to a meeting until tomorrow, to give us time to see if your idea is adopted. And when it happens, let's cut the aggression.'

I'll try, Sally thought.

 

20

The New York Times
ran the seizure of Ismail al Aswamy—together with his acceptance of a bounty payment in return for co-operation—as a three-inch-deep band across the top of its front page, giving the impression of its being the lead story. Specific details were limited by the need to agree to bargaining arrangements and the amount of the bounty payment with other countries, particularly the United Kingdom and Italy. Al Aswamy had already disclosed the extent of Iranian financial, matériel, and manpower support to Al Qaeda in Mali, Yemen, Somalia, and Kenya. Newspapers, wire services, and television news organizations throughout the world—including Al Jazeera—interpreted the refusal of Homeland Security agencies to comment on or to deny the
New York Times
story as confirmation that it was true. The story was either re-published, with attribution, or re-written without acknowledging the source. Both versions were supplemented by archive material and stock film footage. Understandably the most commonly re-published pictures were of the deserted Washington Mall, Rome's Colosseum, and the Sellafield nuclear plant.