The Merchant of Secrets (14 page)

“Nice surprise Colin, when did you plan
this?”
I asked.

“Oh last night” he said. An impromptu flight to Europe
was so romantic. I arranged my luggage in the overhead bin then took my seat next
to him and leaned in close. It was good to feel him next to me.

“Where are we staying?”

“In a private hotel near Sloan Square.
I thought you might like to go shopping on King’s Road.”

I leaned-in and kissed his cleanly- shaven cheek. We were
mostly well behaved until the lights went down.

After landing at Heathrow, one of Colin’s old friends met
us at the airport and
suddenly  I
realized that
this wasn’t a romantic getaway after all, just like in Chicago.  Colin
greeted his friend eagerly like old friends do and then we made our way to the
car park where the guys took the front seats and I sat in the back, next to the
laptops. The low humming of the car’s engine lulled me to sleep.

When I awoke we were approaching the Devonport shipyard.
As the car came to a stop Colin sprang up from his seat and grabbed my arm.
“C’mon” he ordered, practically dragging me from the car.

‘Where are we?” I asked still half asleep.

“No
place really, just the Devonport
shipyard, c’mon, stand
up.”

“What are we doing here?” I asked.

 “We’re going to meet some friends of mine who have
some information on Dave Jones,
”  he
explained.
As I looked around and saw groups of people dressed naval attire, the
bone-chilling sting of the wind off of the ocean went straight through my
sweater and made me start to shiver.  We met 3 men, one was dressed in a
black wool overcoat, with sunglasses and a clean, closely shaven face. By my
estimation he worked in an office. The second had the weathered face of a man
who spends his time by the sea and wore a naval uniform, and the third, dressed
in jeans and a black jacket, had an appearance that didn’t reveal much of
anything.

The one in the overcoat was the first to speak. “Colin
said that you were interested in a guy named Dave Jones.”

“Yes I am. He seems to be providing something to the
Chinese, but we’re not sure what. Do you have any information that could help
us?”

As if he didn’t hear the question, the sailor turned to
Colin “Jones was here about six months ago trying to sell some flight equipment
and making bold claims about how it was used by the CIA’s Counter Terrorism
Center, but we were skeptical of his stories and not interested in buying. So
we sent him away.
Told him to get lost.”

“Was this PFG equipment?” I asked the sailor.

“Yea, I think so,” he replied. “He seemed pretty hard up
for a sale. But we don’t buy that kind of stuff from relative newcomers and
small unknown vendors, even if they are Americans.” I nodded, indicating I
understood their need for reliability and secrecy in the procurement of naval
equipment.

 The office man in the black wool coat joined in,
“But after that, we were interested in this Jones character so we assigned some
of our assets to him. One of our men was able to get into his hotel room when
he was taking a shower, and accessed a laptop in the room at that time. 
Our man was able to copy the computer log files and take it back to the
Ministry so that the lab could do some forensic analysis.  At the lab they
found unauthorized traffic to and from a website hosted in Iran, a site that
ostensibly sold farming equipment but it appears that this site was a message
board to communicate with someone in Iran.”

Colin inhaled audibly and stretched his neck. There was a
moment of silence between us. Iran, like Egypt, was one of the countries to
which Colin had been assigned. Since 2006 the U.S. had been flying RQ-170
Sentinel drones hundreds of miles into Iran’s airspace to capture images of
nuclear bomb building activity in secret underground locations. The heat
sensitive cameras could photograph the areas. The mission’s goal was to detect
and/or thwart further development of Iranian nuclear capability and to force
Iran to agree to regular inspections by the International Atomic Energy
Committee. Although the State Department had imposed strict export restrictions
David Jones seemed to ignore them without hesitation. He had already gotten
himself into deep trouble with the Department of Defense, the Department of
Homeland Security and the Department of the Treasury, why not the State
Department too?  It was embarrassing that this was happening right under
our noses without detection. Colin was angry.

 “Did the Ministry keep a copy of the log files for
us?” I asked the man in the black overcoat.

“We’ve got it, locked away. Send someone over from your
Embassy and we’ll give it to you.”

“Okay, thank-you, we greatly appreciate your help,” I
said looking directly into their eyes, one after the other to reinforce my
sincerity in thanking them.

The three men were finished with telling me what they
could, so we shook hands and Colin and I returned to his friend’s car which had
been parked a few feet away with the engine still running. Colin’s friend drove
us all the way back to London. I didn’t care to join their conversation about
soccer, and their old buddies so I sat in the back seat and read a paperback
novel I had brought along for the trip.

We checked into the Sloane hotel on a quiet street near
Sloane Square, in Chelsea. Through the tiny lobby the glow of a fire coming
from the corner of the small cocktail bar made the place feel homey and
comfortable. I appreciated the warmth after a day of bitter cold temperatures
at the shipyard, and sat down near the fire to enjoy a cup of tea. The server
came in with
herend
teacups on matching saucers with
lemon and sugar in silver bowls and served on a silver tray. It was so
civilized. After we were finished drinking our tea, we climbed the stairs to a
narrow hallway and found the door to our room. The small bedroom was painted in
pale blue with dark wood furniture and accented with an occasional ruby red
pillow or cushion. The room could barely accommodate a double bed, a small desk
and two side tables. We dropped our bags and I sat on the edge of the bed to
call Keisha to give her the update on
Jone’s
attempt
to sell PFG drones outside of the United States.  

“Hi Boots, it’s me calling from across the pond. The
Ministry of Defense has a log file from a laptop located in a hotel room where
Dave
Jones  was
staying in London. He was meeting
with some people to try to sell PFG drones. Can your office call our embassy
and get someone to pick
  up
the computer file
from M.O.D.? ”

“Did he actually sell anything?” she asked.

“No,” interjected Colin who was leaning
his back against the wall with his arms folded listening in on my conversation
with Keisha.
 
“ M.O.D
. didn’t want to buy
such substantial piece of equipment from a company without an established track
record. But they did say that the designs were fairly impressive, in fact they
were so impressive that the Ministry became concerned that although we in the
U.K. weren’t in a position to offer  PFG a contract, we didn’t want anyone
else buying this equipment either, particularly some rogue intelligence
organization from an unstable country. So some agents from the Ministry
followed him to his hotel room and copied some files which they’re willing to
share with your team.”

“Who’s the contact? Where do our people pick up these
files?” she asked.

Looking up at Colin who was pondering the logistics I
asked, “Where does our embassy personnel pick it up?”

“I think it’s better for one of our guys to drop it off
at your embassy” Colin suggested, subtly protecting the identities of the three
men we had just met. He preferred to have an unknown British foot soldier run
the errand. It was better than arranging for an American to appear at the
Ministry of Defense asking questions about log files, he thought.  Colin
picked up his phone and arranged for the package to be dropped off that evening
at the U.S. embassy in London and to be carried in a diplomatic pouch back to
the
U.S..

With that detail already arranged and battling
exhaustion, we managed to crawl to a local Indian restaurant for dinner. Our
lovely meal began with a gin and tonic, and a large portion of Indian
flatbread, followed with a main course of chicken curry and salad.  After
dinner we mustered the energy to stroll around the neighborhood to watch the
Londoners walk by, and to enjoy the twinkling of the city lights before finally
turning in for the night at our posh little inn.

In the morning Colin and I happily embarked on a series
of typical tourist adventures, first
riding  the
tube around the city then renting a car to drive to Hampton Court, King Henry
VIII’s castle. The next day we drove the car drove north to
Cumbria
,
Westmoreland in pursuit of
Lowther
Castle; a Tudor
country house which happened to be in a state of reconstruction as we arrived.
 Nevertheless I took dozens of pictures of the castle and the gardens. It
was a beautiful day, with a cool freshness in the air as we strolled along. We
stopped for tea and scones around four o’clock.

The next day it was back to the airport for me, although
Colin decided to remain in the U.K. to visit friends and family. When I arrived
at Heathrow the guy at the ticket counter asked “You’re a solo traveler?”
“Solo traveler?”
I thought. It sounded a little lonely and
desperate. “No,” I replied, “my friend’s already at the gate.”
The heck with being labeled a “solo traveler.”
  Sitting
by myself on the return flight to Dulles airport I still clung the notion that
Colin and I belonged together despite his hot-and-cold behavior and odd sudden
absences.  During the airplane ride he emailed me some photos of the
action in Libya, of burned, charred human corpses  piled on top of one
another, and beside their victims, a scattering of men holding rifles in the
air and smiling triumphantly. “I want a job that I don’t hate. Maybe I should
become a teacher?” was his email.  It was such a familiar scene, it could
have been almost anywhere, Iraq during Hussein’s reign, Somalia, Yemen,
Syria.  Why did evil always look so much the same? I wished that I hadn’t
opened his email.  “I can’t imagine you outside of the action,” I replied.

CHAPTER 19

When the airplane landed at Dulles airport at around 1:00
the next afternoon, I contacted Keisha to get confirmation from her that the package
from the British Ministry of Defense containing the files taken from Jones’s
computer in London, had arrived and was in her possession at Fort Meade. Then I
drove to her office to inspect the information.  

“Where’s the package, Boots?” I snapped grumpily after a
long plane ride during which I had barely three hours of sleep.  

“How was your trip to London with your guy?” she grinned.

“Fine.
Great.
Wonderful.
  Now give it up, what’s going on?” The
temptation to talk about Colin was compelling but this was my job, and there
was business to tend-to before getting side tracked on my tragic love life.

Keisha replied, “We checked the website, and we confirmed
the unauthorized nature,” as she nodded.

“Yea Keisha we know that already,” I said impatiently.

‘Well what else do you want to know?” She asked, holding
back information.

“I want the package that was sent here from British Ministry
of Defense,” I insisted.

Turning her head from side to side with her arms crossed
“You can’t have it,” she said decisively. “It was sent to the Department of
Defense and it’s our property.”

“Don’t be a pain in the ass, Keisha. I travelled all the
way to London to get it, and now you’re saying you won’t show it to me?”
 Her obstinacy was making me angry. “Okay Keisha, I want the a copy of the
 contract proposal PFG supplied to the Missile Defense Agency about six
months ago, with ancillary documents like emails” I replied, trying to strike a
conciliatory tone to pry it from her.

“You’re not authorized,” Keisha retorted. She was drawing
a line in the sand between her agency and mine and it was infuriating.

“Then the Statement of Work, Okay?”

The Statement of Work, or “SOW” for short, is the part of
the contract or proposal that outlines what product or service is being
proposed. It’s not as good as getting blue prints and flow charts, but for now
it was a starting point to look for some clues as to the list of PFG’s
suppliers and if it were possible to   manufacture  outside of
the United States, perhaps Iran.   If she wouldn’t share the file
from the U.K. at least she could give me some of PFG’s paperwork to examine.
Finally agreeing to share some data she turned to her laptop, pulled up the
Statement of Work, encrypted it, downloaded it on a thumbnail drive and handed
it to me.

“Thanks,” I said.

“When’s the date?” she teased.

“My wedding to Colin?”
I
replied, playing along.

“You’ve got another man besides Colin?” She asked,
leaning back in her ergonomics chair with her feet resting on her desk.  I
knew she was hinting at Mike
Mulally
.