The Cloud Collector (15 page)

‘I didn't expect him to agree to my meeting people in the active unit, so I consider it a good start.'

‘How do you gauge that?'

‘I don't, not yet. He made a fuss about being the man in charge, in control of everything. He won't be if I meet the active unit by myself, will he?'

‘
If
you meet them by yourself,' heavily qualified Monkton.

‘We'll have to see.'

‘How's it at the embassy?'

‘I'm only using the communications room and the compound apartment.'

‘No contact beyond Fellowes?'

‘Not even that, since the first day.'

‘It'll come soon, now that the State Department are dealing with the Foreign Office.'

‘I haven't forgotten what you told me.'

‘It's been a good start,' assessed Monkton.

‘Let's hope it continues that way,' said Sally, doubting that it would.

Nigel Fellowes was waiting directly outside when she emerged from the cubicle.

*   *   *

Jack Irvine switched the telephone to voice mail, slid the additional interior security bolt into place after double-locking the door to his CIA office, and finally slipped the colour red code into its outside slot, isolating himself to reflect on the day. Having made the only positive contribution at the Homeland meeting, he should, he supposed, feel some personal satisfaction. But he didn't. Conrad Graham was right: offering a bounty was
too
obvious, and for none of the other supposed professionals to have come up with the idea ahead of him verged on the unbelievable. Equally absurd was the blame-gaming between Charles Johnston and James Bradley, which was anything but a game. Al Aswamy
had
been lost on Bradley's watch, and Bradley had to take the fall if sacrifice was inevitably demanded.

Inevitable, that is, until five minutes ago and the arrival of the internal e-mail at which he was now looking, addressed not only to him but copied to James Bradley, setting a time the following day for both of them to meet the British MI5 agent, named for the first time as Sally Hanning. Or could it merely be a postponement of the inevitable? Irvine wondered, recalling Johnston's heavy inference—unchallenged by Conrad Graham—that the woman would monitor the Cyber Shepherd fieldwork. If the infantile disputes continued between the two, Bradley's humiliation would be compounded by having to confront the woman who'd be overseeing his every decision. What about me? questioned Irvine. All the indications so far were that the woman was a field operative, not a cryptologist. So what practical purpose could there be in his meeting her? Every purpose, if it achieved his overriding concern of keeping Cyber Shepherd alive. And the way to do that was to build upon the operation's already proven success: locate new intended outrages to manipulate and destroy terrorists as sensationally as they'd so far prevented those they'd already uncovered.

It was time to return to the momentarily untapped Moscow Alternative.

*   *   *

Burt Singleton picked up on the first ring, not speaking until Irvine finished his account of that afternoon. Then the man said, ‘You call that a crisis meeting!'

‘I don't. They do.'

‘That doesn't overwhelm a guy with confidence.'

‘Al Aswamy doesn't need to do anything else, does he? He's got us and half of Europe in lockdown panic just by walking away.'

‘That could be the extent of the threat.'

‘I know.'

‘What's the bounty?'

‘It hasn't yet been internationally agreed.'

‘It's worked in the past,' conceded Singleton. ‘Any heads rolling, for losing the son of a bitch?'

‘Not yet.'

‘We still in business?'

‘Why shouldn't we be?' Irvine questioned back, discerning the expectation in the other man's voice.

‘Thought maybe there'd be a pause until things settle down.'

‘There's no pause,' insisted Irvine. ‘We continue with our part of the al Aswamy hunt by monitoring the Vevak site. I'd like you to handle that, with Shab and Malik on standby to help. I'm going to spend time in the chat room we haven't properly explored yet.'

‘What about Marian?'

‘I need her available to help me with the chat room, as well as sifting anything that might look promising from our general target interceptions. I want to see if we can expand those. Shab and Malik could help there, too.'

‘And we'll liaise all the time?' demanded Singleton, concerned that Irvine might keep him out of the loop because of the doubts he'd expressed.

‘All the time. You know that's the arrangement.'

‘When are you next up?'

‘Maybe in a day or two. We'll see what develops.'

Irvine guessed Marian would pick up the gist of his conversation with Singleton, but cautious of her feeling left out, he patiently went through his account of the afternoon for a second time.

‘The bounty response lines will be blocked by every con man with a faint pulse,' predicted the woman.

‘They already are, before the amount's even been announced.'

‘And we go on as before?' she questioned, confirming Irvine's belief that she'd been close enough to Singleton to overhear most of their earlier exchange.

‘Hopefully better than before,' said Irvine briskly. ‘You've read my chat-room download?'

‘Of course I have,' said the woman stiffly.

‘It was a rhetorical question, not a doubt of your professionalism: you're on the team
because
of your professionalism,' said Irvine more stiffly, wearied by the perpetual suspicion of both Marian and Singleton and determined against the sort of stupidity existing between Johnston and Bradley. ‘We got the Moscow Alternative darknet through the contacts list of the Annapolis group who killed two of al Aswamy's team. So we know that group is an active cell who kill and who talk on the Action subcatalog of Moscow Alternative. I want us to talk to them, too, to get their trust and pick up any hint or indication of any attacks they might be contemplating or get involved in. I want you to organize an IP code search on the random-number generator. If necessary, extend it through our Echelon tie-in with Britain's GCHQ, who did damned well with al Aswamy, and Canada's CSE. You and Burt can divide Shab and Malik between you to share the workload.'

‘That all?' The cynical stiffness now was at the rebuke stage.

‘No. You know the botnets I've already set up to get into Moscow Alternative. Get into the subcatalog using my Anis domain botnet. Create a repetitive programme to download every name listed on the wall over a twenty-four-hour period that we can compare not just with the Annapolis list but every other address we've got on record.'

‘What are you going to be doing?' persisted Marian.

‘Working on it with you as soon as I finish what needs to get done up here.'

*   *   *

Sally Hanning had forgotten about the heel-to-thigh ladder in her tights until she felt the coldness of the chair she was ushered into by Giles Podmore, who had solicitously been waiting directly inside the door of his embassy office, as Charles Johnston had been a few hours earlier inside his door.

‘It's very good to have you with us, Ms. Hanning.' Podmore, pink faced, plump, was scarcely taller than Sally, who thought the man could have modeled for the
Just William
comic books that her grandmother had inexplicably sent every Christmas to whichever embassy her father had been stationed. The cherubic smile he was now giving would have suited the illustration, too.

‘I'm here on a very specific assignment.'

‘We can well understand that.' Podmore continued to smile. ‘And I want to assure you right away that every help and assistance the embassy can offer is at your disposal.'

‘That's very kind.' Sally smiled back. ‘But my embassy needs are minimal: just the communication facilities and the convenience of a compound apartment.'

‘I'm sure there are some social possibilities you might very much enjoy.'

‘Thank you, but I don't imagine I'll have a lot of time for socializing.' Protocol decreed she comply with Fellowes's summons outside the communications room, knowing he was relaying it from the ambassador, but she wished she could have avoided this. She had to make contact with Johnston in thirty minutes and didn't want to create any excuse for the man to change his mind about her meeting the coordinators of the unit or the NSA cryptologist.

‘Quite so,' bustled Podmore. ‘You're going to be extremely busy, involved, I appreciate. But my ambassador has asked me to arrange some time within your busy schedule for contact between us: the ambassador, myself, and of course our Mr. Fellowes. And let me say at the outset that we appreciate our meetings will have to fit into your schedule, not ours.'

She breathed in deeply. ‘I must repeat that mine is a specific, strictly governed assignment. I am instructed by my director-general to tell you that all information about the ongoing search for the missing terrorist, Ismail al Aswamy, and any wider aspects of the investigation have to come from your usual contacts with the American State Department, who we know to be fully involved, or any other source through which Mr Fellowes works.' She wished it hadn't sounded as if she were reciting from a headmaster's school report but hoped the formality would cut short a pointlessly protracted argument. Podmore would have been warned by Fellowes, but Sally was impressed by the man's portrayal of bewildered outrage.

Podmore did not speak immediately but stared at her in wide-eyed, feigned amazement. Then he said, ‘This is ridiculous … totally unacceptable. We're talking about the
ambassador
! You can't refuse the ambassador.'

‘I was advised to tell you that if you felt the need to protest, it should be done through the Foreign Office, which is being fully briefed by the Director-General. That briefing will also include everything in which I am involved, here in Washington.'

‘There will certainly be the strongest protest, both through the Foreign Office and personally to your director-general,' threatened Podmore. ‘And I expect you to hold yourself in readiness for further meetings between us.'

‘Of course.'

With less than ten minutes before her scheduled call with Johnston, Sally headed to her unused office. After a jump of satisfaction when he told her of the eleven o'clock meeting the following morning, she was then quickly disappointed—although objectively not surprised—that Johnston stipulated the encounter would be in his office.

Fellowes, at his immaculately clean desk when she opened the linking door, asked, ‘What's it feel like to commit suicide?'

‘Painless.'

 

15

The bounty offer was politically orchestrated to achieve the maximum impact. America led at midnight eastern time, with $12 million. The United Kingdom's carefully timed £2 million was next, and by varying breakfast times the following morning the European Union's euro contributions brought the total to $20 million. Every televised and newspaper announcement was accompanied by genuine although technically sharpened photographs of Ismail al Aswamy, as well as enhanced facial images of the man without his beard—some retaining the moustache—from several generated angles.

Government anti-terrorist ministers announced their contributions in eight European countries, including Britain. In America it was declared by the head of Homeland Security. He was accompanied in television studios and at a general press conference by the deputy director of defence and the directors of the FBI and CIA. The timings of the declarations were coordinated. The accompanying statements, intended to be reassuringly calming, were not.

The political needs of each country to show concerted resolve achieved the opposite. The FBI director misdirected the tone by declaring al Aswamy number one on the Bureau's most wanted list; every agent in the country was specifically assigned to the manhunt. At 1:30
A.M.
in London the anti-terrorist minister was unable to properly read his auto-cue and repeatedly referred to an overwhelming scourge of international terrorism and ad-libbed that Interpol, which is a police information-disseminating system with no operational capability, was mobilizing an armed, continent-wide force authorized to use “ultimate force,” inevitably translated as a shoot-on-sight edict. From Berlin, consumed by the Sellafield seizure of the man wanted for the Hamburg massacre, came the positive assertion that al Aswamy was the hitherto unidentified successor to Osama bin Laden, which was seemingly doubly confirmed within thirty minutes by France. The Parisian spokesperson suggested that specialized army forces were on standby with police units protectively emplaced around such iconic landmarks as the Eiffel Tower and the Arc de Triomphe. In Italy, its government basking in public approval for saving the Colosseum, the flood finally spilled over the dam. Sufficient details of the Iranian-sponsored international structure of Al Qaeda were being disclosed by the would-be perpetrators of the Colosseum outrage so as to totally destroy the organization's existence. Also emerging from those disclosures were al Aswamy's further intended attacks, none of which would now succeed.

Throughout two continents a slew of supposed media and intelligence specialists analyzed the individual government statements—initially intrigued by their nocturnal timing from America's midnight announcement—and concluded with assessments far more closely correlated than the individual countries' disconnected efforts. The $20 million confirmed that al Aswamy
was
bin Laden's successor as the ultimate leader of the disparate Al Qaeda. That was further confirmed by the magnitude of the three failed attacks: had they succeeded, they would have been far greater than the 2001 Twin Towers atrocity. The ambivalence of the Italian statement clearly indicated that the new targets were unknown. Al Aswamy and the terrorist group he led were still at large in America, but that Europe was contributing to the bounty proved the assaults were going to be global. Which further proved that Al Qaeda had regrouped into an international force capable of striking globally. Sellafield was a clear indication that one—or even more—of the forthcoming atrocities would involve a nuclear weapon.