The Cloud Collector (36 page)

Only very limited documentary material, all supplied by the man himself, was available on Abu al Hurr. No-one questioned at any faculty knew anything about the man. Hurr's entry application listed a home address in the Kohati Gate district of Peshawar, Pakistan. There was also an address on the Abbottabad campus of the Peshawar University of Engineering & Technology, from which he had provided Grade 1 graduation documentation in macro-electronics. He had applied to Rutgers for a post-graduate degree in applied electronics. A personal reference letter from a Professor Sohail Khan, who described himself as Hurr's tutor, praised the man for his outstanding academic dedication and described him as wishing to return to research electronics after commercial employment in engineering posts in Germany and the United Kingdom. He'd given his age as thirty-four in his application, which was dated July 20, 2013.

Seizing the advantage of the day, Hardy had ten agents in place at the end of Friday prayers at the Masjid An-Noor mosque in Piscataway's Hoes Lane. Neither the imam nor any of the worshippers recognized James Miller from his Rutgers registration photograph or from the name. The imam volunteered, however, that an American had come to the mosque to discuss the Islamic faith whom he'd not now seen for several months, maybe even as long ago as a year. From their conversation the imam believed the man had served in the American military: he'd talked of living on a military disability or discharge pension while undergoing unspecified medical treatment. The imam did not believe the man was local: at the last of the three meetings he'd talked of moving on. As far as the imam could remember—“I'm afraid I've got a very bad memory”—the man hadn't said where he was going. Because of that bad memory—not wanting to lose a potential convert—he'd kept a reminder note of their meetings in his diary. It took him almost thirty minutes, going back through crammed entries as far as December 2012, to find the man's name: Milton Kline.

A well-rehearsed Ben Hardy—with the benefit of an already-established acquaintanceship from close-by Trenton—personally headed a Bureau diplomatic visit to Piscataway police headquarters. It was carefully timed to take place exactly one hour after a placating telephone call from FBI director Frederick Bowyer to minimize traditional local-police resentment to federal law intrusion. Which it did. James Edward Miller's rap sheet was laid out in readiness for Hardy's arrival at the police headquarters. It recorded three incidents of Miller's being taken into protective police custody for public drunkenness, which is not a prosecutable offence under New Jersey State or local law. On each occasion, for the same reasons, a man named Milton John Kline was also taken into protective custody.

By mid-morning the FBI's technical division had installed a complete communications unit, including satellite facilities, in the temporary field office in former laundry premises off the main street. From there the emerging information, including Abu al Hurr's Peshawar connections, was relayed to FBI headquarters on DC's Pennsylvania Avenue for follow-up investigation. And from there Ben Hardy received Director Bowyer's congratulatory call:

‘You've done good, Ben. Damned good.'

‘Thank you, Mr Director.'

‘The unit I transferred over from Baltimore—find out if there's anyone among them who's got an asset, a friend, on the inside at Fort Meade. I need to know what's going on there.'

‘I'll get onto it right away.'

‘I know you will, Ben. That's why you're team leader.'

Elsewhere, Operation Cyber Shepherd did not progress as productively.

*   *   *

‘Did we know about Piscataway?' demanded Sally, without any time-wasting preliminaries, the moment she was connected to David Monkton from the embassy communications room.

‘Nothing to make a possible connection until yesterday and even then—and as of now—there's no positive confirmation,' heavily qualified Monkton. ‘Algerian intelligence recovered a partially burned American passport and some papers—we don't yet know what sort of papers—in the name of James Miller. Algiers messaged MI6, believing Six was handling Sellafield; it wasn't passed on to us until late yesterday. Now—this call—would have been my first opportunity to tell you.'

That wasn't a sufficient enough answer to her question! ‘We knew about Abu Hurr's American visa. When did we know Rutgers Engineering School was his intended college?'

‘Not until about a week ago, and then it wasn't relevant. Abu al Hurr was dead—America's problem—and Madrid hadn't happened. What's your point?'

She should have been told: its relevance was hers to decide. ‘Finding al Aswamy—destroying whatever jihad he's trying to direct—has virtually become secondary here to the infighting between the FBI and the CIA and God knows who else in Homeland Security. The
Times
leak is part of that disarray: agencies playing off against agencies. I need to know as much as possible—even things that don't seem relevant—to stay as closely involved as I am. Which could be the wrong place with the wrong people if Abu Hurr's death becomes public.'

‘I'm expecting a call from Conrad Graham. You already know what I'm going to tell him about Abu Hurr. He's not going to like it, which puts you on the scapegoat list. You ready for that?'

Instant improvement, Sally judged, taking her time to factor the
Times
disclosure into the question. ‘I might even find a way to use it.'

‘You should have been told about Piscataway,' conceded Monkton. ‘It was a mistake.'

‘Is there anything else I should be told?' persisted Sally, maintaining the criticism while accepting that was the closest the man would come to apologizing.

‘No.'

‘We need—I need—to be distanced from the
Times
disclosure,' insisted Sally. ‘What was Algeria's distribution?'

There was a hesitation from London. ‘Wide. “Reply all” to MI6, CIA, Spain, and Italy.'

‘Simultaneously?'

‘Yes.'

‘Timed?'

‘Afternoon: three ten.'

Sally used the pad in front of her to calculate the comparative time adjustment between North Africa, London, and Washington, DC. Allowing herself a two-hour error variation, the CIA would have received the Algerian advice by 5:00 p.m. their time the previous day. She'd been at Langley then. Remained there for a further two hours, been with Jack Irvine and Conrad Graham—Conrad Graham, who'd been enraged at having the Madrid bombing taken from Operation Cyber Shepherd. Today he'd be apoplectic when Monkton told him MI5 were washing their hands of Abu al Hurr's rendition. ‘I hope the
Times
—or any other media outlet here—doesn't have any more surprise leaks: there's too many sources in Homeland Security.'

‘There's not a lot you can do about it.'

Sally thought there might be something but decided not to mention it at that time. Instead she said, ‘Except go on being very, very careful.'

‘Does being very, very careful apply to personal situations?'

Sally frowned sharply at the unexpected tangent. ‘If it becomes necessary.' Would she be as careful as she was making out? Of course she would! Whatever there was with Jack would always be secondary.

‘Your Langley telephone could have a lot of listeners.'

‘Could!' echoed Sally, irritated at the remark. ‘Most certainly
will
. Which I'm unlikely for a moment to forget. Or neglect.'

‘Neither will I. That's why we'll repeat this conversation on the Langley line later today, to ensure no-one's disappointed. I'll put in some caveats about over-interpretation and some reminders about Sellafield to enhance your input value from an external agency with a focus not solely confined to Cyber Shepherd. It'll put us on the right footing if we need to find different workplace friends.'

Monkton's hadn't been a casual remark, Sally corrected. He'd been thinking laterally, as she would have been if she hadn't been distracted by his personal question. ‘I'm calling Poulter directly after this.'

‘Get back to me if there's anything I should know. If I don't hear from you, I'll give it at least an hour before I follow up to let him know we've talked, to reassure him he's not risking his professional future coming back to us.'

*   *   *

None of the interceptions were so far decipherable, but among the other cryptologists was a palpable satisfaction at the gradual, letter-by-letter unpicking of the Hydarnes IP codes. After his earlier breakthroughs, Akram Malik felt irrationally isolated from the centre of things monitoring the targeted Action chat rooms of Moscow Alternative. He looked unnecessarily at the wall clock he'd consulted four minutes earlier, impatient with Irvine's posting restrictions, hoping today wasn't going to be as fruitless as the previous two—more than two, he corrected. There hadn't been any responses to the Shamil25 bait for fifty-six hours, which didn't sync with the increased volume of Facebook-routed traffic the rest of the group all around him were huddled over.

He hit the log-on key at Irvine's stipulated moment, between hour-designating 2 and 3 to avoid its appearing timed. [email protected] registered on the screen. So intent was he upon it that Malik didn't properly hear the acknowledgement of another letter identification, although he recognized Shab Barker's excited voice.

His concentration broken, Malik looked instinctively at Barker's triumphant ‘And another!' When Malik looked back, Redeemer was on his screen.

Inshallah.

Malik:
Inshallah … and at last.

There was no immediate response. Then:
Arranging a wedding is more difficult than arranging a funeral.

Redeemer didn't talk in proverbs—even paraphrased!—immediately remembered Malik, but he had to follow the theme here.
My friends anticipated the wedding.

Redeemer:
Sometimes such things have to be cancelled.

Had Malik's greeting been too impatient, irreverent even? A shared domain, he remembered, conscious again of the different style: this could be a different Redeemer, a rival faction perhaps.
That would cause great sorrow. Many have prepared gifts.

Redeemer:
The gifts list is changed.

Malik:
They surely still have to reach their destination.

Redeemer:
Inshallah.

Malik moved to speak, but the disconnection came even before the traditional invocation. Turning into the room, Malik announced, ‘We've got a problem.' That I may have caused, he thought.

*   *   *

In the heightened back-watching atmosphere of the competing Homeland Security agencies—coupled with the TV and print media descent upon the town—the CIA inevitably learned of the FBI invasion of Piscataway before it properly awoke. By mid-morning Conrad Graham, in direct contravention of the law prohibiting American spying on Americans, had two CIA, not NSA, technicians in place. By noon they were successfully eavesdropping on the FBI's temporary-field-office communications. From those intercepts Graham heard of the identification of Milton Kline and of Bowyer's intention to establish, with Homeland's tacit agreement, an Abu al Hurr task force in Peshawar, which was also, technically, in contravention not just of American but Pakistani law.

Since the American invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 and the discovery in 2011 of Osama bin Laden, the CIA has built its
rezidentura
in neighboring Pakistan into its largest overseas presence in the world. Graham assigned a six-man priority response team from the Islamabad embassy to pursue every monitored lead from the former Piscataway laundry before the FBI task force boarded their scheduled flight to Pakistan from Washington's Dulles Airport.

By mid-afternoon, Washington time, Graham was already getting preliminary but encouraging Eyes Only reports, wondering as he read how long it would be before Frederick Bowyer publicly staked his claim to Cyber Shepherd leadership.

It wasn't a long wait.

 

36

But Graham never imagined it would be on prime-time TV news. Or trailed in advance to maximize the viewership figures.

It was stage-managed by FBI director Frederick Bowyer, a heavy-bodied, small-featured man who invited the comparison with the Bureau's founder by bringing his thinning hair over incipient baldness. Against the background of a flag-draped photograph of the president, Bowyer declared major success against the jihad being waged against the West. FBI agents, employing the traditional fast-track technique of J. Edgar Hoover in times of national crisis, had in less than twenty-four hours confirmed the extent of the global terrorist conspiracy. Direct connections had been established between the Madrid bombers and Abu al Hurr, a known associate of Ismail al Aswamy, the Al Qaeda mastermind of the attempted attacks on the Washington Monument, Rome's Colosseum, and a British nuclear facility. Evidence indicated that al Hurr, in U.S. custody after that failed British attack, was an equally important Al Qaeda figure who had gained a place on the Rutgers engineering faculty as a post-graduate student. Within the next twenty-four hours Bowyer expected further information from an FBI task force in Piscataway, New Jersey, about the cell created there by al Hurr and Americans James Miller and Milton Kline, both of whom served in the U.S. military in Iraq and Afghanistan, where they had been radicalized. Another task force was at that moment en route to Peshawar, in Pakistan, where al Hurr was understood to have other known Al Qaeda associates. Bowyer also anticipated progress from the interrogation of al Hurr in the ongoing hunt for al Aswamy. These Bureau successes would seriously hamper al Aswamy's terror campaign.

‘That was totally unbelievable!' said Conrad Graham in genuine surprise. He added more bourbon to his glass, again gesturing to Sally with the bottle between them on the desk.