The Cloud Collector (7 page)

Sally changed disks again. ‘Different day, because there are different clothes discarded and it's consensual sex this time, which isn't the intended focus. And the Roger Bennett figure doesn't appear. There's no mistaking the establishment in the background: it's the positive identification of Sellafield, the first British nuclear-processing site to produce weapons-grade plutonium-239.'

She finally turned off the television, picking up the printout bundle from the side of the television table. ‘These are the entire textural content of the hard drive that was wiped before the NSA interception and what remained afterwards. There's nothing of obvious significance, but there is what I consider a peculiarity. A substantial amount of the text material is gambling tips, horse and dog racing. At least six are specifically interesting: they show no sender locations, apart from coming from a German Internet source, meaning they were sent from anonymous memory sticks. That was how Bennett got the message that was picked up by NSA.'

Sally waited for a reaction, but none came from the three men facing her. Hurriedly she went on, ‘I believe what I've recovered indicates an imminent attack upon the Sellafield nuclear installation. If it succeeds—certainly if it causes a nuclear leak—it'll rank with 9/11 in New York or 7/7 here in London—'

‘Stop!' broke in North, at last. ‘On precisely
what
are you basing these assumptions!'

Sally saw another satisfied smirk from Dodson. ‘The presence of the man I believe to be Roger Bennett, whose personal and police photographs I've studied. And the memory stick e-mails from a German source, from which the NSA interception emanated.'

‘We don't know that the e-mails you've isolated
are
from the same German source, that they're even
from
Germany!' seized Dodson, exaggerating the incredulity. ‘It isn't sufficient for you just to
believe
that one hazy image could be Roger Bennett to have raised an alarm like this; we'd need more than that even if it were Bennett. I think we should consider standing down.'

‘I didn't decree the alarm level, although I think it's justified,' defended Sally. ‘It's the middle of the night now; it would be inconvenient as well as a mistake to reduce or withdraw what's been put in place until the full forensic examinations are completed.'

‘The longer we leave the emergency in place, the greater the danger that there'll be an information leak, screaming headlines, public panic, and embarrassing parliamentary explanation,' persisted Dodson.

‘Better a false alarm than the screaming headlines and public panic that would result from a nuclear leak we'd failed quickly enough to prevent,' said Sally.

‘A drawdown at this hour is impractical,' decided Monkton. ‘We'll give forensics until the morning.'

‘But no longer than the morning,' stressed North. ‘I fear we've cried wolf here.'

The Director-General answered the anteroom extension to his personal internal telephone, listening without interruption and remaining momentarily silent, head bowed. He replaced the receiver and turned back to the others. ‘The man at the street sign is Hasib Hussain, but in Germany he calls himself Horst Becker. He tops their most-wanted terrorist list.'

Dodson's face was ashen.

 

7

‘We've got him!' Palpable relief was in James Bradley's voice.

‘No, we haven't,' refused Irvine, concealing his similar feeling in front of what remained of his blank-faced audience. After the conclusion of the first exchange with Langley, Barker and Malik had left to compare the minimal transliteration they believed already achieved from the ongoing random high-velocity sweep.

‘We've got an area,' insisted the CIA man.

‘We enhanced the signals search for his cell phone and computer after your surveillance supervisor finally remembered that al Aswamy was carrying a computer sack,' persisted Irvine. ‘The signal was traced somewhere in Brentwood, Northeast DC, but it was too faint for coordinates. The area's still too big. And presumably he's still got his motorcycle transport.'

‘It's a good enough location to put in a new team.'

‘Try to make it a better crew than the last one,' said Irvine heavily.

‘I've briefed them personally,' assured Bradley, reluctant to capitulate again, but conscious of his weaker position. ‘We'll find the son of a bitch, and this time we won't lose him. You staying at Fort Meade tonight?'

‘Of course.'

‘I'll be here at Langley. That's where to find me.'

‘We need to meet tomorrow, whatever happens,' said Irvine. ‘Your fieldwork has got to be better than this.'

‘All of those things and more. Let's talk in the morning, assess where we are. Fix a meet then.'

‘You're right,' agreed Burt Singleton, as Irvine replaced the receiver. ‘This is a bad start that could turn into a full-scale disaster. We've already gone over our agreed deadline: the other Homeland Security agencies should be brought in first thing tomorrow.'

‘I know.' Irvine paused. ‘It went too well and too easily in the beginning, made us forget there'd be setbacks.' Made
me
forget, he mentally corrected himself.

‘That's the flaw,' picked up Marian Lowell. ‘It only needs one glitch. There's a straw to clutch at if the cell and computer signals stay in Brentwood. I can't think of an obvious target there.'

‘What reason do we have for believing al Aswamy's still with his phone or computer?' punctured Singleton. ‘From the bus-and-motorcycle routine, he suspects he's under surveillance, taking precautions at least. Wouldn't the obvious evasion be to lay a false trail by dumping them?'

‘If he were doing that, he would have left both turned on, to give out a stronger signal,' argued Marian. ‘He's being cautious, is all. He'll be imagining it's a gang dispute with the Annapolis group.'

Barker and Malik filed back into the room. Malik shook his head, not needing to say anything. Barker said, ‘Looks like a long haul.'

‘I'll sleep over, too,' decided Singleton. ‘Keep on top of the signals check.'

So far the team had every reason to doubt his leadership, Irvine accepted; now Singleton had even elected himself the protective guardian.

*   *   *

Unlike their American counterparts, Italian carabinieri, Special Forces units, and the anti-terrorist division of the CISR, Italy's security service, were well prepared. Within a day of receiving the NSA warning of a potential attack, they'd traced the Internet café just off the via Ludovisi to which the original suspect e-mail had been sent from Cairo and attached monitoring intercepts on all its terminals. The café was also put under physical surveillance. CISR code-breakers, equipped by the original NSA interception with the domain code, took only half a day deciphering the next transmission from Egypt. It identified the Colosseum as the symbolic target to be rigged on a linked chain of charges set to explode at the height of the following day's tourist excursions; the expectation was that people who survived the blasts would be crushed beneath the total collapse of the remaining complete wall of the two-thousand-year-old structure.

The Italian military-led operation in the event of the attack materializing was devised in two days. To avoid detection by the still-unidentified terrorists during the day of the possible attack, a hundred Special Force commandos in civilian clothes infiltrated the ancient amphitheatre in twos and threes among the guided tourist groups. Their bags and backpacks contained AK-47 rifles and Beretta handguns. Another thirty army engineers, in civilian overalls, went in as apparently part of the permanent maintenance staff. As well as more weaponry, their tool bags and backpacks contained infrared night-vision scopes and heat-seeking sensors as well as heavy battery-generated floodlights and special noise equipment.

The buildup was matched outside the structure. During Rome's frenetic evening rush hour, unmarked cars and vans began gradually moving into position on all approach roads, with backup squads radiating out behind them. Each was connected by dedicated radio link in addition to open-channel conference telephone facilities. The entire outside of the Colosseum was under night-vision infrared surveillance. Two helicopters were on take-off standby in the Borghese Gardens.

The attack began precisely at 2:30 a.m., at timed intervals, down the via Claudia in four vehicles, a lead car and three vans carrying their explosives, detonator caps, and connection cables to ensure a simultaneous detonation sufficient to destroy at least a hundred yards of the still-intact outer wall overlooking the area where tourist coaches disembarked their passengers.

Two men in the lead car were instantly visible on the external infrared surveillance, silently alerting those waiting in ambush both inside and outside the Colosseum. The moment the two got out, both carrying heavy satchels, their vehicle moved away towards the shadowed Nero Park. Despite the infrared facility it was impossible to see the tools with which the two worked on an entry door into the Colosseum. It opened as the first of the following vans approached down the via Claudia. From the rear three men emerged, formed a chain, and transferred equipment sacks into the monument. As the first van followed the car into the park's shadows, the second van arrived to continue the explosives transfer, followed by the third to the vacant unloading area.

It was completed by 3:30 a.m.

The vehicle drivers spaced their return from the parking area, the last two lingering at the door through which the others had already entered, checking all the outside approach roads. The telephone alert that the entire group was inside was duplicated over the radio. Initially only four Special Forces teams moved. One squad completely blocked the door through which the terrorists had entered with a large, multi-spiked control barrier ironically similar to some of the outwardly spiked fighting machines manipulated by gladiators two thousand years earlier. The other groups blocked every other possible exit with identical barriers.

At another silent command, the remaining anti-terrorist specialists and police moved into place, totally surrounding the huge amphitheatre from the outside.

The interception was perfectly coordinated. At a radio signal, the arena floodlights and those carried in earlier burst on simultaneously with those outside. Simultaneously, too, the decibel-shattering scream of psychological-warfare sirens erupted. The Special Forces and police were earplugged against the disorienting noise. The deafening cacophony drowned the brief exchange of gunfire, in which only one of the intended bombers was slightly wounded. Twelve out of the total of twenty attackers surrendered without a fight.

The attempt to destroy Rome's most famous antiquity created an international furor, heightened within hours—to America's discomfort—by confirmation of the wounded man's identity.

*   *   *

Sally Hanning got back to Thames House by nine, having showered and changed and showing no trace of only having had three hours sleep. Neither did the meticulous David Monkton, who'd slept at the MI5 headquarters. To Sally's well-concealed bewilderment she was ushered into the anteroom in which, four hours earlier, they'd watched pornographic films. The previous night's television table was now laid for breakfast, two chairs set in readiness.

Looking at Sally's overnight bag, Monkton announced, ‘I've decided against your going to Sellafield.'

‘It's my case,' immediately protested Sally.

‘Which is acknowledged in the official commendation I'm attaching to your file today.' Monkton buttered his toast. ‘The operation becomes physical interception now: SAS Special Forces and police snatch squads.'

Sally sat where Monkton indicated and poured coffee but ignored the food. ‘What happens if there's no attack?'

‘The cordon stays in place. Cleaned-up facial photographs of the groups will be issued to Special Branch and anti-terrorist units at every port and airport exit in the country. There's no government decision this early about publicly issuing the pictures, which is what the German anti-terrorist agency wants.…' Monkton looked at his watch. ‘There's a German squad getting here in two hours. They've been trying to get Horst Becker, aka Hasib Hussain, for the past year: he was the leader and the only one to escape from a terrorist bombing in Hamburg that killed ten people last October.'

‘What about territorial rivalry?' presciently asked Sally, pouring herself more coffee.

Monkton shook his head. ‘The arrest will be ours. It's inevitable, I suppose, that Berlin will seek extradition, but Becker's not an adoptive German national as far as I know. It's a matter for the attorney-general and home secretary. We'll certainly have a precedence claim.'

‘What precedence?'

‘The Germans are suggesting Becker might have killed Roger Bennett. Those the police did catch and arrest after the Hamburg atrocity describe Becker as someone who enjoys killing.'

‘What about the indistinct photograph on the first porn movie?' demanded Sally.

Monkton allowed a bleak smile at the persistence. ‘Forensic came back an hour ago. They're putting the possibility that it's Bennett at seventy percent.'

‘And the e-mails?'

‘Still being assessed.'

‘Why Bennett?' reflected Sally, helping herself at last to a croissant. ‘And why kill him so publicly? If he hadn't been murdered and his body dumped so publicly the terrorists could easily have got to Sellafield.'

‘They almost did,' reminded Monkton. ‘And it's only speculation that Becker or anyone else in the group
was
involved in the killing. I'm equally curious at how and why a petty criminal like Bennett—which is what he was, certainly not someone with any political ideology—came to be with these people in the first place.'