The Dreadful Renegade: A Thrilling Espionage Novel (Techno thriller, Mystery & Suspense) (5 page)

June 6
th
, Washington, DC

Eugene called David from his office and related his impressions of the interview with Nagib. He said that Nagib had been very smooth with his answers as if they had been rehearsed. Eugene was mainly bothered by the fact that at no stage had he shown any emotions, even when describing his relations with his parents and deceased brother. However, the Colonel practically swallowed every word spoken by Nagib as if it was delivered by the Pope (Col. Dick Groovey was a devout Catholic) himself at the Ecumenical Council. Eugene told David that he thought they would have a problem convincing the Deputy Director and the Colonel that Nagib's access to classified information should be restricted, or even that a new thorough security investigation should be initiated.

***

David's concern that Nagib was up to something increased after the conversation with Eugene. He asked Haim Shimony's secretary to arrange a meeting, saying that it was not urgent, but she knew that Shimony, who was now Chief of Mossad, respected David's intuition and scheduled the meeting for 8 pm that evening. When David arrived at the Chief's office a handful of people, some wearing IDF uniforms and some dressed in civilian clothes were just leaving. One of them was "The Fish", David's old friend from the ISA. David greeted him warmly and asked him if he could stay for a few minutes and participate in the meeting. "The Fish" asked David what it was about and when David told him it concerned Nagib Jaber he readily accepted the invitation. Once they were seated in the Chief's office, David related the news he had received from Eugene and expressed his gut feeling that something fishy could be going on. The Chief said that he had great respect for the American approach to security issues but felt that they were a bit gullible in their belief that anyone who received US citizenship and took the required oath would be loyal to his new country and take no notice of his past and forget where he came from. He mentioned a few well known cases of espionage by nationalized citizens who passed classified military, security and commercial information to parties in their original homeland. Some did this willingly and voluntarily and some did it for financial gain while others were coerced to do so. The Chief suggested that "The Fish" should carry out a thorough investigation and profile of Nagib's background, family and personal history, and also look into Alia's background. In addition he proposed to send David to the US to personally meet with Eugene and see if he could find more about Nagib. This latter detail was very sensitive since Israel vowed not to operate clandestinely on US soil after the embarrassment caused by the Jonathan Pollard affair who was the
only American ever to receive a life sentence for passing classified information to an ally of the US
.   

June 14
th
, early afternoon, Los Alamos National Laboratory

Nagib sat in the office of his new friend, Dr. Max Level, for an informal meeting about ways and means to improve the performance of their groups by carrying out joint work. They drank some reheated coffee from the filter machine that tasted bitter and burnt, and joked that its acidity was the best way to exterminate microbes in the gastrointestinal tract. Nagib couldn't help recalling the freshly brewed, thick, dark and bitter coffee that he had consumed as a youth in Palestine and that Alia prepared for him and served with sweet pastries whenever she wanted to pamper him. Nagib, as usual carried a small memory stick with 16 GBytes of memory, in blatant disregard of the security regulations that did not allow the use of any such items. He felt quite secure that he would not be found out as the memory stick was part of a pen that he had received from one of the vendors of chemical equipment at a conference on analytical chemistry in which he presented his research as a graduate student.  He explained to Alia that one never knew when an opportunity to copy classified information would present itself so he was always prepared to seize such a chance. Max was in a very good mood as he was looking forward to a long vacation in Paris with his wife Minnie that was due to begin the next day. The phone on Max's desk rang and he picked up the receiver.  After a short conversation Max apologized to Nagib saying that some emergency in the deconstruction workshop needed his immediate attention. Nagib rose to leave the office but Max told him he would be back in a few minutes and they could continue their discussion.

Nagib noted that Max neglected to log out on his computer and quickly moved into Max's chair, removed his pen from the lab-coat's pocket and inserted his memory stick into the vacant slot. He entered the directory in which the classified files with the latest designs and blueprints of nuclear weapons were stored and started to download them onto his memory stick. He didn't have time to see exactly what those files contained so he just copied them blindly. He knew that the breach of rules would be noted by the security system's software but hoped that it would take several minutes to block the computer and even longer to discover the physical location of the offending computer. As soon as the download was completed he removed the drive, assembled his pen with the hidden drive and returned to his seat. A moment later, when Max returned to the office Nagib said that he had to leave at once as one of his assistants called about a problem in the analytical laboratory. He wishes Max a pleasant vacation and told him that they should celebrate after he returned from Paris.

Nagib went to the security office and stopped by Alia's desk. He was welcomed by all the girls in the office who still envied Alia for her handsome and successful husband. When Colonel Groovey heard the commotion he peeped out of his own office and greeted Nagib whom he regarded as a major asset of the research and development division. Nagib smiled at all of them and asked Alia if they could have a word in private and both of them stepped out of the office for a moment. Nagib told her that the opportunity they had waited for presented itself and explained what he had done in Max's office. She paled and said that he may find himself in deep trouble and probably will be caught. He said that the temptation was too large to ignore and surreptitiously placed the pen with the memory stick in her pocket. Both realized that their life in Los Alamos was over and that they would have to flee as quickly and as far away as possible. He said they should leave the Lab immediately, return to their home to pack a few things and draw as much cash as they could from the ATM machine and then try to disappear for a while until they could make plans to leave the country. She returned to her office said that she was not feeling well and had to leave early. Nagib was already waiting in the parking lot and they took off.

Meanwhile a security guard, Albert Danillo, arrived at Max's office in response to the alarm triggered by the security system's software that an unauthorized media storage device had been connected to a computer on the classified network. He found nobody in the office and was told that Dr. Max Level had left for the day. The guard looked around and everything appeared to be in order so he reported to his superiors that everything looked to be in order and that he would further investigate the matter the following day. No one bothered to tell him that Max was going on vacation and would only return two or three weeks later because the people in Max's section were often harassed by the security guards and particularly disliked Albert who was always after them for one reason or another. 

Max drove to his house where Minnie was already waiting with the packed suitcases and they drove to Albuquerque international airport to catch their flight to Paris via Chicago.  He knew nothing about the events that took place in his office and with a clean conscience was determined to enjoy Paris.

June 14
th
, late afternoon, Los Alamos

Nagib and Alia placed their laptop computer in its soft case, packed a few things in a couple of carry-on suitcases and as there was nothing of sentimental importance in the house they left everything undisturbed as if they planned on returning to it shortly. They decide to head to California assuming that they could blend in with the local large Arab and Muslim community and then plan their next step. They thought that the easiest way to get there would be by taking the I-40 that in that part of the world was also part of the historic Route 66, and drive through Arizona and Nevada until they reach the junction with I-15 in Barstow and then head to Los Angeles. They did not know how long it would take the Lab security office to discover what had really happened but reckoned that at most they had a couple of days before a nationwide manhunt began.

By the time they left Los Alamos and got onto the I-40 the sun was setting in the west and they headed directly in that direction driving at a pace that kept them flowing with the interstate traffic. Although they were in a hurry they did not want to draw attention to themselves by driving too fast or too slow. According to the electronic map they had the distance to Los Angeles was 884 miles and the estimated driving time was just under 14 hours. They reckoned that if they took turns driving and stopped for gas and services every 3 or 4 hours they could get to Los Angeles just after the morning rush hour ended. The drive was very smooth and they made good time so they were quite relaxed when they reached Kingman, Arizona. As they were passing through this little town it was close to midnight and there were very few cars on the highway. In one section of the road the posted speed limit was 30 mph and they were doing about 35 mph when a police car that was hidden behind a large billboard on the side of the road pulled out and followed them quietly for a couple of minutes. It then switched on its flashing lights signaling them to pull over to the side of the road. It was Alia's turn to drive while Nagib took a nap and for a second she panicked and considered trying to outrun the police. Nagib woke up, quickly assessed the situation and told her to stop by the side of the highway. The patrol car pulled up behind her and she could see in the mirror that the grossly overweight policeman barely managed to get out of his car and saunter over to her car. He held a large flashlight in his left hand and his right hand rested on his pistol. Politely he asked her to hand him her driver's license and car registration. When he saw that her name was Alia Jaber he took a long look at Nagib and asked them both to slowly step out of the car without making any sudden movements. They gingerly complied being careful not to do anything rash. He then asked them what they were doing in Kingman in the middle of the night and Nagib said they were on their way from New Mexico to Los Angeles where his uncle was in hospital with life threatening injuries after being a victim of a hit-and-run accident and they were hoping to reach him before he expired. The policeman had heard that one many times before so said that he understood their urgency but as they broke the speed limit they presented a hazard to all other people on the highway and it would be in their better interest to spend the night in the local police station until brought before a judge in the morning. Nagib and Alia were flabbergasted and at a loss. Once the policeman was convinced that they were not driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs he told them that there was an alternative. When they asked him what he meant he said that they could pay a fine of $250 on the spot and he would take care of all the paperwork in the morning and mail them a receipt. Nagib and Alia exchanged a knowing look and said that they would pay but he need not bother with the receipt. This was accepted and a quick cash transaction was made and within ten minutes they were once again on their way to Los Angeles. Nagib said that this reminded him of the roadblocks in Palestine where the police of the Palestinian Authority regularly supplemented their meager income by shaking down innocent drivers. The rest of the trip was uneventful and they made sure to slow down every time the highway passed through one of the small villages along the way.

June 15
th
, Pasadena, California

Just before noon Alia and Nagib checked into a small motel in Pasadena and went to sleep for a few hours. They paid cash and told the fat woman at the reception desk that they would stay for a night or two. She acted as if she couldn't care less, which indeed was the case, and mumbled that check-out was at 11 a.m. and that the ice machine and snack dispenser were in the lobby. Nagib removed the battery from his cellphone and told Alia to remove the battery from hers and said that they would go out later, trade in their car and get an older model that would leave them with some extra cash and also purchase new SIM cards for their cellphones.

Nagib took out the laptop and powered it on, removed his pen from his shirt pocket and took the top off exposing the memory stick. He inserted it into the USB slot of the laptop and opened the directory with the classified files. Until that moment he only had a vague idea about the blueprints and designs he had downloaded. The laptop was an old model and rather slow so the two of them waited impatiently for the directory to open. When the list of files was displayed they could barely keep themselves from shouting cries of joy. One file was called "The super high yield (SHY) device", another was named "Dial a yield lightweight (DAYLIGHT) multi-purpose device" and there were several other files with strange names and acronyms. Nagib was fascinated by something that was called a "suitcase omnipotent bomb (SOB)" that was described as a remotely controlled, powerful, portable, tactical device that could be clandestinely placed behind enemy lines or carried into enemy territory practically unnoticed. He told Alia that this particular design would be greatly suitable for their purposes if they could get their hands on such a device, or convince a friendly partner to manufacture it. Nagib connected with Wikipedia and under the heading of Suitcase_nuke found some interesting data. The website mentioned the reports attributed to General Alexander Lebed who was a high-ranking officer from the former Soviet Union about missing suitcase bombs. These reports were treated on the whole by analysts merely as gossip but no one was sure that there was no substance in them. Nagib added that there were claims by the Center for Defense Information (sometimes referred to as the Center for Disinformation) that replicas were hand-carried on domestic flights for exercise purposes. Alia asked what explosive strength such a device would have and Nagib replied that yields of several kilotons could be achieved. Nagib continued his search in Wikipedia and saw that the US had developed a lightweight device named Special Atomic Tactical Munition (ironically the acronym SADM had nothing to do with Nagib's hero, Saddam Hussein). The bare warhead allegedly weighed 23 kg and was shaped as a cylinder that was only 28 cm by 41 cm and could be placed in a suitcase. However, the advanced classified design that he had downloaded was about the same size and weight but its yield was supposedly much larger than the old SADM. Nagib said that the information they had was invaluable to countries with budding nuclear ambitions and even to countries with small arsenals of nuclear weapons. Alia said that she thought that non-government organizations like Al Qaeda or the Islamic State, not to mention Chechens, Kurds and others, would find the small device much more suitable for their purposes. Nagib thought about this for a minute and said that it was probably true but fissile materials, plutonium or high enriched uranium, were needed and as far as he could tell those non-state entities did not possess this essential component.

Alia asked Nagib how he intended to guard the information he had downloaded. Nagib said that so far the only copy was on the memory stick that was concealed in his pen and that he had not copied it even to his own laptop. He added that presently the folder with all the classified files could be opened by anyone who possessed the memory stick and that the first thing they needed to do was limit access to the folder and protect it with a password. Alia said that this could easily be done by anyone with minimal computer skills, but could be undone just as easily even by a teenage hacker. Nagib who was an accomplished analytical chemist but not an expert in computer security was at a loss. There was nobody he could approach with the classified folder and ask for assistance in securing the information, and then Alia hit upon an idea. She told Nagib to access the internet and download pornographic material. Nagib was surprised at the suggestion made by his shy and reserved wife and asked her what she had in mind. She answered that he could then find a young hacker and tell him that he wanted to hide these files from his wife and pay him for his services, provided that he taught him how to encrypt files. Once he had the know-how and the program he could apply it to hide the classified folder. Nagib liked the idea and downloaded some erotic clips from the internet, and while on-line looked for the addresses of a nearby internet café where he could seek the help he needed.

The couple was so elated by the wealth of information they now owned that they decided to celebrate before going out. After a long hot shower that they shared in order to save water, of course, they made love inspired by the erotic video clips that they had just watched and took a short nap. When they awoke it was getting close to 4 pm. Alia waited in the motel while Nagib drove to the internet café they had located. He took his laptop computer to the pimpled youngster who was at the desk and described his problem. The guy looked him up and down, giggled and said that it would cost him $50 to do what he requested, and Nagib managed to drive the price down to $30 in cash, with no questions asked. The guy took the laptop, hooked it to the internet and downloaded a short program. He then loaded the pornographic material into the program, showing Nagib each step of the way what to do, and within five minutes the porn files disappeared from the directory. Nagib asked the guy how to retrieve the files and the youngster smiled and said that this would cost him another $30. After some haggling the guy agreed to show him how to do the retrieval for $20. For an additional cost Nagib purchased another two memory sticks from the youngster and returned to the motel. When he told Alia about the whole affair she laughed and said that bargaining was no longer limited to the Middle East or the Far East, but that it was well worth the $50 it cost. They encrypted the classified folder and files on the memory stick that was hidden in Nagib's pen. 

After that they left the motel looking for a used-car lot. They entered the first used-car dealership they found. The salesman, dressed like a cowboy, greeted them with a false smile that displayed white even teeth, obviously the work of an orthodontist and as false as his smile. Nagib told him they were short of cash and needed to trade their new, expensive Toyota for a reliable, cheap car. The dealer exuded a few more smiles and made them an offer that would have been considered insulting under other circumstances but they were in no position to refuse. Nagib managed to increase the price by a few hundred dollars but the dealer knew they were in trouble and refused to budge any further. He said he'd sweeten the deal by selling them a cheap Nissan. Nagib asked if there was a guarantee on the car, and the dealer assured him that he offered a "5-50 guarantee" on all the cars he sold for no extra cost. Nagib asked if he meant 5 years and 50 thousand miles and with a small smile the dealer replied that he meant 5 minutes and 50 yards after they drove off the lot. Nagib did not see anything funny in that, but signed the ownership transfer papers and left in cloud of smoke from the Nissan's exhaust.

June 18
th
, Los Alamos National Laboratory

The head of security at the Lab, Colonel Groovey, looked as if he was about to have a massive coronary. His face was crimson red, his blood pressure skyrocketed and the uncontrollable tremor of his hands indicated that he may not live through the day. The security guard, Albert Danillo, stood in front of him and could barely refrain from wetting himself. Albert had been too many ball games where the unruly fans uttered a never-ending stream of curses at the referee, his mother and his whole line of ancestors whenever he ruled against their home team, but until today he had never heard anything like it off the sports field. The Colonel's tirade went on and on and the expletives were literally and figuratively a masterpiece of the English language. Had someone bothered to record what was said in the Colonel's office, it definitely couldn't be described as a conversation, and used it as an example in a class on English literature, it would have certainly won the first prize in any contest. The intimidated guard tried to explain that he was convinced that no harm was done and that it was only a system error that triggered the alarm that someone had inserted a memory stick into Dr. Level's computer. He said that he intended to investigate the matter the next day when Dr. Level returned to work as no one told him that the good doctor was on his way to an extended vacation abroad. The Colonel called him a stupid, asinine, dumb idiot and added another few invectives unfit to print, and told him that he would stand trial for treason, no less, because his negligence had caused more harm to the national security than anyone since Klaus Fuchs passed the secrets of the atomic bomb to the Soviets during the Manhattan Project. Groovey picked up the phone and summoned two security guards to escort their former colleague to the local police station where he would be charged with a dozen different variations of breaking every law in the book.  

After Albert was taken away, the Colonel started to prepare his own defense in view of his pending interrogation by the DHS, FBI, CIA, NNSA security division, local police and any other law enforcement agency that had jurisdiction at the Lab, or cause for investigation of the removal of highly classified information pertaining to national security from the Lab. The Colonel had already received a detailed report on the classified material that was downloaded from the files on Dr. Level's computer. He also knew that Dr. Level was questioned in Paris by the head of the local CIA station and described what had happened that afternoon in his office. Dr. Level was already forcibly placed on a plane that was on its way from Paris to Washington. What really concerned the Colonel was that the real culprit had been identified as Dr. Nagib Jaber – the very same person whom he had personally interrogated and judged to be "an honest, hard working, loyal American". There was no doubt that Nagib was responsible for the fiasco. This was based on Dr. Level's testimony and on the fact that Nagib and Alia had disappeared from their home and work without giving any explanation. Adding insult to injury, the Colonel recalled that on the very day the event occurred he had welcomed Nagib when he visited Alia at the security office. He was stunned when he realized that at the very same time Nagib had the offending memory stick in his pocket. He murmured quietly "I should have shot the bastard on the spot" and seriously considered using his gun to shoot himself and avoid the embarrassment that was inevitable.