The Falklands Intercept (22 page)

‘I thought it was the Fourth.'

‘Yes you may be right. “Whatever” as our American allies say.'

‘What are we going to do Jacot? Go to the police? Tell the Security Service that the CIA killed Verney and that we have uncovered a CIA plot to kill some Cabinet Office people – who by the way are spying for the French. Tell the prime minister? I reckon friend Dixwell thinks he can get away with it.'

‘Why don't we just kill Dixwell when he comes tomorrow morning? Our French chums have a lot of firepower upstairs.'

‘Come off it Jacot. We would be signing our own death warrants and you know it.
Let's get a good night's sleep and enjoy the hospitality of our French allies.'

In the middle of a rainstorm a white van with District of Columbia plates drew up outside Ford's Theatre in Washington. The driver sat for nearly an hour reading a
newspaper
and smoking cigarettes. But he wasn't waiting for the theatre to open. He had no interest in drama and his van barely attracted a second glance. Passers by on the
pavement
, if they noticed that sort of thing, might have found the smell of the cigarettes stronger and rougher than those most Americans were used to. The van's specially
reinforced
suspension meant that it did not look heavily laden, even though there were four men in the back and at least a hundredweight of sophisticated electronic equipment. The heavy soundproofing meant that it sounded like an ordinary, empty van. Just as there was no sound coming from the van a different kind of insulation, more usually found in stealth bombers, ensured that the equipment in the back did not produce an electronic signature of any kind. You had to be careful in Washington. Security was tight for the President and other senior figures in the American political, military and intelligence
hierarchy
. A van or an apartment that emanated strange electronic signals would soon find itself raided by the FBI, or worse.

Ford's Theatre is more usually on the tourist rather than the intelligence itinerary. It was infamously where President Lincoln was shot at 10.15 pm on the evening of April 14 1865 while watching a performance of
Our American Cousin
– just five days after the surrender of General Robert E Lee at Appomattox and the end of the American Civil War. By a strange and lucky quirk of fate General Ulysses S Grant and his wife had refused the invitation at the last minute. But the street had not been chosen by the men in the van for its historical connotations. It had another more important quality. From much of it you could see a small nondescript federal government building at the end of the street, or to put it another way, lots of very convenient parking places in the street had line of sight onto the records annexe of the Federal Bureau of Investigation whose headquarters in the J Edgar Hoover Building is in the same part of the city. Line of sight was what the computer technicians and cryptologists in the back of the van needed to accomplish their task. They didn't need to steal anything or destroy anything or insert a virus into the strongly protected FBI computer system. All they had to do was insert two lines of text into a file on a background check carried out on a federal employee a long time ago.

The FBI's background files into those American men and women who came forward to join their intelligence services were well protected. They were an intelligence
gold-mine 
and those responsible for protecting them knew it. The American system was similar to the British system of positive and later enhanced vetting, introduced in the UK after the Cambridge Spies saga of the 1950s. If you came forward to join any of the United States' non-military intelligence agencies then the FBI was responsible for a detailed background check. The checks and the documents that went with them were regarded as definitive, way exceeding the evidential standards required in a federal court of law.

The original plan had been to activate a sleeper agent within the records
establishment
who would make the necessary amendments to the file. But the FBI's security had proved too tough to break in this way. The file could be accessed without too much
difficulty
– their agent was after all a senior FBI official, but it proved impossible to
accomplish
the task without leaving a record that the amendment was recent. For the plan to succeed it had to look as if the two key lines of text had been in the electronic document since it was computerised in the late 1980s. As far as they knew the original paper
documents
had been destroyed. They would have to trust their luck on that. They had then considered trying to hack into the system. Again it was more difficult than it looked. Newspapers on both sides of the Atlantic often ran articles about students hacking into American defence and intelligence computer systems. But it was much more difficult to get in and out of a system without being detected than many thought.

The insoluble technical issue for a hacker was that there appeared to be an air barrier between certain parts of the system and the outside world. In other words there was no electronic connection that could be exploited. Much the same technical problems had been discovered by the Israelis as they planned to attack the computers controlling Iran's nuclear programme in early 2008 by introducing the so-called Stuxnet virus – a simple enough piece of code which played havoc with the centrifuges processing uranium by turning them on and off at random – it was as if a naughty child with a sugar high was in control of the master switch. The Israeli solution had been elegant and simple. Ensure that Iran's nuclear scientists were bombarded at international conferences by all kinds of electronic freebies including memory sticks of the most stylish and expensive kind. The most sensitive parts of the system were almost impossible to hack into. The Israelis were correct in thinking that it would only be a matter of time before someone, somewhere or a member of someone, somewhere's family inserted one into a lap-top that would later become connected to the Iranian nuclear Intranet. You cannot build a nuclear bomb without sending emails.

It was going to be difficult but with luck they would pull it off. They would still need to activate their sleeper but in a much less risky role. The windows of the building were protected from electronic intrusion by a special copper film on the inside. An electrical charge run through the copper molecules embedded in the glass made each pane behave as if it were a sheet of metal – even though, of course, it was still possible to see through the glass. The glass was also strengthened so that it did not vibrate in response to sound
waves. In other words if you directed a powerful microphone at the glass it was
impossible
to hear what was being said inside. The system was about as good as it could be. Variations of it protected the White House and other sensitive installations.

It had one weakness. Once a month the FBI tested its back-up power generators. As an organisation that relied on a bountiful electricity supply to power its computer
analysis
and country-wide communications, it could not risk being caught in the kind of power cuts that from time to time afflicted parts of the United States, particularly in winter. Sensibly and properly, the Agency had bought a series of powerful petrol-run electricity generators stored in the basement of the building, hooked up ready instantly to take over the power load in the event of an interruption. Or almost instantly. And it was the almost instantly that had given the men in the van outside Ford's Theatre their break. For perhaps a hundredth of a second at most the electric current through the copper
molecules
in the glass was interrupted as the mains current died and the generators switched in. The minute interruption did not even make a computer screen flicker. But it was enough.

Like the highly efficient organisation it is, the FBI tested these procedures every month or so. The precise dates and times of the test were highly classified. But if someone knew when it was going to happen they could get a tiny packet of information through the temporarily ineffective shield in a burst transmission and into the hard-drive of a computer, provided someone was standing near the window with a specialised modem. If the little packet of information had been prepared properly then it would find its way to the correct file and nestle there as if it had been there all along without leaving any footprints in the electronic snow. An attempt to hack into the system through the internet and it would alarm in short order. But the FBI security people had never
envisaged
an ‘outside job' or at least the men and women in the van hoped they hadn't.

The DCRI's only agent within the FBI had been relieved that the instruction from Paris had been so undemanding. During the run-up to the First Gulf War she had been far busier and that comfortable expatriate retirement to a Provençal farmhouse seemed that much further away.

The date and time of the monthly generator test was dutifully transmitted to Paris via a dead letter drop outside the Smithsonian Institute. The instructions she picked up a week later were simple: stand near a switched on computer – not her own – close to a window carrying a tiny modem as the generator test took place. To her horror French technicians had originally planned to conceal the modem in a cigarette lighter, unaware that no one in the modern day FBI smoked at work or would even dare to admit smoking at home. In the end they secreted the gadget in a lipstick which was easy enough to slip into a pocket.

Ironically, Ford's Theatre was a suitable backdrop for this very high tech operation which was all about revenge. President Lincoln had been killed there by John Wilkes Booth in revenge for the fate of the Confederacy in the recently finished Civil War. The
United States authorities in their turn would wreak a terrible revenge on Booth and his fellow plotters for their crime. Five of them in all were hanged within a couple of months. The doctor who had set the leg Booth had broken leaping from the presidential box onto the stage to make his escape received a life sentence. The unfortunate
stagehand
at the theatre who had, possibly innocently, held Booth's horse out the back during the assassination received six years hard labour. According to his testimony at his trial he was held in prison hooded and manacled throughout.

The sophisticated electronic operation taking place in the street in front of the theatre 147 years later had more in common with the fate of Booth and his fellow plotters than the assassination of a president. It was an official operation by a state designed to take out a senior official of another state. It was designed as both revenge and a warning to others. A great deal of discussion had taken place in offices far far away on a different continent as to how it should be done. Some had recommended violence. Many had been tempted by the idea of an assassination. But in the end cooler heads had prevailed.

No violence would be involved. There would be no gunpowder or blood just high pulse electronic signals lasting nanoseconds – intended not to kill but to destroy a
reputation
, a career and a livelihood permanently.

Dixwell and his sidekicks arrived just after twelve. Maybe they thought they had been invited to lunch. He started up as soon as he was through the front door. ‘Jesus you Limeys are so far up your own ass. Just who do you guys think you f…..g are?' The college tie and the preppy suit were still there but the thin veneer of East Coast
civilization
had fallen away. The America of the Constitution and powdered wigs was gone. This was the America of Guantanamo Bay and the internment of its Japanese citizens in the Second World War, with just a touch of Hurricane Katrina added. Aggressive. Sure of its own judgments. Determined to impose its will come what may. But underneath not as sure of itself as it pretended. And luckily, not always competent.

Lady Nevinson glared at him. It was powerful stuff. Even Dixwell looked a little shifty. Jacot laughed inwardly. The big time CIA baron was intimidated by this powerful Englishwoman.

‘You killed them both didn't you, General Verney and that poor young girl, Pirbright?' Nevinson spoke slowly, not with fury but disdain and contempt. ‘And we know how you did it.'

Dixwell looked genuinely surprised.

Lady Nevinson continued, ‘Some dubious poison which I can't pronounce concealed in a Ventolin inhaler. Perhaps you had been given the antidote beforehand or maybe when you got into the embassy car. Anyway, our toxicology people tell me that a minute amount of the poison if breathed in would cause a ghastly sort of living death within a few minutes to be followed by death itself an hour or so later. It was a cruel way to kill a man Dixwell.'

Dixwell's eyes glistened. It was almost as if he was drunk. He wound his body up to give his reply as if he had rehearsed it many times. He probably had in front of his shaving mirror. Jacot knew what to expect. Men like Dixwell had been living their lives as if in a film since just after 911. And predictably, it started – a rehashed version of Jack Nicholson's speech in
A Few Good Men
but with more swearing and less convincingly delivered.

‘So f…..g what. People who get in the way get whacked. We are fighting for
civilization
. Jeez don't you f…..g people see that? Are you completely mad? General Verney had lost his bottle, lost his guts, lost his will for the fight. Do you think we were just going to stand around while he tried to get your troops out of Afghanistan early? Or worse, much worse, go soft on the Iranians. That's the next conflict. It's going to happen. It has to
happen. We just couldn't afford the likes of f…..g Verney. We gave him a chance with that little radio blast from his past. But he wouldn't take it, the a…..e.'

Nevinson sat up straight, the essence of English hauteur. ‘Please stop swearing Mr. Dixwell. It's not necessary and not customary here, at least not in front of women. I very much doubt it was allowed when you were growing up in the States.'

Jacot and Zaden exchanged glances. If it hadn't been for the Neanderthal CIA muscle in the room they would have been enjoying themselves.

Dixwell continued, still in Jack Nicholson tribute mode. ‘I am going back to Washington on promotion. And there is nothing you or your crappy little country can do about it. And there's nothing the crappy f…..g French can do either. And nothing your ludicrous colonel friend with the burned hands can do.' He turned on Jacot. ‘Who the f…k do you think you are with those black gloves – the Count of Monte Cristo? A Falklands War wound? Take my advice, next time get off the ship earlier. Except there won't be a next time because they are going back to the Argentines where they belong. Dial M for Malvinas.' Dixwell clearly enjoyed this unrehearsed joke.

The muscle laughed, shoulders heaving, like Hollywood gangsters.

‘As for the young lady. She just got in the way. That's life. Remember two and a half thousand innocent souls were murdered on 911. Sometimes you just have to walk on the dark side.'

Jacot let lady Nevinson do all the talking. He watched the exchange from the centre of the room. Quiet, but never taking his eyes off Dixwell's chunky hands or the hands of his henchmen. How ironic that a violent confrontation with the CIA might turn on who was quicker on the draw. Jacot would certainly be able to kill Dixwell and maybe one of the goons. But it was going to be tight. Monica was armed – or rather he hoped she had her MPA-15 pistol with her. But Nevinson wasn't. On balance, Jacot was hoping to avoid a gun battle. At best in this enclosed space it would be a score draw. Which meant that if anything did kick off just about everyone would get killed or wounded.'

Jacot stepped slowly forward and picked up an iPad in scarlet Cabinet Office livery from a side table. ‘Dixwell, I think you should understand that you are not in as strong a position as you think.' Jacot shuffled some photographs on the iPad. ‘Look at these. Can't see the inspector general of the CIA being too amused. Or Mrs. Dixwell either.'

Dixwell made to grab the iPad. Jacot took a step back, hearing at the same time the dull metallic click of safety catches being eased on Famas high velocity rifles. The goons' hands moved in their pockets.

Jacot said ‘Easy Dixwell. Easy. Here it is. Slowly now.'

Dixwell looked at the photographs. He sneered. ‘So what, Monte Cristo? OK, I was humping some dame – big deal!'

Jacot looked him straight in the eye keeping one hand on the Browning 9 Millimetre pistol in his pocket. ‘It tells me two things Dixwell. One, you are not as good as you think you are. The head of the CIA station in London caught in a honey trap. Sloppy Dixwell,
very sloppy.'

Dixwell glared and chewed his gum manically. The look wasn't hatred or contempt but pity and incomprehension. The truth of it was that he was far, far gone.

‘Langley couldn't care less. These things happen. Mrs. Dixwell might not be so amused. But hell maybe it's time I was moving on. You know it's weird living in London. All the senior people here seem to be still married to their first wives. Not so much in Washington. Even the generals ditch their West Point sweethearts and move onto
something
more upmarket when they hit the big time. Same in the Agency.'

Jacot held his gaze and said, ‘The other thing it tells me Dixwell is that you have allowed yourself to be corrupted. What have young prostitutes got to do with the war on terror? Why does working hard for your country allow you to behave like that?'

‘It's not against the law. What are you, a f…..g revivalist preacher?'

‘As if you cared. Actually, Dixwell in this case it is against the law. She looks nearly twenty but I can assure you when you met her she was just under eighteen.'

‘Come off it Jacot, the age of consent is sixteen. Less in the Southern states I come from.' He grinned unpleasantly.

‘Normally it is. They are fairly tolerant of these matters. But professionals have to be eighteen. The Code Napoleon gets the vapours about that. The photos were taken in Paris. The girl in question is French. You were on French soil subject to their laws. And without diplomatic immunity – you are accredited to the court of St James not the French Republic. If you are not careful Dixwell we could hand you over to the French authorities. Imagine the scandal.' Jacot looked around the room. ‘In fact we could hand you over to them now and they could no doubt render you to some remote farm-house on the other side of the Channel.' It wasn't much but it seemed to put Dixwell off his balance.

Dixwell looked angrier than before. He was clearly a man who was used to pushing or rather bulldozing difficulties out of the way. Another sign of corruption. The best intelligence officers found ways round obstacles or tried to turn them to their advantage. Guile was the cardinal virtue of the spy, not anger. But America had been angry since 911 and Dixwell simply reflected both the popular and official mood. The muscles in his face were moving, almost rippling with rage. ‘You put those photos on the street or send them to Langley and you are a dead man Jacot, mark my f…..g words. In fact I'm tempted to shoot you now.'

Dixwell was bluffing. Jacot knew it. Dixwell knew it. Even the goons appeared to understand it. No one went for their guns.

He glared round the room. ‘I'm out of this Mickey Mouse country tonight. Don't even bother checking your airports. You don't seriously think we ever bother with the official system. Not that it would be a problem I understand. If a Jumbo Jet in Al Qaeda colours landed at Heathrow stuffed full of suicide bombers you'd probably let it through and put them up for the night in a hotel. Good bye, National Security Adviser. You know
what I would do if I had your job – get a f…..g grip of your borders. Good bye Monte Cristo. Don't forget to check under your car every day for the rest of your life and take care crossing the road with that lady-friend of yours.'

With that he was gone – the goons in hot pursuit.

‘What time is it in Jerusalem?' asked Jacot.

Nevinson glared at Jacot.

‘Well, you could have done something. Why didn't you help me?'

‘To be honest I was concentrating on working out how to get my gun out. It's been a while since I used a pistol and my hands got chewed up in the hair-raising escape from the Serbs. Monica is also carrying but CIA muscle can be very quick on the draw. And like the Russian Mafia, and their own Mafia they pack a lot of firepower. I am sure we would have managed though.'

Monica laughed, and produced a machine pistol which had been leaning on the far side of the fire screen and her pistol from a shoulder holster. ‘They weren't going to kill us. In any case they would have clocked our guards outside. They didn't come for a shoot out. They heavies were only carrying side-arms for self protection.' She removed the magazine and made it safe.

Jacot felt just a little embarrassed as he made his Browning 9mm pistol safe and put it on top of the mantelpiece above the fire. While the Americans had been there the fire had blazed, as if drawing energy and sustenance from the confrontation. But now it was burning weakly and Jacot threw two more logs gently onto it from the basket.

Celia Nevinson flopped into an armchair with a glass of wine. She looked
exhausted
. ‘It's so humiliating. He was right in some ways. We are powerless in our own country and completely powerless when we come up against the Americans. They are a law unto themselves. He was right as well about our borders. My guess is if we are not more on the ball we will end up losing the Falklands.'

Jacot laughed, ‘He was right about getting off the
Oliver Cromwell
. So many people have been kind enough to point that out over the years.'

‘Jacot why are you laughing? He's going back to Washington scot free.'

‘Not quite. What time is it in Jerusalem?'

‘What do you mean what time is it in Jerusalem? You keep saying that. It's like a Jewish wedding – next year in Jerusalem. Who cares? Pull yourself together Jacot.'

Jacot, who normally went red when Lady Nevinson ticked him off, looked
unperturbed
. ‘What are they, four hours ahead at this time of year? So it's early evening.'

Lady Nevinson looked puzzled. He walked to the windowsill and picked up an iPad.

‘Lady Nevinson look at this.'

‘Jacot please. This is no time for guardsmen's parlour games.'

‘Read the headline.'

Nevinson reluctantly took the iPad and scrolled down the front page. ‘Of what
interest
to me is an unofficial Israeli Defense Force website.' She looked up at Jacot.

‘It's semi-official actually, and the entries are moderated by the IDF press people. Read the headline on the first article.'

A moment later she laughed. It was a young and girlish laugh. Attractive and amused. There was nothing gloating about the sound but the facial expression was less innocent, menace, relief and resentment were all there.

‘How did you do it Jacot?'

‘Well actually it's mainly down to Monica. We thought hard about how to
permanently
damage or terminate the career of a US official who appears otherwise
untouchable
in a plausible way. Once we were starting to realize what had happened to Verney we got some people to look into Dixwell's life. See if there was anything irregular. Girlfriends. Unpaid taxes. What you might call an Al Capone or indirect approach. The Feds could never pin the Valentine's Day Massacre on him. They never had the proof, and even if they had getting witnesses to testify would have been hard work – if not impossible. Capone was a law unto himself for a long time.

‘Too many people like that in the modern world, including some intelligence
services
corrupted by the whole war on terror thing. Very often that means that some of the individuals involved get carried away in other ways. But not Dixwell. We found just the one slip, in Paris of all places. He was there in April 2010 for the big meeting with General McChrystal. Remember that one – too much beer and McChrystal's staff getting too mucko chummo with a
Rolling Stone
magazine reporter. Well Dixwell was in town as well. Turned out that he was quite a mate of McChrystal's. All kinds of Special Forces types and Black Ops people were in town, their guard was down. Monica you should tell the story.'

She smiled. ‘They were all staying at the Hotel Westminster near the Opera and drinking heavily in Kitty O'Shea's pub nearby. It is popular with certain types of American tourist. They were delayed in Paris by the volcanic ash spewing out of Iceland. We did not originally intend to have a look at what was going on but we got a telephone call from the concierge. The mask may have slipped a little just now, but what you see is what you get. Devoted family man. Good college. Staunch Roman Catholic. There appears to have been just one slip in Paris. And he was right, we doubt Langley would care much about a drunken and lascivious weekend in Paris in the company of the US Special Forces. The only thing completely out of control was his patriotism.'