DARKNET CORPORATION (11 page)

Chapter Eleven

At two o’clock Ledge and Bill were discharged from the infirmary and
walked over to the conference room. They were stunned to see all the suits,
high-ranking military uniforms and alpha male types crowding into the conference
room ready to speak to them. It was already hot and sticky.

The convener introduced himself as Congressman Shelly of the
House Permanent Select Committee on
Intelligence investigating CIA activity in FATA.

Congressman Shelly obviously outranked
everyone else and took over the discussion. He was an older gentleman, grey and
a little paunchy, but with sharp eyes and a sharper suit. Several other men
arranged at the tables in front of Bill and Ledge looked to him and waited for
their turn to speak. They included Joe Martin and Geoff Wynn-Thomas and others
unknown to Bill, presumably the spook investigators, who were not introduced or
named.

Joe Martin started off the meeting making
a statement all aspects of the meeting were classified as ’secret’. He said
that even the fact that the meeting was held, who attended and what was said
was classified as ‘secret’. He said it was a criminal offence to make any
disclosure without the explicit sanction of the National Security Agency. He
reminded attendees that as a United States military base they were within the
jurisdiction of the United States its US military laws and penalties that
applied.

The questions started out as procedural,
setting out the basis for Bill and the two NZ SAS men being in FATA. There
seemed to be a great deal of concern as to the legality of their presence there
and the jurisdictional issues associated with it. Several questions were put in
respect to reasons for the assignment of a UK secret intelligence officer on a
CIA operation and how the NZ SAS soldiers had come to be deployed as security.

Once the practicalities of the security
operations were addressed, Shelly asked, “Who authorised you to cross into the
Federally Administered Tribal Areas?”

Bill explained, as patiently as he could, that
they were in hot pursuit of a contact that had been connected to
Abdul
aziz
bin
Sayyid
and observed to have been smuggling opium
products across the border into FATA. Their objective was to observe and report
contacts which may have included Abu
Ukasha
.

“Seeking permission from Pakistani authorities would take at least a
week. We would have lost contact with the target and almost certainly had the
ISI feeding information back to Abu
Ukasha
, putting
us all in danger,” Bill was bluntly, impolitic. Several of the spook-types put
their hands to their faces to mask their equally impolitic smiles.

He reminded them that they had reported back their observations to their
CIA controller throughout their time in FATA.

“Up to the point that Mickey, Lance Corporal Pomare, was killed, none of
us had discharged weapons, engaged in any unwarranted activity or in any way
provoked or even interacted with the locals,” Bill interpreted the truth
liberally.

“You were just acting as tourists,” Shelly looked sideways, blankly
sarcastic and unhappy to have been bested by this ‘non-American’. Bill wondered
whose side he was on and where he was going with this crap.

The questions moved onto the drug lab and the observations of what was
taking place. It was clear this was of little interest to them and the
questions quickly turned to the drone strike that killed Mickey.

Bill and Ledge explained what happened from their perspective and that
they really did not know anything about the strike apart from the aftermath.
They estimated the drug convoy was approximately five kilometres in front of
them, and at least six kilometres in front of Mickey.

Joe got his turn and went back to the first meeting of the two NZ SAS men
and Bill and the synchronisation of the two control units and transponders. He
repeated that everything that was said in regard to operational capabilities in
this testimony was classified and could not be disclosed.

Bill explained the use of the control units and paired transponders; the
cross-registration of Bill’s Control unit in the NZ SAS men’s transponder
control unit, and subsequent pairing of Bill’s target transponder serial. It
was clear from this exchange that the Congressman and several others had
suddenly realised how easily one serial number could be confused with another,
since they were all the same type of thing; a ten-digit, non-sequential, serial
number. There were a few gasps as the simplicity of the mistake became
apparent.

The interview dragged on until the questions were decidedly off the point
and the discussion was degenerating into a political point-scoring exercise.
Congressman Shelly decided to close proceedings thanking Bill and Ledge for
their service to the security intelligence operations in the region.

Several of the men came forward to shake hands with Bill and Ledge. One
or two offered their condolences for the loss of their comrade.

Jenkins took his opportunity to move in to get Bill’s attention and
ushered him into the next room where sandwiches and bottles of beer had been
placed on a table.

“I thought I would jump in and take the opportunity to brief you on
progress on Dinner-Jacket since you have been otherwise engaged,” he started.

“I’m not sure I give a shit anymore,” said Bill.

Jenkins paused to let the comment slide then continued, “You may, once I
fill you in on what we’ve found out.”

The two men looked at each other eye to eye for a moment. The Jenkins
launched in, “We studied IRM, that’s International Risk Management, and they
appear completely legitimate, with a number of clients in Afghanistan who are
engaged in the rebuilding program. However,
Bicep
was dedicated to only
one client, Henshaw Engineering, registered in Slough, Royal Berkshire.”
Jenkins had enormous difficulty pronouncing the town name, trying several times
before Bill enunciated it for him.

“Yeah,” responded Jenkins, “anyway, the thing is that Henshaw Engineering
doesn’t have any business in Afghanistan, or Pakistan. We checked everywhere we
could and there are no contracts they are associated with here as subcontractor,
agent or whatever. So we checked out their credentials in England, and as far
as we can see, they’re a front. Their registered office is a convenience
address, a lawyer’s office. They don’t have any premises, operations, website,
nothing we could find, just a bank account and a company registration.”

“OK,” said Bill, “keep talking.”

“The main function they seem to fulfil is funding
Bicep’s
activity
in Afghanistan. They pay all the bills for his activity, and he is ostensibly
working on their security here. But obviously there is nobody here to secure.
As far as IRM is concerned it’s all legitimate. They may not be aware of his
drug running activity.”

“So we have a lead in the UK,” said Bill, urging Jenkins down that path.

“Yes, and we’ve tracked it down as best we can. The only thing we’ve
found, other than the minimal company registration documentation, is the bank
account. As well as the payments to IRM there are a series of payments to
various suppliers, mostly in Pakistan and India, for chemicals; acetic
anhydride, hydrochloric acid, acetone, glassware and equipment,
etc.
So clearly
they are funding the drug labs as well as
Bicep.
So we looked at their
bank deposits, to trace back to where the money comes from, but the account is
funded in cash, in almost daily deposits of four or five thousand British
pounds. The account balance is pretty low. It looks like the funding is
specifically deposited to meet the operational costs in the region, nothing
else.”

“So who registered the company? Surely there has to be some identities
that you can follow through?” Bill asked.

“We did check and they all come up as false identities. But what’s more
interesting is that the account is operated exclusively online. Apart from the
cash deposits, which are always made at a different branch every time, the
account transactions, statements, foreign exchange transaction, bill payments,
everything, is done online. The only address associated with the account is the
registered address at the lawyer’s office.”

“So you are picking that it’s the same ‘dark’ thing that Woods was
doing?” Bill was following the thread.

“Exactly!
We checked through our records and discovered that the
online activity accessing the account was from an untraceable IP addresses
using the Darknet. We have more than one common denominator here.”

“Well we know that Woods is mixed up it in it, so no surprise,” said
Bill, less enthused than Jenkins.

“Anyway, if you guys can track the transponder independently of a control
unit, where the hell is it now?” Bill asked, changing the subject.

“It has gone down through Pakistan, across the Iranian border at
Kūh-i-Taftān
‎
, then up through Iran
crossing into Turkey near
Esendere
. Currently it’s
moving northwest still. We would expect it to cross into Greece or Bulgaria and
eventually into the heart of Europe somewhere. It’s following what’s known as
the Balkan Route.

They can go via various routes from there. We’re into all kinds
of jurisdictional issues as they pass through all these countries. We will have
to liaise with Interpol and the likely outcome is a bureaucratic SNAFU or
missing them altogether. We are just hoping that it arrives somewhere we can
get cooperation with the authorities.”

“So you are not working with any of these transit countries
to intercept the drugs?”

“No. We are tracking it to see where it stops so we can
decide which of our local agents we can get on the scene. Once we decide that
then we will engage with whatever police force or security agency we need to.
‘Problem is, they’re unlikely to be forthcoming with any intelligence they
might come across, they’re only likely to be interested in the criminal and
customs issues, not the terrorist angle. Depending on which country they get
to, we might not be able to get near it when they take it down,” Jenkins
replied.

“And there’s no way of knowing whether
Bicep
is still
tagging along, or not?” Bill had
Bone
on his mind.

“No. And there’s little likelihood that Abu
Ukasha
is going to be directly involved in the smuggling at
this stage, but the source of his funding
is
a priority. We
do
want to follow up the drug smuggling operation to cut off the funding and we
are pursuing this aspect in the Dinner-Jacket operation.

We have started a relationship database detailing people,
places, companies and bank accounts, starting with the IRM information, in the
hope that eventually one of these will do the same as the courier tagging might
have done; find Abu
Ukasha
.”

Jenkins finished off his briefing detailing that the
recruitment campaign had overwhelmed the ability of
Aminyat
to keep tabs
on more than a few of the key players in Abu
Ukasha’s
entourage.

He admitted that the intercept of Stinger surface-to-air
missiles was of only three tubes, but twelve missiles. Jenkins was implying
that they were losing the battle with the warlord and that his capacity to
wrought mayhem was increasing unabated. Jenkins was explaining that there was a
whole new war taking place with Abu
Ukasha
and that
Bill had only been on the periphery.

“I don’t know if you’ll have any further part to play in
Dinner-Jacket from here, but I thought you would want to know what the
sacrifice was for….” said Jenkins, trying to make his own contribution to
amends.

Bill went back to his office and sat looking at the piles of
papers and messages on his desk, somewhat shell-shocked and a little depressed,
probably a natural reaction to the drop in adrenalin and his injury.

Geoff Wynn-Thomas came in and put down two glasses on the
piles of paper, pouring Jamieson’s into them.

“Well Bill, you’ll have all that to do again,” referring to
the American congressional committee interview. “You’re being recalled back to
London and can expect to appear before a parliamentary joint select committee,
as well as SIS and Special Services military investigations over the UAV
incident.”

Bill looked from whiskey to boss and said, “The ‘incident’
lasted 2 seconds, but the bullshit goes on forever.”

“God save us from governments, administrations and
bureaucrats!” Geoff agreed.

Bill was lost in thought for a moment, then said, “It’ll take
some time before they can set up all that investigation stuff, right?”

“Sure, you should have time for a break before it all kicks
off, if you want,” said Geoff.

“So, why don’t I follow up on the drug smuggling on my way
back?”

“What? Are you nuts! They’ll have my guts for garters if you
get yourself into trouble, Bill,”

“No. I mean, sooner or later one police force or another will
have to intercept the drug shipment and whatever jurisdiction is involved they
will need someone to liaise with SIS and the CIA and maybe need to know what
the electrical transformers look like, and identify George Wood, if he’s still
with the drugs,” Bill paused to let the idea sink in.