by James Rosone
Everyone shook hands and engaged in the compulsory amount of small talk. Tea and a few snacks had been brought in as well. Prince Nawaf was feeling impatient as they muddled through these perfunctory formalities. Finally, though, the real meat of the conversation began.
The Undersecretary of State was the first to begin. “Gentlemen, as you know, we have been trying to recover from the brutal terrorist attacks that took place on our nation. Part of that effort has been tracking down the individuals who were pushed through the refugee program’s vetting process by corrupt individuals within our government.”
Everyone nodded. They all had been watching the trials and hearings taking place in Washington.
The intelligence officer spoke up next. “Now that we have captured several of these men, we’re harvesting what useful intelligence information we can from them. Which brings us to why we are here. Two of the refugees we interviewed claimed to have been approached by a man with a Saudi accent. We were hoping that you could assist us in identifying and locating this man.”
The intelligence officer pulled a couple of sketches out of a folder he had brought with him. He held up two different drawings that bore some resemblance in the prince’s mind to someone he knew, although he wasn’t positive who it was just yet.
“Of course, we would like to help you. However, why do you have two different drawings if you are looking for one person?” asked the Minister of Foreign Affairs as he exchanged looks with Nawaf.
“We believe that this man is very adept at using disguises but is the same man. As you can see by comparison, the general facial structure is basically the same—wide eyes, narrow lips and high cheekbones. However, when he met with one man, he had long hair and a mustache, and when he met with another, he was completely bald and had no facial hair. We were unable to find a match with our facial recognition software, but we were hoping that you could run it through your own databases and see if you have some investigations of your own against this man,” explained the intelligence officer.
“We will do what we can, of course,” assured the minister. He turned to Nawaf. “Prince Nawaf, would you please escort these men over to our own intelligence offices, to make sure that they are taken care of?”
“Of course, Your Grace,” answered the prince with a smile.
As they left the room, Nawaf knew exactly who was in those sketches, and he contemplated what to do. He could kill the Americans himself, but definitely at least the Undersecretary of State would be missed, and that might create a bigger problem.
Hmm…I suppose I can make sure there will be no official matches to return to the Americans, he thought, more calmly. He was going to need to contact Al Shabah soon—he’d need to be careful.
That night, the prince sent a message to the Ghost on their dark web chat room. “The Americans are getting really close to figuring this out. I would just hang back if I were you.”
*******
Washington, D.C.
Counterterrorism Unit
The last few days had been slow for Mike at CTU. He didn’t really have a solid lead to work from yet, and forensic accounting wasn’t really his strength, so he was going to have to wait on Simone to help him with that piece of the puzzle. He tried to work the connections as best he could, but so far, all he had was a whiteboard with a bunch of photos attached by different-colored yarn.
He yawned and reached for his coffee. Then someone knocked at the door. Mike turned away from his arts-and-crafts spiderweb to see Simone standing there, bleary-eyed and holding her own cup of joe. He eagerly waved her in.
“Just the person I wanted to see.”
“OK, well, I’m glad you’re a visual person, because I brought along a few charts to help explain this one,” Simone said as she placed her coffee on his desk and pulled out a printed PowerPoint presentation. She began to tack some of the slides to his corkboard.
Mike suddenly realized that he had found the perfect overachiever to help him in his quest.
“What have you got for me?” he asked.
“The first thing I noticed is that CAGIR received an influx of money following each terror attack. See here?” she questioned, motioning to several highlighted transactions.
That’s odd, thought Mike.
“Where did it come from?” he muttered aloud.
“Well, these donations all seem to be from front companies, because they all cease to exist a few months after the donations are made to CAGIR,” Simone explained.
“Yikes. Tell me there’s some good news,” he asserted.
“Well…it gets a little complicated here, but basically, I realized that many of these front companies are all transacting out of the same bank in Singapore. I did a little more digging and noticed that there are a ton of Bitcoin transactions happening between that bank and another bank in the UAE,” she said, pointing to spreadsheets and charts as she spoke.
“OK, but don’t most banks transact in Bitcoin now?” asked Mike with a raised eyebrow.
“They do, but not at this level. Here are the latest reports of Bitcoin transactions from Wells Fargo, just for reference,” she instructed. “So, then I started to investigate this UAE bank a little more and researching who it is they interact with. Lo and behold, the front company that purchased Fahd al Saud’s plane ticket to the US used this bank for the purchase.”
“Seriously?” he asked. “Well, we definitely need to examine this organization. What’s the name of the company? And do we have anything else on them already?”
“It’s KIDL Investment International. There’s not a lot out there about them, which makes sense. However, they also have a US subsidiary, KIDL American Investments, that donated a substantial amount of money directly to Alexander Bishop’s congressional campaign,” Simone concluded.
She stood back and smiled. She obviously knew Mike was impressed.
“This is really, really good work,” Mike said. He traced his fingers across some of the people, connections and other pieces of information. His mind was already racing with new leads.
He turned to face her. “I’m going to direct our team to start investigating each of the board members at KIDL. I’m pretty sure that if we can put a tail on each of them, we’ll soon have something pretty concrete to work with.”
Chapter 34
Closing In
Lucerne, Switzerland
So far, the teams monitoring the board members of KIDL International had managed to watch their marks without being spotted. Each team of four to five agents was working around the clock, keeping careful tabs on their targets and utilizing electronic surveillance when possible to help keep their distance. Some of the teams were having a very boring week, watching their assigned board member look at spreadsheets and stock prospectives on their computers. Others were on the move so much that they barely had time to take shifts to sleep.
The team assigned to Marwan Kattan felt like they had hit the jackpot. So far, they had spent their entire week in beautiful Switzerland, surrounded by mountains and looking at gorgeous Lake Lucerne. In between shift changes, they had even had a chance to sample some famous Swiss chocolate. Their mark was apparently conducting a series of banking transactions; he had traveled to three separate banks so far but had otherwise been on his own except for his morning trip to the local bakery for a freshly baked pastry for breakfast and a coffee. In the evenings, he had taken a few strolls along the sidewalk, seemingly to enjoy the view of the reflections of the city lights in the water. Even with all the hypervigilance necessary to adequately perform this job, the agents were relishing the scenery.
As they observed, the agents had also been quietly collecting biometric data. One of the agents, Diana Green, had managed to collect a very good set of fingerprints from one of the morning coffee run cups. Another agent, Micah Wolf, had used a series of mirrors to collect a photo of Marwan’s face that was good enough to run against the facial recognition database. So far, both sets of data had come up dry against any know
n biometrics in the United States. That was somewhat suspicious, considering that someone at that level would have most likely traveled into the United States at some point and been biometrically enrolled into the system.
One night, Marwan broke his normal routine. As he took his stroll along Lake Lucerne, he suddenly changed course and entered the Zunfthausrestaurant Pfistern, a well-known fondue restaurant. Diana was on shift that night, and she got a bit excited when he walked in—it meant that she was going to be able to be able to munch on some fancy Swiss fondue on the government’s dime.
She talked into the mic in her sleeve, “Hey, Micah, I need another half to a couple. Head on inside Kornmarkt 4. Hope you like fondue.”
Soon they were sitting about ten feet away from Marwan, holding hands and looking very much like a couple in love. Diana had placed a pen with a directional mic in it on the table, nestled in the pages of a notebook. She was hoping that they might be able to pick up some audio, although so far, he was just dining alone.
Ten minutes later, another man joined the table. Diana was at a better angle to see his face than Micah. She did a double take, then slowly stood up and whispered something in her partner’s ear before excusing herself to the powder room.
In the bathroom, she pulled out her phone and woke up the members of her team that were on the “off” shift. “Guys, I’m sorry to pull you out of your sleep, but Marwan is talking to Nihad Nassimi—yes, that Nihad Nassimi, from CAGIR. Please notify CTU and be prepared join us out in the field. We are currently eating at Zunfthausrestaurant Pfistern located at Kornmarkt 4, and we will let you know when we head out.”
“Acknowledged,” came a sleepy voice on the other end.
When she walked back inside, Micah was taking advantage of the giant table of breads that customers would cut off for themselves. It seemed like a good idea to Diana—Micah managed to get a better view of Marwan, and also, what else was a man supposed to do while his date was in the bathroom?
They finished their meal slowly over the rest of the hour. Meanwhile, the two men were still talking. Since they had essentially finished eating and had at least one cup of coffee, they couldn’t really stay in place any longer without looking suspicious, so they got their check and exited the restaurant.
When they left, they needed to quickly find another reason to hang around the area, so they bought coffees from a nearby spot that had a view of the lake and would also allow them to see when Marwan made his way out.
Diana was having a great night: fondue, coffee by the lake, an adventure, and she had to admit that she enjoyed holding Micah’s hand. It was hard to spend all that time pretending to be in love without feeling anything. She sighed.
Maybe someday…but I’ve got to keep this professional right now, she thought.
“You OK?” asked Micah.
“Yeah, I just don’t want to lose these guys,” she responded as she snapped herself out of her daydream.
“Hey,” he said, squeezing her hand slightly, “we’ve got this.”
Ten minutes later, Marwan and Nihad left the restaurant, headed in different directions. Diana sent her teammates toward Nihad, and she and Micah continued to stay on Marwan. He walked in an unusual pattern, probably to throw people like them off. Fortunately, he wasn’t walking very fast.
Diana and Micah managed to pull out a few new accessories to change their appearance a bit. She put on a gray shawl that was the very same shade of gray that six in ten Europeans seemed to be wearing, and Micah donned a hat and pair of nonprescription glasses. Things seemed to be fine. They kept their distance and ducked into shops as needed. Then, Marwan suddenly looked back when there was nowhere for them to hide. Micah swooped Diana to the side of the building, his body tight against hers as he planted a big kiss on her. She might have even kissed him back.
When their kiss had lingered long enough, Micah pulled away. “Woo, that was close,” he said. “He almost caught us.”
Almost bewildered by what had just happened, Diana quickly added, “That was quick thinking there, Micah. I’m not sure I would have thought to do that.” She winked at him with a mischievous grin on her face.
Blushing now, Micah quickly tried to recover. “Diana, I’m so sorry for grabbing you like that and kissing you without asking. It was the only thing I could think of to keep Marwan from spotting us and blowing our cover.”
She shook her head. “It’s OK, Micah, you made the right call. The mission comes first. Let’s see where he continues to lead us.”
Another hour went by as they continued to follow Marwan as he made a serious of cutbacks between streets, alleyways and stores, continually checking to see if he had a tail. Eventually, they finally tracked him back to the same hotel he had been staying at and then prepared to listen to the tapes they had collected during the dinner.
*******
Not all of the audio was usable, but that was to be expected. There was definitely some interference from the waiters and other patrons who were occasionally rising above the normal din of chatter. However, they could understand the gist of the conversation. Apparently, the two men had an established working relationship, and Marwan was essentially telling Nihad that he needed to take a step back from their enterprise. They established a new back channel for communications and discussed finances. Nothing too exciting for as long of a conversation as they’d had, but Nihad was apparently trying to take full advantage of having someone pay for the check, because he had continued to come up with a whole lot of nothing to talk about while they had more drinks and desserts.
A few clips were good enough that they decided to run it through the voice recognition database. It would take more than a few hours to run that data comparison, so they wrote up their reports and decided to get at least some sleep before the morning activity of D.C. would eventually catch up to them.
*******
Washington, D.C.
Counterterrorism Unit
Mike walked into his office and immediately saw the flashing light on his desk phone that indicated he had a voicemail. He had already read a bunch of emails on the way into work, so he was fairly certain that he had received a call regarding the recording in Lucerne last night.
He picked up the phone and followed the prompts. “Good morning to you, Michael Stone, this is Elizabeth Cole from the Scotland Yard. Please call us as soon as you get in. We have some very important information for you, and we don’t want to miss you today because of the time zone difference,” said the voice on the recording before leaving the appropriate phone number, extension and reference number for him to use to call back.
Stone wasted no time. After dialing the litany of numbers necessary to make an international call, he was soon speaking with Elizabeth. Her British accent and tone of voice reminded him of his ex-wife, and he felt a twinge of pain at the memories of his previous family life.
“Glad we were able to talk today,” she began. “We had a match on that voice recording clip that you sent to us.”
“Oh?” inquired Michael. “Who did we find?”
“The man in the recording is a former MI6 agent, and we have an outstanding warrant for his arrest. His real name is Omar Bishara, but we have recently had reports of him being referred to as Al Shabah, or ‘the Ghost.’”
“No kidding,” said Mike, trying to keep his voice from betraying his excitement. “We’ve been looking for a man that goes by that moniker for some time now.”
“Well, you might have to get to the back of the queue. We’ve had an outstanding warrant for his arrest for years. We came close to capturing him one other time, but the Saudis intervened. They gave him a new identity, altered his fingerprints and gave him facial reconstruction surgery to help evade our matching software. That’s why his prints didn’t come up when you searched. Please just tell me you haven’t lost him,” she pleaded.
“As of right now, my team is still on him. Do you want us to bring him to Gitmo, or do you have a special place in mind you’d like me
to bring him?” asked Michael, hoping they could jointly interrogate this guy.
“I think we would prefer if you could bring him to us. We have ways to make him talk and a lot less rules involved, if you know what I mean,” she answered wryly.
Chapter 35
Birth of a Ghost
Omar Bishara wanted to be one of those men in history that would influence and help shape the future. The problem was, although he came from a rich family, he wasn’t a member of the Saudi royal family. His ability to rise within his country’s government would be greatly curtailed because of his lack of birthright.
In the 1980s, his father took a position with British Petroleum and moved their family to London. Omar’s father had worked hard to become a well-respected oil executive in Saudi Arabia, but when he was offered a senior position with BP, he jumped at the rare chance to increase his family’s influence and wealth. In his pursuit of creating more upward mobility for his children, Omar’s father also worked very hard to get the family dual citizenship.
While attending the University of Oxford, Bishara would often walk the halls of the Shmolean Museum on Beaumont Street when he needed to clear his head or think. It was a beautiful institution that displayed a lot of unique pieces of art and explained key elements of British history. Seeing the various images and styles of art helped him link ideas together to find solutions to problems. During his naïve university days, Omar would marvel at the rich history of Britain and how this country had so influenced the formation of the modern world.
In his final year at Oxford, Omar had planned on returning to Riyadh and entering the diplomatic corps. His father had become close with an attaché at the Saudi Embassy, who had offered to help Omar gain a position in the prestigious agency. Then, one day while sipping a cup of coffee at the rooftop café of the Shmolean Museum, Omar was approached by a mysterious man.
