by Brian Cain
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Tuesday September 14th 2010, the sun was to rise at 5:41am. Stanton rose early, dressed in his black leathers, pulled on his crash helmet and mounted his Harley Davidson. The blistering note of the machine bounced around the garage as the door opened and Stanton made the short ride to Shepherd's Hill Lookout to watch the sun rise. The thundering machine broke the silence of the morning air as the town woke and prepared for the day. He parked his machine adjacent to the lookout and stood at the guard rail listening to the waves crash on the rocks below. A brilliant clear morning; he timed his attendance perfectly as the sun clipped the sea’s surface. He reached into his top pocket and put on his gold rim Ray Ban sunglasses to shield his eyes from the sun’s rays and bowed his head. He had noticed a young man of Middle Eastern appearance sitting in a silver late model Toyota Land Cruiser in the lookout car park as he rode in. He could hear the footsteps grow louder as the man approached and stood next to him. Stanton lifted his head and looked out to sea and the young man stopped next to him and did the same. He was impeccably dressed in a dark suit shirt and tie, his complexion glowed gold in the sun. The young stranger spoke.
"It is a good morning to remember Mr Stanton."
"Every morning is good to remember. Or I would lose sight of my sanity," replied Stanton.
"I hope you will excuse my intrusion, I have come to thank you for saving my life." Stanton turned and looked at the young man. He did not look familiar.
"I can’t recall your face."
"I was only twelve years old; my father is Al Ahmadi. You saved our lives in Baghdad. I'm sorry about your friends, I'm sure they were good people. It was June 2003." Stanton thought for a few seconds.
"The man standing over you in the red thawb was shot in the chest."
"No, the man standing over me was in a grey thawb with headdress and lost his head with your first shot."
"Your father was dressed in black."
"No my father was naked."
"He had a chain around his neck."
"No he had a rope around his neck."
"The third man, how did he escape?"
"There were only two, you shot the other in the chest lifting him over the compound wall."
"Your mother and sisters?"
"You saw them yourself."
"Your father sells cars in Detroit."
"No my father sells oil from Kuwait from our family land."
"Your father cursed me as I left."
"No my father asked your name, it is John Stanton."
"I shot the men with a pistol."
"Your recollection is very poor Mr Stanton. You shot the men with a huge rifle; it deafened me. I relive this every night." Stanton turned and embraced the young man, whispering in his ear.
"No my recollection is as yours, I too relive these things every night. At last I hold a young life I have saved."
"I was to mention the name Hurst, Bruce Hurst, he told me you would be here. I have come to decipher some Arabic for you. It is now my turn to risk my life." Stanton let go of the young man and held him at arm’s length. He let go.
"What’s your name?"
"Jacob Smith, a common western name. My father changed my name when I came to study in Australia. He thought it would make things easier and he was right."
"Well you certainly are in danger now. No doubt we are being watched here as I come here often. We have two weeks at the most before someone works out who you are and put two and two together. Follow my motorcycle very closely and park in the garage next to my bike." Stanton roared off, Jacob had trouble staying with Stanton and only just made it as the garage door began to close. Stanton gave Jacob some perspective on what was happening and why as they chatted and drank coffee in Stanton's kitchen.
"So you have a big family in Kuwait, do you see them often?" asked Stanton.
"I do not go to my homeland but I wish for it."
"Tell me something, if there was a world war for which side would you fight?"
"There will be no world war, that's why my father has integrated me into the west to have a voice and avoid such a thing."
"But your people fight us now."
"This is true, the Taliban know no different and are a tribal faction. They have forged support in the west. We can only try to quell this problem."
"Ah…an educated boy. Tribal factions are a problem everywhere. Carlton and Collingwood football clubs in a grand final, Ford and Holden at Bathurst, add alcohol and you have a minor riot on your hands. The difference being we all have a common democratic law that draws the line and everyone has a voice in electing those who make those laws, initiated by the Romans many years ago. Work outside those laws and we have a process to deal with it, not perfect by any means but people in the west continue to live better lives as time goes on.
“We’ve failed to penetrate people like the Taliban and Al Qaeda who are driven by a religious belief rather than the element of common democracy for the people. Ask a Christian how to be one and the common answer is all you have to do is believe. Obviously Muslim radicals decipher their law and believe they are right. Their allegiance to their beliefs must be incredibly strong, the strongest I have seen. They strap explosives to themselves and blow themselves up, their own people, even women and children. How they think they are to gain the hearts and the minds of the people anywhere is beyond me. These tactics are militarily useless but annoying. They call them cowards, don't sound to much like a coward to me, dying for a cause is meritorious, knowingly taking innocent members of your own race is stupid and will lead to certain defeat. I class them as within my creed but acting without any honour whatsoever and only for their sake and not their people’s.
“We have our own similar problems but motivated by greed. Sometimes our system doesn't work real well so they call on me. I'm about to find some of those people you referred to as western supporters, I imagine they’re indirect but it won’t save them. Your father is a wise man, the Taliban hide in caves in the mountains. Our problems hide in the halls of power and wealth, because without it you can’t change the shape of the future. A lot of the people who caused the financial crisis of the last two years are lying in the Caribbean on holiday. They’ll surface again when the coast is clear and enough people have forgotten and have another go. They never have enough money no matter how much it is. I’d like you to promise me you’ll decipher the information I present to you without prejudice. I don't give a rat's arse who I take out as long as it's the right people." Jacob thought for a while.
"My father was right about you, at times I have not shared his view but as I get a little older I see the point."
"Sounds like some other young people I know; you’ll meet them soon."
"How can I be of service?"
Stanton called Anthony and asked him to take the lap top computer he had left with him amongst his will documents; the one that was grey in colour and not the blue one. Carry it around with him backwards and forwards to his car in full view around Sydney and leave it on the front seat after a while with the car unlocked. Keep doing this until he returned to his car and it had been stolen. He was to let his father know the minute it was taken. Jacob spoke up.
"Is this the computer my father gave you?"
"No but it looks exactly the same right down to the dust amongst the keypad from where the original came from. I duplicated it on purpose and have leaked info so it can be stolen. They will destroy a computer that has a movie of Donald Duck in it. Makes no difference it will self destruct when opened. Will buy us more time. The original has the same safety mechanism but we get three goes at the password. I dismantled the original and removed the C4 but the incendiary charge can’t be touched so the computer will burn up if we get it wrong." Stanton opened the stairway to the room below the pool and Jacob followed him wide-eyed.
He activated the keypad and unlocked the safe. Jacob jumped as it shot up from within the floor. Stanton put in the combination, opened the safe door and took out a dirty
grey laptop computer from the back of the bottom shelf. He placed it on the desk next to the desktop keypad of the main computer and opened it up. He plugged in a power source and switched it on. The computer eventually loaded the hard drive and cross sabres appeared with a login window below them. He sat Jacob in front of the screen and asked him what the Arabic words said.
"The instruction is simply please login with password. It is a normal computer in Arabic. Do you know the password?" Stanton thought about it.
"What would a radical Muslim leader use as a password for his computer?"
"The same kind of thing a westerner would use, phone number, family member's names, his favourite movie character, who knows," replied Jacob.
"Can you tell what dialect the computer language is in?"
"Yes, it appears to be Pashto, fairly common and can be understood by most regions of the country."
"Okay, you are a radical dealing with people of the west and use the most common language. You have a cause and need a password to reflect your vision so every day you login you are reminded of it."
Stanton dug deep. "A person like that would use a word of great significance, would they use numbers?"
"Possibly but they have no direct significance in conversation like the west uses 666 for the devil. Did my father not tell you?"
"He told me it was from the heart of the devil and I remember him saying I must remember jihad."
"Jihad of course, this they may use." Without asking Jacob put in jihad and the screen lit up passing through to a desktop. Jacob opened a work file. "This document is in Dari, it will take me some time to work it out." Jacob opened an excel file. "There are sums of money here, bank branch and account numbers, millions of dollars. The computer runs Microsoft outlook and has a mailing list." Stanton handed Jacob a memory stick from the top of the desk.
"Transfer the list to this and all emails stored in the computer and work on some documents. Anything you think is relevant give to me straight away. I’ll check the mailing list and email trail on my main frame computer." Jacob transferred the list to the stick and Stanton jabbed it into a USB port on the main frame computer. He matched it against the mailing list of western government networks; a pattern of connections formed.
They worked into the night. By three o'clock Wednesday morning Stanton had compiled a hit list of seven western based people. Three Australians, two Americans, and two British with constant emails in code he could not decipher. He put the messages through his data base and came up with nothing. He started to put documents in piles in each one’s name as Jacob handed them to him. They became fatigued and decided to rest till later in the morning and went upstairs to rest.
A few hours sleep with a shower and they were back in the bunker. Stanton left Jacob to continue translation and summed up his information so far. One thing that had been defined was bank accounts with massive fund transfers to Swiss and Norwegian banks. The computer revealed automated access to these so he logged into them and transferred all the funds evenly amongst charities. He knew that he could not be traced nor stopped as he used his own satellites. He was not sure where the money had come from or who it belonged to but once it had disappeared he planned to monitor the email of the seven suspects to gauge reaction. This he hoped would bring up another cherry in the window on the way to the jackpot. From seven accounts he transferred fifty-four million dollars to Ronald McDonald House. Twenty-two million dollars to the flying doctor. Eighty-five million dollars to cancer research and thirty-three million dollars to the RSPCA. One hundred and ninety-four million dollars in all. "That should give them something to argue about," quipped Stanton. Jacob grabbed his arm.
"I have found who this computer belongs to: Jahangeer Mashir, a general in the Afghan government army."
"Okay. Every email I have from these seven people in English are to this guy. The bank accounts the money was transferred from are Afghan military coffers. I need one more cherry to be sure. Find something that links him to the transfers and we have our buyer."
"Here is a direct order word document dated ready for signing to the treasury ordering the transfer of twelve million American dollars for ammunition. It states one of the accounts in Norway."
"No good, anyone could have put it there."
"We will not find anything of his hand, this computer it is all electronic."
"Check tools signature." Jacob looked.
"There is a file with an automated copy of his signature, here look." Stanton held a printed email up to the screen returned from one of the western contacts that had been counter-signed by someone in the west and the Arabic scribe matched perfectly."
"Contact your father; tell him what we have found."
"He will kill Jahangeer Mashir and hang him in the street."
"I'm not surprised, if he doesn't I will. How long can you stay here before you’re missed?"
"I have finished my law degree and can practice now but I have no work. I have put aside this week, beyond that I will need to contact my fiancé and bring her here if I am still needed."
"You'll meet the Cadiche man. You and your fiancé can move with him by the end of this week. I insist, you work with us now and need protection."
"The Cadiche man is an ancient aboriginal medicine man who maintained aboriginal law before western settlement." Stanton laughed.
"I don't think Cadiche would appreciate the ancient bit but you’re right. I’d like you to stay here and work on this for now. Give me the details of your fiancé in case someone finds out and thinks they can get at her."
"I have her card here, she lives in a city apartment and works as a secretary for the government treasury."
Stanton contacted Robert and Anthony via satellite and instructed them to move Jacob’s fiancé north with them. Anthony and Robert informed their father they were moving tomorrow night. Stanton went on to inform the boys he would be heading to Bourke on Friday with Cadiche and would return before Sunday. After the call he got Jacob to ring his fiancé to inform her of the move. He then spoke to Cadiche arranging for him to be at Stanton's Friday morning at seven for an excursion, but refused to tell him where.
