The Kompromat Kill

by Michael Jenkins

  Jack wondered if the path they had created was now the one likely to bring World War Three – in a number of forms. His worry was that what might start as devastating cyber-attacks would escalate via trivial incidents, perhaps in the straits of Hormuz, and that such an escalation might lead to terrorist incidents that would then lead to direct war on Iran, Hezbollah and all their terrorist proxy groups across the Middle East.

  Jack’s mind drifted back to yesterday’s conversation with D. He had told Jack how everyone was miscalculating the basics of political warfare. Jack had listened intently to D’s astute analysis of the situation.

  ‘You see Jack, the US intelligence agencies were moving well towards infiltrating Iranian life with the aim of weakening the ruling cleric government from within. Creating the conditions to eventually topple the mullahs. Now they are trying to push too many offensive fronts in one go. All because the neocons want to show the US public that their hard-line President gets results quickly. Iran is destabilised, no doubting that, the riots and marches last year have shown that. But to move so quickly to a new offensive front, kill the nuclear deal and start sanctions again isn’t going to work – our US friends have miscalculated again. The time isn’t right. It might not have been for another year. But now we have a marauding state hell-bent on destruction through revenge. It’s bonkers. And we’re left to try and sort it out.’

  Jack admired the wisdom of D and his words were left ringing in his head that night after their casual exchanges.

  ‘Be under no illusion Jack, the Iranians will hold us to ransom in some way, and it won’t be a pretty ending unless you, The Court and Sean get some bloody quick results.’

  The committee meeting ran its normal course after Redman had left, except that the chair asked the MI5 representatives to remain behind. The two of them were summoned to the front of the table next to the chair. Looking stern, and taking his spectacles off, Campey looked directly at D.

  ‘What I’m about to say is off the record you understand,’ he said, waiting to see the reaction on the faces of what was, to all intents and purposes, just two MI5 staff in front of him. ‘Ministers have decided we will not play to the tune of the Americans in a way that escalates the chaos they have caused.’

  ‘You mean minsters or yourself?’ D said matter-of-factly.

  Hugo Campey adopted a fierce look and decided not to answer the pointed question. Instead, he chose to recite the cock-ups of the Iraqi dodgy dossier, which had led to the blame being left firmly at the door of the JIC.

  ‘I will not allow that to happen on my watch,’ Campey continued. ‘I don’t want you holding back on any intelligence that comes your way. I’m the senior government-level assessor and for this operation I want early sight of everything you have. No shrouding, no question of we can’t be sure and certainly no operations that I haven’t given prior approval of. Cabinet is clear. We will decide very carefully what we share with the Americans and it will all come through me before I put it to committee and then ministers.’

  Jack could see this was about control. Hugo Campey wanted full control of the intelligence being given to ministers and the Americans.

  D remained unphased despite the volley of orders coming from the chair of the Joint Intelligence Committee. D stood up as if to say ‘thanks for the lecture, but no thanks.’ He knew full well that Campey knew the protocols of intelligence sharing. And that the bullets he was firing were more about being seen to be in control by the PM and the Cabinet Secretary, exactly the people who would decide his next promotion.

  ‘I shall make sure my teams share very widely with you through the joint intelligence organisation as normal Hugo. But I’d advise you not to push too much. I hold all the cards here you know.’

  ‘Or you may not,’ Campey retorted. ‘Either way, it can easily be the end of you if you fail on this operation. The spotlight of the nation is on you to solve this. And I can protect you from the dogs - or I can sink you.’

  ‘Good day to you Hugo,’ D said, steering Jack out of the door with a hand on his back. ‘Keep up the splendid work as ever.’

  As Jack accompanied D towards the exit they bumped into Sir Justin Darbyshire, who was buttoning up his coat close to the door and obviously waiting to hear what the chair had said to them. He was, after all, the Cabinet Secretary and National Security Advisor and, by default, was responsible for the civil-service aspects of MI5.

  ‘Well?’ Sir Justin asked D.

  ‘Much ado about nothing Justin. Easily seen off.’

  Sir Justin and D walked through the doors and out into the brisk afternoon chill of a marvellous autumn day.

  Sir Justin stopped at the steps leading down to the street and turned towards D. ‘What’s next do you think? Any idea?’

  ‘It will be a war on a number of fronts,’ D responded, placing his trilby on his head. ‘The political game is already kicking off and we’ll need to watch that. Operationally, Jack has plenty in hand for us to work with. Quite soon I hope. In the meantime, watch carefully what happens amongst the neocons and Redman. I fear he wants intelligence to set Iran ablaze and steer a course for their next war. The telltale signs are there to be read. But that’s why we’re here. To steer and coach them to avoid uncontrolled mayhem.’

  Jack walked down the steps, reflecting on the word ‘uncontrolled’, and held the door to the Jaguar open as D and Sir Justin finished their conversation.

  Jack looked back in horror as D’s legs buckled on the steps, causing him to land on one knee, holding his chest and breathing in short sharp rasping sounds. He ran up the steps towards D, watching his hat fall to the ground just as he tried to put his hands on the steps to stop himself from falling further.

  But D collapsed suddenly, fell unconscious and died within minutes from a massive heart attack.

  Chapter 18

  Istanbul

  ‘How long will it take to get a camera tracking the vehicle?’ Sean asked, watching Jugsy build the launch pad for his unmanned air vehicle. ‘Time is ticking, and they’ve been on the road for nearly ten minutes already.’

  ‘When have I ever let you down before mate?’ came the gruff retort. ‘She’ll be airborne in less than five minutes - just admire the scenery for fuck’s sake and grab me the small black box with the letters ‘LP’ on it. You’ll have eyes on the target vehicle soon if you shut up.’

  Sean grabbed the box and watched Jugsy slot the ten-foot catapult launcher together in seconds. Neatly packed into a man-pack, the catapult was simple to construct and only needed a thirty-metre patch of land to launch the military-grade unmanned air vehicle into the air. Jugsy used a small chrome ratchet to wind the industrial-sized elastic band into position, placed a pivot into a slot to hold it taut and, with some ease, placed his C-Astral UAV onto the launcher.

  The UAV had a V-shaped wingspan of two metres, was constructed from incredibly light advanced-composite Kevlar, produced zero radar signature and had been adapted to carry a suite of high-grade spy sensors on-board. The command and control consoles were neatly packed into a Mercedes Sprinter van exhibiting nothing more than a small tracking antenna protruding from its roof. The van was branded as a Turkish telecoms vehicle and contained a bank of five twenty-inch screens, allowing Jugsy to control the UAV up to 150 kilometres away from its target site. On-board the drone were two electro-optical lenses, one operating at high resolution for zooming closely into the target activity, and a separate gimbal providing telemetry to capture night-time imagery using infrared and radar sensors. The high-resolution pictures would be transmitted digitally, enabling Jugsy to capture and replay moving TV and still imagery for him to conduct detailed target analysis. Also on-board the UAV was a small box of signals-intelligence equipment. A payload inserted into the hub of the nose cone allowed the team to monitor communication transmissions, with the data being analysed by SIGINT operators at RAF Bentwaters.

  The day had started with Billy Phish raising the alarm as he watched his bank of screens com
e alive with CCTV imagery showing four men entering the target warehouse at 8.25am. The covert cameras that Sean had placed had now started to beam images out of the warehouse via the small drone sat on the roof, with one camera picking up the shape of a small man entering the bomb-making workshop. He began to pull on the carpet that concealed the cache of IED componentry before stubbing out a cigarette in the ashtray on the table. The covert cameras picked up his facial features perfectly, allowing Billy Phish to transmit the picture back to Bentwaters for facial-recognition analysis. The man had moved the table, bent down to lift the lid and then started to bring the twelve small boxes out of the cache.

  Within two hours the boxes had been placed in a wooden crate and loaded onto the back of a van outside the warehouse.

  Sean now had a target vehicle to follow from the port warehouse. A blue Volkswagen Sharan. As Jugsy finalised his launch routine, which took under five minutes in total, the Volkswagen was just about to cross the Bosphorus bridge, heading north-west on the 0-1 highway. Nicely tucked in behind the blue Volkswagen was a small Fiat 500x being driven by Warren Blackburn – Sean’s best mate, known to his friends as Swartz, and the most recent recruit to The Court. Swartz had managed to survive twenty-five years in HM Forces and had reached retirement intact. Or partially intact at least. He had lost two fingers on his right hand from a small explosion when entering a target building in Iraq, but of more concern to him was leaving HM Forces with his pension intact after a number of dodgy ruses with Sean. Swartz had conducted his fair share of deniable operations for the government, most often in the guise of a Special Air Service trooper and, eventually, an officer. He had finished as a major, after rising through the ranks, and it was Swartz who had managed to break Sean out of the Afghan jail he had been ensconced in a few years previously. Sean was indebted to Swartz and Jack had managed to tease him into operating for The Court on a part-time basis.

  Sean continued to watch Jugsy prepare for the take-off. Jugsy lifted the lid of a black Pelco case, looked up to check that the flight path for the launch was clear and then flicked a rubber switch to ‘operation’ mode. ‘Standby,’ he said. ‘Three, two, one, firing now.’ With his right thumb he pressed down on the launch switch and looked up to see the UAV whir its electric engine, before seeing the elastic pulley whiplash to catapult the UAV into the air. The UAV flew on a gentle curve before it angled dramatically into the sky, reaching an altitude of 500 metres in less than thirty seconds.

  ‘Impressive Jugsy, bloody good effort,’ Sean grunted. ‘Now let’s get going sharpish.’

  They sat in the back of the van on collapsible canvas chairs, with Jugsy punching in some coordinates for the UAV to home in on. The tracking antennae above them would steer the UAV onto the target vehicle and, once tracked, the telemetry of the optical cameras would ‘lock’ onto the vehicle to allow the UAV to automatically follow it.

  ‘Swartz, can you hear me?’ Sean asked, speaking into an encrypted satellite phone. ‘Let’s keep some running commentary going now.’

  ‘Roger,’ came the reply. ‘Is it in the air yet? I can see the terrorists’ vehicle about fifty metres ahead driving right on the speed limit. Two occupants. A stash on-board.’

  ‘OK, that’s great. We can see you on our maps right now from the tracker. We’re good to go and should have eyes on the vehicle in minutes few.’

  ‘Roger that,’ Swartz replied. ‘The key junction that will give us the vehicle’s ultimate destination is the E-80 interchange about another eight kilometres outside of town. The vehicle can either go north towards Bulgaria or continue eastwards in the direction of Greece.’

  ‘Roger, let’s stay sharp now. We need a result here. Out.’

  Sean was content that the energy needed for the mission was coming together. He had worked through the night analysing all the intelligence that Samantha had collected from the hotel’s listening devices and Billy Phish’s data that he’d pulled from the stand-alone servers inside the warehouse. Sean had managed to piece together a detailed picture of the Iranian operation, which involved the movement of bomb-making equipment from the warehouse to what he thought might be holding areas for further transportation out of the country. Today he would hopefully find out where.

  He’d also managed to look at detailed intelligence on the servers, which showed that Nadège had been at the warehouse and was an active part of this operation. But what was she masterminding? He had thought continuously about that during the night. There was one small nugget relating to the names, addresses and contact details of merchants situated in Georgia, Azerbaijan, Armenia and Iraq. A list of likely middlemen and key logistics operators who acted as part of the wider network.

  The other piece of information he had found was a gem. The documents had all been encrypted within the server, but Billy Phish had cracked them using a backdoor tool used by the Americans for Microsoft Office documents. The details showed an itinerary for Nadège. It included a reservation at a conference in Istanbul in two days’ time. The warehouse was acting as a communications hub for the Iranian teams with servers that were air-gapped from the Internet to retain operational security and stop people hacking into their data. Billy Phish had infiltrated these stand-alone servers, revealing a wealth of intelligence, some of which was of immediate use to Sean, the rest needing further analysis back in the UK.

  Jugsy’s UAV was now firmly locked onto the Blue Volkswagen, tracking its movement from just over 400 metres with a standoff distance of about five kilometres. Sean relaxed for a while as he drove the Mercedes Sprinter about an hour behind the target vehicle, with Jugsy monitoring the target in the back of the van.

  Sean glanced at the digital tablet fixed to the dashboard, where a topographic map showed Swartz’s vehicle as a small blue dot moving slowly along the E-80. It was just behind the red dot of the target vehicle, with both sets of coordinates being relayed into the van from the UAV in the air. The red dot showed that the Iranian Volkswagen was now turning right at the E-80 junction and beginning to head north on the D20, towards the dense forests and hills surrounding the town of Kemerburgaz.

  Forty minutes later, the Volkswagen turned right off the D20 and headed towards the village of Saaflan, where it eventually entered some woods and came to a halt. Sean parked the van in a layby, knowing they would now have to rely on the eyes in the sky. He took up his seat in the back next to Jugsy.

  ‘Looks like a long linear track into the forest,’ Jugsy piped up.

  Sean watched Jugsy fiddle with the UAV console, directing the UAV into a holding pattern high above the target vehicle and then zooming the camera in on the vehicle with his right thumb on the toggle. Sean sat and watched the screen. He now had superb pictures of the vehicle at an oblique angle that had been zoomed right in on the windscreen and rear number plate. Jugsy moved the camera to look at different parts of the vehicle and, on a second screen, he manipulated the imagery to create full coverage of the area. He was using Avigilon digital software, which allowed him to create a mosaic of images on two screens from just a single optical camera. One shot gave a wide-area view, another the entrances to the track, another the vehicle driver’s door. Another small screen showed the number plate, with the last picture showing the back door of the van. All from one single camera offset some 1500 metres away.

  ‘Bloody good imagery,’ Sean said, impressed with the software, which was being showcased to its optimum capability. ‘Can you cut another view of where they might have their cache?’

  ‘Yep. But the problem, as you can see, is that tree canopy. If they go under there we’ll lose them, and I’ll have to switch to radar, which is just shitty blobs on a screen.’

  ‘What’s that?’ Sean asked, pointing to a small vehicle moving towards the Volkswagen. Jugsy cut another view with his mouse, put it on target lock and zoomed into the four-wheel vehicle.

  ‘That, my boy, is a bloody quad bike. Looks like they’ll be shifting their stuff into the woods on that thing.’

 
Sean’s eyes darted across all eight screens as he tried to make out what was happening on the ground - he eventually focused on the one that Jugsy was manipulating with the electro-optical zoom. He watched three men shake hands before one of them opened the trunk to transfer six small boxes onto the quad bike. Jugsy captured facial shots of the men, all of whom sported neatly trimmed beards.

  The UAV was now in a holding pattern circling the sky at 400 metres with the camera gimbals firmly fixed to the target vehicle as the three men smoked and chatted next to the quad bike.

  Sean watched the men throw their cigarettes to the ground before returning to the Volkswagen. The last package was retrieved with some difficulty - it made him shudder. It was a black body bag, which all three men had to struggle with before it could be dumped on the back of the quad.

  Chapter 19

  Saafalan, Turkey

  Two hours later, Sean started walking down the track with Swartz. The two Iranian couriers had long since gone, but Sean was worried about the third individual who had turned up on the quad bike and was likely to be the custodian of the weapon caches situated somewhere in the woods. The custodian would be responsible for monitoring all the caches and observing any unusual behaviour in their vicinity, periodically visiting them to ensure they were secure.

  During his time in the Balkans and Northern Ireland, Sean had often come across cache custodians who had direct oversight of the stash of weapons and explosives they were paid to protect from prying eyes and ears. On this occasion, Swartz had followed this man back to a small log cabin located a good six hundred metres away from the site.