Milkshake
Page 17
This seemed an impossible task, given the tens of thousands of people who passed through the Terminal each day, although he did have assistance from an unlikely, but officially sanctioned, source.
During the summer of 2002, the production crew from the film Love Actually had been given permission to install high quality video cameras in the arrival and departure halls at Terminal Four. The intention was to capture the emotional greetings and farewells of unsuspecting members of the public and to use some of the best footage under the end credits of the film.
To avoid too much disruption and cabling, six cameras had been set up, each beaming images to a hard drive recorder installed in the boot of a car parked nearby. At the end of each day, a member of the film crew would plug a laptop into the recorder and transfer the raw data which would eventually be edited down into the final four minute sequence.
An NZSIS officer on duty at the Air New Zealand check-in desk had noted the installation of these cameras, as had a number of other agents whose cover was the uniform of their own respective national airline. They all had the same concern; that their country’s agents, entering or leaving the country, could potentially find themselves unwitting extras in a major movie production.
Back at Waiouru, Piri’s commanding officer scanned his copy of the weekly intelligence report from London and realised that, with some assistance from Tech Ops, they could probably tap into the wireless feed from the film company’s cameras, giving them not only the eyes of Piri and, on the opposite eight hour shift, his compatriot, Maaka, but also pictures from the cameras positioned in the departure lounge.
The day after the cameras had been installed, a Tech Ops officer from the New Zealand Embassy spent fifteen minutes sitting in the departure lounge coffee shop, sipping cappuccino and working on his laptop, hacking into the wireless camera feeds and uplinking them via a microwave transmitter placed inside one of the Air New Zealand check-in computers, back to the Embassy, in Central London. Here, the footage was fed through new facial recognition software developed by a team at Dunedin University and lent to the New Zealand Immigration Department for evaluation.
A face passed in front of the camera. The image was sent from Terminal Four to the Embassy, and then through the software, which checked the facial image matching it to any known targets already held in its database. The image, the target’s name and GPS position were then sent straight back to the airport by text message, to be received by the phone in Brent’s or Maaka’s pocket. This was supposed to take no more then fifteen seconds
By the time the phone beeped, the target had usually walked no more than twenty metres past the camera. The message indicated which camera had taken the shot and the direction in which the target was walking.
Both officers had practised using unsuspecting members of the public. Over several weeks they had managed to perfect the ‘eyeball’ within a minute of the person passing any one of the three cameras. Once actual visual contact was made, their job was to confirm the target’s intended airline, flight and departure gate.
Both agents had been working at the airport for eight days. The modified phone which they shared for eight hours at a time had not beeped once, except during practice runs. When they finally got a ‘live’ message, they expected to find themselves following a target to the departure gates of one of the three airlines that flew into New Zealand from London.
Neither officer knew why they had to identify particular targets. They had only discussed why KMT officers had been given such a mundane surveillance task. After a few days cleaning restrooms and emptying rubbish bins, the conclusion was, having noted the other employees of Airclean Services, they simply had the right skin colour for the job.
The New Zealand Immigration Service was concerned. In the weeks immediately following the events of 11 September 2001, their website was getting fifteen thousand hits a day. This in itself was not surprising, given the country’s staunch anti-nuclear policy and overt pacifist stance. People simply saw it as a potential safe haven in a time of world crisis.
Within six months, the torrent of website hits was beginning to translate into a steady stream of applications for residency visas. The High Commission in London alone was receiving seven hundred applications per week. The interest in New Zealand as a preferred emigration destination was further heightened by the release of the first in a trilogy of movies based on Tolkein’s ‘Lord of the Rings’, in December 2001, just three months after 9/11. The film, shot entirely on location in New Zealand, had grossed forty seven million dollars in its opening weekend in the US alone, and had served as a three hour travelogue, showing the stunning and varied scenery of both islands on a scale never before appreciated by such a huge worldwide audience.
The Immigration department was caught on the back foot by so much sudden serious interest in the country and simply did not have the capacity to deal with the flood of residency applications. They sought assistance. Victoria University’s Sociology Department agreed to work with the Census Office, filtering out applicants at an early stage who were unlikely to be granted residency. They did this by compiling a profile of the ‘ideal’ New Zealander using link analysis software being developed by the Department as a result of their research into social network analysis theories.
The first set of results, based on data from their London Embassy and presented a month later, was unexpected and startling.
According to the statistics, eighty-five percent of the UK applicants between September 2001 and January 2002 lived within a seventy five mile radius of the capital city, not a surprising statistic in itself, given that London has the largest population of any city in the United Kingdom. From the fifteen hundred applications processed, nine hundred and forty-five came from two very specific areas. In twelve cases they found multiple applications from the same street. It was as if a significant proportion of the applicants knew each other, almost as if the decision to emigrate to New Zealand had become a word of mouth phenomenon.
The statisticians were unable to explain this first set of results. The next detail, however, was more sinister, particularly given the heightened state of paranoia brought about by the events of the previous September. Seventy-three per cent of the applicants who had applied, from the sample of fifteen hundred, had paid their application fee either using a credit card issued by a relatively obscure bank, not one of the popular ‘big five’ UK banks.
A large proportion of the applicants had downloaded the application paperwork from the official Immigration website. These people were internet savvy. The Government decided to interrogate the internet usage of a cross section of the fifteen hundred.
As expected, many had looked at websites to do with job vacancies, schooling and real estate - nothing untoward on the face of it. A wider search also revealed extensive interests in Lord of the Rings websites, regular visits to current news sites, and multiple hits on sites relating to the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center.
Email accounts were also hacked. Many of the applicants had been sent unsolicited mail in the previous twelve months with headings such as ‘Thinking of emigrating?’, ‘Is your lifestyle getting you down?’, ‘Thinking of switching banks?’ The contents were designed primarily to unsettle, to make people question, to sow seeds of doubt.
To the analysts, these clues were subtle but they were there. More disturbing was the fact that these emails had begun in December 2000, gradually increasing throughout the year before stopping abruptly in January 2002. The filtering software that was supposed to make the job of the Immigration Department easier, had thrown up a number of unexpected, inexplicable, but potentially linked results.
The Prime Minister convened a meeting of the Cabinet. The Immigration Minister presented the information. “We’ve been able to track back and these emails have all originated from one source - a computer server in California, probably Los Angeles, and possibly within a university complex. Furthermore, the bank which all these people have used to pay for
their applications, although called The Associated Bank of Monaco in the UK, is actually a US institution, based out of Baltimore. Since this data was analysed, we’ve also run the program against a batch of emigration applications received via our German, South African and US embassies, and the results are similar enough to give cause for concern. The content of the emails is virtually identical, and the bank, although using a different name in South Africa and America, is actually the same corporate business. We’ve also conducted more research using our sources working in the postal services of each of these countries. They’ve confirmed this bank has been sending out a significant quantity of targeted mail shots over the last year.”
The Prime Minister interjected. “Why would someone, or some organization, apart from us that is, spend so much time, effort and money persuading people to move here? We have our own publicity through Tourism New Zealand. The 100% Pure campaign has been running successfully since 1999.”
“That’s fine for the tourists, but we’re talking about people actually wanting to come and live here permanently.”
The Deputy Prime Minister spoke. “Look, are we saying we actually have an issue here? After all, at the end of the day, The Immigration Department has the final say as to who comes to live here.”
“That’s exactly the point,” replied the Prime Minister, “We think we’re having the final say. But what if the applicants have largely been pre-determined beforehand, surely then someone is making that decision for us? The data seems to speak for itself; someone or some group is clearly targeting a preferred group, for whatever reason, to move here.”
The Immigration Minister took her turn. “To a certain extent, Prime Minister, we already do that ourselves. The points system is a rigorous process designed to ensure that we accept people who are suitable educationally, financially and morally - people who are prepared to contribute to our multi-cultural society.”
The Prime Minister continued, “But these targeted applicants already probably fulfil those criteria. They are being attracted here for another purpose. I don’t know if it’s political, social or what, but I think we do need to start some kind of random monitoring of some of these people, once we have accepted their applications and they are in the country. I want to know what happens once they get here. In fact I think it would be prudent to monitor them before they get here. I would suggest we get the NZSIS onto it straightaway.”
Merely confirming arrival in Auckland would not allow surveillance during transit. The monitoring of incoming emigrants would begin at Heathrow.
Chapter 14
Maaka’s phone beeped as he made his way across the concourse, slowly pushing his cleaner’s trolley. Instantly he changed direction, moving towards camera number one, before the mobile phone was even in the palm of his hand.
Finally, an opportunity to put into practice the endless training exercises. He gazed firmly ahead, pushing the keys, unconsciously counting the strokes until he knew he would be able to glance down at the screen, and see the information he needed.
His hunch was correct. The data had come from camera one; a clear profile shot of a male target, good enough for the software to have made a positive ID. He was heading north, away from the main departure area.
Maaka stood beneath the camera, aimlessly wiping the rubbish bin in front of him, scanning the immediate vicinity for the blue jacketed male with brown hair.
There were thirty-four people in his field of vision; discounting females and children, twenty-three; eliminating men not wearing jackets; fifteen; ignoring men wearing glasses; nine. Now where the hell was he?
There was no means of escape except for two doors marked Airport Personnel Only. They had digital security locks. If the target had somehow doubled back, he would have to have gone past the camera again, triggering another message on Maaka’s phone.
He looked for an exit route he might have missed. An illuminated blue sign - Restrooms - caught his attention. A false panel obscured the entrances to both the male and female toilets. It had to be the only reasonable explanation why he could not see him.
The target was oblivious. Maaka would simply wait for him to re-emerge, trail him at a comfortable distance to his final departure gate, and then make his report when his shift finished. He moved towards the next trash can, outside the entrance to the restrooms, instinctively manoeuvring through the crowd, all the time not taking his eyes away from the restroom’s entrance.
Then something happened that confused him. Emerging from behind the partition, three men were staggering and laughing, obviously quite drunk. Or were they? Their arms were draped over each others' shoulders. All three wore baseball caps and sunglasses. The two on the outside talking animatedly, but the guy in the middle appeared subdued, not reacting at all to his companions. They were definitely holding him up. His feet were dragging limply across the ground and they were trying to disguise the fact that they were supporting his whole body weight.
The hat and glasses had been added so the man in the middle blended in with the other two, and to disguise the fact that he may not have been fully conscious. Maaka slipped the cleaning cloth into his pocket and felt for the phone, pushing seven digits in sequence.
Inside the Embassy, the string of digits initiated an icon on a screen, showing Maaka’s exact location in the terminal. The phone began recording voices through the rustle of his clothing, relaying the sounds around him. A small marker moved slowly across the screen as he made his way, not towards the departure gate as he had expected, but in the opposite direction.
Maaka barely heard the phone announce another text as the trio made their way back past camera one. The disguise had not fooled the software that recognised the target’s distinctive blue jacket it had digitally noted only a few minutes before.
He had to get closer. They were heading for the car park. Six levels held over eight thousand cars when full. This looked like abduction. He would need to get the details of a getaway car.
Maaka followed, keeping members of the public between them and him. If they stopped or turned round for any reason, the configuration of the people between them meant he would not be in their direct line of vision. They would not realise they were being so closely followed.
On the ground floor of the car park, they turned a corner and were momentarily out of sight. Would they continue or get in one of the cars parked just the other side of the elevator shaft, and be gone before he rounded the corner? Maaka ran.
They were standing right in front of him, looking up, waiting for the lift to arrive; the target a lifeless body held between them. Maaka looked down, avoiding eye contact and pressed the button. The pair struggled in with their sleeping victim. Maaka followed. One pressed the button for the sixth floor and the doors closed.
Now they made no attempt at their pretence of drunkenness. In the close confines of the lift, all four stood silent, three pairs of eyes watching the lights above the door as the lift ascended.
Maaka was desperately exposed in such close proximity to the target and his captors. They were likely to be tense, alert, their senses acutely attuned. He had to distract them. He felt his shoulders slouch, his back stoop as he nodded a vague greeting, conscious of the Airclean uniform and photo ID clipped to his breast pocket. “Long shift today, eh, boss? Glad to get home to me bed.” He had no trouble adopting the lazy Kiwi twang and manner of someone who had left a rural Northland school at fifteen and followed a janitorial career ever since.
The words shattered the stuffy silence. He peered through dark lenses for any reaction. In return, two slow head turns snapped back again as the lift doors opened and the cool night air flooded in. “After you’s, fellas.”
They turned right, dragging the third man between them. Maaka walked straight ahead to the line of cars. He turned lowering his head, pretending to open the car door. Hunched, peering over the tops of the vehicles, he watched as they dragged his unconscious target towards a row of cars at the far end of the car park.
Maaka crept towards the front of the car and down the line, checking as he went for the position of the three men ahead. Just a few more cars and he could stop and take photos to send back to the embassy.
They were rifling through their compliant victim’s pockets. Had he over-reacted? Was this just the coincidental robbery of one of his targets, simply a crude mugging? He crept closer still, ready to raise his camera phone above the roof line of the car, to get some clear pictures.
He crouched, slightly off balance. A car door clicked. Paintwork flashed towards his face, the window reflecting the strong yellow lights above, momentarily blinding him. Pushed hard against the front wheel of the car behind him, he looked up.
A blue fog of cigarette smoke swirling around the silhouetted head above him reached his nostrils a moment later. At the front of the car, another outline blocked his escape.
The crunching punch to his face forced the mobile phone from his hand, smashing it onto the ground. The signal terminated, triggering an automatic response inside the computer which had been receiving and recording the audiovisual information. The message was read by the duty officer in Wellington a minute later as he returned from his morning tea break.
The error message related to monitoring device UK35. He phoned the night watchman in London who checked his screens, confirming the sudden signal termination.