The Pakistan Conspiracy, A Novel Of Espionage

by Francesca Salerno

  “We may have identified the container that set off the alarm,” Kate said. “You won’t believe the culprit.”

  “OK, I’ll bite—so tell me.”

  “Bananas! Or rather, potassium in the bananas.”

  “Cut it out, Kate. I’m not in a joking mood today.”

  “And I’m not joking!” Kate protested. “Bananas are naturally radioactive because of the potassium-40 they contain. The port techs tell me that shipments of bananas regularly set off radiation alerts in ports all over the world. It has happened here.”

  “So you’re telling me that we may be on a wild goose chase?”

  “It’s possible, but I don’t think so. The Security Exports designation is clearly Jacques LeClerc, so we know for sure that whatever LeClerc was doing in Moscow is linked to Global-Modal in Karachi. If nothing else, Al Qaeda planners are good systems analysts. In the intermodal shipping network they may have discovered the perfect nuclear weapons delivery system.”

  “How is that?”

  “Well, for starters, it’s virtually unmonitored. Fewer than two containers in one hundred are actually inspected anywhere along their route, and that’s in the United States. Here in Pakistan it’s less than one per cent, perhaps a tiny fraction of one per cent. Second, it’s incredibly cheap. It costs less than $4,000 to send a fully loaded 32-ton container from Karachi to Los Angeles. The average value of the goods in each container is $70,000, so a surcharge of about five per cent gets your merchandise all the way from Asia to the United States, even with high oil prices. Third, the volume of trade from Asia to the West is staggering. Tens of millions of containers a month. It’s the perfect public transportation vehicle for undetected bombs from the third world to Europe or the United States.”

  “And I suppose that on days when the power is down or there is some other infrastructure problem, the folks in Karachi just open the gates and let everything through without any inspection at all?”

  “That’s right. No one wants to block exports because of red tape. Pakistan is already way too poor as it is. It’s only rich Americans who put security before profit. And there were other containers that could have set off the alarm last week,” Kate added. “We found a shipment of ceramic tiles that was slightly radioactive, some granite kitchen countertops, and a shipment of clay, used for kitty litter. All more or less radioactive.”

  “What have you done to inspect the Security Exports container?”

  “Jeff Sikandar told me this morning that it was erroneously dropped off at a shipyard in India. One of his branch offices is trucking it to a nearby port there for re-routing back to Jakarta.”

  There was a long pause on the telephone as Feldman digested this.

  “So, whether by accident or design,” Feldman said at last, “you’re telling me that a shipment of arms has gotten across the Pakistan/India border? That’s just incredible.”

  “Sikandar thinks it was an error, Mort. It’s under control here. Karachi police alerted the Indian port authorities in Bharuch, the nearest town. The container will be inspected in the next few hours.”

  “Look, Kate, you absolutely need to drop everything you’re doing and get down there. That’s an order. What if the target was India all along? What if your bomb is on its way to New Delhi as we speak? A nuclear explosion in New Delhi, no matter what the cause, would bring about immediate and catastrophic retaliation against Pakistan. It might well trigger World War III. We’ve got to know what’s in that shipping container.”

  ***

  India has a passel of intelligence services, far more in fact than any other large nation. They range from the Directorate of Income Tax Intelligence, whose sole purpose is to nail rich tax cheats, to the Signals Intelligence Directorate, which might best be described as India’s equivalent to the National Security Agency.

  The organization in India that Pakistan’s ISI and America’s CIA work with as a sister external intelligence agency, and the agency principally concerned with counterterrorism and counterespionage, has the seemingly innocuous name of Research and Intelligence Wing (RAW). RAW is a civilian organization reporting to the Prime Minister. It is a ‘wing’ of the Prime Minister’s personal office (and hence not answerable to India’s Parliament, nor subject to India’s Right to Information Act).

  From his temporary desk at the ISI Karachi HQ on Mohammed Shah Road, Brigadier Mahmood placed a phone call to a fellow one-star general in India’s Directorate of Military Intelligence in New Delhi. The RAW was the agency responsible for collecting and analyzing intelligence about Pakistan—India’s Muslim neighbor was considered such a threat that it rated its own Directorate, Number One, within the RAW, the only nation so treated—but relations between ISI and RAW were so poor that Mahmood was counting on his personal relationship with another flag officer to smooth over a situation that could easily turn into a huge political hot potato. The Indian brigadier general was named Virinder Singh.

  “I dare not broach this matter through the proper channels, Virinder,” Mahmood said after asking Brigadier Singh how he and his wife and family were doing. “This is an Islamist terror problem involving the Americans. Very sensitive. And very dangerous indeed should it become public.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that,” Singh said. “The Americans are always your worst headache, and often mine. What do you want me to do?”

  “Probably through a clerical error, an intermodal cargo container was dropped off at a shipyard near Bharuch, in Gujarat, yesterday. Global-Modal Asia Limited has picked up the container and is transporting it by lorry to Surat, down the coast. We wish to intercept the container and seize the contents.”

  “It contains arms, you say? What sort of arms?” Brigadier Singh’s voice had grown a tad more tense.

  “Virinder, please believe me when I say we don’t know. The Americans have been deeply concerned of late about chatter among the various Islamic groups about acquiring a nuke.”

  “A nuke! Bloody hell! We are concerned too, my friend,” General Singh said urgently. “And we have been listening to the same talk in the networks that you have heard.”

  “Then you know how tense this makes everyone, especially the Americans. It is my hope that you and I, as military men, can deal with this sub rosa as it were, under the radar, in secrecy. This is not a problem we want to leave to the politicians or the journalists.” Brigadier Mahmood could hear Singh chuckling gently on the other end of the line.

  “You have not changed, and I am glad of it, Mahmood. If all your countrymen were as pleasant to deal with as you are, India and Pakistan would be allies instead of at each other’s throats.”

  “You will try to work with me on this one?”

  “Indeed,” Brigadier Singh said. “What do you propose? I’ll do what I can.”

  ***

  The oldest English-language newspaper in Pakistan, founded in 1941, is called Dawn. Its Karachi office is on the same spit of land, the West Wharf, that is home to the Karachi International Container Terminal and Karachi Shipyards. The Karachi headquarters of Dawn is also home to Pakistan’s only 24-hour news channel, Dawn News. To reach a wider audience than the English-only newspaper, Dawn News broadcasts in Urdu, Pakistan’s official language, though it is spoken by less than ten per cent of the population. The Dawn Group is among the most competitive of Pakistan’s 1,500 news organizations, especially when it comes to politics, the Army, ISI, and the perfidious behavior of the American government.

  While Brigadier Mahmood was making his phone call to Brigadier Singh in New Delhi, the political editor at Dawn received a phone call from a regular informant at the Karachi Port Trust, a senior-level administrator who did not appreciate the tongue-lashing he had received earlier in the week from a certain ISI senior officer.

  “I can tell you in the strictest confidence,” the port administrator said, “that the bloody spies from the capital have been snooping around the facilities of Global-Modal Asia Limited.”

  “That’s hardly news,” th
e editor responded.

  “In search of a terrorist bomb, perhaps a nuclear bomb? I think not.”

  “Now, that’s news!”

  “And with an American CIA operative in tow, no less.”

  “Pakistani ISI is cooperating with CIA?” the editor said, now very focussed. “That would indeed be a story. But I don’t believe it.”

  “Listen, I have solid information that they believe a weapon has already crossed the border into India, at Bharuch. Let me tell you what I know...”

  ***

  Less than a mile from the Dawn editorial offices on East Wharf, the U.S. Consulate in Karachi occupies a triangular compound of three acres wedged between M. T. Khan Road and the Mai Kolachi Bypass, a stone’s throw from the muddy waters of the harbor. It was here that Kate Langley parked herself when she needed to use secure communication. She was on the phone with CIA’s Chief of Station in New Delhi.

  “Mort Feldman asked me to brief you on what’s going down tomorrow in Bharuch,” she said when he came on line.

  “This is the intermodal shipping container thing?” CIA’s man in New Delhi had his hands full with recent bombings of jurists at the High Court. He sounded preoccupied and exhausted. Spillover from Pakistan’s plate of problems wasn’t what he needed.

  “ISI is working with the Indian Army to interdict the container with local police. We are planning to do this surgically, cleanly, and without attracting any attention.”

  “Please tell me you don’t need help from me?”

  “We’ve covered our bases,” Kate said. “This is just a head’s up to make sure you are in the loop. Mort doesn’t like surprises.”

  “Amen! Neither do I.”

  “I’ll keep you posted as soon as I have news,” Kate said.

  “Good luck, and God’s speed,” the chief of Station said. “And please don’t do anything that will complicate my life, OK?” He closed the call.

  Chapter 26 — Surat, India

  Along the western coast of India, on the Arabian Sea, lies the bustling State of Gujarat, a province that is slightly smaller than South Dakota and a tad bigger than the State of Washington. It is home to some 70 million closely-packed human beings. Gujarat is the most industrialized and economically vibrant of India’s 28 major provinces. It fairly hums with the sound of commerce.

  The ancient port of Surat occupies about five square miles of land forming a nearly circular oxbow in the Tapti River in southern Gujarat, a dozen miles inland from the ocean. To avoid road and rail bridges that cross the Tapti, modern port facilities serving Surat were built in 1960 five miles downstream from the city proper.

  This is the sparkling new Port of Magdalla, connected by State Highway 66 to the urban center. A deepwater anchorage for larger vessels is further downstream still at the mouth of the Tapti where it joins the Arabian Sea in the steaming Gulf of Cambey.

  Brigadier Mahmood and Kate Langley flew from a Karachi military airfield to Surat Airport, less than a quarter mile from the Port of Magdalla, in an inconspicuous and unmarked 15-passenger Beechcraft-99 turboprop helpfully provided by the ISI commander in Karachi. Both were wearing unmarked civilian khakis. Brigadier Singh met them on the tarmac, far from the airport tower and hangar.

  “You see before you Miss Langley the advantages of respect for military authority in India,” Brigadier Singh said. He was a lean, handsome man in his mid-fifties whose uniform included the mandatory Sikh turban, or dastar. “We can whisk even a Pakistani general and his American guest through the Indian frontier without a whisper of gossip. Do you think you could do that in your country?”

  Brigadier Mahmood laughed and embraced his Indian colleague.

  “You’d be surprised at how skillful we have become at evading unwanted media, General,” Kate said, shaking hands with Singh. “We get lots of practice. By the way, my boss Mort Feldman wanted me especially to say ‘thank you’ for the help you are according us.”

  “You are most welcome, I assure you. And I should say also, Mahmood, that we are the primary beneficiaries of this operation. We don’t want these chaps moving arms, or worse, around in ships and lorries any more than you do.”

  Brigadier Singh motioned toward his Jeep. On the short ride to the port, he explained that he had alerted the local authorities about the possibility of a smuggling incident, and of the Army’s requirement that a particular 40-foot container be isolated. His orders had been carried out with dispatch, he told his guests, and so far without arousing any unwanted curiosity on the part of the locals.

  At the entry guard post, the Jeep’s driver stopped to show authorization to enter the fenced-off port facility. The guard pointed silently to a television truck parked to one side by an administration building.

  “I may have spoken too soon,” General Singh said. “I see we have visitors with cameras.”

  “Surely they need permission to go beyond the gate?” Mahmood asked.

  “They do. But if there is something untoward in that container, it is going to be very difficult to keep a lid on it.”

  “We must limit access, and we must develop a plausible cover story,” Mahmood offered.

  The Jeep drove from the facility perimeter to the wharf and jetty on the banks of the Tapti. The sky was overcast. The dark brown waters of the estuary smelled heavily of bunker fuel. Brigadier Singh explained that the suspect container had been identified through its ISO-BIC identification plaque. The port was equipped with robotic carts with cameras that automatically scanned ID plates throughout the yard, constantly updating the inventory of containers and their locations on a computerized map. As they exited the Jeep, Singh asked an adjutant to shoo away onlookers.

  “The port people tell me they lose a dozen containers a day just within this yard,” Brigadier Singh said. “They mostly turn up again on their own just through the magic of the automated inventory system. Those carts buzz about on their own, constantly updating the database. Your container was spotted the minute it arrived by truck from the Jageshwar Shipyard. I instructed the port people to isolate it in an empty warehouse pending my arrival.”

  As they crossed the tarmac on foot to the warehouse, Kate looked toward the perimeter fencing, half expecting to see a crowd of reporters chasing them. She had seen it too often on American TV: the military officer or government official walking calmly in the frame of the picture when a reporter and television crew ambushes him. Then, guilty or not, the victim shields his face, looks flustered, and starts stammering—the proverbial ‘deer in the headlights.’ Even the innocent looked guilty under such conditions. But of course this was India, not America. They didn’t give the press quite that much latitude here.

  “We do not have at Magdalla the sophisticated radiation detectors you have in Karachi,” Singh said. “Those units cost $800,000 each and we can supply them only to our biggest facilities. This is merely one of our medium ports. However, we did scan the exterior of the container repeatedly with sensitive Geiger counters.”

  “And did you get a signal?” Kate asked.

  “None at all,” Singh said. “There is no radiation emanating from that container.”

  ***

  The intermodal unit was on wooden pallets in the center of an empty warehouse under cone lamps hanging from the rafters. Made of heavy, corrugated steel, it was painted a bright Post Office red, with sealed doors fitted at one end. Each end was eight feet square, and the unit itself was forty feet long with 2,500 cubic feet of internal space—a standard 40-footer. It appeared almost inviting under the bright lights, the bright red giving it a cheery look.

  “Wait a second,” Kate said. “This unit is a ‘reefer.’ This can’t be right.”

  Both Singh and Mahmood looked at her with puzzled expressions.

  “This is a refrigerated intermodal unit,” Kate said, “a reefer in the lingo of shipping.”

  “How can you tell?” Mahmood asked.

  “Those vents on both ends,” she said. “They allow the coolant gas to escape.” />
  “I thought refrigerated containers required electrical power,” Mahmood said, “to run a fridge unit inside.”

  “Some do. There are several kinds,” Kate replied. “The long-term units are essentially mobile refrigerators and need a power supply to run an internal compressor, just like a refrigerator. This one here is called a ‘total loss refrigeration’ unit and uses frozen carbon dioxide, common dry ice, to provide the coolant. As the dry ice evaporates into gas, it is vented through the valves you see beneath those grills on the corners. It maintains cooling until all the frozen gas evaporates, anywhere from seven to 21 days, maximum, depending on how it’s set up.”

  “Why would you need cooling to ship a tactical nuclear weapon?” Brigadier Singh asked.

  “You wouldn’t,” Kate said. “This must be the wrong container.”