The American Mission

by Matthew Palmer

  In the corner of the room, two TVs were on with the sound off. One was tuned to the DRC’s state news channel and the other to CNN. Giles pulled the international programming off a pirated satellite feed distributed through some of the Internet’s darker corridors.

  “How’s it looking, Giles?” Alex asked, taking the seat next to him. The image on the PowerBook monitor was a schematic diagram of Consolidated Mining’s website, the back-end configuration accessible only to the company’s IT people . . . and now to Giles.

  “It’s pretty tricky.” They were speaking in English, a language for which Giles had boundless enthusiasm but only reasonable proficiency. He was a huge fan of Hollywood movies and American TV, and he used his conversations with Alex as a chance to brush up on his skills. Alex was happy to oblige. He owed Giles. The hacker had spent the better part of two days exploring Consolidated’s computer system.

  “The firewalls are . . .” Giles paused, looking for the right word before settling on the almost nonsensical “hotter than they need to be.”

  “Can you get over the walls?” Alex asked.

  “Over? Maybe not. Under? Maybe yes. But if they are looking, they see me. No promise I find anything on the other side. Could be a red hand say, ‘I sorry I call Mr. Alex a spy. He is a really nice guy.’ Maybe nothing. Maybe report on how much money they make last year. It’s hard to know.”

  “What about Henri Saillard’s e-mail account? Is that inside or outside the wall?”

  “Inside.”

  “What’s on the outside?”

  “His calendar. The secretary keeps and her account easy to read.”

  “That’s a start. Let’s take a look at that. And if you wouldn’t mind poking around a bit more to see if there’s any way into the restricted areas that won’t trip the alarms, I’d be grateful. At some point, though, if we can’t find a quiet way in, we may just need to knock down the wall and see what we find.”

  “No problem.”

  Giles needed only seconds to open Saillard’s calendar, and Alex spent the next fifteen minutes reviewing his schedule of appointments. The seeds of a plan were beginning to germinate. The sheer audacity of the idea was enough to make it almost plausible.

  “Can you get into the maintenance records?” Alex asked.

  “I think yes,” Giles said, clicking through a series of links and inputting commands with bursts of keystrokes. The records included such routine corporate data as the schedule for the janitors and the maintenance plan for the motor pool. That was not the kind of information that Alex was after.

  “What about building schematics, blueprints, that sort of thing?”

  “I not think there’s no something like that at this system.” If anything, Giles’s English seemed to get worse with practice.

  “Where do you think we might find that kind of information?”

  “Maybe they have paper copy somewhere inside. E-copy . . . maybe the . . . c’est quoi le mot? . . . l’architecte? . . . has on his server.”

  Alex clapped the giant hacker on the shoulder. “Giles, you are a fucking genius. Do you think you can find out who designed that building and get a copy of the plans?”

  “Maybe yes.”

  “How soon?”

  “Tomorrow.”

  • • •

  Are you out of your mind?” Marie asked, when Alex explained to her what he was planning to do. She had come back from the march overjoyed and excited about their prospects for success. Even the police had seemed at times to be helping the demonstrators rather than hindering them. Bringing just a few members of the security services over to their side would be a real victory. At the same time, she recognized how fragile their gains were and how quickly joy could turn to bitterness.

  “Do you have any idea what’s likely to happen to you if you get caught?”

  “Unpleasant things. But I can’t simply sit on my ass and wait for my good karma to deliver justice. I have to take the fight to these guys. I need to know what they’re doing and see if there isn’t some way that I can shake them up a bit.”

  Marie felt a brief flash of anger and there was heat in her response.

  “And have you given any thought to what it means for Ilunga and what we’re trying to do here if you are found out? They would use you to discredit him. We’re working for change that could ultimately heal an entire country. Think about what you’re putting at risk because you want to get your job back.”

  As soon as she said this, Marie regretted the words, but it was too late to unsay them. Instead of getting angry, however, Alex reached out and took her hand.

  “I have thought about it. What I want to do is essential to Ilunga’s mission. Silwamba and Consolidated Mining aren’t simply allies, they are a single organism. We need to know more about them, to find their vulnerabilities. And as for me crawling back to the Embassy and pleading for my old job . . .”

  Marie looked away, ashamed that she had even leveled that charge.

  “I’m done with them,” Alex continued. “No matter what happens to Consolidated Mining or to me, I’m finished with the State Department . . . with government. It’s over.”

  “What will you do?” Marie asked.

  “I don’t know. I’ll need to think about that. And I’ll need to think about what’s best for Anah. But I won’t go back to making the kinds of compromises that the State Department has demanded of me. I need something simpler, more . . . pure. You know something? I’ve slept better since I became a fugitive than at any time since the Sudan.”

  She kissed him hard on the mouth and he held her tightly against his body.

  “Will you help me?” he asked, stroking her hair.

  “You know I will. What can I do?”

  He pulled back and looked her in the eye.

  “Can you do some shopping for me this afternoon?” he said seriously.

  “Of course. What do you need?”

  “I’ll make you a list.”

  • • •

  Two days later, Alex called the main number at Consolidated Mining and asked for Henri Saillard’s office. He was using a prepaid mobile telephone that Marie had picked up for him on her shopping trip. Alex did not want the mining company to be able to trace the call back to either Ilunga or the sat phone he had liberated from the Embassy. The woman who answered Saillard’s line had a cheery voice and a Flemish accent.

  “Allo. Monsieur Saillard’s office,” she announced.

  “Good morning. My name is Benoit Juneau. I am the new Commercial Counselor at the Swiss Embassy. There is an urgent matter that I need to bring to Mr. Saillard’s attention. I know that this is very last-minute, but I wonder if he might be able to see me today. It’s important and I will only need a few minutes.”

  “Mr. Saillard’s schedule is quite full today.”

  “I’m sure that it is.” In fact, Alex was holding Saillard’s schedule in his hand and knew exactly what the mining company’s representative in the Congo was doing with his day. Interspersed with several genuine business meetings were such diversions as breakfast at the Grand Hotel Kinshasa, a tennis match with an executive from British Petroleum, and a massage with “Serena.” There was no indication as to whether this came with a happy ending.

  “Perhaps if you could let me know the nature of the issue,” the cheery scheduler offered.

  “It’s a communication from my government and I’m afraid it’s rather sensitive. I would need to discuss this personally with Mr. Saillard.”

  There was a pause that lasted long enough that Alex feared they might have been cut off. “I think I can squeeze you in for perhaps twenty minutes right after lunch,” she said finally. “Shall we say three?”

  “That would be perfect, thank you.”

  • • •

  At two-fifteen, Alex stepped out of a rented BMW in front of C
onsolidated Mining’s headquarters on Avenue Kasavubu. He was wearing a blue pin-striped suit from a high-end Kinshasa boutique and tortoiseshell zero-prescription glasses. The tie—red with thin blue stripes—was Zegna. His hair was slicked back with copious amounts of styling gel, and he had trimmed his beard into a designer stubble. In his right hand, he was carrying an oversize black leather briefcase with the monogrammed initials BWJ. It was a self-consciously flashy look. Certainly, he bore little obvious resemblance to the blurry ID photo on the “wanted” posters. And the posters themselves were growing increasingly scarce as Ilunga’s supporters were quietly ripping them down as they were plastering the walls of the city with their own campaign material. Still, his thin disguise would not withstand even a casual encounter with someone he knew.

  Consolidated Mining’s headquarters was a modernist cube of steel and black glass that seemed out of place on a block dominated by crumbling, Soviet-style concrete structures. The building also seemed somewhat less than proud of its identity. The only reference to the company was on an understated brass plaque to one side of the revolving door that led into the cool, dark lobby decorated in black leather and chrome. The receptionist, a stunning young Congolese woman in a pastel European-designed suit, was clearly also part of the décor. So were the armed guards in dark blue uniforms standing post in front of the glass door that led to the office area.

  The receptionist’s unobtrusive name tag identified her as Yvonne. Alex told her that he was there for a meeting with Henri Saillard. Discreetly, she checked that the name Benoit Juneau appeared on her list of expected visitors. Mr. Saillard’s office, she told him, was on the fifth floor. She did not ask to see any ID. Alex had the right look, the easy arrogance of a first-world diplomat in a third-world country that is surprisingly hard to fake.

  The elevator, like the rest of the building, was functional and spare. It opened directly into the waiting area for Saillard’s office. The room featured Scandinavian modern furniture and high-quality abstract prints. An attractive woman who looked to be in her mid-thirties sat behind a desk of blond wood in front of the door that Alex presumed led to Saillard’s private office.

  “May I help you?” she asked. Alex recognized her voice from their conversation on the phone.

  “Benoit Juneau to see Henri Saillard.”

  “You are early, Monsieur Juneau,” she said, with just a hint of reproof in her voice. “I’m afraid Monsieur Saillard has not yet returned.”

  “Am I early? I thought we said two-thirty.”

  “It was three o’clock, monsieur.”

  “How foolish of me. Serves me right for making the appointment myself. My scheduler is away this week, I’m afraid. I’m sorry to inconvenience you like this.”

  “It’s no trouble. I hope that you don’t mind waiting.”

  “Not at all. Would you mind if I used the WC?”

  “Of course not. It’s through that door and down the hall on the right.”

  Alex knew that. It was on the plans that Giles had acquired for him off the server at Van Der Rhone & Samuelson, the architecture firm in Amsterdam that had designed the unsightly edifice. He also knew that at the end of that same corridor was the entrance to the stairwell that led to the roof. Saillard’s office was on the top floor, so Alex had to climb only a short flight of stairs to reach the door to the outside. To his relief, the door was unlocked. He had tools in his bag that might have allowed him to get it open, but probably not without damaging the door in some way. He did not want Consolidated Mining to know that anyone had been up here. Alex pulled a roll of duct tape out of his briefcase and taped the latch inside the strike plate.

  The roof was painted white, but it was still hotter than Hades under the midday sun. Immediately, Alex saw something that had not been in the plans. An elevated landing pad had been added to the roof. A red and white helicopter sat parked in the middle of the landing circle. It was a Bell 222, standard-issue transport for self-important executives the world over. This one had Henri Saillard’s name stenciled on the door in fancy script.

  Alex stripped off his jacket and draped it over a pipe. The satellite dish was right where it was supposed to be. Phone service in Kinshasa was both incredibly expensive and unreliable. It made economic sense for the mining company to use satellite service rather than the state-run telecom. He did not have much time. If Saillard returned to the office before he was finished, Alex could find himself trapped on the roof with no way down. The schematics had given him only a rough idea of the layout. Now he needed to find and access the junction box that controlled the dish. A thick green cable led from the base of the dish along the top of a low wall and terminated in a nondescript gray box protected by a padlock. This is what he was after. But there was a problem. Installing the helicopter pad had forced the company’s technicians to move some things around. The junction box was now in the wrong place.

  He pulled a map out of the briefcase and laid it on the ground to line it up with the orientation of the building. His target was a half-finished shopping mall a little more than a kilometer from the Consolidated Mining building. The developer had built most of the mall’s concrete shell before running out of money and skipping the country one step ahead of the gangsters hired by the bank to collect on the loan. The abandoned property had been hanging in legal limbo ever since. Giles had helped him find it. For what Alex needed, the mall was practically perfect. It was isolated, elevated, and had a direct line of sight to the Consolidated Mining building on Kasavubu. Unfortunately, the junction box had been relocated to the back side of a retaining wall that would block the signals that Alex was hoping to pirate. He could fix it . . . he hoped . . . but it would take time.

  A pair of shortened bolt cutters made quick work of the lock. There was nothing special about the system inside. The controls and the wiring were plain vanilla. Alex removed a small metal dish about six inches in diameter from his briefcase. A black plastic box was attached to the back of the dish. A second box, this one gray and metallic, had red and blue wires extruding from the sides with copper alligator clips attached at the ends. It looked ugly and slapdash, and it was. But Alex was reasonably confident that the gear would work as intended if he could line it up with the target. As the minutes ticked off, he could feel himself sweating from both the sun and the pressure. His watch read two-forty. He had hoped to be done by now.

  Because he was not sure what he would find, Alex had brought an assortment of tools and parts that he thought might be useful. Linking the gray metal box to the guts of Consolidated Mining’s communication system was pretty straightforward. The alligator clips kept the circuits intact, but they allowed a secondary signal to run through a connection at the top of the box. A third wire connected to the power cord drew enough electricity to keep the machinery active. Alex attached a three-foot cable to the connection at the top of the box and looped it over the wall. From the other side, the dish should have line-of-sight access to the abandoned shopping mall. He put the lid back down on the junction box and slipped over the wall to fix the dish in place. The construction site was clearly visible about five blocks away. After securing the cable to the back of the dish, Alex lined it up with the mall as best he could and used the duct tape to tie it securely to one of the pipes running from the rooftop solar water heater. He checked his watch again. Two-fifty-one. Alex hoped that Saillard shared his countrymen’s penchant for lingering over lunch.

  There was still one more stop to make. He did not want Saillard’s assistant to call the Swiss Embassy to see what had happened to Monsieur Juneau who had mysteriously disappeared on his way back from the men’s room. After removing the duct tape from the door, Alex returned to Saillard’s office. He offered profuse apologies to the personal assistant, but it seemed that he was not yet over the stomach bug that had laid him up for the better part of a week. Unfortunately, he would have to return to his office immediately to see the Embassy doctor and he woul
d be in touch to reschedule the meeting. The secretary was solicitous, understanding, and sympathetic. She could see from Monsieur Juneau’s flushed appearance and sweat-stained shirt that he was indeed unwell.

  Alex departed in haste. It was two-fifty-seven. The elevator door opened on the lobby level just as Henri Saillard was walking into the building. Alex saw him through the glass door and turned to drink out of a water fountain as Saillard walked through the door and into the open elevator no more than five feet away. Alex kept his face turned away, but he was certain that everyone in the area could hear the jackhammering of his heart. Saillard paid him no attention, however, and as soon as the elevator doors had closed, Alex straightened up and walked out onto the street.

  • • •

  Later that day Alex invited Giles and Jean-Pierre to join him on an early evening errand. They stowed several boxes of electronics in the trunk of Giles’s car and Alex directed the computer hacker to the construction site he had targeted from the roof of the Consolidated Mining building.

  Giles drove a beat-up old Citroën that might once have been white. They parked in a deserted lot on the backside of the unfinished shopping mall. The red-dirt lot was dry and cracked. An abandoned panel van stood on blocks in one corner. Everything of value had long ago been stripped from the vehicle. The rusting hulk looked like the bleached bones of an animal that had died on the savannah and then been picked clean by scavengers. They carried the boxes of gear up a concrete stairway. The stairs, like the rest of the building, were only partly finished. They were open to the outside and pieces of rusty rebar jutted out of the landings. When they reached the third floor, Alex noticed a peculiar pungent odor. It reminded him of ammonia.

  “What is that smell?” he asked Giles.