Break-In

by M G Leslie

  After the analyst finished speaking, there had been a pause whilst the Chief and Foreign Secretary had absorbed the information they had just received.

  The Chief was already well aware of GCHQ’s capabilities in monitoring communications. Indeed, his service had provided a significant amount of support when the UK-US global surveillance system, code-named ECHELON, had been enhanced to extend its reach from satellite to land-based intercepts. However, he hadn’t fully grasped the level of detail it now enabled them to capture.

  But after a few moments he had broken the silence and said, “What kind of bar?”

  “Given the location and time of the arrivals and departures, it’s probably a sex club or hostess bar of some description,” the analyst had replied.

  Typically negative, the Foreign Secretary had said, "Great, that’s all we need."

  Making light of the remark, the Chief had replied, "Well it’s going to be a labour of love for someone."

  But the Foreign Secretary had persisted with, "It's not a laughing matter. What happens if word gets out that we are paying a government employee to visit a sex club?"

  The Chief had decided that a stupid question deserved a stupid answer. He knew that an investigation often required people to go to all sorts of places quite legitimately. So he'd said, "I would imagine the general public would be grateful. At least they can be sure that, whilst the government employee is in a sex club, he can't screw up the economy the way the present government is managing to do!" Then he had deliberately paused before saying, "Present Company excepted of course."

  As he recounted the conversation, the Chief’s bluntness had the desired effect and made his intelligence officer in the Philippines relax a little more whilst speaking to the head of his service. The Chief didn't get many opportunities to speak directly to his officers one on one, so he liked to take every opportunity to build his relationship with them and reinforce the mutual trust and respect that is so critical in the intelligence community.

  On finishing his briefing, the Chief had said, “Find out all you can about the bar, get to know them, see if they’ve recently received a lot of cash, see where it leads you and keep us posted. We have very little time so don’t hang around either. You’ll work via the Manila office and use them for all communications. But – and this is important – don’t take any risks without discussing it with your Manila contact first! There’s a lot of money at stake here and if they’re as organised as I suspect they may be, they’re probably well prepared for an investigation. So watch your back – remember your training and watch your back!”

  Two days later, the intelligence officer in question, a local man known as Kit, had reported to his contact in SIS’s Manila office. He had confirmed that he had visited the club for an initial look around and was going back for more information that night – then he vanished without a trace.

  Another officer also based in South East Asia, Mike Lowe, had been sent to check on Kit a week later – only to find Kit’s body in a dumping area at the side of a river, surrounded, and partially covered, by trash and raw sewage. It didn’t take him much time to find out how Kit had died – the bullet in the back of his head said it all.

  Mike had sent a photo of the scene back to London, only to find himself assigned as Kit's replacement. So, with a not insignificant amount of concern, he had visited the bar, which turned out to be called Club One. Then, over a period of several weeks, he had re-visited it on numerous occasions and his reports started to paint a positive picture, suggesting that he was beginning to be considered a regular customer of the club with a basic level of trust evolving between him and the club management.

  Whilst Mike had continued to build his relationship with the club, SIS senior management naturally kept the UK government updated on their progress. However, when a further series of financial transactions caused even more millions of pounds to go missing, they had, not surprisingly, asked SIS to step up the tempo of their investigation.

  Even as Mike was contacted and asked to explore every possible opportunity and angle, the Chief and his Chief of Staff were concerned about safety. However, they needed information, so Mike was authorised to take whatever action was needed. The Chief of Staff had said, “We’re out of time – I need you to get in there – make it happen and don’t hold back.”

  Mike had confirmed he was on the case – then a couple of days later he had vanished as well.

  So, now it was Price’s turn.

  “’A labour of love’ the Chief called it,” he repeated to himself, as he poured another coffee with his breakfast. “What part of that involves getting a bullet in your head,” which given Kit’s demise, was exactly how he expected to find Mike.

  Price, like Mike, worked for the Firm, as employees of SIS refer to it. But unlike Mike, Price was not a regular intelligence officer. Even by his own admission, he was a bit rough around the edges or as he called it, “Built like a brick out-house!” So when assignments looked like they might become very physical or dangerous, Price was often the person his Chief turned to – and that was fine by him.

  Having grown up in military family – his father being in the UK’s Royal Air Force for most of his childhood – it was no surprise to anyone when Price left university at 21 with a degree in Physics and immediately attended the Royal Military Academy (Sandhurst), before going on to join the 1st Battalion, Parachute Regiment, or 1 PARA as it’s more commonly known. Whilst in the Parachute Regiment, he briefly saw action in Kosovo and as part of Operation Barras in Sierra Leone before later transferring to Army Intelligence.

  At a performance review there, he'd been told that he was destined for great things and was seen as a high flyer. Price remembered that day well, as he'd said, "High flyer? What the hell does that mean? Because if it means sucking up you know what you can do with yourself."

  At least, he remembered saying something along those lines, as that wasn’t really the memorable part of the day – the part he remembered most clearly was being put on a charge for inappropriate behaviour and then having to parade around in uniform with a full pack for most of the day – occasionally interspersed with toilet cleaning duties, whilst his mates laughed at him.

  Nevertheless, even though he hadn't endeared himself to his superiors in Army Intelligence, his direct and effective work ethic had got him noticed and, as he put it, “For better or worse, not long afterwards he was approached by the security services.”

  And now, Price loved his work in SIS with a passion that is rare anywhere in the world. He had no dependants and had sadly lost his parents some years before. So with no brothers or sisters, SIS was his family. He would do anything and volunteer to go anywhere in the pursuit of what he called, “Doing the right thing.”

  That said, despite his lively and, at times, confrontational time in Army Intelligence, Price still had great affection for the armed forces. Certainly, when he became a civilian again, or entered “Civvy Street”, as ex-servicemen often call it, he struggled at first. But, SIS is a very close family, by design and by necessity, so very soon he was welcomed as a family member and started to thrive.

  He’d already been working as an intelligence officer for a year when he had been approached to take what was described at the time as, “A more active role in dealing with some overseas challenges.” Price’s natural curiosity got the better of him and after a further 4 months training with the UK’s Special Forces, Special Air Service Regiment (the SAS) in Hereford, followed by a further 2 months with their Special Projects Team and Counter Revolutionary Warfare wing in London, he had joined an extremely secretive SIS-SAS section known internally as The Increment.

  Whilst The Increment is a somewhat mysterious title used by operatives within the section and by the Chief, the official title is less grand. Being deliberately played down and hidden from general view due to the nature of the work, all official communications within SIS refer to the General Support Branch, or E-Squadron, if they involve a joint operation wi
th the SAS.

  Price, as his Chief frequently pointed out, was a perfect match for The Increment where his job became less about running overseas agents and more about initiating change and making things happen. It also meant close interactions with the likes of the SAS where he had a lot of friends – in fact he’d actually considered applying to the SAS whilst he was in the Parachute Regiment and he maintained a huge respect for their abilities.

  "Anyway, enough of the history and back to reality," he said to himself, as he sat finishing his breakfast in the Mandarin Oriental. He knew that his challenge now was to find Mike and find out what was being planned in Europe.

  This was no easy task, because he also knew that a Caucasian British guy poking around and asking questions in the Philippines would stand out like a saw thumb – which is possibly what led to Kit’s demise and Mike’s disappearance.

  Ordinarily, SIS acquires information by gaining an understanding of the people and the hierarchy within an organisation or group they are looking to infiltrate – then they attempt to find someone who would be prepared to work with them and become an agent.

  Often, that recruitment process can take a considerable time – days, weeks, months or even longer – and people choose to help for all manner of reasons ranging from anger, disillusionment and idealism to money or Price’s personal favourite, the desire to keep private information private – he was always surprised and often amused, at the risks people took and the things they did privately which could ruin their life if made public. So this was always the first thing he looked for when attempting to recruit someone – a weakness of some kind that would leave them with no choice and make them less likely to double-cross him later on.

  However, on this occasion he didn’t have time on his side – the Chief had made it clear that this was now a job for The Increment – the usual methods of intelligence gathering were being abandoned and he was to follow their unwritten motto, ‘Do Whatever It Takes’.

  So in the absence of time, all Price had to go on, was the case history.

  All SIS officers are required to keep a record of communications and events associated with any intelligence work, and SIS has developed numerous secure mechanisms to enable their officers to provide these updates and communicate with the London headquarters from anywhere in the world.

  On this occasion, the case notes provided Price with a fairly detailed history of Mike’s activities – most recently, the fact that he had befriended a Filipino working girl in Club One, named Lucy. This had been deliberate, because GCHQ had positively identified her name in emails and believed she may have known the potential terrorist they were seeking.

  Mike had reported on his conversations with the girl and also managed to take a set of pretty good photos of her in various states of undress.

  The photos had been a source of great amusement at a briefing before Price set off – although his only comment at the meeting had been, “Nice eyes” as she did seem to have unusually beautiful eyes. But he knew all the joking had really only been to hide everyone’s concern. Whilst Price hardly knew him, he was aware that Mike was known for the fastidious and painstaking manner with which he always prepared case updates – always detailed and always on time – and then suddenly, nothing.

  Price had been sent out after Mike had missed three of his scheduled updates and could not be reached by mobile phone, satellite phone, email or Internet chat.

  Mike’s cover had been as a tourist looking to travel around the Philippines, scuba diving, visiting beaches and camping. As planned, he’d deliberately befriended Lucy, and had started to spend more and more time with her to try and gather information on her acquaintances and the club.

  As is normal for a single guy on holiday, throughout their time together he’d been posting pictures on a whole bunch of social media sites like Facebook, emailing friends and chatting online using the likes of Yahoo Messenger and WhatsApp.

  What the world at large didn’t know was, some of the pictures he’d been emailing a certain friend contained his case updates. The SIS technology team in London had installed some software on his smart phone that used steganography to hide a message in a photo. He would type his update, which would be encrypted using a key that he had memorised and which changed daily according to a sequence that only he and his contact in London knew. The encrypted message would then be inserted in to a photo where it would appear only as a reduction in the quality of the image – although, with modern smart phone cameras taking 8 megapixel images, it was virtually impossible to see the difference – and even if the photo was intercepted, it would be very challenging to determine which parts of the photo were genuinely poor quality and which were the hidden message.

  That said, nothing was to be left to chance and Mike also had a number of backup communication channels. He used his satellite phone to make occasional calls home – the call always being made under the guise of, phoning his mother who was suffering from ill health. The conversation was always very short and contained a series of sentences and responses that told London if he was OK and, if he felt it safe to do so, where he was. Additionally, he could find any Internet connected PC in the world and update any of a number of social media sites with pre-agreed messages that would enable him to get a message back to London. Obviously that would be completely insecure, but it was a means of him giving his location and if necessary, saying that he’d lost his phone – all of which would not be remotely suspicious for a guy on holiday.

  So with all the precautions they’d taken, the team in London were fairly convinced that the communications had been secure and GCHQ confirmed they hadn’t intercepted any traffic suggesting otherwise. Also, only a handful of trusted individuals in the Firm were even aware the assignment was taking place. With that in mind, Price was quite happy to use a similar approach in his communications.

  So there was Price – staying in a 4 star hotel in Manila. His cover was as a university researcher, visiting South East Asia to photograph the Philippines as part of a social science project – the idea being that it gave him a perfect excuse to travel anywhere and everywhere.

  He’d arrived just over a week before and spent his first couple days walking around to familiarise himself with the geography.

  Manila, like any large capital city, has business districts, shopping districts, restaurants, housing, some more run-down areas and some less salubrious ones. Price was staying in Makati, the largest and oldest business district of central Metro Manila, not far from Ninoy Aquino International Airport, the country’s primary international airport – named after a former president.

  Aside from the 95% tropical humidity and constant 30-degree C heat, Makati could be a business district anywhere in the world, with all the usual international banks housed in numerous skyscrapers, surrounded by shopping centres, tall condominiums and the ubiquitous Starbucks. However, you only have to travel a mile away to the Pasay district to get to the less salubrious bar where Price new Mike had frequented when he met Lucy. So this is where he’d focused his attention.

  The wide road in Pasay called EDSA, seemed to be permanently full of traffic, with two public lanes running in each direction plus two more for buses and an elevated mass transport train system running down the middle. During the day, aside from the traffic chaos, it seemed to be a normal neighbourhood with a series of shops, bars and clubs lining each side of the road. However, at night, the poor street lighting accentuated the fronts of the clubs which were lit up with gaudy neon signs and decorations, whilst scantily clad girls stood by the entrance doors trying to entice passers by to go inside.

  Price had spent most of the week visiting clubs to get a feel for the way they worked – he didn’t want to be a novice when he visited Club One. Staff from the British Embassy had already briefed him, so he had a pretty good idea what to expect – but for something this important, his view was, there’s nothing like getting some first-hand experience. Furthermore, he didn’t want the Club One management
to realise he was visiting only their club – he wanted it to seem like he had stumbled across it at random, so as to avoid any suspicion on their part.

  On the night Price had finally chosen to visit Club One, there was some light rain. He got out of the hotel taxi about 50 yards away and slowly walked down the road.

  Whilst many of the shops looked quite run-down, he liked the fact that you could buy pretty much anything and everything – ranging from local food to car parts, kitchen appliances and pieces of metal, which they could and would if asked, manufacture in to anything at all.

  Price could see all the clubs’ bright lights reflecting on the rain-covered tarmac ahead. It was just after 11pm but the road was still fairly busy with numerous cars, the occasional bus and Jeepney’s – the uniquely Filipino jeep-like buses, made from shiny galvanised steel and often decorated in every imaginable way – ranging from religious motif’s to garish advertisements.

  As he walked along, Price could see Club One in the distance. It was an old, quite dilapidated, flat-roofed two-story building set back from the road and detached from the more mainstream bars in the so-called ‘National Entertainment Complex’. The outside was painted black, with blacked-out windows and a bright blue neon sign that simply read, “Club One Restaurant and Cabaret.”

  Price mused about the word ‘Cabaret’ as he walked along. It almost always meant live entertainment – it was just that, depending on the location and type of venue, that entertainment could be anything ranging from a high-class musical act to naked girls doing all manner of things.