The Merchant of Secrets

by Caroline Lowther

  “Good. Let’s catch dinner sometime,” he said as he lifted himself out of the vehicle after instructing the driver to return me to the IRS office. The security guard followed him out of the car.

  I needed to get to my old office to log into our system to get my information on banks in Abu Dhabi but it was problematic because Todd was still on my trail, and the project had continued while Todd was left in the dark. Mulally had never fully trusted Todd and his friendship with Dave Jones was deeply disturbing even if Jones hadn’t been convicted of anything. Todd wasn’t deemed to be trustworthy by Mulally even before he came after me. Mullaly later put it, “Todd’s got limited moral perception.”

  Unable to go back to my old office, I opted to drive to an alternate location to use our system there and log-in to the network. Bailey and Keisha came with me. We drove along a wooded swath of Virginia territory along I-95, joking and laughing as we drove along. Nobody would have guessed that we were on a secret mission.

  CHAPTER 17

  The CIA had announced that it would cease its drone operations based in southern Pakistan at Baluchistan after a CIA contractor accidentally shot innocent civilians in Lahore in January of 2011. At the time PFG had just completed testing on a more efficient form of automated unmanned space vehicle that could eliminate a target with no direct human involvement. Its competitor’s models required that information be sent back to a human pilot on the ground who would first verify the identity of the target, then take action. The software that runs Predators and Reapers was ancient by technology standards, dating back to around 2005 and by 2011 it needed replacing. PFG’s advanced drones by contrast would fly over a pre-designated kill-zone, maybe a town or a tent city located in the desert while advanced sensors attached underneath the body of the aircraft would pick up digital signals from the ground, enter the signals into voice and face recognition software, then after confirmation that the target had been identified the drone would automatically carry out a precision assassination. Its functionality and accuracy would surpass the existing inventory of Predator and Reaper drones currently in use by the CIA. Jones and his colleagues at PFG assumed they had the perfect killing machine so this news about what was happening at Baluchistan couldn’t have made them very happy. The more need for electronic covert action, the more likely the Defense Department would sign off on a prime contract to award PFG hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars for their product.

  The CIA continued to use drones launched from regional bases to target the Taliban in the stronghold of Waziristan, and to launch deadly missiles attacks in Yemen, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya and Somalia, but the US had come under intense international pressure for taking action on bad intelligence, killing innocent civilians, misfiring, blowing- up unintended buildings. Along with the decrease in the Pentagon’s budget, the complaints coming from the State Department about the CIA hitting the wrong targets and upsetting diplomatic relations with the country in which the targets were located, temporarily led to a halt in drone use in some regions. Meanwhile the Pakistani Parliament was demanding an end to the C.I.A.’s use of drones in their country.

  All of this added up to bad news for PFG’s and their timeline for getting a contractual commitment out of the Pentagon. The relatively sparse new contracts were still being awarded to companies with favored status within the Pentagon; the major defense contractors that had strong ties to the government. As Jones potential for obtaining revenues was drying up, the answer to how he obtained his money was becoming increasingly murky.

  My initial guess was to assume that PFG was providing assistance to a Top Secret covert operation based in Iran discretely paid by the C.I.A. through some third party intermediary which kept its coffers full enough to keep the company afloat. It would have been logical explanation, as Iranian Shiites had been stirring up trouble in Iraq, according to the internal reports, and had killed dozens of American troops stationed in and around Baghdad.

  I bounced the idea off of Mulally but Mulally denied that there was any top secret mission in Iran that would have involved PFG. He was also dismissive of the notion that Iran had killed Americans in Baghdad.

  Keisha then called the Pentagon. Someone in her command told her that General S also denied that the Army had any Top Secret operations in Iran that used PFG material.

  With no money pouring into PFG, PFG must be financially on the ropes, but it didn’t give that impression from the outside. Just the opposite. Jones had extravagant homes in Virginia and in Florida. Qureshi had homes in Turkey and Spain, and by all appearances, he was flush with cash. There was a lot of money floating around that seemed to come from nowhere.

  CHAPTER 18

  I had seen very little of Colin since Chicago. In the meantime Bailey had invited me to stay in the spare bedroom of her house since I still could not go back to my apartment, nor could I rent a new one for fear that Todd would find out and follow me there as well. I sent Colin a note saying that I wanted to see him and asked if he would meet me at the Air and Space Museum in Washington next day. I drove the rental car into D.C., ever wary of Todd, and pulled the car up onto the street parking in front of the museum. I bought a ticket to the movie and walked inside. Colin was waiting for me in a seat. I snuck into the row behind to surprise him.

  “Hey,” I whispered from behind.

  Without responding, he suddenly pushed an envelope through the gap between his seat and the one next to him. I took the envelope and quietly slid it into my purse. He rose from his seat and left without ever looking back at me. Outside of the theatre I opened the envelope to find an airplane ticket to London leaving later that day.

  Zipping through traffic on the way back to the house to quickly grab jeans, a silk top, and my favorite blue cashmere sweater I narrowly escaped a speeding ticket, because there was someone else going faster than I was and that person got stopped instead of me. I changed my clothes in record time and shoved a few more things into an overnight bag including a black silk sheath dress to wear out to dinner in London. I ran out the door on my way to the airport.

  When I arrived at Dulles in anticipation of a romantic getaway Colin wasn’t around, but luckily neither was Todd. When the flight was announced I spun my head around to look for him but he still wasn’t there so I curiously handed my ticket to the agent at the gate and walked down the jet way and boarded the plane. Then I spotted Colin in a seat next to the window waiting for me with an eager smile.

  “Nice surprise Colin, when did you plan this?” I asked.

  “Oh last night” he said. An impromptu flight to Europe was so romantic. I arranged my luggage in the overhead bin then took my seat next to him and leaned in close. It was good to feel him next to me.

  “Where are we staying?”

  “In a private hotel near Sloan Square. I thought you might like to go shopping on King’s Road.”

  I leaned-in and kissed his cleanly- shaven cheek. We were mostly well behaved until the lights went down.

  After landing at Heathrow, one of Colin’s old friends met us at the airport and suddenly I realized that this wasn’t a romantic getaway after all, just like in Chicago. Colin greeted his friend eagerly like old friends do and then we made our way to the car park where the guys took the front seats and I sat in the back, next to the laptops. The low humming of the car’s engine lulled me to sleep.

  When I awoke we were approaching the Devonport shipyard. As the car came to a stop Colin sprang up from his seat and grabbed my arm. “C’mon” he ordered, practically dragging me from the car.

  ‘Where are we?” I asked still half asleep.

  “No place really, just the Devonport shipyard, c’mon, stand up.”

  “What are we doing here?” I asked.

  “We’re going to meet some friends of mine who have some information on Dave Jones,” he explained. As I looked around and saw groups of people dressed naval attire, the bone-chilling sting of the wind off of the ocean went straight through my sweater and made me start to shive
r. We met 3 men, one was dressed in a black wool overcoat, with sunglasses and a clean, closely shaven face. By my estimation he worked in an office. The second had the weathered face of a man who spends his time by the sea and wore a naval uniform, and the third, dressed in jeans and a black jacket, had an appearance that didn’t reveal much of anything.

  The one in the overcoat was the first to speak. “Colin said that you were interested in a guy named Dave Jones.”

  “Yes I am. He seems to be providing something to the Chinese, but we’re not sure what. Do you have any information that could help us?”

  As if he didn’t hear the question, the sailor turned to Colin “Jones was here about six months ago trying to sell some flight equipment and making bold claims about how it was used by the CIA’s Counter Terrorism Center, but we were skeptical of his stories and not interested in buying. So we sent him away. Told him to get lost.”

  “Was this PFG equipment?” I asked the sailor.

  “Yea, I think so,” he replied. “He seemed pretty hard up for a sale. But we don’t buy that kind of stuff from relative newcomers and small unknown vendors, even if they are Americans.” I nodded, indicating I understood their need for reliability and secrecy in the procurement of naval equipment.

  The office man in the black wool coat joined in, “But after that, we were interested in this Jones character so we assigned some of our assets to him. One of our men was able to get into his hotel room when he was taking a shower, and accessed a laptop in the room at that time. Our man was able to copy the computer log files and take it back to the Ministry so that the lab could do some forensic analysis. At the lab they found unauthorized traffic to and from a website hosted in Iran, a site that ostensibly sold farming equipment but it appears that this site was a message board to communicate with someone in Iran.”

  Colin inhaled audibly and stretched his neck. There was a moment of silence between us. Iran, like Egypt, was one of the countries to which Colin had been assigned. Since 2006 the U.S. had been flying RQ-170 Sentinel drones hundreds of miles into Iran’s airspace to capture images of nuclear bomb building activity in secret underground locations. The heat sensitive cameras could photograph the areas. The mission’s goal was to detect and/or thwart further development of Iranian nuclear capability and to force Iran to agree to regular inspections by the International Atomic Energy Committee. Although the State Department had imposed strict export restrictions David Jones seemed to ignore them without hesitation. He had already gotten himself into deep trouble with the Department of Defense, the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of the Treasury, why not the State Department too? It was embarrassing that this was happening right under our noses without detection. Colin was angry.

  “Did the Ministry keep a copy of the log files for us?” I asked the man in the black overcoat.

  “We’ve got it, locked away. Send someone over from your Embassy and we’ll give it to you.”

  “Okay, thank-you, we greatly appreciate your help,” I said looking directly into their eyes, one after the other to reinforce my sincerity in thanking them.

  The three men were finished with telling me what they could, so we shook hands and Colin and I returned to his friend’s car which had been parked a few feet away with the engine still running. Colin’s friend drove us all the way back to London. I didn’t care to join their conversation about soccer, and their old buddies so I sat in the back seat and read a paperback novel I had brought along for the trip.

  We checked into the Sloane hotel on a quiet street near Sloane Square, in Chelsea. Through the tiny lobby the glow of a fire coming from the corner of the small cocktail bar made the place feel homey and comfortable. I appreciated the warmth after a day of bitter cold temperatures at the shipyard, and sat down near the fire to enjoy a cup of tea. The server came in with herend teacups on matching saucers with lemon and sugar in silver bowls and served on a silver tray. It was so civilized. After we were finished drinking our tea, we climbed the stairs to a narrow hallway and found the door to our room. The small bedroom was painted in pale blue with dark wood furniture and accented with an occasional ruby red pillow or cushion. The room could barely accommodate a double bed, a small desk and two side tables. We dropped our bags and I sat on the edge of the bed to call Keisha to give her the update on Jone’s attempt to sell PFG drones outside of the United States.

  “Hi Boots, it’s me calling from across the pond. The Ministry of Defense has a log file from a laptop located in a hotel room where Dave Jones was staying in London. He was meeting with some people to try to sell PFG drones. Can your office call our embassy and get someone to pick up the computer file from M.O.D.? ”

  “Did he actually sell anything?” she asked.

  “No,” interjected Colin who was leaning his back against the wall with his arms folded listening in on my conversation with Keisha. “ M.O.D. didn’t want to buy such substantial piece of equipment from a company without an established track record. But they did say that the designs were fairly impressive, in fact they were so impressive that the Ministry became concerned that although we in the U.K. weren’t in a position to offer PFG a contract, we didn’t want anyone else buying this equipment either, particularly some rogue intelligence organization from an unstable country. So some agents from the Ministry followed him to his hotel room and copied some files which they’re willing to share with your team.”

  “Who’s the contact? Where do our people pick up these files?” she asked.

  Looking up at Colin who was pondering the logistics I asked, “Where does our embassy personnel pick it up?”

  “I think it’s better for one of our guys to drop it off at your embassy” Colin suggested, subtly protecting the identities of the three men we had just met. He preferred to have an unknown British foot soldier run the errand. It was better than arranging for an American to appear at the Ministry of Defense asking questions about log files, he thought. Colin picked up his phone and arranged for the package to be dropped off that evening at the U.S. embassy in London and to be carried in a diplomatic pouch back to the U.S..

  With that detail already arranged and battling exhaustion, we managed to crawl to a local Indian restaurant for dinner. Our lovely meal began with a gin and tonic, and a large portion of Indian flatbread, followed with a main course of chicken curry and salad. After dinner we mustered the energy to stroll around the neighborhood to watch the Londoners walk by, and to enjoy the twinkling of the city lights before finally turning in for the night at our posh little inn.

  In the morning Colin and I happily embarked on a series of typical tourist adventures, first riding the tube around the city then renting a car to drive to Hampton Court, King Henry VIII’s castle. The next day we drove the car drove north to Cumbria, Westmoreland in pursuit of Lowther Castle; a Tudor country house which happened to be in a state of reconstruction as we arrived. Nevertheless I took dozens of pictures of the castle and the gardens. It was a beautiful day, with a cool freshness in the air as we strolled along. We stopped for tea and scones around four o’clock.

  The next day it was back to the airport for me, although Colin decided to remain in the U.K. to visit friends and family. When I arrived at Heathrow the guy at the ticket counter asked “You’re a solo traveler?” “Solo traveler?” I thought. It sounded a little lonely and desperate. “No,” I replied, “my friend’s already at the gate.” The heck with being labeled a “solo traveler.” Sitting by myself on the return flight to Dulles airport I still clung the notion that Colin and I belonged together despite his hot-and-cold behavior and odd sudden absences. During the airplane ride he emailed me some photos of the action in Libya, of burned, charred human corpses piled on top of one another, and beside their victims, a scattering of men holding rifles in the air and smiling triumphantly. “I want a job that I don’t hate. Maybe I should become a teacher?” was his email. It was such a familiar scene, it could have been almost anywhere, Iraq during Hussein’s reign, Somalia
, Yemen, Syria. Why did evil always look so much the same? I wished that I hadn’t opened his email. “I can’t imagine you outside of the action,” I replied.

  CHAPTER 19

  When the airplane landed at Dulles airport at around 1:00 the next afternoon, I contacted Keisha to get confirmation from her that the package from the British Ministry of Defense containing the files taken from Jones’s computer in London, had arrived and was in her possession at Fort Meade. Then I drove to her office to inspect the information.

  “Where’s the package, Boots?” I snapped grumpily after a long plane ride during which I had barely three hours of sleep.

  “How was your trip to London with your guy?” she grinned.

  “Fine. Great. Wonderful. Now give it up, what’s going on?” The temptation to talk about Colin was compelling but this was my job, and there was business to tend-to before getting side tracked on my tragic love life.

  Keisha replied, “We checked the website, and we confirmed the unauthorized nature,” as she nodded.

  “Yea Keisha we know that already,” I said impatiently.

  ‘Well what else do you want to know?” She asked, holding back information.