Crisis Four

by Andy McNab

  Two attractive black women were approaching from the opposite direction, coffee and pretzels in their hands. I would have no more than three seconds in which to check. They passed, laughing and talking loudly. Now was the time. I turned to give them an admiring glance in that way that men think they do so unobtrusively. The two women gave me a You-should-be-so-lucky-white-boy look and got back to their laughing.

  There were three candidates beyond them. A middle-aged couple dressed for the office turned the corner, coming from the same direction as me, but they looked more preoccupied in staring into each other’s eyes for as long as possible before it was time to go home to their wife or husband. Then again, good operators would always make it look that way. The other possible was coming from straight ahead, on N Street, on the same side as Sarah’s apartment. He was wearing blue jeans and a short-sleeved, dark-green shirt with the tail hanging out, the way I would if I wanted to cover my weapon and radio.

  I faced back the way I was walking. You can only do so much checking. If these were operators, the couple would now be overtly cooing to each other; but instead of sweet nothings they’d be reporting on what I was getting up to, on a radio net, telling control and the other operators where I was, what I was wearing, the colour of my bag and which shoulder it was being carried on. And if they were good, they would also report that I could be aware, because of the look back.

  I carried on the last twenty metres to the end of the block and turned left. I was now on 24th Street and paralleling 23rd. This was the second corner I had turned; if there was a technical device or trigger on our RV, there could be people stood off around the other side of the block, waiting for the word to move. Nothing seemed to look that way, just lots of traffic and people lining up to buy lunch at the pretzel stalls.

  The couple were still with me. Maybe they wanted pretzels, or maybe they’d told Green Shirt that they could take the target round the corner, towards M Street. Stopping at the last of the three stalls, I bought a Coke and watched the area I’d just come from. The lovers were now at the middle stall, doing the same. I moved off, got to M and turned left, back towards 23rd and the RV. Three corners had now been turned in a circular route; an unnatural thing to do. I moved into an office doorway and opened my Coke. If the lovers came past, I would bin the RV, but then again, any good operator wouldn’t turn the third corner. I hated clearing an area, especially if it was me going into the RV. It was so hard to be sure.

  Nothing happened during the five minutes it took me to finish the can, so now seemed the ideal time to get my weapon out of the bag; apart from anything else, fishing around like a tourist looking for a map gave me an excuse to be standing there now that I’d finished drinking. I sneaked together the Chinese thing and its mag, which I’d split for the flight, and tucked it into my jeans, ensuring that the jacket covered it and the catch was off, so it could be used in the semi-auto mode. Moving off again, I eventually turned back onto 23rd and into the 7-Eleven.

  I bought a Danish, a newspaper and the biggest available cup of coffee, and sat at a table that gave me a good trigger on the RV. There were twenty-five minutes to go.

  I watched as people walked past from both directions, on both sides of the street. Were they doing walk-pasts to see if we were in there? This wasn’t paranoia, it was attention to detail; it doesn’t work like it does in the movies, with fat policemen sitting in their car right outside the target, engine running, moaning about their wives and eating doughnuts.

  No-one went in and came straight out again; no-one walked around muttering into their collar. All of which meant either they weren’t there, or they were very good indeed.

  Cars, trucks and taxis trundled past from right to left on the one-way system. As the traffic stopped for a red at the junction with M, I pinged Metal Mickey sitting in the back of a cab, well down in his seat with his head resting on the back. I couldn’t see his eyes, but I hoped that he was also taking the trouble to clear his route. Maybe he wasn’t as much of a numb nut as I’d thought. The traffic moved on and he went with it.

  If there was one thing I hated more than clearing an area before a meet, it was the meet itself. It’s at simple events like this that people get killed, in the way that a traffic cop stopping a car for jumping a red light might land up getting shot by the driver.

  I sat, watched and waited. It wouldn’t look abnormal to the staff or anyone else for me to be spending that amount of time there. The place was packed and the size of the coffee signalled that I wasn’t a man in a hurry. I checked around me again, just to be sure that I wasn’t sitting next to a trigger. It had happened to me once, outside Derry; it was late at night, and I was waiting in a car waiting to lift a player, only to discover, as a JCB tried to crush the car and me with its bucket, that I was parked in front of his brother’s house. Maybe they’d always done that with any dickhead they spotted picking his nose outside.

  Mickey appeared right on time, but not from the direction I was expecting him to. He came from the right, the same direction from which he’d approached in the cab. He was dressed in the same loud suit and neon shirt as before. Perhaps he thought I’d have problems IDing him. He was carrying a laptop bag, with the strap over his right shoulder. Was what he wanted me to see on hard disk, and the dickhead had actually brought it with him? Maybe he wasn’t so switched on.

  I knew from our last meet that he was right-handed, and noted that his jacket was done up; chances were, he wasn’t carrying. Not that it meant that much at this stage, but these things needed to be thought about in case things went tits up.

  Having cleared his route, he showed no hesitation about going into the café. Good man. He did understand about sponsoring the meet. He knew I’d be watching him, and covering his arse as well as mine.

  I watched for another five minutes past the RV time; if I didn’t walk over to meet him he would wait another twenty-five minutes before leaving, then try again tomorrow at the same time. Nothing that I could see told me the RV was compromised. I got off my stool and binned the rest of the coffee and Danish, checking that my weapon wasn’t about to clatter onto the floor. I hated not having an internal holster; I’d already lost my weapon twice because of it. I walked outside and checked once more as I crossed the road. Nothing. Fuck it, there’s only so much checking you can do.

  As I pulled the door towards me I saw his back in line at the counter. The place was still packed. I walked past him and did my surprised, ‘Hi! What are you doing here?’ He turned and smiled that happy I-haven’t-seen-you-for-a-while look, and we shook hands. ‘Great to see you, it’s been . . . ages.’ He beamed. ‘Join me for a coffee and something sinful?’

  I took a look around. All the seats were taken. ‘Tell you what,’ I said, ‘the place across the street isn’t so full, let’s go there.’ His smile got even bigger as he agreed. When we got out onto the street he slapped me on the shoulder. ‘I’m sooo glad you said that. It’s like that every lunchtime, you know. I don’t know why I bother going there.’

  To my surprise, he didn’t make as if to cross the street, starting instead to walk towards N. I fell into step beside him and shot him a quizzical look. Mickey put his arm around my shoulder and said, ‘We’ll go to Sarah’s, it’s a bit more private.’ He patted his computer bag. ‘I’ve even brought some milk to go with the Earl Grey. Do you know, there’s a little shop in Georgetown that gets it straight from Sir Thomas Lipton himself!’ He was very pleased with himself; maybe he was hoping I’d take special note of his initiative when I filed my report. Fuck the milk; I wanted to see what was next to it.

  As we walked along 23rd, I carried on playing the part of best mate in nice-to-see-you mode. I couldn’t decide whether he was really good, or away with the fairies. Either way, I was glad I could run faster than him and had a weapon.

  ‘I’ll leave the clearing to you now,’ he said. ‘You’re probably much better at it than I am.’

  I laughed and nodded in response, so that anyone watching would
assume he’d just made a joke.

  ‘By the way,’ he grinned, ‘the man sitting on the corner? He’s always around here; he works in the apartments. I know you’ll be keeping an eye on him.’

  I looked round and saw Green Shirt, sitting on the wall to the right of Sarah’s apartment, smoking.

  ‘Just in case you started to worry. You may have seen him on your area-clearing. I certainly did on my drive-past; in fact I always look out for him. It makes me feel better to know he’s there.’ He gave me a cherubic smile.

  We reached the entrance and the water system was still drowning the flowers. Wayne was behind the desk, leaning back in his chair and reading a newspaper. It was like watching an action replay; they both had the same clothes on and even the dialogue was the same: ‘Hello, Wayne, how are you today?’

  Wayne put down his paper and grinned like an idiot. He was obviously having a really good day again. ‘I’m very good. And how are you today?’

  ‘I’m just Jim Dandy.’ The corners of Mickey’s mouth were almost touching his ears. As we walked towards him, Wayne turned his full attention to me. I really felt as if I was being welcomed to the asylum. ‘How are you today? Do you still need that car space? If you want it, you got it!’

  I said, ‘I’ll certainly bear it in mind. Thanks.’

  He put his hand up. ‘Hey, no problem.’

  We reached the desk and Metal Mickey switched his camp game-show host’s voice into overdrive: ‘Wayne, I bet if you looked in the delivery drawer you’d find a large UPS envelope addressed to Sarah.’

  Wayne had a look, rummaged around for a moment and handed it over. ‘Why, thank you, Wayne, I hope you continue to have a very nice day!’

  We said our goodbyes and walked to the elevator. He saw me looking at the envelope; as the elevator doors closed he raised an eyebrow. ‘Why, Mr Snell, you didn’t expect me to carry the material around with me, did you?’

  Sarah’s apartment was just as I’d left it. There was even the faint aroma of burned food hanging in the air. Metal Mickey wrinkled his nose.

  ‘Cooking – the other night,’ I explained, closing the door behind us.

  ‘Ooh, that’s what it is.’ He walked towards the kitchen. ‘I’d ask for the recipe, but . . .’ He twitched his nose again. ‘Can I get you some tea?’ He threw the envelope onto the settee and unzipped his bag.

  I walked over and sat down beside it, checking my watch. The envelope looked quite thick, but I had plenty of time before my RV with Sarah.

  I heard the kettle being filled as I ripped open the UPS plastic outer. Inside was a brown, A3 envelope, sealed with Sellotape.

  Metal Mickey came back into the room. ‘They’re printouts, and they are now your responsibility.’ He couldn’t help looking rather pleased with himself.

  ‘How did you get all this?’ I asked.

  He gave an impish smile and his eyes twinkled. ‘Ask no questions, you’ll be told no lies; that’s what my dear mother always used to say.’ He came over and sat down next to me. ‘However, I have a friend,’ – his fingers mimed quote marks – ‘who has access to Intelink.’ He clasped his hands together between his legs and did a pretty good impression of a Cheshire cat. It was the most pleased I’d seen him, and he had every reason to be.

  Intelink was switched on in 1994. The need for real-time intelligence had never been so acute, as the Gulf War demonstrated when General Schwarzkopf very loudly complained that the spooks had failed to produce satellite imagery fast enough. The network was soon being used as a central pool by all thirty-seven members of the United States Intelligence Community, from the CIA to FINCEN (Financial Crimes Enforcement Network), plus other groups connected with national security and the military. I knew that at least 50,000 people had passwords, with varying levels of access.

  We both heard the kettle boil and click off. Mickey jumped up. ‘Tea! Milk, sugar?’

  ‘Strong. Shaken, not stirred.’

  I heard him giggle as I pulled out the wad of A4 paper, filed in three clear-plastic sleeves. It was definitely stuff off Intelink. On the top file I could see the META tagging: <”IL.CIA” Executive Order 12958: Classified National Security Information”> META (Megadata) is a system for pulling down the documents needed from hundreds of thousands on call. The information available is nearly half a million electronic pages; just over 80 per cent of all the National Security Agency’s output can be accessed in two hours.

  The rest of the title went on to give its level of security. This document was tagged Intelink-P – in other words, managed purely by the CIA and top secret, available only to policy-makers.

  Mickey came back with the tea. I had just finished skimming through the rest of the tags. This was looking good. There was another Intelink-P and an Intelink-TS – classified secret, about a third of the intelligence community have access at this level. I was quite looking forward to having a read. I looked at Mickey as he held a sugar lump on a spoon for me. I shook my head. ‘How on earth did your friend get this stuff?’

  He sat down and proceeded to put four lumps in his cup. ‘Well, the objective is the eventual flow down, or up, of information as various security classifications impose themselves. Right now, standard COTS tools are used, but they’re not specially augmented with multilevel security. These tools don’t provide the right hooks, so for now different levels of security are provided by different physical levels of security, so there’s an issue regarding upgrading and downgrading information between security levels.’

  I gave up listening to him halfway though his waffle. ‘What the fuck are you on about?’

  His spoon fought a battle with the amount of sugar in his cup. ‘If they say something is an “issue”, it means they haven’t got that sorted out yet. Now and again you can confuse the system. Especially when it’s new and is taking a while to sort itself out.’

  He went back into Cheshire-cat mode and took a sip of what must have been very sweet tea. I was waiting for his teeth to drop out as he spoke. ‘The only one that can’t be got into at the moment is a new, fourth level. It hasn’t even got a name that I know of. Maybe it’s only for the president and a few of his best buddies, who knows?’

  I didn’t touch my cup, just kept flicking through the pages, looking for things I understood. I heard him slurp another mouthful of tea, and then a loud swallow. ‘There will be a lot in there that is of no use to you whatsoever. He just pulled down any document containing information that might be relevant. He’s such a nice boy. Drink your tea, Nick, it’ll get cold.’

  I nodded and didn’t say a word. He got the hint; I heard the cup go down on its saucer. Mickey stood up and went back into the kitchen, then returned with his laptop bag. ‘Nick, I hope you find it interesting reading. I’ve left the milk and tea for you.’

  I looked up at him. ‘Thanks, mate.’

  ‘Of course, you’ll destroy all the files before you leave?’

  ‘No problem.’

  He got to the door and turned, dangling the apartment keys between his thumb and index finger. ‘By the way, send my love to Sarah. Tell her, if she needs these, I’ll be leaving them with Wayne.’

  I looked at him, trying to look confused. ‘Er, what?’

  His eyes twinkled. ‘Oh, you are so transparent, Nick! PV? Pants, that’s what it is, a load of frilly old pants. I’m not that mad, you know. I bet they told you I was, didn’t they? Well, let’s just let them think it. Pension, that’s what it’s all about, my absolutely gorgeous disability pension.’ Still highly amused with the whole thing, he turned to leave.

  I said, ‘Michael, thank your friend for all his help.’

  He looked back with a smile that suggested it had already been taken care of. ‘Been there, done that. Now remember, say a special hello to Sarah for me. Byeee.’ The door closed behind him. I got off the settee and turned the lock. If anybody decided to hit the place, it should at least give me enough time to get the papers down the toilet.

  I checked out Baby-G. An hou
r to go before the RV with Sarah. I pulled out the papers that were tagged Intelink-P: Executive Order 12958. I turned the pages, but they meant nothing to me, just lots of directions on security of documents. Maybe Mickey’s friend had a sense of humour.

  Next was Executive Order 12863 on the PFIAB (President’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board) and Executive Order 12968: Access to Classified Information. I thumbed through acres of stuff that was full of abbreviations and acronyms. I understood ziff.

  Then I saw the reason I had been given it. One of the sub-paragraphs was entitled, ‘Yousef’. I felt a jolt of adrenalin.

  I read slowly, making sure I understood every word.

  Since 1995, several senior officials in Clinton’s administration had been under surveillance by the FBI. At first they suspected that one of them was spying for the Saudi government, but more recently that information was being leaked to Bin Laden. According to this report, the hunt for Yousef had narrowed to include a senior official on the National Security Council, the 1,200-strong body that advises the president on intelligence and defence-related matters. Its office is in the White House.

  I picked up my lukewarm tea. It tasted shit; I’d have to make a new brew. I went to the kitchen with the files. There was plenty of jargon and junk, but it was clear that the hunt for Yousef had begun after the interception of a message between Washington and Bin Laden’s farm in the Sudan that hinted about an agent who might be able to get a copy of a secret letter signed by Warren Christopher, then secretary of state, which spelled out American commitments to the Palestinians in the Middle East peace process.

  The handler in the Sudan had replied, ‘That is not what we use Yousef for.’

  The report carried on to say that they believed there was little chance of discovering Yousef’s identity after the intercept, because he would have been one of the first to learn about it on Intelink. All communication between him and his handlers would have ceased. I had a quiet laugh to myself. Maybe that was what the fourth level of Intelink was all about: trying to keep people like him out of the loop.