Intercept

by Patrick Robinson

  “He is not such a major figure in the United States,” said Mack. “But I know he’s a real big deal in Israel.”

  “I think about him every day,” said Strauss. “Just imagine. He’s the man who captured Karl Silberbauer, the Gestapo brute who arrested Anne Frank. He also captured Franz Stangl, Commandant of the Treblinka death camp. He tracked and located Adolf Eichmann, head of Hitler’s extermination camps.”

  “Simon was old when he died?” asked Mack.

  “He was ninety-six, and he said his work was done.”

  “Except that you’re carrying it on.”

  “We think those who maim and murder Israeli citizens are the same as the Nazis. Stangl, Eichmann, al-Taburi, Abu Hassan—what’s the difference? They all deserve to die. And they all will.”

  “Are we going to catch these four in New York?”

  “I think so. And it will be my pleasure to guide you wherever I can.”

  “Where do I start?”

  “With the money. I have my ear to the ground on that. Soon as something suspicious happens, I’ll call. Meantime, we need to make sense of that Jewish target they allude to in that conversation.”

  John stood up and informed his visitor that he had an appointment in the next fifteen minutes, and would have to terminate their discussion. “But I’ve enjoyed it,” he said. “And I think we’ll have a break in this case soon. If those characters are in the city, they can’t stay hidden for much longer. One of my people will spot them. I’ve circulated all their photographs. We’ll find ’em.”

  Mack stood up and shook his hand.

  “By the way, Commander Bedford,” said Strauss, “my friends call me Johnny. Try to remember that.”

  Mack laughed. “G’night, Johnny,” he said, and he headed back into the dark canyons of New York.

  IT WAS 2 A.M. in the Cotswolds when the cryptologists made their first break in the phone conversation between Islamabad and New York. Deep inside the Doughnut, they decided the word “Nalseb” did not exist. There was no place in the world with that name, no trace of anything like it in the dictionary, and the two words before it, “back to,” suggested an anagram.

  It took someone about forty-five seconds to come up with Beslan, and they all turned their attention to that town in Russia’s North Caucasus region, where, on September 1, 2004, there was an incident that still ranks as one of al-Qaeda’s most brutal achievements. The attack on School Number One ended in violent explosions, fire, destruction, and the deaths of perhaps 385 people, many of them students, with a further 780 people wounded when the roof caved in.

  The jihadist leader Shamil Basayev had stormed and then dominated the school and the town, and then held the Russian army at bay for three days. The night-shift operators at Cheltenham, not necessarily military historians, read with disquiet that the operation had been financed and the leaders trained by al-Qaeda, and that, in their opinion, “No military operation since 2001 ever brought such endless glory upon the jihadist revolution. Or such world attention.”

  They also read the unnerving rider, placed at the conclusion of the report, that three senior U.S. Navy SEAL commanders considered Beslan only a dress rehearsal. They placed their own conclusions about the wording on the link to the CIA and the NSA, knowing the hour was much earlier in the United States. And they added that the words “top class” and “Abe’s Place” may indicate some kind of an educational establishment with Jewish connotations.

  They had run a search for a school or college in America with the word Abraham in the title, but they’d drawn a blank, even though there were more than eight hundred Jewish schools, colleges, and universities in the States.

  The emergence of the word Beslan was unnerving, and Britain’s Joint Services Signals Unit had gone on high alert for any new telephone contact of a military nature between Islamabad and New York. But no one was holding their breath. Breaks of that quality were rare and valuable.

  And the al-Qaeda command was getting shrewder every year, rarely repeating a mistake. Captain Simon, for a start, would have been amazed if they did not by now understand they had been intercepted—the buggers had moles everywhere.

  FAISAL AL-ASSAD did not have a high profile in New York, but neither was it low. He occasionally attended diplomatic and charity events, and socialized with oil industry heavies. What Faisal al-Assad did not need were the four most wanted terrorists on earth hiding out in his luxurious East Side quarters. And that night, in the small hours of the morning, he received new and welcome orders, delivered via a landline phone call from Boston, Massachusetts: “Move your guests to temporary HQ somewhere close to Norfolk, Northwest Connecticut. Buy or rent small house ASAP. Also open two bank accounts town of Torrington, also NW Connecticut.”

  “Roger that, caller,” replied Faisal, as instructed. And with that, he awakened all four of his guests to inform them that they would be pulling out at 7 a.m. sharp, and it was essential they be ready for the long journey ahead.

  Meanwhile they were each to leave a passport with him, because it was essential they all be legally stamped into the country with the small, blue, oval crest of U.S. immigration, which showed red stamps for date of entry, and another for compulsory departure after six months. Faisal needed to get this properly forged if they were ever to get out of the United States without a million questions.

  MACK BEDFORD, also working in the dead of night, called back Captain Ramshawe at home in response to a message on his hotel phone—that Cheltenham had made a firm connection with the message from Islamabad and the massacre at Beslan Number One School in 2004.

  A SEAL team leader, who had personally captured two al-Qaeda hardmen, had once told him the next major assault on America would be a college or university—the soft, unguarded heart of the United States. And the team leader had been definite. The Russian Op, he insisted, was just a rehearsal.

  And now, Captain Ramshawe was telling him this recent intercept confirmed those words. Mack was silent for a few moments and then said, “Jimmy, our guys have suspected this for a few years. And the trouble is, these fanatics are never joking. We better get on the case.”

  “We’re on it,” said Jimmy. “Checking out Jewish colleges because there’s a definite Jewish intonation in that phone call. You know, Abraham and King Saul. But it’s tough. There is no Abraham College except for some agricultural place in Georgia, and it was only the first name of the founder. But we’re searching, and everyone’s waiting for a new intercept.”

  “Jimmy, I made a few inquiries myself last night. And I may have tapped into a decent lead. I’ll keep you posted. But I guess this Beslan bullshit has turned up the pressure a bit.”

  “You could say that, mate. Talk to you later.”

  AT SEVEN THE NEXT MORNING, Faisal al-Assad and his four guests headed north in his black SUV. From Manhattan he’d taken the Cross Bronx Expressway and then the Hutchinson River Parkway. From there it had been a straight shot up to the Connecticut border, and directly through Danbury and Waterbury. By this point they had covered a hundred miles and were deep in the New England countryside, with the terrain growing more and more hilly as they made their way up toward the distant Berkshires.

  Their new highway was Route 8, and there were no more towns, just rolling hills leading into the mountains, thirty-five miles of woodland and farmland, a bucolic green joy for tired New Yorkers’ eyes. Except city-boy Faisal hated it, and his passengers could not have cared less if they were driving through a ghetto. They had other things on their minds.

  It was almost 10:30 when they ran down the steep hill to the old mill town of Torrington, which lies in the heart of the Naugatuck River Valley up in the far Northwest part of the state. The outskirts of the town stretch right up into the hills, and driving from one side to the other feels like a U-shaped section of the Rockies.

  But it’s a thriving little town, with a great amount of redevelopment and surrounded by spectacular countryside and medium-range mountains. It is also home to a
large number of banks and real estate offices, which are apt to spring up in these progressive communities within striking range of New York.

  Faisal found a parking place in one of the town’s open lots. He instructed his team to find breakfast on Main Street, and that he’d join them in an hour. He gathered his brief case and set off across the street to the Connecticut State Bank, where he opened a new account. Faisal explained he was planning to buy a farming property in the area, and then produced his social security number, New York address, driver’s license, U.S. passport, and printed stationery from his place of business, the Anglo-Saudi Oil Corporation of which he was a director, listed on the headed paper. He showed two credit cards and the name and phone number of an eminent Saudi Prince in the embassy in Washington as a reference.

  He pulled out $300 in cash with a banker’s draft from Citibank for a further ten thousand dollars. He filled out the official signature card, adding one more name, for which he would take a spare card and have it delivered back to the bank. The name was Ibrahim Sharif, whom he explained was a colleague from Saudi Arabia who was transferring to New York for a year.

  Faisal collected a temporary checkbook and details of his account number that would allow him to wire a substantial sum of money in during the next few days. Faisal concluded the transactions and walked further down Main Street to the newish offices of the Bank of New England. There he conducted the exact same operation, walking out with a second bank account in the town of Torrington, a place that was somewhat richer since his arrival from along the banks of the swift-flowing Naugatuck River.

  At this point he went in search of Ibrahim, Yousaf, Ben, and Abu, who were ensconced at the Sugarloaf Café, drinking coffee and eating blueberry pancakes with Vermont maple syrup and bacon. Faisal joined them and ordered fruit salad, dry toast, and black coffee. Faisal explained to the men that he needed to find a real estate office, and that it would be inappropriate for them to be seen anywhere near such a place, or indeed a bank. He told them to return to the car and wait for him, and no one opposed this cautious approach. Faisal paid the check and walked out onto the sidewalk alone.

  So far as Faisal could tell, there were more real estate offices in Torrington than there were diamond dealers on West Forty-Seventh Street. He looked in the windows and noted that many of them were principally involved in the new developments in the downtown and outlying areas. The one he chose was Cutlers and Sons, the oldest (established 1903), which displayed pictures of country houses and farmland.

  Faisal entered and introduced himself. He told the broker, a cheerful young girl of about twenty-two, he was looking for a small farm in a specific area, up to perhaps two hundred acres. He was given a local map and asked to detail the area he wanted. Faisal drew a circle around a stretch of land close to the 1,700-foot-high Haystack Mountain near the village of Norfolk.

  “Sir,” asked the girl, who turned out to be Miss Aimee Cutler, greatgranddaughter of the founder, “do you want to farm the land or just own it for privacy? Because farming up here is difficult.”

  “It is?” replied Faisal, who had never even seen a plough or a wheat crop in his entire life. “Why is it so hard?”

  “Do you know Norfolk’s nickname?” asked Aimee, smiling. “It’s called the Icebox of Connecticut—very high elevation, freezing winters, and cool summers. It’s the last bit that people like.”

  “That’s the bit I should like,” said Faisal. “I’m used to the heat, but New York is stifling in July and August.”

  “I’m sure you understand that property around here is surprisingly expensive, although it’s a lot cheaper now than it was four years ago. Right here we’re talking millions. We have a 160-acre farm in your area, with an eighteenth-century farmhouse for $1.5 million. And a real nice contemporary house standing in twenty-two fairly isolated acres for $1.3 million. Others run up to $3.5 and above, if you’re looking for a grand residence.”

  “Actually, it’s more the privacy I’m looking for,” he replied. “And since I own a large part of a construction company I’m happy with an unobtrusive residence that I can develop. But I do need outbuildings.”

  “Almost everything around here with land has outbuildings, so that’s not a problem. You really can’t leave stuff out in the winter because of the cold and snow.”

  “I won’t be here in the winters, I assure you,” said Faisal. “But I expect I’ll have equipment—mowers and tractors—and I would like them locked up.”

  “Exactly,” said Aimee. “Now let me take down your details, and I’ll give you some brochures to look through. And then we can fix a day, and go out and see a few properties. How much of a hurry are you in?”

  “Big,” said Faisal. “I plan to make some decisions very quickly on this trip. Perhaps we could do something this afternoon or tomorrow morning.”

  “Of course. Will this be a cash sale, or do you need to sell first, or arrange a mortgage?”

  “Cash,” said Faisal, utilizing the magic word that is apt to put a rocket under the backsides of all real estate brokers.

  “Can I ask why the hurry?”

  “Of course,” replied the Saudi financier. “I have a daughter going to the Canaan Academy in the next couple of weeks. Flying in from Riyadh. I would like to have a place near her, for her mother and I to visit, and for her to entertain her friends.”

  Aimee Cutler could scarcely believe her luck. Big sale, big hurry, big commission. The broker’s paradise.

  Leave it to me,” she said. “Please sit down over there by the fire and I’ll bring you some coffee and reading material.”

  Faisal sat facing the window. He stared out to the west, toward the distant peaks of the Canaan Mountains, which towered over the same academy about which he had just told such a thunderous, and, in a way, deeply ironic lie.

  FAR AWAY FROM the evil unfolding below the Canaan Mountains, one of the midtown branches of Gotham National was moving its daily mountain of wire transfers. And, as in all major banking organizations, there were senior bank officers keeping a careful eye on those transfers.

  Generally, they were searching for stuff like obvious money-laundering, drug money being ferried around between suspected dealers and banks in Colombia and Panama. They noted big amounts of cash being deposited, and they watched for U.S. nationals moving heavy sums to tax havens on various tropical islands.

  They were not especially keen to make reports to the FBI, except in cases of blatant dishonesty or danger to the population of the United States. But they liked to know what was going on, principally because it suited them to be particularly helpful when the big government agencies came trawling for information.

  The current financial climate did not encourage bankers to risk looking ridiculous, or unaware, or too greedy, or even furtive. These days it was necessary to be right up front. And the scions of Gotham National, which had darned nearly gone bankrupt in the Crash of 2008, were making absolutely certain they had their fingers on their own pulse. At all times.

  There was something striking about a transfer made this morning, which had been phoned in to the most senior banking officer in the building, Jarvis Goldman. Goldman took personal care of this major account, which was utilized by the Saudi businessman, Faisal al-Assad, a client known personally to Jarvis.

  Faisal had instructed the sum of $2 million to be wire-transferred—$1.5 million to a small branch of the Connecticut State Bank in Torrington, and $500,000 to the Bank of New England in the same town.

  This was not corporate money. This was money from Mr. al-Assad’s own deposit account, into which $3 to $4 million was deposited every few months from the Anglo-Saudi Investment Bank on Olaya Street, Riyadh.

  It was not unusual for large sums to be moved around the country, or indeed the world, by Mr. al-Assad, but these were bigger amounts than usual. And Jarvis Goldman wondered what was going on in the mountains of NW Connecticut, which was proving so very costly.

  Still, it was not really his business if a
multimillionaire Saudi businessman was buying something expensive up in the cool mountains on the New York-Massachusetts border. Nonetheless he made a note of the transfers, and entered them on his personal computer file, the one labeled, simply, “Unusual.”’

  He formally authorized the wire drafts to go through to the two modest Torrington banks, but then he called the Connecticut State Bank and verified the basics of the account—that it was a personal deposit in the name of Faisal al-Assad, and that the personal details matched those in the Gotham files. He checked the social security number and verified Mr. Faisal was the sole signature on the account. The Torrington officer said at present this was so, but that a new signature, Mr. Sharif, from Saudi Arabia, was expected to be added in the next couple of days.

  Jarvis Goldman knew there was no other signature permitted on the other al-Assad accounts. And he had never heard of anyone named Sharif, except for Omar in Lawrence of Arabia. Again he made an entry in his “Unusual” file. And still he wondered what the smooth and sophisticated Faisal al-Assad was buying, up in the remote and chilly mountains of northwest Connecticut.

  He probably would not have bothered so much had that second signature been an obvious American. But there was a general terrorist alert in New York City after the bomb at Penn Station. And John Strauss had e-mailed a page to hundreds of people detailing the names and identities of four Arabs he wanted located.

  Among those hundreds was a select group of around thirty New York bankers, including Goldman. He could not remember offhand the precise four names. But Jarvis Goldman was a devoted member of the Sayanim. Four minutes later, the phone rang in the front showroom of Banda Fine Arts.

  SHORTLY BEFORE NOON, Faisal checked his four-man team into the Royal Inn in Torrington. He ordered chicken sandwiches and coffee to be delivered to them at one o’clock, and asked them to stay in their rooms and watch television for the afternoon. They should not under any circumstances be seen around town.