The Zero-Cost Mission/The Wily Agent

by Amar Bhushan

  Contents

  Part1

  The Wily Agent

  Acknowledgements

  About the Book

  About the Author

  Copyright

  Part2

  Preface

  The Zero-Cost Mission

  About the Book

  About the Author

  Copyright

  The Wily Agent

  Amar Bhushan

  The Wily Agent

  Dhaka, 1993

  It was the worst of kal baishakhi, the ‘season of doom’. Since early June, dusty squalls followed by thunderstorms and heavy rains had been lashing Dhaka and its adjoining areas, causing rivers to swell to dangerous levels and sweeping away settlements.

  After a brief respite, the thunderstorms had returned to torment the city. Powerful gusts of wind, accompanied by long streaks of lightning, whipped trees and howled around buildings. A cloudburst threatened to tear the overcast sky apart and bring down torrential rains at any moment. Before it could get worse, Jeevnathan told his colleagues to rush home. He headed the unit of India’s external intelligence agency in the Indian High Commission in Dhaka. At around 4.00 p.m., he too decided to leave as it had become ominously dark and had started drizzling. His secretary assisted him in securing the safe, almirahs and the room. Just as he was about to step out of his office, the internal phone on his desk rang. It was Sankar, who was in charge of the unit’s telecommunication centre.

  ‘Sir, I am in the process of receiving two coded cables marked most urgent. Should I bring them over to you this evening or send them to you tomorrow morning?’ he asked.

  ‘How much time will it take you to decode them?’

  ‘An hour, sir.’

  ‘I’ll wait,’ Jeev decided.

  He asked his secretary to leave. He then walked over to the huge window in his office, drew aside the curtains and looked out. It had started pouring. He sat down on the sofa, took out a book from his briefcase on the phenomenon of migration of Muslims in Europe, recently sent to him by a friend in the US, and began reading. An hour and fifteen minutes later, Sankar brought him the deciphered text. The first cable was from Aseem Barua, the desk officer for Bangladesh at the Agency’s headquarters. He had written:

  ‘Expect a communication shortly from our unit in Wellington about a source (.) Would be grateful if you could meet him and convey your views on whether to exploit him for our future intelligence needs (.) Aroop is opposed to running this source (.) He believes that information provided by the source in the past has lacked credibility, been stale and of low quality (.)’

  Jeevnathan was at a loss as to why Barua would want his views when his boss Aroop Das considered the source to be worthless. Unless Barua wanted to witness the fireworks that would inevitably ensue from Jeev’s communication to Das and vice versa. Ever since he had landed in Dhaka, Jeev’s working relationship with Aroop, who controlled his station in his capacity as the desk officer of the Southeast Asia branch at headquarters, had been mostly confrontational. He found Aroop to be meddlesome and disliked his habit of rubbishing his operational proposals without providing any reason. Aroop had no qualms in making it known that he alone had the qualification to conceive, plan and execute operations. The others were simply there to follow his instructions. He also had a terrible habit of writing directly to junior members of Jeev’s unit and advising them on how to run their sources. He stopped doing so only after Jeev threatened to move back to Delhi prematurely. But what frustrated Jeev most was Aroop’s attempts to steal credit from his junior operatives and damage their reputations. Sadly, he had the eyes and ears of Rajamohan, the head of the Asia division, who could not see through his desk officer’s deviousness—how he cheated his sources and inflated his indispensability. It was no wonder that Jeev avoided interacting with Aroop as far as possible, but whenever he had to, it usually ended in acrimonious exchanges.

  The second cable was from Jeev’s counterpart based in Wellington, New Zealand. He had written:

  ‘We had recruited an official from the country where you are currently located (.) He was working here in his High Commission as a communication operator (.) His name is Shiraz (.) After completing his four-year tenure, he returned last month to your station where he is likely to be posted in the foreign office (.) While working with us, he regularly provided the gist of secret and top-secret communications but never shared original cables (.) He is greedy and clever and he knew that he was being paid for working for the Agency (.) He does not hesitate in accepting money since he has a tendency to live beyond his means (.) You may consider meeting him and then operating him if you find him suitable. I had an advantage over you in operating Shiraz since neither of us were under any kind of surveillance (.) Before his departure, I had proposed that he work for you, which he readily accepted (.) He would like to meet you for lunch at the Roll Express, which, he says, is less crowded and located in safer surroundings (.) I have asked him to give you a call on your embassy number and introduce himself as Sohrab’s friend (.) Aroop does not trust this source (.) He believes that Shiraz is a cheat because he did not provide a single original cipher message (.) He is convinced that the source was taking me for a ride and that I was playing into his hands (.) He also suspects that Shiraz had contacted me at the behest of his country’s intelligence service (.) I still maintain that he should not be dropped summarily without trying him out (.) He definitely has the potential to be a long-term asset (.)

  Jeevnathan realized that he had a tough task at hand. Given his difficult relationship with Aroop, the stage was set for yet another round of harsh exchanges between the two. He deposited both cables in the safe, sealed it and walked down to the basement. It was deserted as all the employees of the High Commission had already left. He waited for a while in the car for the rain to ease. When that did not happen, he drove out, moving at a snail’s pace against the gusting winds and torrential rains.

  When he finally got home, half drenched from his sprint from the car to the front door, his wife Manini chided him for not waiting till the rain subsided. ‘You have just recovered from a terrible spell of cold and cough. I don’t know when you will learn your lesson.’

  ‘I’ll survive,’ Jeev replied, smiling.

  A cold was the least of his worries at the moment.

  A week later, a man rang Jeevnathan on his office line, introducing himself as Sohrab’s friend. Jeev guessed the caller was none other than Shiraz. But to make sure that he was indeed the right man, Jeev proposed that they meet the following day at the High Commission at 10.30 a.m.

  ‘That is out of question. I cannot come to your office,’ the caller insisted. ‘The best that I can do is to meet you today at Roll Express at 1.45 p.m. They serve excellent salmon sandwiches and prawn fries. If you are a vegetarian, you will relish their vegetarian rolls, dosas and doifucha.’

  ‘Since you seem to like this place and refuse to see me in my office, I will try to make it there,’ Jeev replied, not wanting to lose the opportunity to meet the man and size him up. At the same time, he did not want to sound too eager to meet him. ‘How will I recognize you?’ he asked.

  ‘I usually occupy the table in the far right corner of the restaurant, from where one can easily observe everything going on in the restaurant. A copper lamp, covered with a red shade, hangs over the table. On the wall to the right of the table is a painting of a bullock cart being driven by a poor farmer wearing a torn lungi.’

  ‘I will be there along with a colleague.’

  ‘But I was supposed to meet only you. Are you bringing him to ensure that I do not play foul with you?’

  ‘You will know when you meet him,’ Jeev
said and disconnected.

  He realized that Shiraz was a smart cookie and handling him wouldn’t be easy.

  He next rang up Arun, his deputy, and asked him to come to his office immediately. Of all the fifteen field operatives in the unit, Arun was Jeev’s favourite and he involved him particularly in operations that required independent handling. What separated Arun from the herd was his ability to evade the watchers of the Bangladesh Special Branch and disarm even hostile sources with his sweet and persuasive talk.

  As soon as Arun was seated in front of him, Jeev handed him both cables to read. Arun looked up thoughtfully after perusing them.

  ‘I think we should exploit Shiraz, especially since there is no one on the unit’s rolls who has this kind of access to correspondence between the Bangladeshi government and its missions abroad. Sir, if you agree, I can speak to one of my contacts to find out whether Shiraz has joined the foreign office,’ he offered.

  Jeev sensed that his prodigy saw the immense intelligence possibilities in working with Shiraz.

  ‘He called me five minutes ago. I have agreed to meet him this afternoon. I suggest you accompany me. I have decided that you will be his handling officer,’ Jeev said.

  ‘Sir.’

  ‘I will introduce you to the source under a cover name. I want to make sure you have deniability in case you are exposed. Do you have a name in mind that you can easily live with and not forget in a crisis situation?’ Jeev enquired.

  Arun thought for a moment. ‘Sir, Kabir will be fine. It’s my pet name and known only to my parents and close family members. It can also pass as both a Hindu and a Muslim name,’ Arun suggested.

  ‘Good. It will also be easy for me to remember. Meet me in my office at 1.00 p.m.,’ Jeev said.

  Jeevnathan used a back door to exit the High Commission and then walked to a nearby taxi stand. He kept observing his surroundings carefully to ensure that no one was following him. Arun a.k.a. Kabir trailed him discreetly at a distance. They got into separate taxis and took circuitous routes to reach Roll Express. The precautions were necessary to spot any watchers and avoid them; it was possible that the meeting was a trap and that the source had informed the Counter Espionage Unit (CEU) about his meeting with Jeevnathan.

  At 1.55 p.m., Jeev and his deputy entered the restaurant together and saw a man occupying the corner table in the back. They walked towards him and Jeev greeted him as he sat down opposite him. Arun sat down next to the source without saying anything. The source didn’t say anything either, simply nodding his head to acknowledge their arrival.

  ‘I am sorry for the delay,’ Jeev said.

  ‘No problem. I got here only five minutes ago myself,’ Shiraz responded. ‘I did have some anxious moments when I tried to leave the office. My supervisor would not let me go for lunch till I finished deciphering the cables received since morning. Thankfully, I had taken the precaution of reserving the table in the morning so that we wouldn’t have to wait or sit somewhere where we couldn’t talk freely.’ Shiraz looked around anxiously to spot anything suspicious.

  ‘That was a sensible thing to do. Since you seem to be familiar with this restaurant, I suggest you order the food,’ Jeev proposed.

  As Shiraz read the menu card, Jeev took the opportunity to covertly size him up. The source was in his mid-thirties, with a dark brown complexion and slim build, and was probably no more than 5’7” tall. He sported a thick crop of black hair and his hollowed cheeks were covered with a neatly trimmed beard. Strangely, he appeared tense and very different from the man who had sounded so confident on the phone only a couple of hours ago.

  ‘I have been keen to meet you. Sohrab spoke very highly of you as a person and an associate,’ Jeev began to calm the source’s nerves.

  ‘Sir has always been very kind and generous,’ the source replied. ‘Mrs Sohrab was also very fond of my wife Rubeiya, who helped her buy the right kind of fish at a reasonable price, every week.’

  ‘I am sure your family must have enjoyed living in Wellington. I am told it is a beautiful place.’

  ‘Actually, I wanted to stay there for another year.’ Shiraz seemed to relax a little. ‘The ambassador liked my work immensely and even wrote to the foreign office requesting that they extend my tenure, but I decided to return to look after my old father.’

  ‘And your mother?’ Jeev asked.

  ‘She died twenty years ago. I had to marry early, at the age of fifteen, and it was my father-in-law who financed the two years of my graduation and paid for the preparatory courses prior to my joining my present job,’ he paused as the waiter came to take their order.

  As soon as he left, Jeev decided to talk business.

  ‘I don’t know how frequently Sohrab met you in Wellington, but it may not be advisable for me to see you on a regular basis. You are handling a very sensitive desk and if you are seen with a senior Indian diplomat, it may arouse the suspicions of the Special Branch, which could impact your safety and career,’ Jeev pointed out.

  ‘You don’t have to worry on that score. I can take care of myself, but I won’t work with anyone other than you,’ he stressed.

  ‘Sohrab’s case was different,’ Jeev persisted. ‘Both of you were working in New Zealand, where your activities were of no interest to its Security Intelligence Service. Here, many people know us. Seeing us meet frequently, they may begin questioning you and you may not be able to answer them satisfactorily.’

  ‘I understand. That was why it took me a while to contact you. In fact, I had almost given up on working for the Agency while I was posted here. I even spoke to Rubeiya and to Sohrab about my predicament. But both advised me to give it a try and see how my relationship with you evolved over a period of six months before deciding whether or not to carry it forward.’

  ‘You should not have called Sohrab on an open line. You never know, the National Security Intelligence may be monitoring the calls of all those working in the cipher unit. I hope your conversation went unrecorded. But it was a serious lapse on your part,’ Jeev reprimanded him.

  The source remained silent as he saw the waiter approaching with their food. Jeev politely declined eating anything, making the excuse that he was recovering from an upset stomach. He rarely had meals with sources in order to keep the discussions brief, pointed and less frivolous.

  ‘I wish you had told me. I could have deferred the meeting,’ Shiraz said.

  ‘But I was keen to meet you,’ Jeev said.

  As Arun and the source tucked into the food, Jeev considered his next move.

  ‘Let me introduce my colleague Kabir,’ Jeev began. ‘He will be your handling officer. He can pass easily as a Bangladeshi, and he speaks Bangla. I leave it to both of you to work out your modus operandi. However, I suggest that you meet at different locations and on different days and times, so that the Counter Espionage Unit of the NSI doesn’t sniff out a pattern in your encounters. Kabir will convey my requirements to you, but that doesn’t mean that I will not meet you,’ he paused to observe Shiraz’s reaction.

  The latter looked up momentarily and then continued eating. Jeev realized that he was not briefing a novice.

  ‘You should also avoid long intervals between meetings. Delayed reports will serve no purpose,’ Jeev emphasized. ‘But, at the same time, don’t be rash. You know your security environment best. So, be patient, and only when you are absolutely confident, call Kabir to collect the messages. It may be a better idea to exchange documents and payments mostly through drop boxes.’

  Totally focused on the food in front of him, Shiraz gave no indication of what he was thinking. Once he was finished eating, he finally looked up and requested Kabir to meet him four days hence at the Grand Mosque at 12.30 p.m.

  ‘Do you have any specific place at the mosque in mind?’ Kabir enquired, speaking for the first time.

  ‘I suggest that you wait in the lawn to the right of the main entrance. I will meet you there. From there, we can move to a quieter place to talk business.’<
br />
  Jeev wondered why Shiraz had not given his name so far and whether he wanted to be addressed by a different name to keep his Wellington identity concealed.

  ‘How should we address you?’ Jeev asked.

  ‘Rehman will be fine since it is a common name in my country,’ he promptly replied without batting an eyelid. It was obvious he did not want to be known as Shiraz in Bangladesh. It was equally obvious that Rehman was a hardened source, well aware of how to work as an espionage agent.

  ‘Don’t you want to know about your salary and the mode of payments?’

  ‘I haven’t even started providing you with reports. You should first read them and assess their quality. Only then will I be within my rights to fix the price tag.’

  ‘Fine, but I will initially pay you three hundred dollars a month. However, there is no limit on the payment. It can always be hiked, depending on what you submit,’ Jeev paused as the waiter came to clear the table. ‘Thank you for meeting me and for agreeing to work with us,’ he continued after the waiter left. ‘I hope this is the beginning of a very productive relationship.’

  ‘Are you a counsellor in the High Commission like Mr Sohrab?’ Rehman suddenly enquired.

  ‘No,’ Jeev said. Before the source could probe further, Jeev stood up, shook hands with Rehman and left.

  Seconds later, Kabir slipped a thousand takas into Rehman’s pocket, which the latter accepted without any fuss. Then he went up to the reception desk to settle the bill and left. Rehman stayed on and ordered a cup of tea.

  Kabir’s first encounter with Rehman went smoothly. Both met at the entrance of the Grand Mosque at 12.30 p.m. The source was warm, friendly and relaxed. He guided Kabir to a roadside eatery in a crowded area where they discussed personal and professional matters, including the mechanics of their future meetings, while savouring fish curry and rice. Unlike a typical source, Rehman did not allow Kabir to pay the bill. He said jokingly that he had managed to save something from his stint in Wellington and would not mind spending some of them on hosting his new friend from India. After lunch, as Kabir was leaving the restaurant, Rehman handed him a folder.