Sohlberg and the White Death

by Jens Amundsen

  To kill or not to kill.

  That is the question.

  Although he never went to college Billy Buchanan liked reading Shakespeare in high school. Romeo and Juliet was his favorite along with Hamlet. Jake Van Rensselaer introduced him to Shakespeare’s sonnets and many other plays in Afghanistan of all places. The CIA agent had even given him an Arden Shakespeare book with all 154 sonnets. Buchanan enjoyed the books’ helpful notes that explained the poems.

  A few days before they parted ways Van Rensselaer gave him a copy of Hamlet.

  Thou know'st 'tis common; all that lives must die,

  Passing through nature to eternity.

  Billy Buchanan’s promising career as a military advisor abruptly ended when the Washington Post printed old Iraq pictures of him. He had posed for his colleagues after the Second Battle of Fallujah. The elites that sent him to kill belatedly discovered that they did not like pictures of him planting his triumphant boot on a pile of conquered enemy bodies. The PC crowd in Washington D.C. and New York and other big cities howled and conveniently forgot how men have behaved during wars over the past 5,000 years.

  Jake Van Rensselaer proved to be the ultimate government version of a BFF. He was an FWF—Fair Weather Friend. “Look here Billy . . . I like you and believe in expanding and sharing your capabilities. But this type of thing doesn’t go down well in Langley or the White House. It’s unacceptable.”

  A man can die but once; we owe God a death.

  Billy Buchanan finished his coffee. He found it strange that he had again fallen in love with Shakespeare amid the boredom and the cultural wasteland that existed between intense warfare episodes in the high deserts of Afghanistan.

  A man can die but once; we owe God a death.

  The hunter of animals and men now liked to compose his own verse and prose to help him understand his trade and its consequences.

  To kill or not to kill.

  That is the ultimate moral question for every man and woman.

  It’s the final question for every government.

  Death indeed makes man and woman wonder whether it’s more noble to suffer or to take up arms.

  Should we dread something after Death?

  What is Death?

  Death is the undiscovered country from which no traveler returns.

  The ultimate puzzle.

  The conscience-maker that makes soft cowards of most men but not me.

  Chapter 31/Trettien

  GENEVA, SWITZERLAND; FT. MEADE,

  MARYLAND; and, LANGLEY, VIRGINIA:

  NOVEMBER 15, OR SEVEN MONTHS

  AND 2 DAYS AFTER THE DAY

  Billy Buchanan appreciated the beauty of Parc de La Perle du Lac even in the darkness and the cold weather. The splendid park was well-named as “Pearl of the Lake” specially during the summer months when residents and tourists took in idyllic views of Lake Geneva and the massive blue wall of Mont Salève to the southeast.

  A weak sun rose over the Swiss Alps and at 7:15 AM he boarded one of the charming yellow taxiboats that cross the southern end of Lake Geneva. He chuckled at the name of the taxiboats—Mouettes Genevoises or Geneva Gulls. The first boat on the M4 line was empty. The boat hummed to life and it left the Châteaubriand station for the 30 minute trip to the Plage station on the east side of the lake.

  After the boat docked he hurried along the pier and looked for the man who had hired him. He carefully watched the commuters who sprinted towards the boat where they would find shelter from the biting wind. The commuters ignored him. They were too busy with the worries and problems of their own private worlds.

  His client sat on a lonely bench. The silver-haired man had a distinguished air about him thanks to the elegant winter overcoat of Loro Piana wool twill. The military-styled epaulettes befitted his commanding presence.

  “Everything is good to go,” said Pierre Féval who was also known as Col. Pierre Touvier from France (Nantes), Peter Blomkamp from South Africa (Cape Town), Yasser Idris from Egypt (Alexandria), Dr. Pedro Gomez from Honduras (Tegucigalpa), and retired John Deere tractor salesman Charlie Ott from Iowa USA (Sioux City). “Everything is in place.”

  “Like the parts of a watch.”

  “Exactly,” said the suave Frenchman. “No one will ever be able to put together all of the pieces after today.”

  “I will be ready at one o’clock.”

  “Good. Here are the keys to the boat.” Pierre nodded at the pier. “It’s the third boat to the left of the large sailboat with the tall mast. Do you feel confident handling the boat?”

  “We practiced more than enough. I will go at a decent speed. Nothing too fast that will attract attention.”

  “Remember . . . as soon as your business is done in Switzerland you must immediately pick up all of your gear and head northeast back into France . . . follow the G.P.S. settings that I programmed into the boat’s navigation system . . . that will be your shortest route to safety. I can help you in France if anything goes wrong . . . but you must get back to France.”

  “Understood.”

  “Let’s go over everything one more time. Thoroughness is the key to success. Right?”

  “Thoroughness and practice. . . . Obsession leads to perfection.”

  The colonel nodded in silent agreement. “You will dock in Yvoire on the French side of Lake Geneva no later than four in the afternoon . . . that gives you three hours . . . more than enough time to get to safety.”

  “Check.”

  “The rented car,” said Col. Touvier, “will be on the street that I showed you. You won’t rush driving back to Annecy. The last thing you want is a speeding ticket with your name on it.”

  “I’ll be relaxed . . . in no hurry. I’ll probably sleep a lot on the train to Paris and then to Frankfurt.”

  The colonel grinned. “Interesting. I also used to sleep a lot after every one of my engagements in the battlefield. War is tiresome business.”

  “Yep,” said the hunter of men from North Carolina. “Killing always exhausts me.”

  ~ ~ ~

  The young woman worked feverishly inside the black NSA building in Fort Meade. At 3:00 AM she had already spent 72 hours chasing down leads inside the spy agency’s headquarters in Maryland. Sara Robinson glanced at the POLARIS file that she was preparing for her boss. She studied a copy of the Lufthansa boarding pass that the subject had printed out two days ago on his Hewlett-Packard printer.

  Washington D.C. Dulles International to Frankfurt/Main International. November 13.

  Frankfurt/Main International to Washington D.C. Dulles International. November 16.

  Sara Robinson memorized the boarding pass information along with other critical information that DAISY had stolen from the target’s printer.

  The NSA analyst also went over all of the information that Xkeyscore had collected from a database called DINES or DNI Supreme. DINES gathered “Digital Network Information” which is the data that computer networks send to each other. She studied and organized the Xkeyscore paperwork for her Polaris target over the past four weeks.

  All web page requests.

  All web login information (including every username and password).

  Text and voice messages in all chat media.

  Phone numbers for all telephone calls that went out over the Internet.

  Email addresses including all of the information from the to/from, bcc, and cc fields.

  Email text and file attachments.

  Other Internet activity such as all credit card purchases and banking information which she had hacked into and downloaded. So far the financial information had been worthless because her Polaris target had not used his debit or credit cards since leaving for Europe.

  Who is paying for the trip?

  Where is the target?

  The answers to those questions should have come from Google and Microsoft and their SCOOP program. SCOOP was far better than Xkeyscore because SCOOP kept minute-by-minute logs of every single Internet activity of ev
ery person on the planet. For a small fee Google or Microsoft would gladly direct SCOOP to log every single keystroke ever made by any specific person from any computer linked to the Internet. Unfortunately the lumbering mega-corporations were far too slow to respond to Sara Robinson’s urgent requests. The SCOOP information had not arrived despite Sara Robinson’s hourly telephone calls.

  DINES had been the first to tip off Sara Robinson about suspicious activity centered around LARKOS—the needle in the haystack. LARKOS was a shadowy Tier 2 network based in London. Someone deep inside LARKOS was in communication with her Polaris target.

  ~ ~ ~

  LARKOS had caught the eye of Sara Robinson three years ago when the press announced that LARKOS had entered into a 10-year $ 800 million contract with British Telecom for full access to BT’s Tier 2 European Backbone (AS5400) system. The odd thing about LARKOS was that its true owners were unknown and it sold connections to shady Internet Service Providers all over the world including suspicious places like China, Congo, Lebanon, Uzbekistan, and Pakistan.

  Sara Robinson specialized in Tier 2 networks which are similar to Tier 1 networks. The Tier 1 networks provide all of the necessary hardware, software, and connections between very large Internet networks around the world. The only difference is that a Tier 2 network is not as large and therefore has to buy some Internet transit from a Tier 1 network.

  The NSA analyst had done her background research on LARKOS and gotten even more suspicious. At 3:15 AM she called her counterpart in London at the British spy agency GCHQ (Government Communications Headquarters). The sister agency of MI5 and MI6 was in charge of signal intelligence. The man assured her in sotto voice:

  “LARKOS is friendly. We have no issues with them.”

  The approval of GCHQ only meant one thing: LARKOS was controlled by the British or it was a collaborator with the intelligence service of a friendly nation or it was owned by a friendly spy agency.

  Sara Robinson looked up business information on LARKOS and discovered that it was owned by a British company that was owned by a company in Luxembourg. In other words she would never find out who were the real owners.

  ~ ~ ~

  A beep came out of her computer monitor. DAISY had just detected that someone had turned on her target’s printer. Sara Robinson clicked a button and printed out a travel itinerary at the same time that it was being inked out on the target’s Hewlett-Packard printer more than 400 miles away.

  It has to be his wife who’s printing out his itinerary. Great!

  The document showed all of the cities where the target was staying in Europe. The analyst at the National Security Agency had just received confirmation of her worst fears.

  A scowl flashed across her face.

  Sara Robinson did not like surprises because her bosses did not like surprises at Project Polaris. She doubted if her bosses would appreciate her hard work. But she was dedicated and didn’t really care if she got the patronizing and proverbial pat on the head as the only Afro-Asian working at the NSA.

  “I knew it . . . something was wrong.”

  Sara Robinson was the most senior analyst at the desk in charge of Polaris. The secret program was all about spying on all current and former members of all five branches of the U.S. military and their respective Guard and Reserve units.

  Army.

  Marine Corps.

  Navy.

  Air Force.

  Coast Guard.

  Plus all former and current civilian employees of the Department of Defense and the Department of Energy.

  The 30-year-old intelligence analyst reached for her operations manual. The surprise which she had spotted that day now required her to look up the name and emergency contact information of every government official who had to receive a Level One alert.

  “Well . . . well,” she whispered to herself when she saw a long list of names. “This is going to be a Hasan alert.”

  The Level One alert was named after U.S. Army Major Nidal Malik Hasan, M.D.

  Sara Robinson hurried to load all of the phone numbers and e-mail addresses into her computer’s emergency contact software. A Hasan alert was not to be taken lightly. It meant that someone in the U.S. military was engaged in suspicious activities with terrorists or foreign intelligence services. The worst nightmare in Washington D.C. was a current or retired member of the U.S. military who converted to radical Islam and morphed into a treasonous mole, a presidential assassin, or a co-conspirator in a sleeper terrorist cell.

  U.S. Army psychiatrist Nidal Malik Hasan was responsible for the NSA recording all telephone calls and all Internet activities of Polaris subjects inside and outside the USA. The massive and illegal eavesdropping program had begun on December 1, 2009—without search warrants—after the President signed a secret Executive Order. The order came on the heels of the terrorist massacre that Hasan had let loose at the Fort Hood army base in Texas.

  The NSA had pushed hard for Polaris because the NSA, the U.S. Army, and the FBI had done nothing to stop Hasan after the NSA and FBI discovered that he was communicating with Islamic terrorists in foreign countries. Major Hasan murdered 13 and wounded 30 because he felt that the USA was unfairly attacking Muslims throughout the world.

  ~ ~ ~

  Jake Van Rensselaer arrived early at his office in Langley Virginia. He had to attend a secure video conference at 6:00 AM with the CIA station chief in Malaysia when his secure phone rang at 5:47 AM.

  “Mr. Van Rensselaer . . . please hold for a Channel One call.”

  He waited a few minutes before he was patched into the emergency conference call. He was introduced to representatives from the White House, NSA, Pentagon, and FBI. He got the feeling that they had been trashing him and The Company.

  The Director of NSA Division 32 sounded as if he had just received a root canal without anesthesia. “Mr. Van Rensselaer . . . does the name William Buchanan sound familiar?”

  “I once knew someone with that name . . . a Billy Buchanan.”

  “What else do you know about him?” barked the Director of NSA Division 32.

  “He’s one hell of a sharpshooter. . . . Why do you ask?”

  “The subject is under surveillance with Polaris.”

  “That’s good.” Jake Van Rensselaer’s mind raced. He had to keep one step ahead of whatever accusation was incoming.

  A long pause.

  The Director of NSA Division 32 drummed the table with his fingers and said:

  “We’re about to issue a Level One alert on him.”

  “Why?”

  “Buchanan left the country two days ago. He took a Lufthansa flight from Dulles to Frankfurt. We need to know if this sniper is working for you . . . or for anyone else at The Company.”

  “Not as far as I know,” said Jake Van Rensselaer as an involuntary tremor rippled through his body. He wondered which of his agents and informants might be affected by the disturbing news.

  “Why don’t you check on that? . . . We’ll call you back in fifteen minutes.”

  “I will . . . but what is Billy Buchanan doing that’s so dangerous?”

  “You know we can’t give you the details at this point. Just tell us if he’s working for you guys.”

  The call ended.

  Jake Van Rensselaer stared at his Shakespeare wall calendar with memorable quotes and lavish color pictures of the Globe Theater and Stratford-upon-Avon.

  Billy is not the kind of soldier who goes haywire.

  He wouldn’t pull a Hasan.

  I doubt if Billy initiated contact with anyone . . . some hostile must have reached out to him.

  How does the N.S.A. know exactly what Billy Buchanan is doing and planning on doing?

  The CIA case officer then remembered that the obsequious executives at Hewlett-Packard had approached the NSA and CIA. The craven nitwits offered to “tweak” DAISY—an embedded piece of software and hardware inside HP printers and HP ink cartridges. Daisy was already copying every single document that was ever print
ed, scanned, or copied on an HP printer. A “tweak” for a new and improved DAISY would send all of that private information over the Internet to the NSA and CIA whenever the user’s computer was turned on and connected to the web. Canon and other printer manufacturers had followed the lemmings at HP.

  Daisy. You’ve been a bad bad girl.

  Jake Van Rensselaer waited out the full 15 minutes. He had the perfect strategy to deal with people who might have useful information. He lifted the phone and asked to be linked back to the conference callers.

  The Director of NSA Division 32 said, “Is this guy working for you or not? . . . We need to know because he’s on the move.”

  “It all depends. I will tell you what you need to know if you tell me what he’s doing and where he’s at.”

  “Excuse me? . . . Van Rensselaer . . . I’m not telling you what the subject is doing until you tell me if he’s working for you. By the way . . . I don’t think you’re going to tell me the truth if I tell you what this guy is doing and where he’s at right now.”

  “At least let me know why he’s a person of interest.”

  “One of our analysts picked up coded messages that Buchanan received from someone who’s surely in a foreign intelligence service. We ran the coded message through powerful algorithms and we’re pretty sure that the message asked Buchanan to hire out for an assassination in Europe.”

  Jake Van Rensselaer paled. Billy Buchanan had to be stopped.

  Which of my agents or informants are in danger?

  Is it time for damage control . . . time to leak some well-told tales for suckers?

  Or should I rush out and tip off all or some of my agents and informants?

  Which one?

  A torrent of profanities and threats poured out of the Director of NSA Division 32. But Jake Van Rensselaer wasn’t listening. He was trying to figure out a way to warn his people. He had hours if not minutes. But it was probably too late. Far too late.

  ~ ~ ~

  Route des Chatillons is a lovely street lined by hyper-expensive villas in the town of Mies on the southwest shores of Lake Geneva. The town is six miles north of Geneva in the Canton of Vaud which is well known for the interesting complaints of its wealthy old-money residents. They are bitterly opposed to the monstrous size of 100,000-square-foot mansions that are being built for Third World dictators and the enablers who help corrupt tyrants plunder the natural resources of nations and the public treasuries of countries.