by J C Ryan
For the rest of the day of their arrival, after the scrumptious lunch provided by Bly, and late into the night, they worked on the plan. Sean suggested, and they all agreed, it was time to cast their net wide.
James would have Ben Friedman get his Mossad agents onto Professor Anatolio Kakos’ case, put surveillance on him and tabs on his phones. He requested they learn everything there was to know about the man; who his friends, family, and associates were, and any other contacts he might have, however obscure. They needed to try to get access to his computers, email, and financial records, and to find out if he wrote that article in the archeological magazine because he loved rare books, or had he been instructed or paid to write it? If it were one of the latter, there could be a record of it somewhere.
The list of medical and pharmaceutical labs that Irene got from DARPA had to be checked out. Maybe that was another job for Ben Friedman to take on.
Apart from the constant fear of terrorist attacks and nuclear annihilation by Iran, Pakistan or other Muslim states with a nuclear arsenal, Israel’s intelligence community was also very aware of the real threat of chemical and biological weapons in the hands of their enemies.
Those weapons were much easier and cheaper to produce and hide than nuclear weapons. Mossad would almost certainly have far more detailed information about medical and pharmaceutical labs around the Middle East.
Now that Carter was back from Egypt, it was the right time to start dropping fake information about the nuclear project onto the A-Echelon data server. He would make up information that would look significant, important, and top-secret. It would be presented as the results of his latest research coming from the City of Lights and Professor Pillay’s dig site in Northern India.
The information would slowly grow and become more and more intense as he seemed to get ever closer to the unearthing of the ancient nuclear weapons.
In the meantime, Rick Winslow’s tracking software would keep a watchful electronic eye on who was accessing that information and where it was sent.
It was almost 10:00 pm when they were ready to go to bed. Carter walked Irene over to Bly’s house.
***
The next morning shortly after breakfast, Sean took off on a scenic aerial view of Freydis with Carter, James, Irene, and Dylan onboard the Piper Seneca, which had enough seats for the five of them.
Sean took the plane up to about 3,000 feet. Carter sat beside him as co-pilot, and they all had headsets on listening to Carter’s running commentary.
Suddenly Carter stopped talking; he squinted and looked again, no his eyes were not playing tricks on him. It was unmistakable.
He whispered as if someone else would hear him. “Sean, can you see over here, about four o’clock, that’s a drone, is it not?”
Sean banked the plane slightly to have a look. “Well, well, well, what have we here? Dylan, can you see it?”
“Yep got it,” Dylan replied.
James and Irene were in the seats on the left side of the plane and couldn’t see what Dylan was looking at. As the plane leveled out again, Irene looked out the window on her side and said, “I’m not sure if I’m looking at the same drone as you boys but there is one down here on the left at seven o’clock.”
Sean and James saw it at almost the same time. “That’s another one,” Sean said as he adjusted the nose of the plane to a slightly downward pitch.
“What the hell…” Carter exclaimed watching the drone below him. “Won’t they be able to spot you coming in?” Carter asked.
“They might have radar that could detect us, but the rest of their equipment will have been purposed to look down to the ground, not up. I’m not going to hang around them; I’m going to stay on course but just drop down a few hundred feet and slow down a bit so we can get a better look.”
“Who the hell would be operating drones out here?” James mumbled.
“I don’t want to borrow trouble, James,” Dylan said, “but I think we’ve just discovered that Ahote’s lost backpackers who had that encounter with the wolves were drone operators.”
A few minutes later Sean said, “Predator surveillance drones. US military issue, live-feed video and infrared cameras, heat sensors, and radar.”
“Are you serious?” Irene and James asked almost in unison. “Military drones over Freydis?” Irene continued.
“Dylan?” Sean asked.
“I’m afraid so,” Dylan replied. “Those are Predators. Sean and I have seen them thousands of times, no doubt about it, those are Predators. We’ve used them over and over again in our missions in the sandpit.” ‘Sandpit’ was the soldiers’ slang for the deserts of the Middle East.
“Look at that.” Sean pointed to the drone on his left. “They have picked us up on their radar and are changing direction, trying to get away from us.”
“Let’s chase the...” Carter started. “No, maybe not.”
“You’re starting to think like a real spook, Carter.” James chuckled.
“Okay, military drones,” Carter started again. “Does that mean the US military wants to know what I’m doing here? I suppose no one but the military is allowed to own those types of drones.”
“One would think so, Carter,” Sean laughed. “But if I tell you what sort of military equipment has landed in civilian hands, either through crooked quartermasters or stolen by unscrupulous people, you won’t sleep.”
Carter turned back to look at Dylan, who nodded in confirmation, then at James and Irene making the same gestures.
“Let me see if I have the full picture,” Carter said as he stared out the cockpit window in front of him. “Two days after I left for DC last time two people try to break into my house. Arriving in DC, I discovered AMZ Security deployed a surveillance team to watch and follow me and listen to my conversations. Now I’m back here for two days, and we find military drones snooping around.”
“Yep, that’s about this size of it, Carter,” Dylan replied. “You’re definitely a man of interest to someone.”
“Looks like our mole has his head out of the hole,” Carter grinned.
“Sean, I think it’s time to shake some trees and rattle a few cages. We need to smuggle some drone counter surveillance equipment in and track the operator’s base down. Then send a two-man reconnaissance team after them.”
“Great minds think alike,” Sean grinned. “You okay with that James, Irene?”
“Of course, go for it,” James replied.
“Carter, have you got satellite images and topographical maps of Freydis and surroundings,” Dylan inquired.
“Yes, I’ve got all of it in my study at home.”
Chapter 47 -
Let’s go to work
When they got back to Washington, after spending two days on Freydis, there was a lot to do. The discovery of the Sirralnnudam and the drones over Freydis provided big excitement and motivation for all of them. They knew it was now just a matter of time, patience, and careful maneuvering before they would know where Mackenzie and Liam were.
James and Irene scheduled a meeting with Ben Friedman to brief him on the situation and request his assistance while Sean and Dylan got busy working out a plan to track down the base of operation of the drones over Freydis, and briefing a reconnaissance team. Dylan reached out to his contact that was an expert in the preservation and restoration of old and rare books and asked him to make a convincing copy of the Sirralnnudam.
There might never be a need to use the contrived version of the Sirralnnudam, but they wanted it ready ‘just in case’. It was all dependent on who Professor Anatolio Kakos really was, a genuine rare-book enthusiast, or a proxy for someone else. It was entirely possible that he didn’t even want the book and that he just had an honest interest in knowing if another one of the books existed. Whatever the situation was, they were not going to take any chances; the book had to be ready before they could approach the Greek professor.
On Freydis, things were no less hectic. Carter continued his training an
d worked on building a portfolio of fake information about ancient nuclear weapons on the A-Echelon servers. He scanned the ancient data sheets from the City of Lights and copied the contents over to a mass storage device, and he was reading the Sirralnnudam, which was written in a language he could read, although not fluently. With great concentration and effort, he was slowly making sense of it.
Although he was very busy, Carter had a constant awareness of the drones overhead, watching him and everyone else on Freydis. In his mind, those drones hung around like the smoke from a wildfire. The constant itch between his shoulder blades, to which he’d referred before, was beginning to feel more like the sharp end of a dagger.
Carter had a three-week deadline, set by James, to load a sizeable chunk of fake information onto the A-Echelon servers. James explained that he had another meeting scheduled with the President in four weeks, and he needed the data to create his presentation.
Carter, James, Irene, Sean, and Dylan had a long and intense thinking session before they made the decision to withhold information from the President and the rest of the members who would be attending the meeting. None of them wanted to risk giving anyone else the information they had when there was so much at stake. Nevertheless, they had no illusions about the consequences for them if their trickery was discovered.
However, Carter assured them he would fall on his sword to save them. He could afford it and besides that; the way he intended to go about it, James, Irene, Sean, and Dylan would be able to claim that they acted on Carter’s information.
“Plausible deniability,” Carter told them. “The ‘get-out-of-jail-free’ card carried by all politicians and senior government officials in their inside pocket at all times.”
Andre and Roy offered to help if Carter was willing to show them how to operate the electron microscope and safely handle the sheets. In the evenings when Carter was busy reading and translating the Sirralnnudam, they were busy scanning and copying.
James got in touch with Ben Friedman and explained to him that there were urgent matters to discuss, which had to be done face-to-face. They agreed to meet at Caesar’s Palace in three days; anyone listening to that conversation would immediately have made arrangements to get observers out to Las Vegas. They would have been very disappointed to know that the Caesar’s Palace the two of them were referring to was not located at 3570 S Las Vegas Blvd, Las Vegas, Nevada, but was a Mossad safe house located in Hamburg, Germany.
James handed the reigns of A-Echelon over to Irene two days later and made his way to Hamburg on a private charter, traveling as ‘Daniel Smyth,’ an international business consultant from New York.
***
“No need to haul a planeload of electronic equipment over the border into Canada,” Rick Winslow told Sean and Dylan when he heard what they wanted.
“What do you suggest then?” Dylan queried.
“I’ll get a bit of time on one of Langley’s spy satellites the next time it travels over that part of the world.”
“How long is that going to take?” Sean wanted to know.
“The SSO’s – sun-synchronous orbit aka heliosynchronous orbit satellites, which Langley uses, complete 12 round trips a day. I can get you a trace on those drones in less than an hour once I’ve locked onto them.” He grinned at the surprise on their faces.
“Shit and we almost invaded Canada!” Sean laughed, shaking his head.
“That sounds all good and dandy, but will anyone know you have used the satellites?” Dylan asked.
“I work for them, remember?” Rick laughed. “It’s my job. I have to check that those satellites remain in good working order, that no one hacks into them, and I have to test them regularly.”
“What else can you get while you’re at it?” Dylan continued.
“Tell me what you want. I can probably hack into the data feed, which the drone beams back to the control center. Maybe I can do the same for the feed from the control center to wherever the collected data is being sent, the location of the control center and that sort of stuff.”
“We want all of that and might be back for more. But those will give us a good start,” Sean replied. “What do you reckon Dylan?”
“Yeah, that’s a good start. Thanks, Rick. Let us know when you’ve got it.”
***
James Rhodes arrived in Hamburg, Germany early in the morning and cleared customs without any problems as Daniel Smyth. He kept an eye open for any signs of a tail while the taxi transferred him to the luxurious Louis C Jacob Hotel where his room was reserved.
After he had checked in and unpacked his luggage, he took a shower, put on some casual clothes, had breakfast and a few cups of good strong coffee in one of the restaurants in the hotel, and then hailed a taxi to take him on a sightseeing tour of Hamburg. He got off at various sites to look at the historic buildings and features, used different taxis and even public transport on some occasions. After more than four hours of sightseeing, it was time to meet with Ben Friedman, and he was sure that he had not picked up a tail since his arrival in Germany. He was less than a quarter mile away from the safe house, code named ‘Caesar’s Palace’, by him and Ben years ago.
He and Ben shook hands and hugged; they were always glad to see each other.
Ben offered him coffee and a seat.
“Jim, my friend,” Ben started, “your good condition leaves me with no doubts that Carolyn is still taking very good care of you,” Ben laughed. “One day I have to meet this wonderful woman of yours. Any woman who could keep a man like you in such good shape at your age must be worth meeting.”
“Yeah, Ben,” James grinned. “I’m not sure I want her ever to meet you. She has lived a very sheltered life up to now, and I don’t want to ruin that by letting her meet someone like you.”
Ben chuckled. “Jim, you haven’t lost your diplomatic touch!” Ben sipped his coffee before enquiring, “Before we get too serious, what is the grassroots political climate over in America? Who is going to be the next president?”
“The election is still more than sixteen months away. At this stage, all the candidates can still afford to be vague. You know, making all those old patriotic rumblings – we want our country back – promising to turn the country around – create jobs – get China off our backs – sort out the immigration and health care problems on the first day in office, nothing specific and nothing of substance.”
Ben nodded. “You know the Israelis are always interested in who will be the next American president. The person occupying the Oval Office determines, to a large degree, how we shape our foreign policies and how secure we feel.”
“Well, if the election was held today,” James replied, “that’s if the polls are to be trusted, Vice President George Robertson would be the next occupant of the Oval Office, by a landslide.”
“Mhh, can’t say that we’d be very enthusiastic about that,” Ben commented.
James didn’t like the Vice President either, but he wanted to know what Ben’s reasons were. “Why is that?”
“It’s as you said before,” Ben replied, “telling the voters what they want to hear but leaving out the specifics. We are a bit concerned that, in all his years as ambassador in various Middle East countries, he has not made one single statement about the Middle East and what his vision is for the region.”
“Yeah, that’s true, but as you know, America’s Middle Eastern policy has become a big-ticket item in our politics, it’s on a par with illegal immigration and the economy. At this stage, none of the candidates wants to be tied to a policy that might have to change overnight. You know how volatile politics in the Middle East are.”
“That’s understandable, Jim, but one would have at least expected Robertson to have said something, even if it was vague. Nevertheless, that’s not my primary concern. What bothers me, and many of my colleagues is that Robertson is badmouthing the sitting President for his own gain. That is something we have never seen before, a Vice President demeaning his own boss. Al
ways before, even if your President and Vice-President didn’t see eye to eye on matters, their differences were always kept in-house, and a united front was portrayed to the public.”
James nodded. There were many rumors and hushed conversations floating around in the hallways of Capitol Hill about the disdain the President and his Veep had for each other.
Ben continued. “And last, but not least, is the fact that the man all of a sudden came out of the closet, declaring himself an evangelical Christian while the Mossad’s profile of him says he is an atheist.”
James was not surprised to hear about the Mossad having a file on the Veep. In fact, he was sure they would have a file on most of America’s senior politicians and government officials. “I agree it’s worrying to see him so openly courting the evangelical vote, portraying himself as one of them, and unscrupulously misleading people.”
“Ah, well, Jim, you and I won’t be able to swing the outcome of an election, that’s for sure,” Ben chortled. “Let’s get to our business.”
“The election is, thankfully, still a long way off, things might change,” James said.
He then continued and brought Ben up to date with all that happened since the last time they had contact, filling him in on the details of Carter’s trip to Egypt and the discovery of the surveillance operations against Carter.
“Someone is undoubtedly fascinated by this friend of yours, Jim. And I guess you don’t need more than two brain cells to figure out that the people who are interested in him now are the same as those who were interested in him before the bomb explosion?”
“Yep, that’s our assumption.”
“What about the nukes, Jim? They’re causing me nightmares.”
James explained that Carter had discovered some information in the City of Lights, which he was working on ‘as we speak,’ that might contain information about the nukes. He also discussed his belief that the people who were holding Mackenzie and Liam were very likely the same individuals who were after the nukes.
