Chapter 6 – Wednesday, October 26th
England – 12:50 Local Time; 11:50 UTC
Anderson had much to think about on the way home, still unsure quite what to make of Gabriel. The man had certainly seemed genuine and his story believable. The information was also exclusively Anderson’s to do with as he saw fit, Gabriel fervently denying he had said anything to the police.
Not that Anderson had actually learnt a great deal about McDowell’s movements, just his dining schedule: he’d arrived at the hotel on Wednesday the 12th, followed soon after by a trip out for a meal with Hanson. Thursday evening was dinner at the hotel with a middle-aged male associate, finished off by drinks at the bar.
McDowell’s drinking companion remained something of an enigma. Wealthy enough to afford a suite on the top floor, he looked to have stayed the same two nights as McDowell. Yet none of the staff were prepared to reveal anything particularly helpful about him, Gabriel the only one to supply a vague physical description, his best guess as to the man’s nationality being Russian.
That wasn’t quite what Anderson wanted to hear, putting him a bit of a quandary. Passing on what he had learnt to SO15 would in some senses betray what Markova and Thomas had told him. Anderson’s expulsion from Russia the previous year had also been dependent on his silence regarding the terrorists’ links with Russia’s SVR. If this man was indeed Russian would Anderson be breaking his earlier pledge? And did it really matter anyway?
Anderson kept coming back to his original fear that he was being played. Whether it was the FSB or even McDowell, he wasn’t sure. Thanks to him SO15 and the Met were out looking for a specific threat to London, the terrorist threat level now increased to ‘Severe – an attack is highly likely’. But what else could he have done? To have ignored the package would have irresponsible, and SO15 needed to at least take some of the blame.
The news reports had kept him updated with the latest on the shootings in Mississippi and Washington. Hanson’s murder had shocked then confused Anderson, and he still wondered whether Russia had decided to interfere rather more directly, their reasons unclear. Maybe Paige Hanson wasn’t even the first to die, McDowell’s Russian associate similarly paying his respects to the coroner.
It was something else to add to his long list of unknowns, which brought Anderson back to Gabriel’s final offering. The friendly exchange between Gabriel and McDowell had moved beyond east coast cities to sights further inland, McDowell offering a flippant endorsement of one particular U.S. State. Even though Anderson knew the comment was probably meaningless, he felt he had to at least try and make sense of it – Charlotte would settle for nothing less.
There’s nowhere better than Virginia, even though you can’t breathe indoors and the bears lie in wait outside.
Anderson had checked twice with Gabriel that he’d got it correct: the wording might not be exact but Gabriel insisted it was close enough. Whether such trivia was actually worth fifty euros was highly debatable, yet Anderson found himself twisting the comment around in his mind, it almost sounding as if McDowell was speaking from bitter experience.
Anderson had no idea where in the U.S. McDowell was actually from, but Devereau’s sources soon supplied the answer: born in Sacramento, brought up in Seattle, parents now living outside Portland. All three cities were near the west coast and well over two thousand miles from Virginia, which suggested that McDowell’s words of advice were unlikely to be a consequence of his upbringing. His old unit of the 82nd Airborne was based at Fort Bragg, in North Carolina; the Virginia State Line lay to the north, just a hundred miles away, so that at least offered a possible answer. Other than those few basic facts, no-one seemed to know whether McDowell had ever lived in Virginia, or even if he was married.
McDowell’s comment kept gnawing away at Anderson. For some reason Virginia was worthy of a special mention. And what was this about not breathing indoors? He realised he was in danger of turning an offhand remark into something it wasn’t, but apart from a dubious Russian link it was the only useful thing he’d got from his visit to Hamburg.
It was late afternoon by the time Anderson reached Marshwick, brain still struggling to come up with a sensible solution to the puzzle. He knew he’d already wasted too much time on the problem; best now to accept defeat and let Charlotte put in her two pennyworth. As to what he should about McDowell’s associate and the fact he might be Russian – then that was a problem to put aside for another day.
Yaroslavl Oblast, Russia – 20:10 Local Time; 17:10 UTC
Markova was left in little doubt that she was an interloper, her supposed authority only temporary until she made a mistake or Morozov lost patience. True to his word, the General had sent six staff to operate the house’s small communications and data network, the facility a recent addition to what had become Morozov’s favourite refuge from the political claustrophobia of Moscow. With the house, its contents, and its upkeep paid for by the Russian Government, it seemed ironic that Markova was using it to counter Russia’s elected Head of State.
The additional staff were all GRU, their natural hostility to the FSB surprisingly muted, possibly due to the fact that all bar one were female. They certainly seemed to find it a pleasant change to have another woman in charge, although it was debatable whether Markova had any real authority, with the single male operative – a young Lieutenant named Belinsky - having to confirm her every command.
The GRU was Russia’s military intelligence arm and larger by far than the SVR; it could also call upon its own special forces, the spetsnaz operating in a dozen conflicts in the last decade alone, including Ukraine and Lithuania. From its headquarters at Khodynka in Moscow’s north-west suburbs, the GRU gathered intelligence from a variety of sources, primarily foreign agents, satellite data, and electronic intercepts. Now a small part of that expertise was also being turned inward, Sukhov’s movements over the last two weeks being looked at in more detail.
In addition to the usual intelligence gathering, the GRU had also accessed Sukhov’s phone records, the data passed on to Markova’s team for more detailed analysis. Such records were far more comprehensive than a standard domestic bill, in that the relevant cell towers were identified for both the caller and recipient, thereby giving an indication as to each person’s location.
It was a dangerous game they were playing, and by its very nature their action opened them up to detection by other agencies, their main concern the Ministry of Internal affairs and a newly compliant FSB. To Markova’s disappointment, there was nothing that unusual about Sukhov’s phone calls: no unexpected hotspots and no suspicious recipients or callers. A week after his return from Hamburg, he had made one further long-distance trip, a repeat visit to the Russian city of Khabarovsk north of Vladivostok, but again the phone data revealed nothing out of place.
Frustrated with the lack of progress, Markova abruptly moved the focus to London, the threatened terrorist attacks possibly just hours away. Sukhov’s two trips to London had been in late-June and mid-September, and the team’s first task was to work out where exactly he might have gone. Historical phone data generally only identified a single cell tower for each call made, and triangulation to give an exact position was thus impossible. If the caller was moving then the connection might switch from one tower to another, but without real-time access it was far from an exact science.
The data from Sukhov’s phone records pinpointed just five cell towers where multiple calls had connected, the results the same for both of Sukhov’s trips. Two were adjacent to Heathrow Airport, the remaining three forming a triangle centred on the village of Bray.
Markova looked closer, but apart from Bray having a so-called Millionaires’ Row and more than its fair share of Michelin-starred restaurants, there was nothing to excite interest. Still curious, she checked as to what additional records might be available, Belinsky taking great delight in revealing that Khodynka could access historical data for a specific cell tower, wherever it was.
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nbsp; Now, Markova’s team were set the wearisome task of checking the destination of every call connected to Bray’s three cell towers during Sukhov’s two trips to London, plus a week either side as well. For completeness, she also threw in satellite phones, the relevant calls identified through their GPS location. In total that would give her thirty-two days of data, enough surely to at least see if there was something, anything, which might provide the breakthrough she needed.
General Morozov’s time limit, if it were that, was edging ever closer. And despite Markova giving the orders, she remained a prisoner, ankle bracelet intact, denied direct access to any phone or computer, unable even to tap out a single command. Escape was still an option, the exact means finally decided, the necessary resources more or less acquired. Now all Markova needed was an acceptable set of circumstances to make the risks worthwhile.
Markova assumed the FSB would think her on the run, although she had slowly come to realise that the GRU and FSB were co-operating together rather more effectively than normal. By default, some in the FSB – like Markova – seemed to have chosen to side with Morozov over Golubeva, and even the attitude of Markova’s GRU guards was more relaxed than previously, the FSB not quite the rival of a week earlier.
Whether Morozov was actually the lesser of two evils, she had yet to decide. Just four days left until his deadline expired.
Washington D.C. – 17:30 Local Time; 21:30 UTC
Jensen sat in the Oval Office, the National Security Advisor – Amy Pittman – to his right, the President seated opposite. Just the three of them, the President wanting to be kept appraised of developments prior to the 27th and the threatened attacks. London, Washington or even Moscow – basically they had no idea which city was the target.
Of the three, Jensen would have picked Moscow, the number of demonstrations mounting, and a violent protest outside the Kremlin had finally persuaded the police to make us of batons and tear gas. It wasn’t so much President Golubeva that had provoked the crowd’s anger, more the repeated fear that the military held too much sway in Government, with General Morozov still a major figure in the ruling clique.
Elsewhere, the verbal spat between North Korea and Japan had cooled a little, Thorn successfully putting pressure on the government in Tokyo, the North Koreans helpfully managing to keep silent. China was once more embroiled in an argument with its neighbours over territorial claims in the South China Sea, with Vietnam demanding the withdrawal of a drilling rig from the disputed Spratly Islands.
At home, the Midterm Elections were the main political focus, the recent disappointing news on the economy adding a little more spice to what threatened to be a non-event. Voter apathy continued to be a serious problem, some regarding it as a national embarrassment. Even with the turnout predicted to be less than 35%, the prize of Senate control might still elude the Republicans. The President’s approval rating had in turn dropped another two points, more through disinterest than any obvious concerns, and at 48% it compared favourably with the two previous incumbents at a similar stage.
On a more personal level, the murder of two of Mississippi’s four Congressmen had only added to the meeting’s sombre mood. The FBI had already spent almost a whole day crawling over the scene with as yet no definitive answer as to who was responsible. The motive was also an unknown, the hit obviously the work of professionals. A week ago, a terrorist attack would have seemed an improbable scenario – now, after the communique from across the pond and Hanson’s own murder, such a possibility seemed far more likely.
“Hanson first,” President Cavanagh directed. “Security issues and the follow up to her murder. Then we can deal with Mississippi.”
Jensen quickly consulted his notes, “Hanson’s visit to the Wilhelmshaven Naval Base was authorised directly from the ONI and signed-off by her section head, a Captain Nolan. We have Nolan under investigation, and Hanson’s sister was certainly under the impression that the trip was official; however, ONI records show that Hanson was on a week’s leave during her trip to Germany. For the moment, as far as Nolan and his department are concerned, the FBI’s interest is purely a consequence of Hanson’s murder. It will take time to work out whether Nolan or anyone else in the ONI is involved, and we’ve only checked Hanson’s routine as far back as the end of August – nothing unexpected has yet turned up.”
That was as good as it got, and the rest of Jensen’s report was a whole lot of nothing. “The FBI have identified the car the sniper escaped in, but that’s all; no clue as to where it is or who its two occupants were. DNA results from the water tower have proved unhelpful: no match to McDowell or anyone else associated with the U.S. military or police, either past or present.”
The follow-up questions only confirmed what little the Intelligence Community actually knew about Hanson – no idea as to her relationship with McDowell, her possible role within his organisation, or even her motivation to betray her country.
And still no real clue as to why she was at Wilhelmshaven, as all she did for the two days was observe – nothing more. Jensen had set up a specialist team to deal specifically with the problem of Hanson, its members drawn from the Department of Homeland Security, the FBI, the CIA, and the National Security Agency. Hanson theoretically had access to the U.S. Navy’s Acoustic Intelligence Database and no-one had yet produced a compelling explanation for her presence at the symposium. The discussions were supposedly complex, especially for someone inexperienced in algorithms, and the only recommendations to come out of the two-day meeting were relatively minor, just slight modifications to NATO’s submarine database.
“We’ve offered our full assistance to the British,” Jensen continued, “and we’ve increased the threat level at embassies and diplomatic missions across Western Europe. There’s been no definite sightings of McDowell or anyone else associated with August 14; we assume he’s somewhere in the UK.”
The President asked, “And you believe it is August 14 that are responsible for all this. They were supposedly anti-Russian, not anti-British.”
“It’s not clear, Sir. But it does seem that the remains of the terrorist group have reformed with some new agenda in mind. We certainly don’t know who this offshoot is out to target, and the evidence for it even being London is tenuous at best.”
Amy Pittman was quick to interject, “Wasn’t Pat McDowell just some sort of security man for the terrorists? Shouldn’t we be focusing on someone higher up the chain of command?”
“He was far more than just that; maybe even August 14’s second-in-command. He’s obviously moved on and it would be unwise to misjudge his ability.”
“This British connection,” continued Pittman. “I seem to recall that there were several British associates of McDowell’s who are still unaccounted for; a Jack Carter for one?”
“Jonathan Carter,” Jensen confirmed. “There was a sighting of him in Quebec last December, but nothing since; two others are also on the run. Carter was August 14’s main computer specialist and if McDowell is working with anyone from last time, then I guess it would most likely be Jon Carter.”
Pittman persisted, “And these photographs the Brits intercepted – have they been of any use?”
Jensen tried to sound positive, “The restaurant shown behind Hanson has been identified, CCTV confirming McDowell and Hanson ate there. The staff members have been interviewed but there was nothing of real interest. The two photographs of just McDowell have him standing in front of a stone facade that could be part of a hundred buildings in Bremen, or indeed any other German city. We’ll obviously persevere in trying to identify where exactly they were taken, but I’m not hopeful.”
“It seems,” muttered Pittman with a hint of frustration, “that we actually know very little.”
Jensen chose not to comment. The questions continued, Jensen putting a brave face on what was essentially a pointless and unhelpful briefing, and a single-page written report would have served just as well.
It was an unfortunate truth
that Jensen’s task would be far easier once the first attack had actually happened. The present hit-and-miss approach was never going to be effective, and they needed something specific in order to focus their resources more accurately. Jensen could only hope that when the attack came and wherever it occurred, it was significantly less bloody than those suffered by Moscow during the terrorists’ previous brutal offensive.
Of course, it was always possible that the murders in Mississippi were somehow related to McDowell – a prospect the President also seized upon.
“Mississippi – is that part of this?”
Jensen was forced to stay with his know-nothing theme. “It’s no more than a possibility, Mr President. DNA from one of the vehicles has been matched to a Gary Steele; he’s ex-Special Forces, served in Afghanistan, present whereabouts unknown. We also have vague descriptions of three other men, but nothing that specific. One of them is described as being white, six-two, two hundred pounds – McDowell’s six-four, so it might be him.” Jensen shrugged, “We need to be careful and not jump to the wrong conclusion simply because it’s convenient. Maybe this is part of some local campaign against the Republicans or the State of Mississippi; it’s just too early to tell.”
The final phrase said it all, Jensen trusting that the breakthrough would come. Unfortunately, time had now run out, the 27th already making its pre-dawn appearance in a cold and wet London.