Chapter Twelve
Stop One: Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. Sybil was met by
Special Agent Hank Desmond who transported her to the Department of
Linguistics, King Abdulaziz University, where they met Khalid bin Ali Al
Humaidan, the Director General of GIP [General Intelligence Presidency/Al
Mukhabarat Al A’amah], Prince Abdullah Hussein ibn Saud, President of the
University, and Dr. Fahd bin Nayef, head of the department.
Frankly, Sybil did not hold out much hope of getting
good intelligence from the usually secretive and paranoid Saudis, but she was
surprised.
“Please have a seat, Director,” Al Humaidan offered.
“We have been hard at work to find out the information you called about, and I
think we have a line on your quarry.”
“Thank you, Director General, I am on a fishing
expedition, as you know; and it will be a relief to catch something right off
the bat. Please cut to the chase.”
“I love your American expressions like, ‘cut to the
chase,’ they hit the target rather nicely. Here is a copy of four e-mails sent
to the deputy director of the linguistics department. To use the common
expression, we ‘hacked’ his private e-mails.”
He handed her the four documents. The IP address was
from the Naval Observatory in DC. That was corroborating, but also somewhat
disappointing. The sender was naval Lieutenant Samuel Richard Tosker—of whom
Sybil had never heard anything before. The recipient was BtM@AOL.com and the
electronic signature was Ha ha ha. The text was about how applied linguistics
worked as a science in the first two e-mails. The third and fourth e-mails
discussed back and forth about setting up a Saudi corporation in Sana’a, Yemen
to be named Saudi Professional Applied Linguistics, Ltd. The most gaping
absence was the lack of any other named individual. The most telling sentence
in the four e-mails was “You have the funding; I have the expertise and the
experts. We can control communications in every nation that speaks English,
Mandarin, Arabic, and Russian, for a start. What we need for the next three
months is a little more good chaos.” Signed Little BtM Ha ha ha.
“Do you know the location of these people, Director?”
“Oh, but of course. Sybil, you know from personal
experience the effectiveness of Al Mukhabarat Al A’amah.”
She did indeed, and it made her shudder inwardly, an
emotion she kept to herself by maintaining a soda-cracker facial expression.
“Care to share?”
“Anything to oblige our good American friends.”
“Said the crocodile to the scorpion on his back,”
thought Sybil.
“I need to have a quick talk with Lt. Tosker, please,
Sir.”
“We thought perchance that you would like to do that.
We fashioned an emergency message to the very interested lieutenant, and he
arrived in Jeddah last night. In fact, he is now sitting in Dr. Fahd bin
Nayef’s inner office awaiting the Devil Himself.”
“Is he feeling well?”
“Whatever could you be suggesting, Sybil? He is, in
fact, having a fine old time chatting with a truly brilliant young graduate
student about applied linguistics, which is her chosen PhD field. Oh, did I
mention that the young lady is not only very bright; she is a truly stunning
beauty?”
“One of yours, Director?” Sybil asked with a knowing
smile.
“Of course, My Friend; it would be lax of me to have it
otherwise.”
Sybil had no time for chit-chat or for romancing the
lieutenant when she came to face him.
“Lieutenant, do you recognize me?”
“I’m sorry, Ma’am, you look familiar, but I can’t place
you.”
“My name is Sybil Norcroft. I am the current director
of the United States Central Intelligence Agency. I am here on a mission ordered
by the president of the United States. I am busy, and I am serious. I have a
few questions. If you value what is left of your pathetic little life, you will
answer me truthfully and promptly.”
Without glancing at the document handed her by CIA
Saudi Arabia SAC Hank Desmond, she rattled off in fast precise English the
names, ages, general histories, present locations, and even the names of pets
of Lt. Tosker’s nuclear family—eight people in all, the youngest age two--and
of his parents, his wife’s parents and all six of their siblings. She made not
threats, not even a harsh look—just business.
Lt. Tosker was not a stupid man. He knew he had been
threatened by an expert, and that she was capable of carrying out any threat he
could even imagine.
He paused for only a moment, “What do you want to know,
and what kind of deal can I get? Immunity? Witsec? Guaranteed safety for my
family? I know quite a lot; not everything; but enough to get me killed by this
Beelzebub dude, if it ever gets out that I ratted.”
“Lieutenant, recognize that I have all the leverage and
that you are, as of this moment, a guest of the Saudi Arabian government. That
could be permanent, brief, or very, very long. The rest of
your…suggestions…depend on what you tell me that I can use in a court. That
court may not be one that gets public scrutiny, mind you; but it still likes to
have real evidence. Start talking.”
He began slowly and haltingly; but after a minute, the
wind got into his sails; and he poured out volumes of detailed information.
“What I know for a fact is that the whole Beelzebub
enterprise is a very complex and interwoven network. I doubt that anyone but
the man or woman who heads the thing actually knows the leader or the names of
the leadership group. They have a massive amount of money collected from
ransomware, extortion of governments and big companies, and from small cities,
and cybertheft. To keep the victims of extortion willing to pay the exact
amount demanded, the leadership has been scrupulous about keeping its promises.
Once you pay, we leave you alone. China, Russia, England, and the US, have so
far refused to give in. That means more terroristic attacks in those countries.
“I can give you the bank—it’s in Lichtenstein—that paid
me my two million bucks. But, I don’t know any names other than that of the
clerk that signed the check. I know the person who gives me orders—name of
Gordon Lang, who works in the Agriculture Department. I know the person to whom
I give information and instructions—name is Olivia Packer, works for Siemens. I
know they’re important because this Packer woman is a director in the Siemens
department involved in cybersecurity, including: infrastructure, digital
transformation charge, applied linguistics, automation, digitalization, and
electrification.”
The confession was recorded; and as soon as pertinent
information was revealed, Sybil sent it along to the intelligence services and
cybersecurity units of the relevant companies and nations. It took an hour to
extract every bit of information the man had.
Sybil looked at Lt. Tosker when he sagged back in his
chair and said, “I have just sent a message to the FBI to pick up your family
and to take them to Fort Meade, Maryland to keep them safe. You are going to be
taken to the brig in the same secure location, but you will not be allowed to
speak to your family. That is as far as I will go. You are a traitor on the
highest level. You should be executed but be grateful that the worst that
happens to you is that you stay healthy alone in living quarters the size of
your master bedroom closet for the rest of your life.”
She walked away and boarded her plane bound for Munich
for a meeting with Olga Gabler, head of BSI [Bundesamt für Sicherheit in der
Informationstechnik--the upper-level federal agency in charge of managing
computer and communication security for the German government. It is the German
Federal Office for Information Security, digital counterintelligence, and cyber
security]; Heinrich Wolfgang Streble, head of the BND [Bundesnachrichtendienst
Federal foreign intelligence and security service; Deiter Langerter, chief of the
BKA [Bundeskriminalamt--Federal criminal intelligence and security service];
and Lieutenant General Pieter Sturmgarten III, the head of MAD [Amt für den
Militärischen Abschirmdienst--Federal military intelligence and security
service].
She had prearranged the meeting and its purpose: a
federal raid on the Aktiengesellschaft [Siemens AG] cybersecurity and
digitalization unit located on Werner-von-Siemens-Straße in Munich. Shortly
before landing that Siemens CEO, Joe
Kaeser, had agreed not to challenge the raid and to secure full cooperation in
return for keeping the raid and its purpose out of the news media. He would be
joining the senior intelligence officers during the raid.
Sybil and her entourage of important intelligence
officials, the CEO, and a German signals and cybersecurity expert, swept
quickly through the large building and up to the third floor. Joseph
Finklestein, the director the cyber and digitalization unit, was sitting in his
plush office working diligently on his computer when the entourage marched into
his office and gave him the scare of his life.
“Was ist die Bedeutung dieser?” Finklestein demanded in
a trembling voice.
CEO Kaeser said, “Do not be alarmed, Joseph, the
meaning of this is that a Siemens employee or more than one may be implicated
in the heinous Beelzebub case. These people are scouring the world for any
information that would bring the criminals to justice and to put a stop to this
senseless killing. You are requested to cooperate.”
Finklestein knew full well what a “suggestion” from Joe
Kaeser meant.
He calmed down and said, “What can I do to help?”
“First, and very quietly, we need to know the exact
location of your co-worker, Olivia Packer. Second, these agents will bring in a
small army of specialists to take over every computer in your division. You are
to give the order, and to tell them to lift their hands above their heads and
away from their keyboards immediately. They will share every password they
have, even personal ones. Verstehen sie?”
Finklestein answered meekly, “Ja, Ich verstehe.”
“He understands and will cooperate fully,” Kaesar told
Sybil and the entourage.
With one exception, the computer searches and personal
interrogations went with smooth German efficiency. That exception was a mousy
mustachioed little man named Luis B. Cappachio, who made a mad dash for the
exit, dropping his papers, his computer mouse, and his brief case, on the floor
as he ran. The signals and cybersecurity expert tackled Luis; and, in short order,
he and Olivia Packer were ensconced in the Siemens security office under armed
guard.
Sybil and the German intelligence leaders began a hard
and detailed interrogation of the pair after explaining the potential
consequences of lying or obfuscating to questions posed in a national security
emergency.
They both feared the murky unknown figure they knew
only as Beelzebub the Magnificent; but, for the moment, they feared the
American and German intelligence officers more. They admitted working together
to further the Beelzebub enterprise for the staggering sum of 3.6 million € [4
million USD] each. Their families were promised by Sybil and her co-horts
lifetime security, and they were promised that they would not be extradited or
executed. For that largesse, they spilled their guts.
The following pertinent things were learned: the pair
had facilitated in Siemens’ name the laundering of nearly a trillion USD
through a consortium of banks regularly used by terrorists. Their unsuspecting
co-workers—who believed they were working for the German government—had set
aside their real work and had begun hacking major governmental and company
computer secrets and transmitting them to a private computer center in
Morgantown, West Virginia in the US. Unknown to the CEO of Siemens, the company
gave its stamp of approval to the use of its digital technology, expertise, and
machinery to cause the Chinese and Russian attacks on each other.
That piece of information alone put to rest any further
antagonisms between the two nations, and the rest of the world who were made
privy to the information were relieved of a huge angst. Immediately after
walking out of the Siemens’ headquarters building, Sybil called Lincoln on his
sat phone and told him to go to Morgantown and why. She boarded her plane for
the same destination. There seemed to be some clearing of the fog of deception,
but Sybil was far from satisfied.
No comments:
Post a Comment