“This is what I wanted you to see,” said the general. “Mumbo jumbo, you will say. But look, please, and then we can talk about what it all might mean.”
He turned the computer screen toward her, so that she could read the document more clearly. It displayed the four strings of letters and numbers:
1) BANK JULIUS BAER BKJULIUS CH12 0869-6005-2654-1601-2 BAERCHZU 200 71835 BANK ALFALAH ALFHAFKA 720 34120
2) BARCLAYS BANK BARCLON GB35 BARC-4026-3433-1557-68 BARCGBZZ 317 82993 AMONATBONK ASSETJ22 297 45190.
He handed her a piece of paper that contained the same brief burst of information. That was his gift, for which he had summoned her, at considerable danger, from across the sea.
Marx studied the screen, trying to break the code. At length, she turned back toward the Pakistani officer. She was shaking her head.
“I want to understand what this means, General, but I am having trouble. It looks like bank routing numbers. Can you decipher it for me?”
“Perhaps I can,” he answered. “Not because I am smart about such things, which is very far from true. But I have a young major on my staff who is quite the computer buff. He has been helping me, you see, so that I could make some sense of this bloody nonsense.”
She took his hand and held it for a moment. It was a forward gesture for a woman in a Muslim country, but it was spontaneous and genuine.
“Please tell me whatever you can. I don’t mean to be overly dramatic, but it’s a matter of life and death.”
The general nodded, in deference to the woman’s distress.
“I will tell you everything, then, madam. I was not sure that I would do so. This is a complicated business for us. I do not need to explain. But now that I see you, and understand the risk you have taken to come here, I am quite ready to be helpful.”
“You are very generous. Thank you.”
“The first thing you need to know, madam, is that I obtained this computer device from a Tawhid courier we captured in the Tribal Areas just over a week ago. He was on his way into Afghanistan. During interrogation, he stated that the information on this device would help his group to kill American agents.
“The American agents are dead,” she said. “The latest victim was just killed in Kabul. I was notified before I left London.”
General Malik bit his lip. He shook his head. He appeared sorrowful, but that was only to hide his feeling of guilt. He had been warned that such an attack was coming and he had done nothing to stop it. That was the fact. He leaned toward her across the table.
“I am sorry for this, but it could not have been helped.”
She kept silent for a moment, but she was angry. The operative in Kabul had been her colleague. He had a wife and children.
“Yes, General, it could have been helped. You could have stopped the people who killed him. Or you could have told us. This is a strange friendship, where you watch our people get killed and don’t do anything to prevent it. We deserve better than this, don’t you think?”
He put his hands up, palms extended limply. “Please, please. This is not the time for recriminations. We have much for which we could reproach you. This is a tricky game, you know. We are not playing cricket on a nice green lawn. Perhaps I should go away. What is the use? It is the same old story: You blame us, we blame you.”
He pulled back his chair and rose, as if he were preparing to leave.
“Please stay, General. Talk with me. I am trying to be honest with you. It is a measure of my respect. We must understand each other, for it is a fact that we need your help.”
He bowed his head, not quite in deference. He was still standing.
“Please,” she repeated.
“Very well,” he said, taking his seat again. “We will not think about the past, but the future. Let me continue with my story. We intercepted this courier fellow. He was carrying the computer drive that I have shown you, containing the information that is on the screen there. He told us that there were others on the road carrying the same information. We did not understand it at first.”
“But now you do?”
“Yes. My clever major thinks he does, at least. These are bank codes, just as you say. They are numbered, one and two, for two American agents that the Tawhid was tracking. Let us look at the first line.” He pointed to the first line of code on the screen:
1) BANK JULIUS BAER BKJULIUS CH12 0869-6005-2654-1601-2 BAERCHZU 200 71835.
“So here is what we think: This is the coding for the bank account from which a payment originated. It is Bank Julius Baer, a private bank in Zurich, which is known as ‘BKJULIUS.’ What follows that is a twenty-one-character code, beginning with ‘CH12.’ We believe this is the International Bank Account Number for the originating account. This is called the IBAN, I am told. The final entry, which begins ‘BAERCHZU,’ is what is known as the SWIFT code. I had always assumed this was a reference to making haste. But no, my major tells me that it is an acronym for Society of Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication, which manages this system for wire transfers. I hope that makes sense, perhaps just a bit.”
“It makes perfect sense, General. And let me make a guess. The second line is the recipient account.” She pointed to the second line on the screen:
BANK ALFALAH ALFHAFKA 720 34120
“You are the clever one, madam. This is the account that your operative in Kabul was using to receive the payment for the gentleman he intended to, what shall we say, to bribe. It does not include an IBAN designator because Afghanistan is not part of the IBAN system. But it does include a SWIFT account address with the ‘AF’ and ‘KA’ notations to signify Afghanistan and Kabul.”
“What about number two? I assume it’s the same pattern, originating account and receiving account.” She traced the two lines with her finger:
2) BARCLAYS BANK BARCLON GB35 BARC-4026-3433-1557-68 BARCGBZZ 317 82993 AMONATBONK ASSETJ22 297 45190.
She looked at the end of the string for the SWIFT code of the recipient bank. “TJ” was the country designator. She groaned and shook her head. That stood for Tajikistan. This was the address of the bank in Dushanbe that had been receiving money for Meredith Rockwell, now deceased.
Marx closed the laptop. She did not want to look at the ghostly glow of the screen anymore.
“I knew the recipient,” she said. “This message was her death sentence.”
“Yes, it was. I am sorry to say so. These miscreants are very smart. They obtain the routing numbers, you see, and then they recruit people in the banks, simple Muslim boys who are clerks. That way they learn who controls these accounts. When a payment arrives, they know the paymaster is coming soon, and they know the name, the work name, you see. And there are other things, I think.”
“What other things are those, General Malik?”
“Credit card numbers, perhaps, airplane reservations, patterns, signatures. Who can say? Whatever is on a computer. All the things that you think are confidential. That is how they know that you are here, madam. They start with a few pieces of data, and then they connect them. They highlight the person who buys the ticket from London to Islamabad using the same telephone number or wire-transfer procedures as someone already on their list. They follow the patterns, you see. Like any clever idea, it is really quite simple. You just have to be smart enough to think of it.”
She put her head in her hands. She had been trying to solve this puzzle, piece by piece, and at last she could see the picture: It was a system that had been constructed as if in a mirror image.
“My God. It’s so obvious,” she said.
The Pakistani general looked at her curiously, waiting for some explanation of her outburst.
“Do unto others,” she said.
“I beg your pardon, madam.”
“We call it the Golden Rule: Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Well, now they’re doing it unto us.”