It was incomprehensible.
The many organisations associated with Homeland Security had a technological advantage that they thought was absolute, and that made it possible to trace any phone call to or from American soil. Generally it took no more than a minute to identify a sender’s PC. In the shadow of the wide-ranging powers of attorney that George W. Bush had passed since 2001, the National Security Agency had gained what they believed to be almost total control of telephonic and electronic communication. The organisation saw no problem in the fact that they exceeded these powers of attorney in their efforts to be effective. They had a job to do. They had to ensure national security. The few who had the opportunity to discover these transgressions and the possibility to do anything about them chose to turn a blind eye.
The enemy was powerful and dangerous.
The US had to be protected at all costs.
These sinister messages, however, could not be traced. Not to the right place, at all events. The cutting-edge technology found the sender’s IP address or telephone number almost instantly, but when they were then investigated, the information appeared to be wrong. One call, where a deep man’s voice accused the American authorities of being arrogant and warned them not to harass decent citizens who had done nothing wrong other than having a Palestinian father, had apparently been made from the telephone of a seventy-year-old lady in Lake Placid, New York. At the time that one of the FBI’s offices in Manhattan received the call, the frail old woman was having a tea party with four equally charming friends. None of them had touched the phone and a log from the local telephone company showed the widow was telling the truth: no one had used the phone at that time.
The tea had cooled. Warren took a sip. He glasses steamed up for a moment, as if someone had breathed on them.
He turned to the more technical section of the report. He couldn’t understand much of it, and wasn’t particularly interested in the details. He wanted to read the conclusion, which he found on page 173: it was entirely possible to manipulate addressees in the way that had been done.
Slightly unnecessary conclusion, Warren said to himself. They’ve already documented more than a hundred and thirty cases of the phenomenon.
He adjusted one of the pillows behind his head to make it more comfortable.
Manipulation of this sort required substantial resources.
Yeah, yeah, he thought. No one ever thought it was the work of a poor man.
And presumably a telecommunications satellite. Or access to capacity on one. Rented or stolen.
A satellite? A bloody spaceship?
Warren was starting to feel cold; fifteen degrees was obviously not warm enough. He got up again to reset the switch in the box on the wall. This time he turned it to twenty degrees and then climbed back into bed and continued reading.
Satellites of this type were located in stationary orbits about forty thousand kilometres from the surface of the earth. Since all the telephone calls and electronic messages were linked to phones and computers on the east coast of the States, the actions were compatible with the use of an Arabic satellite.
An Arabic satellite would not be able to penetrate further into the country than that.
But it could reach the east coast.
Tracking, Warren thought impatiently and leafed quickly through the pages. With all the billions of dollars and powers of attorney and technology that we have, what about the tracking and reconstruction of the phone calls and messages?
Warren Scifford was a profiler.
He respected technique. In the course of his work tracking down serial killers and sadistic, sexually motivated murderers, he had over the years developed a deep respect for forensic pathologists and their magic, using chemistry, physics, electronics and technology. On occasion, he even sneaked a peak at an episode of CSI, in deep awe of the profession.
But this was beyond him. He could set up a PC and learn a few codes, but generally he was happy to let others look after the technology.
His area of competence was the soul.
He couldn’t understand this.
He carried on reading.
The messages stopped suddenly at 9.14 a.m., Eastern Time. At the exact time that the FBI went to investigate the first address they had traced. According to NSA’s log, someone had phoned the FBI headquarters in Quantico from a small house on the outskirts of the Everglades in Florida, with a chilling message that the USA was heading for a fall.
An old man with poor eyesight and terrible hearing lived in the house. His telephone wasn’t even connected. It lay covered in dust in the cellar, but his subscription was still live as his son in Miami paid all his father’s regular bills. Obviously without checking what they were for. Presumably he hadn’t visited the old man in years.
The messages had stopped at exactly the same time.
And none had been received since.
The report finished by saying that work was ongoing to analyse the voices and the language used, but nothing of any value to the investigation could be said yet about the recordings of the threats or the sixty or so emails with similar content. The voices were scrambled and distorted, so expectations were not high. The only thing that could be said with any certainty was that all the callers were men. For obvious reasons it was more difficult to establish the sex of the originators of the electronic messages.
End of report.
Warren was hungry.
He went to the minibar, took out a bar of chocolate and opened a bottle of Coke. Neither of them tasted any good, but did help to increase his blood sugar. The slight headache that he got when he didn’t have enough sleep disappeared.
He went back to bed. The thick document fell to the floor. According to instructions, it was to be destroyed immediately. But that could wait. He picked up the thinner file and held it at arm’s length for a few seconds. Then he lowered his arm on to the duvet.
The slim report was a masterpiece.
The problem was that no one seemed to be particularly interested in reading it, and even less so in responding to it.
Warren knew it almost off by heart, even though he had only read through the paper twice. The report had been prepared by the BSC Unit at home in DC and he had contributed as much as he could from this godforsaken place they called Norway.
Warren longed to go home. He closed his eyes.
He had started to feel old more and more frequently. Not just older, but old. He was tired and had bitten off more than he could chew with this new job. He wanted to go back to Quantico, to Virginia, to his family. To Kathleen, who had put up with him and his countless, deeply hurtful infidelities over the years. To his grown-up children, who had all settled near their childhood home. To his own house and garden. He wanted to go home, and felt a great pressure under his ribs that did not disappear even though he swallowed several times.
The thin report was a profile.
As always, they had started their work by analysing the actions and events. The BSC Unit worked along timelines and in depth, putting the events in context, analysing the causes and effects and studying the costs and complexity. Every detail in the sequence of events was set against alternative solutions, because that was the only way in which they could come close to capturing the motives and attitudes of the people who were behind the kidnapping of Madam President.
The picture that slowly emerged over the twenty pages worried Warren and his loyal colleagues in the BSC Unit just as much as the thick report scared the life out of the rest of the FBI.
They thought they would establish the profile of an organisation. A group of people, a terrorist cell. Possibly a small unit, an army fighting a holy war against Satan’s bulwark, the US.
Instead they saw the profile of a man.
One man.
Obviously he could not be acting alone. Everything that had happened since the BSC Unit saw the first vague signs of the Trojan Horse more than six weeks ago indicated that a disconcerting number of people were involved.