The Merchant of Secrets Page 4

  When she input the code my suspicions about Roger were vindicated as the name of Adnan Qureshi appeared with an identifying number. The face as it appeared on the computer screen looked markedly different from his appearance now in Washington D.C... On screen he had a beard, mustache and thick glasses. His hair was longer. And he wore an ordinary shirt, very different from the expensive attire he wore at the restaurant and earlier that night. He looked like someone else completely and definitely not a wealthy person. Judging from his impeccable appearance at the restaurant, his wealth came recently.

  “Keisha, what’s the date on these photos?” I asked leaning over her shoulder.

  “That one is about 10 years old, this one about 8 years ago…”she was pointing to the screen.

  “Show me the most recent,” I asked.

  “It’s this one, taken about a year ago.”

  “He’s still wearing ordinary clothes and a bad haircut, so that puts the date of his change in financial circumstances to sometime during the past 12 months. Someone paid him a lot of money in a very short period of time.” I looked down at Keisha, puzzled, and she looked back at me.

  “What’s he doing?” she asked.

  “I need to figure that out.”

  Below the picture, was a list of his addresses identifying properties in Spain, Turkey and a current P.O. Box in Abu Dhabi. Spain fit the story he gave us and Turkey he’d explain was a vacation house. Abu Dhabi was a well - known sanctuary for people seeking to hide money from the taxing authorities because the U.A.E. didn’t have a tax treaty with the U.S. requiring them to share information on the identities of their account holders. Then she ran his name through CORDIS, an FBI database, but it there wasn’t a hit, probably because he hadn’t been in the U.S. long enough to get caught. I copied the file on my portable drive then we logged off the system and left the room, turning the lights out as we left.

  As Keisha walked with me down the long hallway toward the door from which I had just entered a few minutes earlier she appeared nervous about something but I was too scared to ask what it was. There was something wrong. Spinning around suddenly and looking at me dead on, she said “Caroline, that database required a Top Secret clearance and I just assumed you still were cleared at that level.”

  I wasn’t. My prior job required a “Top Secret” clearance but the current position to which I was assigned required only a “Secret” clearance so my clearance authorization was downgraded to my current level of work. Accessing a database for which I didn’t have the appropriate level of authorization would get Keisha and me reprimanded or fired so it was a delicate situation.

  Seeking to delay answering, so that I could gather my scattered thoughts and figure out what to say, I turned to the drinking fountain attached to the wall a few feet away and went to get some water. Wiping my wet mouth with the back of my hand I said, “Don’t worry, we’re fine, I’m cleared.” The anxiety level was absolutely crushing. I was frightened that my face might give my lie away, and was in a hurry to get out of there before that could happen. She smiled as we continued to walk with me to the exit.

  “Let me know if you need me to write up a report,” Keisha said. Her report would have gotten back to my office and my boss would have raised Hell for me going to Ft. Meade without telling him.

  “Not quite yet. I’ll call you if something’s happening with it,” I replied.

  We said “goodnight” and I thanked her for willingness to devote her time to my project, especially so late on a Sunday night.

  As I descended the stone steps in the cold night air and walked quickly to my car I was shaking, but not from the cold. I drove back to my apartment. That night I knew I would never be able to sleep with everything that had happened rolling around in my head so I fixed myself a strong drink, then another, and another, until eventually I fell asleep.

  CHAPTER 8

  The morning after the alarm clock on my Blackberry rang, I pressed the button on the coffee machine and slipped into the shower, then quickly got dressed in the only clean clothes I had left in the closet. I looked out the window to savor a minute or two of sunlight before heading to the office where I wouldn’t see the sun for the remainder of the day. There were dozens of email messages on the company-issued laptop about a rash of new cyber-attacks on our embassies that had taken place overnight.

  As I slid into the front seat of the car and started the engine satisfied with the new information we had found on Mr. Qureshi but the Top Secret authorization issue nagged at my conscience. It felt awful to lie to my good friend even if it had been an unintentional error, and I wondered if anyone else would find out about it.

  At a stoplight on route 123 in McLean I pulled down the window flap and looked in the mirror to put on some mascara and to double-checked my make-up in the rear view mirror. Other cars rolled-up to the traffic light, including a silver Ford sedan with tinted windows like a surveillance vehicle. I picked up my phone and called Colin.

  Colin was part of a special unit within the agency that was built and staffed solely to gather information on the Iranian nuclear program. The unit scoured data gathered from RQ-Sentinel drones launched from U.S. bases across the border in Afghanistan to fly over Iran. Millions of photos of buildings, people and vehicles taken from deep inside Iranian territory were examined in search of valuable intelligence relating to the underground nuclear facilities. Attempts to permanently disrupt the Iranian nuclear program located near the city of Qom at the Fordow urnanium enrichment plant and at another plant near Nantz, had not succeeded and the Israelis were waiting in the wings eager to step-in in response to a perceived failure of the U.S. intelligence organizations to effectively abort the program. But Israeli intervention posed substantial diplomatic risks to American relations with our Arab friends who would come to Iran’s aid if Israel struck Iran. The pressure beyond the threat of a nuclear Iran was the threat of inflaming the Arab community if Israeli struck on Iran. The double jeopardy forced the intelligence community into a fast-forward crisis mode to stop the Iranians from developing its first nuclear bomb, expected sometime in 2013.

  “Hey Colin good morning, I’m on my way in to the office but wondered, has anyone been looking for me?” I asked while keeping my eye on the car with the tinted windows.

  “Oh Caroline! Good morning to you too,” Colin replied in an English accent. “Todd was here looking for you.”

  ‘Did he say what it’s about?”

  “No, but I was told to let him know when you arrive.”

  “I’ll be in later this afternoon, I have a meeting first” I replied, as a delay tactic to give me time to think.

  “Okay but hurry-in, this office gets pretty lonely without you,” Colin replied.

  Todd is the manager of Special Security for the company. The blue- print of his face is firmly imprinted on my mind and could have caused endless nightmares if I had allowed myself to wonder what services he provides for the company. He was a phantom-like figure who could strike fear in people just by walking down their hallway; reviled by everyone including our Deputy Director, Michael Mulally. I had entered a Top Secret database without proper authorization and Todd had gotten wind of it and was after me, but that did little to clarify who was in the surveillance car with the tinted windows.

  The traffic light changed to green. I pushed my foot on the accelerator, thrusting the car forward, and barreled unselfconsciously through the cars in front of me, zig-zagging, lane-to lane on the way to the capital beltway which surrounds Washington D.C. and the nearby suburbs in Maryland and Virginia. The other car sped-up behind me, keeping pace with all my moves. Changing tactic, I slammed on the brakes, and aimed my vehicle over the grass covered island separating northbound and southbound traffic, and into the stream of cars heading southbound in the direction of Langley.

  My heart was pounding heavily in my chest. Struggling to get air and dissolving into a state of panic, I became light- headed and was on the verge of passing out while the sounds of
traffic all around were loudly telling me to pull off the road. By yanking the steering wheel to the right I forced the car to make a hard right turn onto a side street, and then I slammed the brake pedal to the floor and shifted gear to “park”. I turned on the CD player, jammed in a CD and closed my eyes to drift off to the sound of Bach’s second violin concerto to relax. My hands had cramped- up from lack of oxygen as if rigor mortis had set–in. After a few minutes I was able to regain control. My hands un-cramped and my racing heart rate retreated. When oxygen again flowed freely to my lungs I switched gears, turned the car around, and headed away from the office.

  Fending off an assault from the manager of “Special Security” was not to be taken lightly and options had to be weighed, the most obvious of which was to hire a criminal defense attorney to make Todd back-off, but at about six hundred dollars per hour, that was way out of reach for what someone on my salary could afford. The next option was to move the project out of his jurisdiction, out of his area of responsibility, where he wouldn’t have the legal authority to pursue me.

  Bailey worked at the Internal Revenue Service Criminal Division. We had met each other at a joint training session in Florida where agents from different services are brought together to fuse the talents of different departments, avoiding the gaps in information sharing that some say led to the 9-11 attacks. She might consider joining a nascent investigation into Adnan Qureshi based on the flow of money and his physical presence here in the U.S.. Our company operated under the rules and regulations of the Department of Homeland Security, Bailey’s operated under the Treasury Department; a completely different world and most importantly, out of Todd’s reach.

  Bailey was about 40 years old, five foot six, and 125 pounds with gorgeous long brown hair and large brown eyes. She exuded an attractiveness that comes from the combination of feminine beauty and physical strength and was in complete control of her seductive power over men. She had a child-size waist and roundness in just the right places, and could have launched a career as a super model in her twenties, but ended up doing this instead. Working-out gave her the body and the confidence to wear tight fitting clothes, and across her hips she strapped-on a black leather belt with a gun in the holster.

  The Department of Homeland Security and the Treasury Department had competed against each other for primary jurisdiction over the biggest cases and for each department’s share of government’s appropriations in the federal budget. To get onto an interagency task force required a specific skill necessary for that objective and the approval by more than a few superiors, none of which I had at that moment. Knowledge of Adnan Qureshi was the only card I could play so the whole idea spun around in my head about a 100 times before the IRS building appeared through my car window.

  I climbed the cement stairs to the building, and called Bailey from the service phone in the lobby. She came down to escort me into the Top Secret office. When the elevator opened on the 6th floor there was a discrete door to the right into which Bailey disappeared. Then there was a large grey metal door straight ahead for everyone else. After pushing the buzzer, the door opened automatically I walked into a small chamber and stood motionless for a body scanner to do its work. When the person reading the scanner from an invisible location was done scanning me, the door on the opposite end of the chamber opened up into the offices of the criminal investigations unit of the IRS.

  Bailey was waiting inside, and offered a cup of coffee which I needed badly. It had been a heck of a night and the morning was worse. As we walked past a row of grey cubicles Bailey was grinning.

  “Was that you by any chance, looking at me in the scan?” I asked, embarrassed.

  “Yup,” she replied. “Time to get rid of the extra pounds,” she admonished with wink and a grin as she slapped my butt.

  She turned into an empty conference room with me trailing behind her, and closed the door behind us. Then settling- in at the table she crossed her legs and leaned back in the chair. “So, how’s everything with you guys?” she asked, stirring her coffee.

  “Pretty good,” I replied. “I see you’re doing more desk work now?”

  “I’m still out in the field, but I try to keep it within CONUS. Someone else can make the rounds overseas, I’m tired of the travel. ” CONUS is the abbreviation for continental U.S.

  Bailey continued, “Earlier this week I was being prepped by our lawyers to testify in a trial but it looks like the case will be settled out of court, so I won’t need to testify after all. Some guy who had attended M.I.T. tried to sell classified satellite information to the Israelis.”

  “How’d you get dragged into it?” I asked.

  “Well actually the investigation originated here, with his bank accounts. He couldn’t explain his cash flow. It just didn’t add up, so we notified the F.B.I. who then put him under surveillance, and we were all surprised to find out he was selling satellite information.”

  Raising her cup and taking a sip she asked “Okay, so what’s up?” She got to the point quickly. I knew I had to make a strong case now or lose the backing of the IRS.

  “I’m investigating someone named Adnan Qureshi, but it’s strictly off the record at this point. I’m following up on some leads but don’t have enough yet. He’s got a number of alternative addresses in Spain and Turkey and had a current P.O. Box in Abu Dhabi. The threat may be elevated because he’s staying in Great Falls under the name of Roger Valdez.”

  “Valdez? How’d he get from Qureshi to Valdez? Does he even speak Spanish?”

  “Yea.”

  ‘”You met him?” she asked, looking sideways at me.

  “Yea, in a restaurant in D.C..”

  Bailey drew a long sip of coffee. “Tell me about it.”

  “Nothing,” I answered. “He just came up to my friend and starting talking, introducing himself as Roger Valdez.”

  She stared at me in quasi-belief. “Okay,” she replied.

  Bailey, leaning back in her chair, intensified her look and paused while connecting the dots of information which I had begun pouring over to her. There was some context, some story, working in her brain but I didn’t know what it was and sure that she wouldn’t tell me. In a joint Task, one department takes the lead and usually that privilege lies with the originating agency. If interested, she’d jump-in sooner rather than later, to get the IRS on record as the agency with primary jurisdiction over the investigation.

  Bailey asked a series of follow-up questions which I couldn’t answer. She didn’t know how little I knew. The IRS had enough now to start a trail and to do initial inquiries to discover if there was enough information to devote resources to an investigation.

  Bailey phoned her “ P.O.C.“, short for “point of contact”, at the UAE desk at the State Department, Anna Oliverez.

  “Hi Anna, it’s Bailey at the IRS. We’re evaluating someone for possible criminal action and were wondering if you could release some information, if you’ve got it.”

  “Hi Bailey, sure, what’s the name?”

  “Adnan Qureshi. He’s got a P.O. Box in Abu Dhabi, he’s got a home in Spain, a home in Turkey……..” Bailey began repeating what I had told her.

  “Just a minute…found him….he’s listed as a journalist from Pakistan but we’re skeptical about his relationships. Maybe the journalist thing is covering for something else….” Anna’s intonation left it unclear as to whether she was raising a question or answering one.

  “Can you send me something?’ Bailey responded, now thoroughly hooked. “Our fax machine number for classified material is xxx-xxx”. Classified information is sent over closed, private networks, like the ones exposed by Wikileaks.

  We were hoping to have enough information from the State Department to convince Bailey’s boss to commit to the investigation. To pass the time while waiting for the fax to arrive from Anna, we went down to the sandwich shop on ground level of her building and tried to make light conversation but it was painfully superficial for both of us. We were anx
ious to see what the State Department would release. Meanwhile, the men in the shop smiled and said “hello” to Bailey; she was a sort of celebrity down there, because of the way she looked. After a few minutes we went back upstairs with eggs and juice and waited in the conference room until the admin poked her face in-between the door and the wall and announced the arrival of a large incoming fax. We stood-up and walked over to the specified machine that was making noise and dumping sheet after sheet from Olivia, into a tray.

  It was more than we expected, about 10 solid pages of intel on this one individual. We spread out the papers on the conference table and began pouring over our bounty. The report said that he had been the middle man involved in extracting a fee from the truck drivers to ensure safe passage for NATO convoys carrying supplies through the warring tribal regions of Pakistan. Selling security through the hazardous routes earned him a place in the State Department database. We spent all afternoon trying to analyze Qureshi; what known groups he might be connected-to, where his allegiance lies, where he was getting his money, where he was spending his money, how to map his money flows, and charting his travel. There’s training on how to create a profile on criminals and we all follow the same procedures, modifying them only slightly to the circumstances.