Bloodmoney (32 page)

“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.”

He looked at her dumbly, as if this were all too complicated for a simple Pakistani.

“I am sorry, Miss Marx, but I do not understand your golden rules and riddles. If you want my help you will have to explain it more clearly.”

“I am sure you understand very well, General. You probably figured it out long ago. And it is no riddle at all, just good tradecraft. We built a system to capture terrorists. We watched their bank transfers, their money flows, their phone calls, their credit-card purchases; their movements. Then we used computer programs to look for links and patterns, so that we could identify our targets. And then we killed them. Sometimes you helped.”

The general coughed.

“And now they are using the same tools against us. That is what has happened, isn’t it?”

The general smoothed the skirt of his uniform jacket. It was awkward to have to answer such a direct question.

“I think you may be on to something there, madam. Very well said, I think. They have taken your book of plays and made a copy, turned it inside out, rather. Yes, I think you have smoked it out now.”

He was playing with her and she didn’t like it. She reached out her hand again for his, but he withdrew his arms from the table and folded them, his long fingers intertwining.

“Who is this smart, General Malik? Who has organized this system? Do you have any idea?”

He stared at her, blankly at first, his face a mask. But then he softened slightly; his lips turned up at the corners and his eyes relaxed.

“Tell me,” she pressed. “Too many people have died.”

“Very sensitive, this one is. Not easy to talk about.”

“But you must help me. Mr. Hoffman said you were the only hope. I risked my life to come see you, General. I implore you.” She extended her hand again. She did everything but cry.

He sighed and smiled. Perhaps he had intended to tell her all along, but he acted as if it were a gesture of gallantry for a damsel in distress.

“Ah, Miss Marx, how can I refuse you? It is easier to be cold-blooded with a man, but a charming woman melts the heart.”

She disliked this playacting, but it obviously appealed to the general’s vanity.

“You are a gentleman,” she said. That brought a look of solemn satisfaction to the Pakistani’s face.

“Here is what I can tell you: There is a man we have been trying to apprehend for some time. He has many names, as you might expect. Usually people call him ‘the professor,’ or
‘ustad,’
which means the learned one. We think that he is the one who has solved these technical puzzles. We have made many investigations. But we do not know who he is. He covers his tracks very well. Perhaps he is already known to us, but we cannot see it. Maybe he is even known to you.”

“Where is this professor? How can we find him?”

The general shook his head slowly. “That is the difficulty, you see. He is a ghost. We have tried very hard to find him, you must believe me. We have summoned many professors over the last few years, I assure you. But we have not been successful. He has a network of associates, some known to us and some unknown. But even they do not know his identity; we see only where he has been, not where he is.”

Marx drained what was left of her water. She wanted to trust the general, but it was hard to believe that the ISI could not locate such a person, using its own pervasive net of contacts.

“Is this professor the leader of Al-Tawhid? They issued the statement taking credit for the operations he has enabled, so I assume he is their emir.”

“No, no. We suspect that he works with the Al-Tawhid. He uses their people. But he is not really a member. I do not think he is very comfortable with the jihadists’ ideas. He is a modern man, to know so many things. They are too primitive.”

“Then why would he do this? If he’s not a jihadist, why would he work so hard to kill American intelligence officers?”

“Ah, madam, I could tell you. But I am not sure you would want to hear the answer. It will be upsetting.”

“Of course I want to hear it. Don’t be silly. Tell me.”

“Perhaps it is a matter of revenge, madam. So many people have died in these wars, you see, and it is an insult that is felt by our whole nation. Perhaps the professor knew some of the dead, I cannot say. But I suspect it is a matter of personal honor for him. You said it yourself a moment ago: Do unto others.”

She was silent. There was nothing, really, to say. He went out to fetch his orderly and have him make some tea.

ISLAMABAD

Sophie Marx opened the
door of the guesthouse onto the cloying heat of the afternoon. It was claustrophobic inside and she needed a walk. The stillness of midday had broken: The surface of the lake was thick now with bugs, and every few seconds there was a ripple as a fish broke the water in pursuit. A lakeside path had been carefully planted with a border of rosebushes in shades of red and pink and yellow; their petals were limp in the humid summer air. The grass was patchy, bleached by the light, more dirt than lawn.

Marx ambled along, lost in thought, until she heard a voice ahead call out sharply, “
Rukiye!”
which means “stop” in Urdu. It was a Pakistani soldier brandishing his automatic weapon. Beyond him was a chain-link fence. She raised her hand apologetically and turned and headed back to the bungalow. So this was the limit of her freedom: fifty yards.

General Malik was waiting for her when she returned. He offered her a cup of hot tea that had been brewed by his orderly and sat her down on the couch, installing himself in a big easy chair next to it. The furniture was faded green velvet, topped by embroidered white doilies; like everything the Pakistani military touched, it conveyed a faint nostalgia for the bygone Raj. The general sipped his tea and ate one of the sweet biscuits that had been set out by his batman. The air conditioner chattered in the window.

“You shouldn’t go walking off on your own, madam. It isn’t safe for you.”

Marx didn’t answer. She was surely in jeopardy, but it wasn’t clear whether the general was her protector or her jailer. The Pakistani took another biscuit and sipped his tea. He seemed contented, which was not good. She spoke up.

“What are we going to do, General? I need to contact Mr. Hoffman soon. What am I going to tell him? We can’t do nothing.”

The general chuckled. He found her impatience amusing. He had resolved to help, but not quite yet.

“Do what? That is the question, you see. You Americans always want to do something. That is your nature. But the something that you do often makes things worse, whereas doing nothing would at least provide a neutral course of action. This is your problem, I think.”

“Maybe so, but I still have to do something. I’m in danger. You said so yourself. I need to take action, but I don’t know in which direction to go.”

“You really are quite brave, madam. I must say that. Cyril Hoffman chose a good emissary. And I want to be helpful, truly I do.”

The general reached into the pocket of his jacket and withdrew a piece of paper, edged with a red border.

“I have something more for you. Perhaps it will be useful.”

Marx took the paper from him. It had a classification marking at the top of the page and appeared to be an intelligence report in English. It began with a date, which was just over two months earlier. Below that there were two telephone numbers, identified as “Bhut 1” and “Bhut 2,” and the transcript of a brief conversation:

BHUT 1:
“Perihelion.”

BHUT 2:
“Aphelion.”

BHUT 1:
“Hello, there. This is your friend from the New World. I hope it is not too cold for you in Brussels.”

BHUT 2:
“Hello, back. It is the same here, always. It is Belgium.”

BHUT 1:
“I have new numbers. I am sending them to you at the same address as before.”

BHUT 2:
“You want all the transfers for these?”

BHUT 1:
“Yes.”

BHUT 2:
“It will take some time. There are new rules now. It is Europe: Privacy, privacy. I have to be careful.”

BHUT 1:
“How long?”

BHUT 2:
“A week. It has to be normal business. Is that too long?”

BHUT 1:
“No. That is soon enough. I want to have everything ready before we start.”

BHUT 2:
“Okay. I can do that.”

BHUT 1:
“Thanks, buddy. Perigee.”

BHUT 2:
“Apogee.”

Marx put down the paper and shrugged.

“Very interesting, no doubt. But what is it?”

“This is the transcript of a conversation we intercepted a couple of months ago.”

“Who are Bhut 1 and Bhut 2? The first man sounded like he must be an American, with the talk about the ‘New World’ and the ‘buddy’ stuff.”

“Very clever, that. It was meant to throw off anyone who was listening. But in fact, we believe that Mr. Bhut 1 is the gentleman I was describing before, ‘the professor.’ We have lost this link, I am afraid. He never used this cellular number again. But the person of immediate interest, for your purposes, is Bhut 2.”

“And who might Mr. Bhut 2 be? I take it from the transcript that he is in Brussels.”

“We believe that he is a Belgian national named Joseph Sabah. He is an employee of the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication, also known as SWIFT, which you will recall plays a rather important part in the scheme of your adversaries. I suspect that he is what might be called the ‘inside man.’”

“Have you done anything with this intelligence, General Malik?”

“Not until now.”

She looked at the paper again, more intently now. She wanted to understand every word.

“Why did they talk about ‘perihelion’ and ‘aphelion’ at the beginning, and ‘perigee’ and ‘apogee’ at the end? Is that a code?”

“A recognition code, I would say. It’s science talk. My smart major tells me that these words are used by physics students studying celestial mechanics. The first pair of words refers to orbits around the sun, the second to orbits around the earth. Or perhaps it’s the other way around. They must have common academic interests, although we haven’t been able to find the link.”

“And what about your crypt ‘bhut.’ What does that mean?”

“Ah, madam, it means ‘ghost’ in Urdu. That is our problem. We are dealing with Ghost 1 and Ghost 2. But perhaps you will do better in finding them than we have.”