Every Second

29

Near Harrogate, England

Huge white spheres stood against the rolling green hills and farms of North Yorkshire’s moorland like a futuristic Stonehenge.

In a chamber deep below the complex, a US intelligence specialist listened to a fragment of an intercepted satellite phone exchange in Arabic.

“…is preparing to bring gifts to the wedding…”

The specialist reexamined the alert and summaries from the traffic operator, the linguist and the cryptologist, then he replayed the recording.

“…is preparing to bring gifts to the wedding…many, many guests…will be a big celebration…”

He sat up in his chair and began entering key notes from his analysis into his computer. His workstation was in a corner of the control room of the military installation known as Menwith Hill.

The base was owned by the British Ministry of Defence but was chiefly operated by the US National Security Agency. It was one of the most secretive intelligence-gathering systems in the world and the most secure. Food and supplies for the two thousand US military personnel and US contractors posted there were either delivered by ship or flown in from the United States.

The nearly three-dozen giant, white golf-ball-like structures rising from the base housed state-of-the-art satellite receivers and transmitters with an unparalleled ability to intercept every sort of communication anywhere on the planet. Operations had emerged from ECHELON, a communications network of listening posts around the world operated by Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the United States, to eavesdrop on the Soviet Union and the Eastern Bloc during the Cold War.

Menwith Hill now served as a critical missile warning line as part of the Ballistic Missile Defense System. The site was the European Relay Ground Station for the web of Space Based Infrared Satellites built to provide data on missile launches and trajectories.

But since September 11, 2001, terrorism had grown into the leading threat against the United States, its allies and other countries. Menwith Hill afforded its satellite imagery and surveillance capability to coordinate live, precise, military drone strikes and attacks by Special Forces against hostile elements. And intelligence units at the base ran operations intercepting and analyzing the communications of terror groups. Menwith’s supercomputers were capable of making millions of intercepts an hour. In nearly each case, targets used coded internet communication, encrypted satellite phones or disposable phones. Advanced technology helped process the encrypted data at unimaginable speed using data-mining software that could quickly pluck and lock on to key words or phrases.

Then it came down to the human factor, because the information still needed further analysis.

Intelligence officers had to understand and make sense of the complex signals, determining what they meant and where they fit in. To help, they also used information extracted from captured suspects or recovered by technicians from seized equipment. Menwith also relied on the work of agents and subcontractors in the field, whose sources and informants provided key but ever-changing data and positions.

In addition to the challenge of encrypted, coded exchanges, linguists had to contend with hundreds of languages. While they were the best translators in the world, they inevitably faced hurdles trying to comprehend everything they’d heard. A great deal could get by if you misunderstood slang, dialects or cultural contexts. The fear of missing critical information ran deep among all operators, no matter how long they’d been monitoring their target.

The intelligence specialist, who was fluent in Arabic, concentrated harder as he replayed the fragment of captured communications several more times.

“…is preparing to bring gifts to the wedding…many, many guests…will be a big celebration…”

The exchange was between two senior members of an active jihadist group. He resumed typing on his keyboard, submitting a few lines of characters. The dialects were Levantine, the kind heard in Syria or Lebanon and the Arabian Peninsula, perhaps. San’ani or Ta’izzi-Adeni, which were known to parts of Yemen.

“…the most beautiful gift will be from the clock maker…”

The specialist continually replayed the conversation. For the past six months he’d been tracking a case that involved intercepts of individuals from Iraq, Afghanistan, Turkey, Athens and London. However, this most recent series of calls had bounced from Syria and Yemen to individuals somewhere in the United States.

The specialist let more of the intercept play out as he continued analyzing it and making notes.

“…will present it…overseas…it will be a celebration gloriously remembered…”

The specialist stopped to focus on what he had so far. He clicked on to the map he’d been maintaining, which included dates, time lines and notations based on the intercepts of this network. For months he’d been finding small connections that always seemed to dead-end. But today, with this intercepted fragment, he’d mined what he believed was a key puzzle piece in an unfolding plot.

An attack against the US is coming.

He called his supervisor to his desk.

“Ma’am, please listen to this. I think we have something here that builds on previous developments. Something big.”

The supervisor slipped on the headset and listened.

“…will present it…overseas…it will be a celebration gloriously remembered…”

She listened two more times, consulted the specialist’s notes and drew upon all the alerts she’d been privy to from the last forty-eight hours. She nodded.

“Write it up ASAP. We need to get this to our people at home.”