Locked On

39

Melanie Kraft did not mind working late in the operations center of the National Counterterrorism Center. Her work consumed her, especially after she’d been handed a project by her boss, Mary Pat Foley, the week before.

Mary Pat had tasked her with learning everything she could about a brigadier general in Pakistan’s ISI named Riaz Rehan. A curious tip to CIA from a one-time-use overseas e-mail address implicated the general as a former operative in both Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammed. This was interesting, but NCTC needed to know what Rehan was up to now.

Melanie had worked the question from several different angles, and she’d struck out several times a day in the past week. But she’d been working the Rehan question all day, and she felt like she had something to show for it.

It was after midnight when she thought she had enough to go to the assistant director, and she knew Mary Pat was still in her office. She tapped on the office door, softly and somewhat reluctantly.

“Come in.”

Melanie entered, and Mary Pat’s tired eyes widened. “Dear Lord, girl, if you look that tired at your age, I must look like the walking dead.”

“I’m sorry to bother you. I know better than to troubleshoot theories with the boss, but my brain is fried and there isn’t anyone else to bounce this off of.”

“I’m glad you popped in. Want to go grab a coffee?”

A minute later they were down in the cafeteria, spinning stirrer sticks in hot coffee. Mary Pat said, “Whatever you have has got to be more stimulating than what I’m working on. DHS is asking me to help with a report for Congress. I’d rather be doing something substantive, but you kids get to do all the fun stuff.”

“I’m working on Rehan and his department at ISI.”

“Joint Intel Miscellaneous, right?” Mary Pat asked.

“Yes. A misleading name for the division that runs all Pakistan’s foreign spies and liaises with all the terrorists around the world.”

“A lot of sneaky people work in government around the world,” Foley said. “It’s not below them to hide something nefarious behind bureaucratic-speak.”

Melanie nodded. “From what I can tell of Rehan’s organization, his department’s operational tempo has been through the roof in the past month.”

“Impress me with what you’ve found out.”

“The general himself is such a cipher, I decided to dig into his organization a little more, maybe find something that can lead to an understanding of what they are doing.”

“What did you find?”

“A thirty-year-old Pakistani was arrested two months ago in New York; he got in a fight buying a knockoff watch in Chinatown. In his possession NYPD found twelve thousand dollars, and thirteen prepaid Visa cards totaling thirty-seven grand, and a debit card for a checking account in Dubai. Apparently this guy was withdrawing cash with his debit card and then going to bodegas and drugstores and using the cash to buy the prepaid cards. A couple here, a couple there, so as not to attract attention.”

“Interesting,” Mary Pat said as she sipped her milky coffee.

“He was deported immediately, without much of an investigation, but I’ve been looking into the guy, and I think he was JIM.”

“Why?”

“A, he fits the mold. Heavy Islamic family ties to the FATA, he served in a traditionally Islamist unit in the PDF, and then left that unit, going into reserve duty. That’s common for ISI employees.”

“B?” Mary Pat asked, not exactly sold on the circumstantial nature of Melanie’s inference.

“B, the Dubai account. It’s registered to a shell corporation in Abu Dhabi that we’ve tied to contributions to Islamist players in the past.”

“A slush fund?”

“Right. The shell corporation has some transactions in Islamabad, and the bank itself has been used by different groups. Lashkar men in Delhi, Haqqani men in Kabul, Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen in Chittagong.”

“Is there another shoe still to drop here?”

“I am hoping you will tell me.” Melanie hesitated, then said, “Riaz Rehan, we have determined, was the man known as Khalid Mir. Mir is a Lashkar-e-Taiba operative.”

“Right.”

“Well, Lashkar men working in India on missions that have been linked to Khalid Mir have been known to use prepaid Visa cards bought with cash in New York.”

Mary Pat nodded. “I think I remember reading that in the past.”

“And Riaz Rehan was also known as Abu Kashmiri, a known high-level operative for Jaish-e-Mohammed.”

“Yes?”

“Well, a three-man Jaish-e-Mohammed cell that was killed after an ambush in Kabul was found to be using prepaid Visas purchased in New York.”

Mary Pat shook her head. “Melanie, lots of terrorist organizations have been using these prepaid cards in the past years. It is the easiest way to move money without leaving a financial trail. And we’ve picked up other shady Middle Eastern characters in New York with loads of cash on trips to buy prepaid cards, presumably to pass them out to others to create an untraceable conduit of operating funds.”

“That’s my point exactly. The other people who have been picked up and deported. What if they were working for Rehan, as well?”

“The ones we were able to tie down had no known association with JIM.”

“Neither did Khalid Mir or Abu Kashmiri. I am just saying, if Rehan uses this MO, then the same method of operation might mean the same man is behind it. I am starting to think Rehan has more identities than the ones we know about.”

Mary Pat Foley looked at Melanie Kraft a long time before speaking, as if she was trying to decide if she should. Finally she said, “For the past fifteen years there have been rumors. Just little whispers here and there that there was one unknown operative, a freelancer, who was behind all of the lower-level attacks.”

Melanie asked, “What do you mean all of them?”

“Lots. An incredible amount. Some of our forensic guys over at Langley would point to little pieces of tradecraft that were used across all the operations. Everyone started using Dubai accounts around the same time. Everybody started using steganography around the same time. Everybody started using prepaid phone cards around the same time. Internet phones as well.”

Melanie continued to look incredulous. “Playing the devil’s advocate, it’s not uncommon at all to find similar tradecraft in operations from unconnected groups. They learn from each other’s ops, they pass field manuals around Pakistan, they get advice from ISI. Plus, when they do evolve individually, it is at a similar pace, using technology that they can get their hands on. It just stands to reason that, for example, all the groups started using long-distance phone cards around the time they became popular, or thumb drives when they became cheap enough. I don’t buy this ghost story.”

“You’re right to be skeptical. It was an exciting theory that explained things the easy way, without any more work than saying, ‘Forrest Gump probably did it.’”

Melanie laughed. “His code name was Forrest Gump?”

“Unofficial, he never got an official designation. But he was a character who showed up everywhere something happened. The name seemed to fit. And remember, some of these groups I am talking about had nothing to do with one another. But some at the Agency were convinced there was one common thread running through them all. One coordinator of operations. Like they were all managed, or advised, at least, by the same individual.”

“Are you saying Riaz Rehan might be Forrest Gump?”

Mary Pat shrugged. Drained the rest of her coffee. “A couple months ago he was just another low-level general running an office in the ISI. Since then we’ve learned a lot about him, and it’s all bad. Keep digging.”

“Yes, ma’am,” said Melanie, and she stood to return to her desk.

“But not tonight. Get out of here. Go home and get some sleep. Or better yet, call Junior. Have him take you to a very late dinner.”

Melanie smiled, looked down at the floor.

“He called today. We’re getting together tomorrow.”

Mary Pat Foley smiled.