Chapter 19
Brent spent a restless night trying to decide if the Government was taking the right action. The KMP surveillance exercise was snowballing into an international crisis with no end in sight and no obvious solution.
He had assisted in identifying the problem, but control of the solution had been passed to more than one committee. He had no issue with the Civil Defence Emergency Management group, but throughout the preceding day he felt his influence being gradually eroded away.
By 3.00am he convinced himself he was being sidelined. He needed to walk back into the office with a radical plan of action.
But before he had a chance, at 6.00am his phone rang.
Managing the response to a national emergency was a twenty-four hour operation. The NZCIS had a Black Room through which all telecommunications generated in, or entering, New Zealand were passed. A small team had worked throughout the night and had finished compiling a file of emails.
The concept of a ‘Cabinet Noir’ or Black Room dated back to the reign of Louis XIII. It was the office where letters sent by suspicious individuals were opened and read by public officials before being forwarded to their destination.
The practice was adopted during the First World War when the New Zealand Government employed the tactic as a means of censoring mail in order to protect and maintain the morale at home, shielding it from graphic and depressing correspondence sent from the front line thousands of miles away in Europe.
Black Rooms, although officially denied, existed around the world, small secure facilities, often housed in the unassuming offices of an existing telecommunications company, allowing access to all internet and phone traffic that passed through the room.
New Zealand had ironically acquired its own Black Room in the mid-nineties when the main telecommunication company was owned, by an American corporation. The American Government had openly offered the facility as a means of establishing a discrete listening post in the Southern Pacific in the early days of the internet. The use of email and mobile phones was expected to grow. The intention had been to install a Black Room early, so it would be deeply embedded within the original system architecture and forgotten about.
The New Zealand Government rarely used the facility but had, on request from friendly Governments, monitored the activity of terrorists and radicals who believed routing emails, texts or phone conversations via a small insignificant country kept them safe from interception.
Today the information that passed through the Black Room would be used against the very country that had encouraged its installation.
But the Americans were not so naïve as to have handed over complete control of the Black Room to the NZCIS. They had been thorough enough during the construction and commissioning phase to ensure a high frequency transmitter was hidden within the mass of switchgear in the Room.
The Duty Officer called Brent, letting him know there were a number of significant emails awaiting his arrival. Brent leapt out of bed, showered, and walked across the parade ground to the Ops Room.
He arrived just as the Duty Officer finished briefing his daytime counterpart. Both looked up as Brent stepped from the cool morning air into the warm office. Although neither of them were military personnel, they instinctively straightened as he entered the room. “Morning, guys. Sounds like you had a busy night. What have you got then?”
“I’ll start with the most recent, sir. Collington received an email at twelve thirty-eight yesterday afternoon via a contact website from a travel agency in Tokoroa. The message seems to have come from this Turner guy you are interested in. It says he wants to meet up with Collington on Waiheke.”
“That’ll explain his eagerness to dump Hone. Do we have any info on how they reached the Island?”
“We have CCTV of them getting off a bus at the harbour and we also have Collington emailing three people late last night to say the Turners are staying overnight with him. You might want to pour yourself a coffee and grab a Danish, sir. There’s a lot of stuff to read.”
Over fifteen thousand emails had been retrieved from Collington’s email address on the phone company’s server. Once the algorithm had filtered out the spam, three hundred messages were left containing words or key phrases of interest.
Brent sipped strong coffee and began scrolling, message by message. After a minute he realised he was going about this completely the wrong way and clicked to re-sort the messages. Now he could read, starting with the oldest first. This would build up a better picture in his mind of the sequence of events.
The first message which caught his eye was one sent not by Collington, but by his wife, and copied to members of the Ecological Political Assembly of New Zealand. It noted the first visit of Tony, the Cowood vet, to the Island. The existence of such an email surprised Brent, given that once Anika had separated from Patrick O’Sullivan, she had, at least publicly, severed all ties with the party.
At the time she had gone on record describing it as an inward-looking, corrupt, self-seeking and egotistical organisation, more interested in fulfilling its own agenda than promoting the interests of the ordinary Kiwi family. This email, and others, confirmed to Brent that she was not only in regular contact with senior members of the party but actively contributing to policy making. It was political dynamite.
Brent ignored this revelation and instead concentrated on piecing together the roles of both Edward Collington, and now it seemed Anika Collington, over the last eighteen months.
The emails revealed that soon after he began to visit the Island, Ed and Anika had managed to extract from Tony Robinson the true purpose of his regular visits to Waiheke. As Anika let her former political allies know, it appeared her former husband, the Chairman of Dairy Tree and head of EPANZ, was now intent on developing milk into bio-fuel as a commercial proposition.
Then Brent read an email that made the hairs on his arms stand on end - not for the content, since it only requested Anika to make a phone call to a specified number - it was the name of the sender, Commander Dalton.
Brent checked over his shoulder, noted the time and date of the email, and closed it again. He plugged a headset into the port on the front of the PC. Then, locating the file containing the outward phone calls made from the Mushroom Café, he found one matching the date of the email.
He pressed Play.
“Good afternoon. Roger Dalton’s office. How may I help you?”
“This is Anika Collington. I’ve been given this number to call to speak to someone about Patrick O’Sullivan, my ex-husband?”
“Thank you for calling, Anika. This is a private number at the Environment Ministry. I understand you‘ve been in contact with some of your former colleagues in the Ecological Party and that you may have some misgivings about the work your ex-husband may be involved in? I‘d like to discuss this with you in more detail, I believe you own the Mushroom Café on Waiheke. Will you be around on Thursday?”
“Yes, why?”
“Because I need to speak with you in person about this. Shall we say eleven?”
“That’s ok with me.”
Why had the Commander not made Brent aware of his contact with this woman earlier? Brent jumped; the headset had masked the approach from behind. A hand was on his shoulder. It was Dalton. There was no point in trying to conceal the evidence. If he had wanted to, Dalton could have easily destroyed the recording himself.
“So, found anything interesting yet?”
“I’m not sure, sir. You tell me. I’ve just been listening to conversation between you and Collington’s wife requesting a meeting with her.”
Brent looked for a glimmer, a twitch, a forced smile, a shrug, anything.
Commander Dalton didn’t miss a beat. ‘She’s working for us, Brent, both of them are. We were able to manipulate the absolute contempt she now has for her ex to our own ends. Anika and Ed have been keeping us informed about the Cowood situation on Waiheke for some time now.”
“But I thought the line was the Government barely knows what’s going on?”
“That’s absolutely correct. No one in the Cabinet office, and that includes the PM, has a clue about the seriousness of the position here. We intend keeping it that way, to protect the integrity of the mission, until we are in a position to inform the PM of a satisfactory conclusion.”
“But he’s head of the Security Service. Surely he has a right to be kept informed.”
“Correct, to a point, Captain, but you of all people must realise by now that this is a matter of huge significance, not only for this country, but internationally. The role of the NZCIS and, within that, the KMP, is to manage and deal with this crisis. The PM has complete faith in our ability to do whatever is required to deal with this. Any communication, even within the Cabinet, risks exposing our intentions to the Americans.”
Brent didn’t understand. Despite his own position in the KMP; a secret organisation within the security service, he’d always believed his Government to be amongst the most open in the world. How could private communications within the Cabinet expose the counter measures that were now under way to the enemy? Shit! For the first time he’d consciously thought of the USA as the enemy.
“We’ve good reason to suspect there may be a spy within the Cabinet, Brent. There’s mounting evidence that information is being passed to the Americans. Information which is only circulated at the highest level seems to have had a habit of turning up on the other side of the Pacific.”
“For instance?”
“Well, the latest example was yesterday with the logging truck ‘accident’. As we had some significant input into the incident, we made sure there was a complete news blackout until we had a press release ready for the Police Commissioner to deliver. Then I get the American Ambassador on the phone within the hour with an intimate knowledge of events. Far more stuff than he could have got even from the spy satellite. Someone had been passing him information.”
Brent was astonished firstly by the revelation that the Collingtons were apparent informers and now Dalton’s candid admission that the Government leaked like a sieve at the highest level.
He turned back to the screen, unsure whether it was worth continuing to sift through another year’s worth of emails and phone calls after what he’d just been told. “Commander, after the logging truck incident, what exactly was the chain of events from the time I spoke to you on the radio from the helicopter to you passing on the approved press release to Police Headquarters?”
The Commander thought for a moment before replying. “Well, I called the PM’s Private Secretary as soon as I finished speaking with you. He then passed the information onto the PM who would’ve probably emailed the rest of the Cabinet, or at least contacted their respective secretaries. The draft of the press release was faxed to me for checking and proofing about forty-five minutes later. Early on, the PM’s Office will have also contacted the Police Commissioner’s office to request the media blackout. I called the PM straight back to confirm the draft was OK and then it would have been … ”
Brent interrupted him, “Faxed to the office of the Commissioner of Police in Wellington at 17.08pm.”
“How the hell …. ?”
Brent had a copy of the communications log from the fax machine in the Prime Minister’s Office on the screen in front of him.
“Where the heck did you get that?”
“During the night, the Ops guys managed to get this computer remotely logged into the feed from our Black Room. I can read any email, or listen to any phone call, made into, out of, or around the country, and call up records going back to 1995 if I need to. But there’s more. If you look at each record, line by line, it shows technical stuff, time and date, IP address or phone number, call duration, that kind of thing. But what is interesting is this column here….” Brent ran his finger down the screen. “This set of numbers indicates if and when the communication was last accessed externally. Let me show you.”
Brent’s fingers moved quickly across the keyboard as he explained what he was doing. “I’m bringing up the records of all calls made from the Prime Minister’s personal extension number in the past month and, if you look at the column which shows these records being accessed it should show - yes, I thought so - you can see here that every ninety minutes the calls are being accessed. Now, if we enter your personal email address, you can see that the records have been accessed at the same time, at ninety minute intervals. Just for comparison, if I type in my mother’s phone number, I can see it looks like she called my auntie in Rotorua yesterday afternoon, but no indication that call has ever been externally accessed.”
“That’s good work, Brent, but all it does it confirm my suspicion. It doesn’t point the finger in any particular direction, does it?”
“Actually, sir, it does. Let me show you.”
Brent loaded the Massey University Satellite Tracking and Electronic Recognition program - MUSTER. “If you look at the orbit of this particular US spy satellite, you can see it passes overhead every ninety minutes. Each time it does, it collects data. They’ve infiltrated the Black Room. That’s the source of the leak. As the satellite tracks eastward, and the Western seaboard of the USA appears over the horizon, the information is downloaded to the NSA’s own Black Room in San Francisco.
“So how can we stop it?”
“Well, sir, the Black Room was sealed in 1996. Only authorised personnel are allowed to enter. The only way in is by entering a PIN number into a keypad. I haven’t been able to find a record of this code anywhere.”
Dalton was familiar with the concept of the Black Room and had even been privy to some of the information it had yielded in the past. Now he felt frustration at his own ignorance of what transpired to be not only a critical asset to the country, but also a highly dangerous Trojan horse. “So where is this Black Room exactly?”
“According to the records, it’s situated beneath the City Council offices in Nelson. When the building was constructed in 1982, there were classified plans for a bunker beneath the seven storey structure. Since it was built to withstand flood, fire and earthquake, this bunker was eventually adapted to house the main telephone exchange for the South Island. The Americans decided this would be the most secure site for a Black Room, so offered to build one concealed in the main exchange. Today, the only indication of the real significance of the bunker is an anonymous steel door next to the Post Office on the ground floor of the building.”
“So are you saying the way to stem the leak of information is to switch off the Black Room?”
“Not completely, no. We just need to locate the equipment inside which is transmitting to the satellite when it passes overhead, and disconnect it.”
“So how do we get in if no-one, except presumably the Americans, know this PIN number?”
“We work it out, sir.”
“But it could be any combination of any string of numbers. How the hell are we even going to begin to crack a code like that?”
Brent returned to scrolling through the records which had passed through the Black Room, noting which ones were regularly sent to the satellite as it passed unseen overhead.
Some of these records had an additional column of information. It took him half an hour to realise what these were. He dialled the phone numbers in turn. Each time there was no reply. Then it dawned on him. The unobtainable phone numbers, the extra column of digits, these were EFTPOS terminals.
Each time it passed overhead, the satellite uploaded the details of every electronic purchase made in New Zealand in the previous ninety minutes. In this way they knew precisely how much was being spent, where, on what, and by whom. This was damning evidence of the extent of the American Government’s covert operation in New Zealand, whether it was linked to the activities of Cowood Industries or not.
It was time to use the Black Room to their own advantage. Brent found evidence of supposedly secure emails sent by the NSA, that, by a bizarre twist, had been routed via the Black Room, to the American Embassy in Wellington. The search criteria he entered were simple:
Search 0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9
As he hit Enter, the results box started to fill with emails. The title of each one was the same: Pass Code Update.
It was a deceptively simple process. The Black Room collected the details of every EFTPOS transaction and sent them up to the passing satellite. In San Francisco, the sum of the value of all the transactions was instantly calculated and the number transmitted by automatic email via the American Embassy in Wellington to the keypad at the entrance to the bunker. The PIN remained valid for ninety minutes, after which the process was repeated. The chance of the number repeating was infinitesimal. The most recent email had only been sent in the last fifteen minutes.
A call to the Finance Ministry confirmed that neither the banking system nor the Government had any process in place which allowed them to independently access or calculate the same information so quickly. “Of course, the problem we have is once we intercept the incoming email giving us the new pass code for the next ninety minutes, we then have less than an hour to access the Black Room, locate the transmitter and disable it. If we manage it, the Americans will have a systems failure to deal with. But if we fail, the next upload will expose our intercept of their last pass code message.”
Brent’s second coffee had kicked in and he paced the floor.
“We need to get Turner off the island and move him down south. I’ll get one of the guys to make contact with the Collingtons so they can prepare to move him. In the meantime, I’ll go to Nelson and disable the Black Room transmitter. We’ll need to set something up so once I’m there and the email has been intercepted, you have some way of getting the pass code to me without alerting the Yanks if we fail.”
Dalton frowned. “So I need to get this code to you without using a phone call, text, or email, but within minutes of receiving it myself? That’s not possible. There is no way such information could be sent so quickly and also securely. We can only intercept the communications sent through the Black Room using two ultra-fire walled computers; this one and the one in the emergency room in the basement of the Beehive. A radio transmission would easily be intercepted and even a written version, flown from here to Nelson, and then driven at high speed into the town centre, is a long shot and, to be honest, not a scenario I’d be prepared to attempt untested.”
Brent was confident he had a solution. The Commander thought his plan wouldn’t work. It would be a challenge but was also the most likely way they could achieve their goal without arousing the suspicion of the American Government, and the NSA in particular. “There is, sir, an additional factor we have to consider. Finding the source of the leaks and shutting down outside access to the Black Room is just an added bonus in this whole exercise. Our prime objective is still to remove the threat of contamination of the dairy herds.
The Americans own fifty per cent of Cowood, but others, including O’Sullivan, own the rest. Without him on board, and on their side, their plans begin to falter. If he’s no longer in the picture, then without his drive and influence, there’s no way that Cowood will be able to proceed with their plans.”
“So, what exactly are you suggesting here, Piri?”
“What I am suggesting, sir, is elimination.”
Dalton’s eyes widened as his mind raced through the protocol for authorising such a move.
“Assassination? The PM would never sanction it!”
“The PM doesn’t have to, sir, because there’ll never be a shred of evidence such a thing occurred. All I am suggesting is that you, as my commanding officer, acknowledge what we both know about Patrick O’Sullivan. His involvement in both the Ecological Party and his shareholding in Cowood pose a threat to the security of this country.”
Dalton nodded reluctantly. “I can see where you are going with this, Captain. Based on the evidence we’ve uncovered so far, it’s clear this man should never be allowed to get anywhere near the leadership of this country.”
‘Thank you, sir. That’s all I need to hear and as far as we need to discuss the matter. Now, if you’ll excuse me, there’s one other detail I need to confirm before we get the other guys in place.”
Brent turned back to the computer. Dalton took this as his cue to exit. Brent smiled to himself. As far as he was concerned, the hardest part of the mission had just been accomplished. He had persuaded Dalton to accept his plan unconditionally. Now he was back in control.
The Americans were closely monitoring all their telecommunications. Brent made sure Dalton’s call to Ed Collington, requesting David Turner’s removal from the island, made no mention of the involvement of the Secret Service. As far as Collington was concerned, the men he and Turner were linking up with were other members of the so-called resistance, a fictitious group the Commander fabricated as a means of gaining both Ed and Anika Collington’s sympathy, and willing participation as unwitting collaborators.
With David Turner safely off Waiheke Island and the television news the night before confirming the incident at the Dairytree Cheese factory, Brent boarded an RNZAF Iroquois and flew south across the Cook Strait, coming in low over the Marlborough Sounds and landing in an isolated paddock.
The truck had left half an hour previously but, as Brent jumped from the chopper and ran towards the abandoned house, he knew one of the recent occupants had left him an important package in the cattle trough next to the gate. He peered into the murky sludge before plunging his hand into the icy water and fishing out a small clear container sealed tight against the water, with tape, and containing all the modified gamma casein whey he would need.
Placing the small container carefully into his pocket, he ran back to the waiting helicopter which rose once again into the clear late morning sky, heading west towards Nelson and landing at the commercial airport twenty minutes later.
Brent retrieved the key to the bus from inside the wheel arch, climbed in, started the engine and headed into the city. Hone hadn’t been entirely truthful in saying it had failed to start once arriving in the South Island. In fact he had handed it over to another operative who had then driven it directly to Nelson. Meanwhile, Hone was dropped at the end of the track leading to the safe house where he and the others had spent the previous night.
Brent was manoeuvring the heavy vehicle through the afternoon traffic when a message came through. It was Commander Dalton. “We’ve just got word from the two agents who are managing the British vet guy. Apparently Turner has given them the slip. They reckon he’ll be heading into town to try and find O’Sullivan.”
“OK tell them to let him go. I should be able to find him in the next few hours. In the meantime, proceed with the plan as agreed. Let Collington think they are all involved in getting rid of O’Sullivan but try and keep him away from the hotel for the time-being.”