TEN
A few hours after Norman had phoned, Susan, was finally able to begin to make a few enquires to help her investigation. Quite quickly, she started to spot the undertones that something important was happening. If it was going to be important and Norman was involved than she wanted to be part of this too.
That morning Susan Blackburn arrived at the office at six in the morning. As usual, she was sitting behind her sparking chrome and glass desk, in the offices of MI5. She was on the phone with one of her contacts from the Transport Police in Paris Nord Station. She was trying to get access to CCTV coverage from the day Norman was sent to Paris with Lloyd.
On her desk were two computer screens with her laptop plugged into the mainframe computer system at MI5. Apart from a large mug of coffee, her desk was devoid of anything personal or precious to her. The mug stood out. It was white with a red dotted box painted across it. In the centre of the mug were the words SPIES ROCK. It was a present from her first boss who thought it would be a good way to lighten up the day. She looked at it as she did each day and a smile spread across her face. He had been a good person, one of the few that had managed to survive the various purges of the service over the last 10 years.
Then her smile fell away as her thought went back to work. Her brown eyes with the stud in her left eyebrow were wide apart and were focusing in on her computer screen as she continued to milk her contact for information.
Five minutes of sweet talking the French Information attaché got Susan and her team access.
Straight away, she logged into the CCTV system and began to search through the files up until it was 18.00. Using the wheel on her mouse, she zoomed back and forward until she found Norman and Lloyd entering the station. She watched as both men separate from each other. Lloyd walked off to one of the toilets in the station.
She then waited and waited for Lloyd to leave the toilet. When no one appeared, she began to wonder what she could do.
She then thought about logging each face that left the men’s toilet in the new facial recognition system. She spent the next half hour logging ever face that entered and left the toilet into the facial recognition system. Susan started to do a check using the computer application to automatically identify each person from his or her digital image. She instructed the computer to do a search based on comparing selected facial features from the images and the facial database. She was still amazed at how effective this system was.
She remembered back to her training and while on an exchange exercise with the Florida Police Service she helped set up a system at Super Bowl XXXV in January 2001. There the police in Tampa Bay, Florida used facial recognition software to search for potential criminals and terrorists in attendance at the event. Nineteen people with minor criminal records were identified and by the end of the match, they were being taken off to prison.
Realising that the scan would take a while she popped off to get a coffee.
When she came back, the system had sprung up with a confirmed possible ID. It was Simon Dunbar
She looked up Simon’s file. That was right, she remembered him now from her training days.
Simon joined the Royal Ulster Constabulary as a special agent on 12 January 1996 and was transferred to the field office in Knock, Belfast. In 1998, Simon moved to Londonderry to its field office there.
The next year, Simon was moved into counter-intelligence and given the task of compiling a database of intelligence for the RUC. It was then, in 1999, only three years after taking up his post that Simon began to leak documents to Wiki leaks and the some of the red top newspapers in Northern Ireland.
That year, Simon told Wiki leaks a significant amount, including information on bugging activities and lists of suspected terrorists in Northern Ireland and mainland Britain. His most important leak of information was the betrayal of Roland Cajun, code named ‘The Bear’ to the Real IRA.
In 2000, Simon was transferred to the London office where he became Police Force of Northern Ireland – MI5 liaison officer. His new job in the MI5 office gave him access to all kinds of information involving many different MI5 activities. This included all the activities related to wiretapping and electronic surveillance of Terrorist suspects. He became known in the MI5 as an expert on computers.
In late 2001, Simon was transferred to the Middle East analytical unit, which was directly responsible for studying, identifying, and capturing Terrorist spies and intelligence operatives in mainland Britain. Simon’s section was in charge of evaluating Middle East contacts who volunteered to give intelligence to the British Government, to determine if they were weapons of mass destruction in the Middle East following the first Gulf War.
On 1 October 2002, he leaked the names of three Spy Masters operating in Baghdad. The Iraq Government executed all three.
In 2003, Simon leaked extensive information about the joint European/American planning for Measurement and Signature Intelligence (MASINT), an umbrella term for intelligence collected by a wide array of electronic means, such as radar, underwater hydrophones for naval intelligence, spy satellites, and signal intercepts.
However, by late 2005 his good luck was beginning to run out. IT personnel from the IIS Unit were sent to investigate Simon’s desktop computer following a reported failure. The IIS Unit Chief ordered the computer impounded after it appeared to have been tampered with. A digital investigation by the unit chief and his IT staff found that an attempted hacking had taken place using a password cracking program installed by Simon that caused a security alert and lockup. The IIS Unit Chief filed a report with Office of Professional Responsibility requesting further investigation of Simon’s attempted penetration of MI5’s high-security network. Realising the game was up Simon fled and he was still at large.
She wondered why he had done all this damage to the UK Government, maybe it was for money or perhaps his upbringing in Northern Ireland during the troubled had damaged him.
She thought she would find out for sure once her team captured him, because it was just a matter of time before he was tracked down and captured.
Realising that she had the first positive contact of Simon Susan since 2005, she began to follow her lead.
She followed him using various surveillance. She watched him board a train for Saint Denis. Logging into the train CCTV records she tracked him as he boarded the train and then left at the next station of Saint Denis. At St Denis, the Car park CCTV trailed him to a car.
She immediately logged the car registration number. A quick report came back with the unsurprising news that the car was stolen. It had been found several days later set alight and burned out in Calais.
Tired and hungry Susan left the office for her empty home.
The next day Susan arrived early at her desk and immediately began to conduct her search once more. She was actually on the trail of the illusive Simon Dunbar. That was something worth getting up for in the morning for. She realised his capture would launch her career into the stratosphere of importance within MI5, she would defiantly get that promotion now and nothing was going to stop her getting that illusive directorship.
After several hours of work, she started to hit a series of dead ends.
Realising a break was needed she popped down to the staff canteen. She came back with a freshly filled mug of coffee and sat down at her desk. Then she thought she would access the UK government Sky net 5 Satellite system for that day and started to zone in on the site of the burned out car. Eventually she spotted the car arriving at its destination in the early hours of the next day. The car lay there for several hours before a man left the vehicle. A few minutes later, it exploded into flames. She was able to follow him as he walked from his car to board a ferry towards Dover.
That meant that he was back in the UK and MI5 had complete jurisdiction over everything in the UK.
A determined smile came across her face.
Susan sat up right. She leant over her desk with her elbows supporting he head and her hands crawling through her hair.
Then the smile fell away only to be replaced with a determined expression. The type of expression you see when people are stuck on a difficult crossword or Sudoku puzzle on the train.
‘Now how am I going to track you down’?
What was she going to do next?
She just did not have a clue.
Outside the sun was just dipping below the London skyline. She could see Tony’s flat in the horizon, while a blanket of fog passed over the river Thames and the Tower of London.
‘Hello’ came a voice,
‘How has your day been? Fancy catching up sometime?’
‘I have been so busy, you would not believe it.’
Oh no, it was Helen, the directorate gossip. She was the last person Susan needed to speak too. Fearing she would be locked into a half hour discussion about her kids, Susan decided to make a run for it.
She slammed he fist on the table, spilling a cold cup of coffee, grabbed her coat and stormed out of out of the room.
‘Fuck’ she said
It was the last word Helen heard her say before she stormed off.