Showing posts with label 4c. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 4c. Show all posts

Chapter 56: Another Assignment

Previous: Terry Hewitt

"Are you willing to do some more reading?"
On his way back from the door, Sherlock Holmes stopped and drew a fingertip across the counter tops. "I must congratulate you, Watson," he said, looking at the result. "This residue is just as Slate described it. How did you do it?"

"It's Vim, a creamy white cleanser," I said. "I used it to remove the much heavier residue left by the Comet, and I didn't rinse off all the Vim."

"If nothing else," said Holmes, "you have shown that the powder Slate described could have been left in the Alderney Street flat in quite the same way. As for the question of what the cleaning was intended to hide, we may never know the answer."

"Fingerprints, perhaps?" I suggested.

"It could very well be so," replied the detective. "We must be careful in drawing inferences from flimsy evidence, but we are probably safe to assume that whoever killed Gareth Williams wasn't wearing gloves at the time."

"It seems a minor point," I said.

"And so it may be," agreed my companion, "yet it could turn out to be a significant detail.

"I am prepared to call the counter top experiment a success," Holmes continued. "You may keep it going if you wish, but there is no need to do so."

"I imagine we could have obtained the same information through a short conversation with Mrs. Hudson," I suggested. "Surely she has plenty of experience with cleaning products."

"I much prefer for us to see the results ourselves," replied Holmes. "We've had enough second-hand evidence in this case already."

I could hardly disagree.

"What else have you been doing?" asked Holmes. "Have you done very much reading in my absence?" Thus began a conversation which lasted through dinner and well into the evening.

I told my friend what I had learned about the "Liquid Bombers" and their plot, their arrests and trials, and their coded emails. Holmes listened quietly for quite some time before he started asking questions.

"It is ironic, is it not," he said, "that the plot as described by the Crown was so far-fetched as to be practically impossible, and yet the plotters themselves appear to have been very earnest about it."

"Clearly they did not understand the technical difficulties," I replied. "I have been getting the impression that some of them were not very bright."

"What does that suggest?" he asked.

"I can't say it leads me anywhere," I admitted. "What does it suggest to you?"

“Put yourself in the shoes of a terrorist recruiter,” he replied. “Suppose you were trying to organize a bombing plot. What sort of people would you seek out?”

“I’d look for competent people, with intelligence and discretion,” I replied after a moment's thought.

“Exactly,” said Holmes. “But what if you were simply trying to perpetrate a hoax of some kind?”

“In that case,” I answered, “I would do everything I could to avoid intelligent people. I’d want to find people who were not smart enough to realize they were being deceived.”

“How many knuckleheads do you count among the plotters?” he asked.

“Three, four, maybe five,” I said, and my friend nodded. “Are you saying it was a hoax, then?” I asked.

“We would be wise to keep the possibility in mind,” he replied. “I think we should also be aware of the possibility that the prosecution may have made wildly exaggerated claims.”

“Well, it's clear that no bombing attack was imminent,” I said, “but are you thinking of anything else?”

“Above all,” he answered, “I am highly skeptical of the claim that the plotters boiled down hydrogen peroxide to a concentration of eighty percent. Such a procedure would be extraordinarily dangerous, and the resulting liquid would be virtually impossible to store.

”Peroxide is used in some industrial processes," the detective continued, "primarily as a bleaching agent. If you or I, or the terrorists, had the proper credentials, we could buy it at industrial strength, which is normally forty or fifty percent. And if we did so, we would find that it came in specially designed bottles."

"Why is that?" I asked.

"Hydrogen peroxide is inherently unstable," he replied. "It breaks down spontaneously, yielding water and oxygen. The latter, of course, is a gas at room temperature, and the pressure it produces would rupture any container not designed to hold it. This is why industrial grade peroxide is sold in heavy bottles with pressure-release caps. When the pressure gets strong enough, a valve in the cap opens and releases some of the oxygen. Otherwise, concentrated peroxide would be too dangerous to be used for anything at all."

"And yet," I said, "the plotters were planning to inject it into sports-drink bottles whose caps had never been removed, then seal the bottles with glue."

"They would have been somewhat better off with soda bottles," said Holmes, "since those are designed to hold some pressure. But in any case, their plot, as described by the Crown, was certainly doomed to fail. Even if they could have hollowed out batteries and filled them with homemade explosives, they still wouldn't have stood a chance."

"At the first trial," I said, "the jury was shown a video of a bottle of hydrogen peroxide exploding. At face value, it seemed to indicate that the plot was viable. But on cross-examination it emerged that the bottle that exploded was prepared by the police, not the plotters; that it was assembled by a remote-controlled robot because police explosives experts believed it was too dangerous to assemble by hand; and that it took them several dozen attempts before they got one right."

"Let that serve as the last word on the viability of the plot," said Holmes.

"That's fine with me," I said. "What can we do now?"

"I may need to be away for most of the weekend," he replied. "Are you willing to do some more reading?"

"I'll do whatever I can to help," I answered.

"That's the spirit, Watson!" he said. "I would like you to look into another case. What, if anything, do you know about Operation Pathway?"

"As I understand the term," I replied, "it denotes a campaign of roadside spot-checks to make sure drivers haven't been drinking, and that they have their seat belts fastened. Surely there is no connection between this and the Gareth Williams case?"

"No indeed," said my friend. "But the same name was used for a counter-terror surveillance operation which resulted in a dozen arrests, but no charges. Those who were arrested were allegedly in contact with Rashid Rauf via email."

I whistled softly.

"Fortunately," Holmes continued, "I have a collection of relevant news reports. As you read them, keep in mind the same questions I asked about the 'Liquid Bombers.' Find out everything you can about the plotters and their plot, the circumstances under which they were arrested, and the emails they sent and received. Excuse me for a moment, will you?"

For a few seconds I heard him rustling through the drawers where he kept his files; then he returned with a thick folder in hand. "I need to leave early tomorrow morning," he said. "And I will probably be away until late Sunday or Monday. That should give you plenty of time to digest this."

"I will do my best," I said, taking the file he offered.

"You have been doing excellent work, my friend," Holmes replied, "and I have every confidence in your abilities. Take your time, learn what you can, and we will talk again when I return."

Chapter 57: Ian Tomlinson


Ian Tomlinson
The great city was a dangerous place at the beginning of April, 2009. The G20 Summit, which brought together the financial masterminds of the world's most powerful nations, also brought scenes of protest. Police began predicting violence long before the event, and from all appearances, they were determined not to be proven wrong.

Prior to the event, protest organizers had been trying to arrange a meeting with police to discuss plans and ensure the safety of all involved. But the police had more pressing matters, at least until The Guardian began asking difficult questions. A short discussion was hastily arranged but produced nothing substantial.

The police were obviously uninterested in negotiating with the protesters. Instead they had their own plans. In order, they said, to protect the city and prevent any possible violence, they would employ a tactic called "kettling," in which officers, armed with truncheons and shields and accompanied by attack dogs, would surround the area in which the protest is being held. At any time of their choosing, they could "close" the "kettle," refusing civilians passage through their lines.

Police squeeze the kettle.
When a kettle is closed, nobody in the protest can get out, and nobody else can get in. And if the police feel a kettle is too big, or not "pressurized" enough, they can "squeeze" it by moving toward the protesters, who then have no realistic option but to retreat, crowding together even more tightly.

By keeping their plans secret, and by closing or squeezing a kettle at will, the police can keep protesters on the defensive. With the kettle open, protesters could step into the pubs for a drink, a rest, and the use of some plumbing, not necessarily in that order. Closing the kettle would deprive them of valuable resources. And closing it without warning, for indefinite periods, would be a valuable weapon in the hands of the law.

As events transpired on April 1, a long, narrow kettle was formed around the protest, and people were trapped in the heart of the city for hours without food or water, with no sanitary facilities, surrounded by surly police with attack dogs and truncheons. It was almost as if the police were trying to provoke violence.

Police with clubs and shields
beat unarmed protesters.
There were other reasons to suspect the police of trying to provoke the crowd. A Member of Parliament brought to light reports of an incident involving two "protesters" who were throwing bottles at police and urging others to do the same. When these two individuals were accused by actual protesters of being agents provocateurs, they made straight for the cordon, presented identification to the police there, and disappeared through the line that no civilian could cross.

The kettle was closed early in the evening when Ian Tomlinson, a 47-year-old newspaper seller, left work and started walking home. He found his path blocked by a cordon of police who forced him back whence he had come, so he tried a succession of other routes, none of which he was allowed to use. Tired and frustrated, Tomlinson kept trying. But he didn't make it home alive.

Home Office pathologist Freddy Patel
declared Tomlinson's death a heart attack.
Of all the London dailies, The Guardian was the only paper to report his death the next day. All the others preferred to concentrate on events which occurred later in the evening, when the protest turned violent and the police did their best to contain it, or so the story ran.

Unfortunately for that story, videos appeared soon thereafter, showing hundreds of protesters crammed together and standing with arms outstretched, chanting, "This is not a riot," while police beat them with the edges of their shields.

The story of Ian Tomlinson's death came from the police, who said their first contact with him occurred when they found him face-down and obviously in severe distress. They did their best to attend to him, even to the point of dodging bottles and bricks thrown at them by the protesters, but they were unable to save Tomlinson's life, or so the papers said. But none of that story was true.

A post-mortem was quickly arranged by the police and the cause of death was identified as a heart attack. Unfortunately for the police, the Home Office pathologist who performed the post-mortem was notoriously incompetent and dishonest, and none of his story was true, either.

Officer Simon Harwood attacked Ian
Tomlinson from behind, causing his death.
Tomlinson's family requested a second autopsy, which was done by a neutral pathologist and which ascribed his death to internal bleeding. So the cause of death was a matter of some dispute for a time. But the falsity of the police account of Tomlinson's death was convincingly proven on April 7th, when The Guardian published excerpts from testimonies of numerous witnesses, all of whom described seeing something very different.

In addition to the testimonies, The Guardian posted on its website a video showing Ian Tomlinson walking away from the police with his hands in his pockets, being struck by a policeman, then suddenly being knocked to the pavement by an attack from behind.

With his hands in his pockets, Tomlinson had no way to defend himself. He landed on his arm, injuring his liver, and died of internal bleeding.

The video continues, showing protesters attempting to help Tomlinson, while police stand by with their shields and dogs. It shows no flying bottles, nobody throwing bricks, and no attempt whatsoever by the police to rush to Tomlinson's assistance.


Suddenly, the police had a serious problem.

Chapter 58: The 'Easter Bombers'

Previous: Ian Tomlinson

Bob Quick revealed a "secret" document.
On April 8, 2009 -- the morning after The Guardian posted the video showing Simon Harwood's lethal assault on Ian Tomlinson -- a very strange sequence of events began to unfold.

It started when Robert Quick, then Assistant Commissioner of the Metro Police, arrived at No. 10 Downing Street for a meeting with Prime Minister Gordon Brown and emerged from his car carrying some folders.

Outside the folders was a document marked "secret," which outlined the planned arrests of a dozen terror suspects in Manchester and Liverpool.

Photographers are always camped outside the Prime Minister's office, of course -- with digital cameras and telephoto lenses. Quick realized the implications of his "blunder" immediately, according to the story.

So some authorities moved promptly to suppress publication of any photos of the "secret" document, lest the suspects learn of the plan to arrest them, while others moved promptly against the suspects.

And Bob Quick promptly tendered his resignation, which was promptly accepted. After 30 years on the force and more than a year as the top anti-terror officer, he retired, publicly disgraced but with a six-figure annual pension.

Meanwhile, with a blaze of publicity, SWAT teams went to work. Police in the north of England arrested 12 men who were officially described as "terror suspects."

The document detailed plans
to arrest 12 terror suspects.
The Prime Minister congratulated the police and the intelligence agencies on having broken up "a very big plot."

At first, police spokesmen were mostly mum, but anonymous sources told the media that the security services had foiled an imminent attack which would have involved multiple suicide bombers.

Eleven of the suspects were Pakistani nationals living in the UK on student visas, who were said to have come from the "lawless tribal region" of northwest Pakistan, and who were allegedly linked with the al Qaeda terrorists headquartered in the same region.

Later, the police said they had been watching the suspects for several months in an operation code-named "Operation Pathway," and that to the best of their knowledge the alleged terrorists had not yet settled on a target. This did not deter the media from suggesting many potential targets, including Old Trafford.

And no dates were confirmed, but the police were said to be taking no chances with public safety, especially with the Easter weekend approaching.

Normally, the police prefer to arrest suspects in their homes, while they're sleeping. But in this case, with the operation suddenly public, the police were "forced" to take the suspects from public places, in broad daylight.

The suspects were arrested at gunpoint.
Thus two men were taken from a university library in Liverpool. According to one of them, police forced them to the floor, tied their hands behind their backs, and held machine guns to their heads for an hour before taking them away.

In Clitheroe, a small town about an hour north of Manchester, more than a hundred armed officers surrounded a home improvement supply store which was preparing for its grand opening and arrested two men who were working there as security guards.

Another suspect was taken from his car, which was stopped at gunpoint on the highway. And so on.

An indication of how serious the alleged plot was considered to be, and how closely the suspects were being watched, was provided by the fact that all twelve were arrested within an hour.

Their names were not immediately released. Instead the press simply called them the "Easter Bombers."

Investigators found no bombs
or weapons of any kind.
And with the "Easter Bombers" safely out of the way, the search began for their "bomb factory." Police searched the suspects' flats, and found nothing: no weapons, no ammunition, no bombs, no bomb-making equipment, no bomb-making ingredients.

Then they temporarily relocated some of the suspects' neighbours and started searching whole blocks of flats. Again they came up with nothing.

Next they took the suspects' computers, books, notes, and other personal items for forensic analysis, and found nothing incriminating in any of them: no plans, no hints of plans, no dates, no targets, nothing at all.

And so, within two weeks of the arrests, all the suspects were "released."

But unfortunately for eleven of them, "released" in this case did not mean "set free." Instead they were called threats to national security and transferred from one prison to another, to await deportation hearings.

According to some of the news reports which were slightly more detailed than most of the others, the suspects had been under surveillance even before they left Pakistan, and while in England they were in contact via email with Rashid Rauf.

Holmes had asked about the email the "Easter Bombers" had sent and received, but I hadn't found anything relevant. So I kept digging through the files.

Chapter 59: The 'Easter Bomber' Emails


The amateurish code used by the "Easter
Bombers" must have been easy to break.
I spent most of Sunday reading about the email one of the 'Easter Bombers' had exchanged with an alleged al Qaeda contact in Pakistan. The sender, identified only as "XC," had seemingly written mostly about girls and cars, parties and weddings. But the messages themselves didn't make much sense, according to MI5, unless they were in code.

Duncan Gardham explained something about that code in The Telegraph of July 30:
MI5 believed that girls’ names were used to refer to chemicals and that talk of a “wedding” was actually a reference to the bombing itself.
I was glad to find Gardham's piece, but I was still looking for the email messages themselves. I found what I was seeking later that evening, in another July 30 article published by The Telegraph.

That piece, "Manchester 'terror plot' emails," contained transcripts of some of the emails that passed between the "Easter Bombers" and their contact in Pakistan, allegedly an "al Qaeda commander" who was sometimes said to be Rashid Rauf.

The first email published in The Telegraph was was sent in early December, 2008, from XC in Manchester to Pakistan:
Dec 3 11.33am

I saw a slight glimpse of Huma day before yesterday but she was very weak and difficult to convince.

Nadia is more gorgeous than Huma at the moment and she is easy to befriend….Nadia is crystal clear girl and it wont take long to relate with her.
Then came a question from the middle of December:
Dec 14 12.18pm

from Pakistan to Manchester

Hmm tell me that how is ur sweety girl friend I miss her a lot
The response arrived the next day:
Dec 15 8.47pm

From Manchester to Pakistan

About my Girl friend. As I told you about Huma’s affair. Nadia is still waiting for my response. She is very loyal and She has created a place in my heart. You know Gulnaz and Fozia. WOW man. I would love to get them in my friends list but you know I have been thinking about their abilities. Gulnaz sounds ok but she is found [sic] of money. Fozia is some times bull shit. She lets you down sometime.

I am still keeping my car because most of the jobs they ask for it and other reason is you know girls mostly like guys with car.
Questions about the multiple girl friends appeared in this email from January:
Jan 15 2009 12.41pm

from Pakistan to Manchester

hmmmm so u have a lot of girl friendsss me also like girlsssss pay my salam [greetings] for ur girls friend ok

when ever u will mariii soo plz first see ur girl friend how is she…is she nice and beautiy and honest bec [because] we marii in life on [only] one time
The next published email was sent to Pakistan a month later:
Feb 16 1.35pm

from Manchester to Pakistan

You know what girls are like. I am bore of being bachelor now LOL [laughs out loud] so I would try to make it happen in the near future. I will be careful about my choice because your whole family life depends upon the decision.
Finally, The Telegraph had this email from early April, which presumably led to the arrests:
April 3 4.19pm

from Manchester to Pakistan

I met with Nadia family and we both parties have agreed to conduct the nikah [wedding] after 15th and before 20th of this month.

I am delighted that they have strong family values and we will have many guests attending the party. Anyways I wished you could be here as well to enjoy the party.
Following these messages, The Telegraph explained how MI5 had interpreted them. According to the article,
MI5 believe that the student was using the girls’ names Huma, Nadia, Gulnaz and Fozia to refer to different bomb-making chemicals.

“Weak and difficult to convince” is thought to refer to the strength of hydrogen peroxide available, and “crystal clear” to the strength of another chemical.

Their “abilities” and “letting you down” refer to how efficient the chemicals were, to which the answer from Pakistan comes that that the girl should be “nice and beautiful and honest because we marry in life only once.”

The security service feared that [...] “girls mostly like guys with car” referred to a possible car bomb and the constant reference to weddings and parties, to the attack itself.
I couldn't help noticing the contrast between the one-time cipher which Slate had used to contact Holmes and the emails sent and received by XC. The latter would have been secure if each of them had used a unique key. But, as in the case of the "Liquid Bombers," the same key had been used again and again.

I could easily imagine Gareth Williams being called upon to help decode these emails, especially after his reported success decoding the emails of the "Liquid Bombers." Surely such an amateurish code must have been easy for him to break. But I found it difficult to imagine what breaking the code could have to do with being found padlocked in a zipped bag.

I knew Holmes would return shortly, and I was confident that he would be able to answer some, if not all, of my questions. But in the meantime, I felt compelled to try to answer them myself. So I sat in my favourite armchair, turning the puzzle over and over in my mind's eye, until I nodded off.

Chapter 60: A Single Drop Of Water


"Wake up, Watson! Wake up, man!!"

I felt a hand shaking my shoulder, and opened my eyes with a start. "What is it, Holmes?" I asked, slowly. "What's happening?"

"You were dreaming, Watson," said my friend. "You were talking in your sleep."

"Oh?" I replied. "What was I saying?"

"It sounded like 'Tommy about you Swede,'" said he.

"No, no!" said I, "Tell me about your sweetie!"

"Tell me about your sweetie?" he asked.

"Exactly!" I answered. "But it's not a question, Holmes. It's a command."

"It's a command?" he shot back. "What sort of command is 'Tell me about your sweetie!'"

"It's a secret command," I said. "A top-secret coded command from an al Qaeda commander in Pakistan!"

Holmes looked astonished.

I continued, "It was sent by email to a fiend in Manchester called XC!"

Holmes gave me his most inquisitive look.

"XC, I tell you. It's all right here," I added, pointing to the page my friend had clipped from The Telegraph more than a year earlier.

"Do you think it's important?" he asked.

"Absolutely vital!" I replied.

"In what way?" he inquired.

"I haven't the faintest idea!" I answered. "I was hoping you'd tell me."

"I'll need some background," said Holmes. "Is it complicated?"

"Yes."

"Tomorrow, then. Go sleep in your bed."

"Not yet!"

Rarely have I spoken so sharply to my best friend and longtime companion, for whom I hold respect so deep I can barely describe it. But on this occasion I was insistent.

"I fell asleep in this chair trying to work out the puzzle," I said. "I'm quite sure the difficulty overloaded my brain and gave me over to the sandman. Will you give me your ear for just five minutes? We can go through all the details tomorrow if you like, but at least let me give you the outline tonight. Please?"

"Yes, of course," he said, and I sketched out the picture I had obtained over the previous 48 hours, including the tragic death of Ian Tomlinson, the sudden resignation of Bob Quick, the dramatic arrests of the "Easter Bombers," and the coded emails that passed between XC and Pakistan, which -- if Slate was correct -- Gareth Williams helped to decipher.

"Wonderful work, Watson!" said Holmes when I had finished. "I knew I could count on you!"

The great detective's smile slowly turned into a clenched-teeth grimace, through which he forced a chestful of air with a sound resembling that of a toy steam engine. "Whoa! What a case!" he said. "We've never had one like it!"

"It's starting to make sense to you now, isn't it?" I asked. I could see it in his face, although I couldn't imagine what sense he was making of it.

"Yes," said my friend. "I believe you've found a key that will unlock the entire mystery."

I spoke not a word, but my expression showed Holmes the question that was in my mind.

"I told you once, long ago," he continued, "that from a single drop of water, a pure logician could infer the vastness of the Pacific, the power of the Niagara, and the splendours of the Grand Canyon. Do you remember that?"

"Yes," I nodded. "I barely knew you back then."

"I think you may have found Gareth's drop of water," said Sherlock Holmes.

"What do you mean by that?" I asked.

"It's a long story," he replied. "You're tired. I'm exhausted. We both need sleep more than we need this.

"We have all day tomorrow, and Tuesday too, for that matter. We can't bring Gareth Williams back from the grave by staying up tonight.

"Do your body a favour. I'll see you in the morning. And thanks again."

With these words, my friend slipped into his bedroom.

I slowly got up from the chair and stumbled into mine.

Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)