Milkshake (24 page)

The statisticians were unable to explain this first set of
results. The next detail, however, was more sinister, particularly
given the heightened state of paranoia brought about by the events
of the previous September. Seventy-three per cent of the applicants
who had applied, from the sample of fifteen hundred, had paid their
application fee either using a credit card issued by a relatively
obscure bank, not one of the popular ‘big five’ UK
banks.

A large proportion of the applicants had downloaded the
application paperwork from the official Immigration website. These
people were internet savvy. The Government decided to interrogate
the internet usage of a cross section of the fifteen
hundred.

As expected, many had looked at websites to do with job
vacancies, schooling and real estate - nothing untoward on the face
of it. A wider search also revealed extensive interests in
Lord of the Rings
websites, regular visits to current news sites, and multiple
hits on sites relating to the terrorist attacks on the World Trade
Center.

Email accounts were also hacked. Many of the applicants had
been sent unsolicited mail in the previous twelve months with
headings such as ‘Thinking of emigrating?’, ‘Is your lifestyle
getting you down?’, ‘Thinking of switching banks?’ The contents
were designed primarily to unsettle, to make people question, to
sow seeds of doubt.

To the analysts, these clues were subtle but they were there.
More disturbing was the fact that these emails had begun in
December 2000, gradually increasing throughout the year before
stopping abruptly in January 2002. The filtering software that was
supposed to make the job of the Immigration Department easier, had
thrown up a number of unexpected, inexplicable, but potentially
linked results.

The Prime Minister convened a meeting of the Cabinet. The
Immigration Minister presented the information. “We’ve been able to
track back and these emails have all originated from one source - a
computer server in California, probably Los Angeles, and possibly
within a university complex. Furthermore, the bank which all these
people have used to pay for their applications, although called The
Associated Bank of Monaco in the UK, is actually a US institution,
based out of Baltimore. Since this data was analysed, we’ve also
run the program against a batch of emigration applications received
via our German, South African and US embassies, and the results are
similar enough to give cause for concern. The content of the emails
is virtually identical, and the bank, although using a different
name in South Africa and America, is actually the same corporate
business. We’ve also conducted more research using our sources
working in the postal services of each of these countries. They’ve
confirmed this bank has been sending out a significant quantity of
targeted mail shots over the last year.”

The Prime Minister interjected. “Why would someone, or some
organization, apart from us that is, spend so much time, effort and
money persuading people to move here? We have our own publicity
through Tourism New Zealand. The 100% Pure campaign has been
running successfully since 1999.”

“That’s fine for the tourists, but we’re talking about people
actually wanting to come and live here permanently.”

The Deputy Prime Minister spoke. “Look, are we saying we
actually have an issue here? After all, at the end of the day, The
Immigration Department has the final say as to who comes to live
here.”

“That’s exactly the point,” replied the Prime Minister, “We
think we’re having the final say. But what if the applicants have
largely been pre-determined beforehand, surely then someone is
making that decision for us? The data seems to speak for itself;
someone or some group is clearly targeting a preferred group, for
whatever reason, to move here.”

The Immigration Minister took her turn. “To a certain extent,
Prime Minister, we already do that ourselves. The points system is
a rigorous process designed to ensure that we accept people who are
suitable educationally, financially and morally - people who are
prepared to contribute to our multi-cultural society.”

The Prime Minister continued, “But these targeted applicants
already probably fulfil those criteria. They are being attracted
here for another purpose. I don’t know if it’s political, social or
what, but I think we do need to start some kind of random
monitoring of some of these people, once we have accepted their
applications and they are in the country. I want to know what
happens once they get here. In fact I think it would be prudent to
monitor them before they get here. I would suggest we get the NZSIS
onto it straightaway.”

Merely confirming arrival in Auckland would not allow
surveillance during transit. The monitoring of incoming emigrants
would begin at Heathrow.

Chapter 14

Maaka’s phone beeped as he made his way across the concourse,
slowly pushing his cleaner’s trolley. Instantly he changed
direction, moving towards camera number one, before the mobile
phone was even in the palm of his hand.

Finally, an opportunity to put into practice the endless
training exercises. He gazed firmly ahead, pushing the keys,
unconsciously counting the strokes until he knew he would be able
to glance down at the screen, and see the information he
needed.

His hunch was correct. The data had come from camera one; a
clear profile shot of a male target, good enough for the software
to have made a positive ID. He was heading north, away from the
main departure area.

Maaka stood beneath the camera, aimlessly wiping the rubbish
bin in front of him, scanning the immediate vicinity for the blue
jacketed male with brown hair.

There were thirty-four people in his field of vision;
discounting females and children, twenty-three; eliminating men not
wearing jackets; fifteen; ignoring men wearing glasses; nine. Now
where the hell was he?

There was no means of escape except for two doors marked
Airport Personnel Only. They had digital security locks. If the
target had somehow doubled back, he would have to have gone past
the camera again, triggering another message on Maaka’s
phone.

He looked for an exit route he might have missed. An
illuminated blue sign -
Restrooms
- caught his attention. A false panel obscured
the entrances to both the male and female toilets. It had to be the
only reasonable explanation why he could not see him.

The target was oblivious. Maaka would simply wait for him to
re-emerge, trail him at a comfortable distance to his final
departure gate, and then make his report when his shift finished.
He moved towards the next trash can, outside the entrance to the
restrooms, instinctively manoeuvring through the crowd, all the
time not taking his eyes away from the restroom’s
entrance.

Then something happened that confused him. Emerging from
behind the partition, three men were staggering and laughing,
obviously quite drunk. Or were they? Their arms were draped over
each others' shoulders. All three wore baseball caps and
sunglasses. The two on the outside talking animatedly, but the guy
in the middle appeared subdued, not reacting at all to his
companions. They were definitely holding him up. His feet were
dragging limply across the ground and they were trying to disguise
the fact that they were supporting his whole body
weight.

The hat and glasses had been added so the man in the middle
blended in with the other two, and to disguise the fact that he may
not have been fully conscious. Maaka slipped the cleaning cloth
into his pocket and felt for the phone, pushing seven digits in
sequence.

Inside the Embassy, the string of digits initiated an icon on
a screen, showing Maaka’s exact location in the terminal. The phone
began recording voices through the rustle of his clothing, relaying
the sounds around him. A small marker moved slowly across the
screen as he made his way, not towards the departure gate as he had
expected, but in the opposite direction.

Maaka barely heard the phone announce another text as the trio
made their way back past camera one. The disguise had not fooled
the software that recognised the target’s distinctive blue jacket
it had digitally noted only a few minutes before.

He had to get closer. They were heading for the car park. Six
levels held over eight thousand cars when full. This looked like
abduction. He would need to get the details of a getaway
car.

Maaka followed, keeping members of the public between them and
him. If they stopped or turned round for any reason, the
configuration of the people between them meant he would not be in
their direct line of vision. They would not realise they were being
so closely followed.

On the ground floor of the car park, they turned a corner and
were momentarily out of sight. Would they continue or get in one of
the cars parked just the other side of the elevator shaft, and be
gone before he rounded the corner? Maaka ran.

They were standing right in front of him, looking up, waiting
for the lift to arrive; the target a lifeless body held between
them. Maaka looked down, avoiding eye contact and pressed the
button. The pair struggled in with their sleeping victim. Maaka
followed. One pressed the button for the sixth floor and the doors
closed.

Now they made no attempt at their pretence of drunkenness. In
the close confines of the lift, all four stood silent, three pairs
of eyes watching the lights above the door as the lift
ascended.

Maaka was desperately exposed in such close proximity to the
target and his captors. They were likely to be tense, alert, their
senses acutely attuned. He had to distract them. He felt his
shoulders slouch, his back stoop as he nodded a vague greeting,
conscious of the Airclean uniform and photo ID clipped to his
breast pocket. “Long shift today, eh, boss? Glad to get home to me
bed.” He had no trouble adopting the lazy Kiwi twang and manner of
someone who had left a rural Northland school at fifteen and
followed a janitorial career ever since.

The words shattered the stuffy silence. He peered through dark
lenses for any reaction. In return, two slow head turns snapped
back again as the lift doors opened and the cool night air flooded
in. “After you’s, fellas.”

They turned right, dragging the third man between them. Maaka
walked straight ahead to the line of cars. He turned lowering his
head, pretending to open the car door. Hunched, peering over the
tops of the vehicles, he watched as they dragged his unconscious
target towards a row of cars at the far end of the car
park.

Finally out of earshot, he could use the recording device he
had activated a few minutes earlier. “Terminal Four long-stay car
park, sixth floor, two suspects and immobile target moving towards
the northern end of the building. Moving in for a closer
look.”

Maaka crept towards the front of the car and down the line,
checking as he went for the position of the three men ahead. Just a
few more cars and he could stop and take photos to send back to the
embassy.

They were rifling through their compliant victim’s pockets.
Had he over-reacted? Was this just the coincidental robbery of one
of his targets, simply a crude mugging? He crept closer still,
ready to raise his camera phone above the roof line of the car, to
get some clear pictures.

He crouched, slightly off balance. A car door clicked.
Paintwork flashed towards his face, the window reflecting the
strong yellow lights above, momentarily blinding him. Pushed hard
against the front wheel of the car behind him, he looked
up.

A blue fog of cigarette smoke swirling around the silhouetted
head above him reached his nostrils a moment later. At the front of
the car, another outline blocked his escape.

The crunching punch to his face forced the mobile phone from
his hand, smashing it onto the ground. The signal terminated,
triggering an automatic response inside the computer which had been
receiving and recording the audiovisual information. The message
was read by the duty officer in Wellington a minute later as he
returned from his morning tea break.

The error message related to monitoring device UK35. He phoned
the night watchman in London who checked his screens, confirming
the sudden signal termination.

He scrolled the recording back two minutes. Even at ten-thirty
in the evening, Heathrow was a noisy place and there was a lot of
background noise. Vehicles and air traffic made it hard to
distinguish what was happening in the immediate vicinity of the
microphone.

Heavy breathing, the click of a car door, a thud and a cry of
pain. Then silence. The night watchman clicked on the images
folder, enlarging and enhancing the most recent file. A blurred
figure, silhouetted against a bright yellow light. It looked like
it could spell trouble. The previous image, sent ten seconds
earlier, showed two back-lit figures looking out over a low wall
into the brightness beyond.

Maaka’s head smashed against the protruding edge of the wheel
arch for the third time, He could barely focus. Caught completely
off-guard, he was now in the worst possible position. Two large men
loomed over him as he crouched, shocked and in pain on the cold
concrete between two parked cars. “The bastard took the
bait.”