Agent Compromised

Jane looked at her email as the computer beeped to signify another email arriving from Ivan.

It read, 'I can obtain a copy of the planned drug shipments over the next 18 months. I have access to it in my area, where I am the head supervisor. I will send you an email when it is ready.’ The emails were encrypted and sent through a maze of email servers to avoid detection. The email sent by Ivan self-deleted after being sent, but if anyone managed to intercept it, it would make no sense at all.

Jane replied immediately, even although she knew it would not reach Ivan for some considerable time.

Ivan worked within a drug cartel as a senior supervisor; his office was in a building that had three floors, his office was on the first floor. The workers worked on the ground floor, and the bosses lived on the top floor. The supervisors organised planning for drug shipments; the list of scheduled shipments stayed in the office for use by anyone.

Ivan had been out to an internet shop to read and reply to his email from Jane. He had just got back to his office, sat down at his desk, and opened the bag with two Carimanola. Carimanola is a snack made from mashed cassava filled with beef, chicken, or cheese, the beef filling flavoured with onions, bell peppers, garlic, cumin, and tomato paste. Carimanolas are served warm with aji sauce on the side. Ivan was eating his second carimanola, when one of his co-supervisors threw open the door.

‘We need to get the next shipment ready to go now, where have you been?’ asked Juan.

‘No, we don't. It's not going until tomorrow evening,' replied Ivan.

‘All change there is a storm coming in the pilot wants to go tonight.’

‘Have you informed the other contacts on the shipment, if I remember correctly it is going to Mexico, on to a fishing boat, picked up by a cargo ship, then dropped off, just off Great Yarmouth. Picked up a contact, dropped off in Norwich with our contact, and then transported to London in the back of a truck.'

‘How do you remember all of that I can only remember what is going from here.’

'That is why I am the senior supervisor, and you are the junior one,' said a smiling Ivan. 'Let me see the planning schedule, and I will deal with it.'

Juan handed Ivan the planning schedule; it was a thick document that had all the schedules for the next eighteen months.’

Ivan put it onto his desk, then poured his bottle of coke all over the document. 'Oh no, what have I done,' shouted Ivan.

Juan ran into his office to find Ivan trying to clean up a very wet coke soaked document. ‘I turned around and knocked the drink all over it. I will need to print off a new copy.’

Juan laughed at Ivan, ‘who is the fool now?’

'I know,' sighed Ivan, 'but we all make mistakes. I will print off a clean copy. The document is unusable now.'

‘You will need to hurry up the flight is due to leave in five hours, and we need to contact the other groups.'

Ivan went to his computer, logged on, and selected the document from the File Explorer, opened it up in Word, and then started the printing. While Juan was doing something else, Ivan put a stick into a USB port and copied the document onto the stick. After it had copied, Ivan put the stick in his backpack; the guards never searched him; he was well known. He planned to print it off in the internet café, then post it to London. But it would go to by an indirect route to get there. You could never post something in Columbia to London without all of Caucasia knowing about it.

Ivan picked up the document off the printer, opened it to the shipment for tomorrow. He wrote down the contact details that were relevant to the shipment. Then sent emails in code to all the contacts. They could not use mobiles or telephones. The USA was listening to all mobile calls with their drones overhead in Columbia. The email, if intercepted, would seem innocent. It said, 'Granny is arriving a day early, arriving on the same flight.'

Ivan oversaw the loading of the aircraft in the way that the pilot had taught them. If they got it wrong, then he would go mad and scream that the ground crew were idiots. 

The next day the storm arrived as forecast. Ivan stayed in his office, catching up with his paperwork. At lunchtime, he got up and walked out of the building, glad to have a break from the paperwork.

Ivan made his way to the internet café. Wishing the proprietor a good day, he paid to use the computer and printer in a booth. Ivan printed the schedule document to the printer, put it into the envelope he had brought with him, got up, and left. As usual, Ivan went to the café were, he bought his lunch. He had planned to post the envelope on the way home to his flat.

Ivan had left the USB stick in the computer by mistake. The proprietor pulled it out of the computer and took it to Ivan's office. The receptionist sent him upstairs, and he gave the USB stick to Juan.

The proprietor left the building and walked back towards his internet café. On the way back to the internet cafe, he met Ivan.

‘Hi, you left your USB stick in the computer I have taken it to your office and given it to Juan.’

‘Thank you so much,’ replied Ivan, ‘I forgot something, I need to come back and use your computer.’

They walked back to the internet café together, chatting. Ivan sent an email to Jane; I may have been compromised hidden the document I will need help will be in jail or deceased.

Ivan thanked the proprietor and went via his flat, in the garden, he buried the envelope in a box in his tiny garden. Disguising the soil, he had dug.

Ivan went back to the office and walked into his office and sat down like nothing was wrong.

Juan casually walked into his office, ‘good afternoon Ivan, you have a visitor.’

A security guard with a loaded rifle walked into the office. ‘Sit still if you try to run, I will shoot you.’

A few minutes later, one of the directors arrived in the office. 'Come with me; the guard will kill you if you try to escape.'

Ivan got up and followed the director to another office. The director told him, 'sit down, do not move.'

‘What have I done?’ asked Ivan.

'We believe that you have passed the drug's schedule to someone. Don Herrarr is away for a week; when he comes back, he will decide what to do with you. In the meantime, you are going to jail.'

Juan smiled as Ivan marched out, 'see you, head supervisor.'

Ivan was marched to jail. They walked him into the prison and down past a corridor with cells on either side all full. The last cell was empty the whole place stank of piss. The warder opened the cell, shoved Ivan in, and locked the cell. The cell was filthy, never cleaned. There was a bucket for him, but it was unemptied from the last occupant. The straw on the floor was dirty. There were thick bars on the only window; the noise coming from the other cells was deafening. Ivan sat down on his rickety wooden bed and sighed.