Stone Message Read online

  Stone Message

  by Peter Parfitt

  Copyright Information

  This book is copyright © Peter Parfitt 2010

  The book cover image is copyright © Peter Parfitt 2010

  Dedication

  This book is dedicated to my wife and children who have managed to encourage, support and occasionally humour me during the creation of this novel. I am also grateful to the clever people at Amazon who have made publishing this book electronically so very easy. I would like to thank those readers who provide positive feedback which I will use to benefit my future writing.

  Thank you for taking the time to read my book.

  Part 1 – The Story Today

  Chapter 1 – In the Beginning

  The traffic along London’s Whitehall was unusually light for a Friday morning. There were several taxis seeking an early morning fare, one with a small flashing Christmas tree in the back window. A pair of red double-decker buses were leapfrogging from stop to stop, a white delivery van slowed as it passed each street sign and an ambulance was speeding to the junction at Parliament Square. The two policemen standing in front of the hydraulically operated vehicle barrier at the entrance to Downing Street, looked cold but were cheered by the knowledge that their night shift would end soon. A cyclist passed them, crossed Whitehall and mounted the pavement close to the entrance to the Ministry of Defence Main Building. He folded his Brompton bicycle and walked up the steps to the MoD south entrance. Once inside he swiped his ID badge and, with the folded bicycle in his left hand, went through the barrier rather awkwardly. At 7.30am the building was coming alive with people scurrying to their offices, some with backpacks slung over one shoulder, others with briefcases. Everyone appeared to have a sense of purpose even though, for some, it was just a determination to get in from the cold morning air.

  The cyclist, an Army Colonel, had managed to shower and be in his suit before 8am. He had a difficult day ahead, one that he had been dreading for the last 3 weeks, ever since he was tasked by his General to facilitate a secret meeting of the Joint Intelligence Committee, a group more used to meeting in the Cabinet Offices across the road. This particular meeting was to be held with as little ceremony as possible. The main topic was very sensitive and the Colonel, despite his seniority in the world of military intelligence, would not be allowed to know what was about to be discussed and he would certainly not be in the room at any stage of the JIC meeting. Outside the conference room, two MoD Policemen were stationed and a desk had been set up for the Clerical Officer from the JIC to process the attendees as they arrived. The Colonel checked that the MoD Policemen were happy with their brief and that they had his telephone number in case of a crisis. At 8.30am, an Army Foreman of Signals, dressed in civilian clothes, emerged from the conference room with two large metal briefcases. He had finished his electronic sweep of the room and confirmed that it was not bugged. The Chairman of the JIC arrived at 9am and greeted the Colonel. He had arrived an hour ahead of the start of the meeting in order to satisfy himself that everything was in order and also to read through the agenda one more time.

  Big Ben began the hour chimes at 10am. It was just a few days before Christmas 1999. A few weeks earlier, Boris Yeltsin and Bill Clinton had fallen out over the war in Chechnya and there were confusing intelligence reports coming out of Moscow. Boris Yeltsin was in his second term of office as President of post Soviet Russia. His first term in office had been dogged by a variety of problems, not helped by his poor health. Now, in his second term, his drinking habits had become the stuff of legend and his closest friends were going out of their way to avoid him. There were rumours of a potential coup and the Russian Prime Minister, Vladimir Putin, had cancelled several key engagements.

  The members of the JIC had all been instructed to make their way on foot to the MoD Main Building and they were even told what time they should arrive and which entrance to use. Most of them had been given false appointments with arbitrary officials inside the MoD in order to disguise the fact that a JIC meeting was planned. The usual close cooperation between the United Kingdom and the United States of America over intelligence matters had hit troubled waters after an aborted operation close to the Iraq and Iran borders had cost the lives of two members of the SAS and a CIA agent. The failed venture had caused some diplomatic strain and some friction between the Head of MI6 and the Deputy Director of the CIA. Unknown to the British, this was not the only failed operation in the Middle East for the CIA.

  Waiting to be called in to brief the JIC was Professor Sir Stephen Appsby, a newly appointed senior scientific advisor to the Government. The grey haired scientist was fidgeting with his notebook and kept glancing at his watch nervously. He was dreading this first appearance in front of the JIC but at the same time was annoyed to be kept waiting. The young man at the desk sensed the frustration but could offer little solace. He was about to try and placate the scientist when the large padded door to the conference room opened and a bright young aide appeared. “Sir Stephen Appsby, we are ready for you now Sir.”

  Appsby walked through the open door and glanced around the large windowless room. He recognised the Chief of Defence Intelligence, Lieutenant General Sir Mark Stiles, and nodded a greeting. There were others whom he had met before but this was not a social occasion. He was directed towards the lectern where he opened his notebook and waited for the Chairman to introduce him to the committee. The JIC was chaired by Sir Bob Lakehurst, a relative newcomer to office and a perfect gentleman. “Lady and Gentlemen, may I introduce Sir Stephen Appsby, one of our scientists, who is here at my request to update us on a subject which none of us can avoid. Sir Stephen.” The Chairman sat back to listen to the guest speaker.

  “Chairman, Lady and Gentlemen. In less than 10 days from now there is the potential for world wide disruption to transport, commerce and strategically critical systems due to countless short cuts made by computer programmers. I am talking about the Millennium Bug.” He pressed the button to bring up his first PowerPoint slide. “I must at this stage, point out that I am not the UK’s expert in this area although I was, for a brief period, a member of the Millennium Bug Advisory Panel. Shortly, as we go into the year 2000, calculations of time or dates, using only the last two digits of the year, will produce wrong answers.” The scientist used several PowerPoint slides to illustrate his talk and many of the members of the JIC made notes. At the end of his five minute piece, he invited questions but there was only one trivial question which was answered quickly. He closed his notebook and was about to step away from the lectern when the Chairman spoke. “Stephen, thank you for that fascinating summary of the Millennium Bug. Could we be very cheeky and pick your brains a little? I understand that you are an acknowledged expert on Sun Spots. I realise that you will have had no warning of this question but could you give us your views on the dangers that satellites face from Sun Spots?” Sir Bob Lakehurst sat back, glanced briefly towards Sir Mark, and waited for the response.

  Sir Stephen Appsby was nobody’s fool and, as he gathered his thoughts on Sun Spots, the penny finally dropped. He was surprised to have been invited to talk about the Millennium Bug when there were others far more familiar with the subject, but Sun Spots and satellite vulnerability were more his bag. He decided to make the point. “Bob, now I understand why you invited me here. The Millennium Bug will be pretty much a damp squib and by the end of January you will all be wondering what the fuss was about.” He paused and the Chairman interjected. “Stephen, I am sorry for the subterfuge but our agenda seems to find its way into many embassies and this is a subject that we wish to keep to ourselves for as long as we can, and we particularly do not want our friends across the Pond to know what we are about to discuss. Hence we are in this rather crampe
d briefing room with very few beyond this room, I hope, knowing what we are up to.” He deferred to the scientist.

  “I understand.” He managed a weak smile and continued. “As you may well know, Sun Spots are areas of the sun where the magnetic fields are vastly stronger than elsewhere on the sun. They occur in a reasonably predictable cycle reaching a peak every eleven years. We entered the current peak in October. The effect of these strong magnetic fields can reach across the entire solar system and have been known to cause power failures and disruption to communications here on Earth. During the last peak in 1989-90, there were reports that British soldiers on exercise in Germany were picking up VHF radio transmissions from taxi drivers, thousands of miles away, in New York. I am aware that at that time the US lost a communications satellite. It has been documented, I think I read about it in the New Scientist magazine.” Appsby paused and General Stiles contributed. “They have just lost another satellite, one of the Artemis constellation, a spy satellite in the Arabian–Indian sector. It went into a system reset then failed to wake up. Telemetry was lost at the same time and it fell into the Pacific Ocean three weeks ago. What we need to work out, Stephen, is how to protect our surveillance satellites.”

  The scientist ran a hand through his grey hair and then leant forward against the lectern. “Solar flares and Sun Spots are nothing new. Almost every satellite launched will have some form of protection but nothing is perfect. On board redundancy is often favoured, but never foolproof. If you want to fully protect the instruments and sensors, the launch weights would be far in excess of any lift systems that we have today. The problem is not helped by what appear to be ever higher strengths of the solar flares.” The one female member of the JIC, a senior official in the Cabinet Office, had a question. “Sir Stephen, forgive my technical naivety, but surely there must be some shield or electronic deflector that could be employed, or how about a safe haven where satellites could be corralled during a solar crisis?” Appsby was not a politician, he was arrogant and a chauvinist. “Madam, you have been watching too many episodes of Star Trek. I think that the issue is more fundamental than the simple protection of satellites. If you want to encourage original thought and get meaningful advice then you need to make clear what the objective is. It’s no good complaining that you can’t go to the hairdresser because the car won’t start and then devoting eons trying to fix the damn thing when your objective could be reached by getting on your bike or taking a taxi.” Appsby felt good for just two or three seconds before the embarrassed coughs and hum-hums reached his ears. “Forgive me for being direct. I have seen government money wasted on solutioneering where contractors and even scientists have been told what shape or form their product or solution should take. Perhaps if you were to be open about the requirement rather than the problem, then science, armed with sufficient facts, might be able to come to your aid.”

  There was a curious silence and some awkward glances between some of the committee members. The senior MI6 man broke the ice. “Almost all of our intelligence products, the stuff that the security services, politicians and the Foreign Office use to help guide their decisions, are a cocktail of satellite data, Human Intelligence and Signals Intelligence. Leaving Signals Intelligence to one side, we rarely use satellite data alone, except for tracking big bits of kit like nuclear submarines and capital warships. That nice Mr Gorbachev did a lot to thaw out Cold War politics, but the Russia of today is too unpredictable. In many respects life was easier before Glasnost. In the old days, we all knew where we stood and both political and military planners had a relatively easy time. We have always done our best to build redundancy into our intelligence gathering systems and we certainly avoid putting all of our eggs in one basket. The one area that we need to improve is the detection of the big stuff. We need to be able to track a submarine without relying on a satellite. There will be little scope for Human Intelligence once the subs are at sea and so we need a clever gadget, a box of science that solves the problem. Now, Sir Stephen, can you tell us if this can be done or do we all need to stop watching Star Trek and cycle to the barber’s?” He had delivered the rebuke for the minor discourtesy to the member from the Cabinet Office and Appsby took the point. The woman smiled.

  Appsby thought briefly, then replied. “I assume that sonar buoys are no good as you want a passive system. Hydrophones come to mind but you would need thousands of them to cover the oceans and they could be easily spoofed or destroyed. Thermal imaging to detect the slightly raised temperature in a submarine’s wake would still need a satellite.” He then remembered something significant. “I know of a study, it might have been for NATO or with the Americans, about ten or fifteen years ago where magnetic techniques were considered for the detection of submarines. The UK contribution was looked after under a Royal Navy research project at Malvern. I can do some digging and see if there is likely to be any value left in that early work. Forgive me as I am new to this business. Am I allowed to get help from anyone in the wider UK scientific community?” Appsby knew someone who could help.

  The Chairman answered the question. “Not without my express consent, Stephen. Do you have someone in particular in mind?” he asked. “Actually I do. There’s a chap at Imperial College who has done some amazing work with magnetism, Professor James Gordon. He was an advisor to the Ministry of Defence on mine detection – that was all to do with magnetism and I know that he has pioneered some of its clinical uses.” Appsby leafed through the pages at the end of his notebook. “He works for Professor Martin McClean. He’s the Principal of the Natural Sciences Faculty at Imperial.’

  The Chairman looked towards the Chief of Defence Intelligence, “Do you know McClean or Gordon at all Mark?” General Sir Mark Stiles responded “We know McClean quite well, but I haven’t come across Gordon but that doesn’t mean he’s not on our books.” The Chairman turned to Appsby. “You can have a chat with McClean but make sure that he is aware of the sensitivity of the matter. He will know just what Gordon might be able to contribute. Perhaps you would report back to us for our meeting after next.” He glanced down at his diary. “Thursday the 13th of January and we will be back across the road by then.” With that, Appsby left.

  The JIC discussed what Appsby had said. Their next outside briefer was a Naval Commander from the Chief of Defence Intelligence’s empire who had been tasked to give a status report of UK intelligence satellites and facilities provided to the UK by US satellites. The briefing revealed a sorry story of ageing satellites, shortages of fuel to keep them on station, and damage caused by high levels of solar activity. The US considered their situation to be dire and the loss of the Challenger space shuttle and the subsequent grounding of the fleet did not help. Despite their relatively large number of space assets, they were openly discussing reducing the facilities available to the UK. The US had already offered to make intelligence products available in several key areas but deny the UK access to the original or raw intelligence. The last thing the JIC wanted was for intelligence products to be controlled almost entirely by the World’s dominant power; the UK had to be able to gather its own intelligence and create intelligence products that were not tainted by political or cultural bias. The UK also wanted to keep an eye on her allies.

  The JIC meeting was concluded by lunchtime. The following day Sir Stephen Appsby telephoned Professor Martin McClean and the two agreed to meet in the New Year.

  Chapter 2 – Work at Last

  Imperial College of Science and Technology sits discreetly on London’s Exhibition Road. Most people would walk straight past, on their way to or from the Science Museum and the Victoria and Albert Museum across the road. Tom Brooker had enjoyed three fantastic years of fun, friends, rugby and reasonable freedom at the college, and had managed to gain a modest 2nd Class Honours Degree. This result was not good enough to allow him to go on to study for a second degree, as he had hoped, and was making job hunting difficult.

  Tom had been so elated on the day of his graduation ceremony in
May 2000. He had collected his degree in the sumptuous surroundings of the Royal Albert Hall, just a short walk away from Imperial College. He had been delighted that his father was at the ceremony, but disappointed when he had made excuses to leave early from the reception afterwards. It was only a few days later that tragedy struck; Tom learnt that his father had died. He was devastated.

  Now, in the middle of November 2000, sixteen months after finishing his degree and six months after his father’s death, Tom was finding life in London rather difficult. After several quite disastrous job interviews, he was clearly not going to become a banker, a fast-track civil servant or a producer at the BBC. Part of his problem was that he had studied engineering but had wanted to do something a little more exciting where his engineering knowledge or skills might be a useful adjunct. He was a nervous interviewee and his degree result was simply not good enough to offset his deficiencies. A succession of part time jobs was getting him down. He had enjoyed the challenge of driving the florist’s van in the rush hour but the novelty had worn off after about a week. His career as a painter and decorator lasted just 2 days and that was followed by 4 weeks as a security specialist or, more accurately, night watchman. He did quite like the regime of 4 nights on and 3 days off but this soon became a total bore. His longest spell of employment was as an assistant buyer for a large department store near Sloane Square but after 4 months, the routine of 6 or more hours a day telephoning manufacturers, wholesalers and other buyers became too much and he left. His social life was becoming erratic as his circle of friends became smaller and smaller, and he had not had a girlfriend for several months. He was no longer eligible to play for the university rugby team and his brief membership of an amateur club had ended.