Ready and Prepared

[Nentsia]

FSD HQ
Nyköping

Gina Thorn, a senior HUMINT officer at the Counter-Terrorism section of the Federal Security Department received a text message on her phone. Unlike many other officers, she was allowed to carry one inside her office and inside the building. It was a specially prepared phone which she used to maintain contact throughout the day with informants and agents out on the streets. The phone had no internet access, but the old-fashioned way of sending SMS text messages worked perfectly. Thorn interrupted her processing of reports produced by her agents to check her phone. It was a message from an agent codenamed Torpedo. Torpedo was young man, coming from a police background, who specialized in undercover operations. Initially he did so for the criminal intelligence squad of the Federal Criminal Investigation Service, but later switched to the FSD.

Torpedo was one of the agents the FSD had tasked to join and infiltrate the NMP. He texted that Ingbar Bergström was at an NMP meeting place to train youngsters in handling weapons and ideology. Bergström was what the FSD designated as a ''target''. The CT unit working on the NMP threat believed him to belong to the a so-called Second Ring of a terrorist network. He was considered an essential person to get close to the terrorist network's core. Thorn quickly called together the rest of the team, which involved analysts, IT experts, legal advisers, profilers and a few liaison officers and secretaries. Because it was already in the evening, some had already gone home. They decided to have a phone meeting, including also the head of CT section, Niklas Westerberg.

''There has been a development in the Bergström case. My source says he will be spending the evening with NMP youngsters teaching them about weapons and ideology. This offers tremendous opportunity. They are massively exposing themselves tonight.'' Gina said, holding a special secure telephone on speaker.

''I agree with you Gina. An observation team is en route. But I assume you have more plans?''

''I do. Let the observation team first drive directly to Bergström's home. We need to get the aid of local police with this. With your authorization, we can order a key company to provide us with the keys that fit on Bergström's doors and enter his house. We will order the company from here to find a suitable key, a few local police officers can come and collect it. Once inside the house, we search everything.''

And they did as planned. All of a sudden Nyland's security services erupted in a secretive frenzy to get many things done before the NMP youth meeting was over. Police officers rushed through town to collect a set of keys that would fit on Bergström's door. An FSD observation team, drove at twice the maximum speed towards his home in an ordinary civilian car - although fully equipped with surveillance and observation gear. They meet with the police a couple of blocks away who handed them the keys. Four FSD agents then went around the back of Bergström's house and quickly entered with a key. They took pictures of everything, while an IT specialist looked for harddrives, USB sticks, and Bergström's computers and cell phones. Everything they found was quickly scanned and copied. If they found computers or phones, they would install spyware on it to enable the FSD to look into the devices from a distance and monitor them realtime.

The others searched written documents, financial documents, they collected a sample of Bergström's DNA, and they went from room to room to place miniature microphones. Bergström offered the FSD the possibility to get a view on the terrorist network hiding within the NMP, and therefore no effort was spared. Once they had searched everything, and planted everything, while leaving everything as the resident had left it, they moved out of the house again. They were not quite done yet. The team now set course towards the NMP meeting place, the adress that Torpedo had given them. As Bergström's priority had risen exponentially in the past few hours, the FSD employed one of its most invasive measures: following.

As the team arrived at the parking lot, they searched for Bergström's car by his license plate. It took a while, but eventually the found it. One member of the team kept watching the building - making sure no one came out. Another agent quickly crawled underneath Bergström's car to attach a GPS tracker. For that evening, that was the action. But the FSD wasn't quite done yet.

With the information pouring out of NMP computer files, and especially from Bergström's administration, they had the list of names of the youths involved at the weapons training. Since these were still young and impressionable kids, the FSD sensed an opportunity to intervene in their social environment to deter them from further radicalization, whilst it kept intensively monitoring Bergström, of whom they expected he would some day lead them to the terrorist core. The FSD was also planning another forward measure, to be executed jointly with other measures, to maximize their impact.