Still, he did not sleep. He waited, with the room lights full and glaring, afraid he might fail to be awakened by the telephone. The hours were a tortuous voyage through his life, images of his family with which his other self, the professional, tried to battle as he strove for logic, sought a plan, devised a counterstrike, and strained to discover the traps. Alone.
Yet he was a helpless pauper of information, and not having enough to even begin devising a proper strategy, he was faced with submission to a monster he had held at bay forever: defeat.
By 2:00 A.M., the ideas were dead, the image of Ruth having replaced all others, hovering above him as he prayed that she still breathed. He lay there barely moving, his palms pressed into his eyes. Once or twice his chest heaved in a sob, and he felt the sting of liquid between his cheeks and the course skin of his hands. He stayed that way until Eckstein called, then called back again, and finally an injection of hope allowed him to find peace. By the mercy of God, he did not dream. . . .
“It’s normal,” said the nurse as she withdrew the thermometer and quickly exited through the cordon of grave men.
There was a moment of silence after her departure, then Denny Baylor muttered, “ ’Bout as normal as a beer party in Mecca,” referring not to Baum’s temperature but to the events of the past twenty-four hours.
Jack Buchanan grunted. He was once more staring out the window.
“Colonel Baum,” he began, for the first time making an effort at cordiality, “our conflict here is giving succor to the enemy.”
Benni, who had expected a renewed assault, raised his narrowed eyes. “I agree,” he said. “Every minute rewards her with distance.”
“At Mach speed,” Charles Gold added.
Benni looked at Buchanan’s deputy. “Then she is airborne, I assume?”
“A hired executive jet,” said Buchanan. “But we don’t think the pilots were in on it. She probably commandeered it over the Atlantic.” He turned from the window and fixed his impatient gaze on the ranking NIS officer. “Jump in anytime, Cole.”
Peter Cole’s face hardened in objection to this cooperation, but he flipped a page on his pad and summarized in staccato.
“They took our transport vehicle in Ironsides, about fifteen klicks from the weapons center. Headed north and ditched it, plus a bogus staff car, before they hit Route 225.” He looked up at Baum, remembering that the man was foreign, and added, “This is in Maryland.”
Baum nodded, and Cole continued.
“They showed up clean and dry at a civilian airstrip near Pomonkey. Had a limousine and a hearse, passports, cleared customs, loaded a coffin aboard, and took off.”
“A coffin,” Baum whispered, as the flesh of his neck began to crawl.
“The Minnow would easily fit,” said Dr. Carswell, and Benni resumed his breathing.
“Cleared customs?” Charles Gold’s head tipped forward. Charter flights were rarely inspected prior to departure, and then only if on-site customs personnel had a reason to search. “That field’s international?”
“No,” said Cole. “But they were flight-planned for Málaga, and she probably didn’t want to risk any outbound hitches, so she advised a mobile inspector.”
“She called in customs?” Hal Novak’s eyes widened.
“Yup,” Cole replied.
“Balls,” Denny Baylor whispered in appreciation.
“What about the truck and the staff car?” Novak asked. “Can we get prints off them?”
Cole shook his head. “Wiped, or they wore gloves. A Marine survivor says the car was driven by a naval officer, but we’re sure the getup was lifted. There’s a young guy in a coma up at NYU Medical, fits the description of an AWOL lieutenant. A nosy super found him in a body bag.”
“Christ,” Buchanan said, as if hearing this for the first time.
“What happened to the hearse and the limo?” Novak probed.
“Drove away,” said Cole. “Haven’t picked them up yet.”
So she has left men behind, Benni thought as he instinctively looked at the window. Martina’s threat had not been hollow. She could have him watched and know if he left United States territory.
“May I ask?” Benni said quietly as he kept his face averted from his visitors. “Was there a description of the travelers?”
“Two women, nine men,” Cole answered.
“No more details than that?” Benni worked to keep his voice steady.
“We showed a photo of Klump to the airfield personnel and got a positive ID. No match on the other female. Most of the men were Middle Eastern. Ayrabs, according to the gas jockeys at the strip.”
“Hogs,” said a deeper voice, from the vestibule near the doorway. The men turned to the source of this odd invective.
Arthur Roselli stood just inside the door, his hands in the side pockets of a blue anorak, the shoulders black with rain. A pair of sunglasses hung from a pink elastic tube around his neck, incongruous considering the weather, suggesting the carefree fashion sense of a ski coach.
Benni heard the sharp intake of air through Jack Buchanan’s nose, yet the SAC held his protest in check. Baum’s own breath expelled in a slow leak of relief.
Roselli looked around. He recognized the FBI officials but not the NIS men, Carswell, or the silent SEAL. He produced an ID wallet from his pocket, flipped it open, and murmured, “Roselli from Langley,” as if that was the silly high sign for entry into a college frat house.
“HOGs, gentlemen,” he said. “Klump’s men. She was attached to Hizbollah in Lebanon early to mid-eighties. Pulled out with her own splinter group. Freelancers. Call themselves Yadd Allah, Hand of God. Get it? HOGs.” He looked directly at Buchanan and added, in as nonthreatening a tone as he could manage, “But I assume you know all that, Jack.”
Buchanan had a choice to make. He could rekindle his hatred, or just let the embers glow until a more convenient day. His conflict with Roselli went back nearly twenty years, to a time when the Bureau had wanted to ensconce its own mole-hunters at Langley, and the CIA had reacted like a housewife threatened by her husband’s hiring of a nubile au pair. But in fact the mistrust was “cultural,” animosities sown long before by J. Edgar Hoover, whose agents had ruled the roost of domestic and foreign intelligence until World War II, then resented the encroachment of the new Central Intelligence Agency and its Yalie playboy spies.
“That’s right,” said Buchanan. “We have pretty much the same thing.” He rubbed his square chin. “ ‘HOGs’ is new to me.”
“Agency nomenclature,” said Roselli, and warming to the truce, he smiled. “You know us. Crazy for acronyms.”
Buchanan grunted, yet his attempt at a smile looked more like intestinal discomfort.
“So what’s the feeling across the river?” Charles Gold asked.
“The feeling,” said Roselli, “and that’s all we have, is that this isn’t a heist for resale. She didn’t take the Minnow for another end user.”
“How do you draw that conclusion?” Dr. Carswell asked hopefully.
Roselli looked at the scientist. He had never seen the man before but correctly pegged him as a “computer nerd,” and a sworn-in member of this sad clique.
“The weapon’s a prototype,” said Roselli. “One of a kind. It’s not like the Redeyes we’ve got floating all around now because we handed them out to the Afghans like candy.”
Peter Cole raised an eyebrow, impressed that Roselli would publicly take issue with an Agency policy.
“Any third party who takes delivery knows that all of our intel assets will be out there looking,” Roselli continued. “And every one of our pissed-off SOCOM operators will be itching to kill to get it back.”
The gates of mercy shall be all shut up, thought the nameless SEAL in the corner. He was an Annapolis graduate.
“And if anyone uses it against a vessel,” Carswell interjected, “there will be residue to identify the Minnow, even if it has to be dredged up.”
“Right.” Roselli l
ooked over at Buchanan. “And then you’ll probably be able to run the user down.” The compliment was not backhanded, for no one could compete with the FBI’s forensic capabilities.
“We sure as hell will,” said Gold.
“So it’s not for resale,” Roselli concluded. “She’s going to use it herself, because she doesn’t give a shit who knows.”
“Balls,” Denny Baylor whispered again as he chewed the tobacco lump.
“You’ve got another theory?” Roselli turned on the bearded agent, assuming the remark to be a dismissal of his assessment.
“I was commenting on her nerve,” said Baylor.
“Ahh.” Roselli nodded. “That she’s got.” Then he addressed Baum directly for the first time. “Right, Colonel?”
“Knollen.” Benni used a descriptive German obscenity and raised a fist to show the testicular size.
The door opened once again, and Baum wondered if the entire Pentagon was going to try to squeeze into his room. When he saw that the new visitor was Detective Michael O’Donovan, a flush of anger rose to his face. He had sworn O’Donovan to look after his daughter, and the man had failed the test of a simple bodyguard. Lusting after her he could manage, but keeping her out of harm’s way was too much to ask. Then he suddenly realized that his anger was misguided, a projection of his own guilt. But that self-awareness was then replaced by a shiver of insecurity, for O’Donovan might reveal that Ruth had been taken, a fact that had to be kept from Jack Buchanan.
His fears were immediately allayed, for although O’Donovan looked at him with a pained expression of apology, he also casually drew one finger across his lips, indicating that they were sealed.
“O’Donovan!” Jack Buchanan peered across the room. “Is that you?”
Roselli sidestepped, praying that the detective would hold his own.
“In the bruised flesh,” said O’Donovan. The bridge of his nose was covered with a white cross of surgical tape, and patches of purple skin below his eyes looked like the deflective smears on a football player’s cheeks.
“Who’s this?” Charles Gold asked.
“It’s O’Donovan,” Buchanan said incredulously. “Midtown North.” He turned back to the detective. “What the hell happened to you?”
“Car accident,” O’Donovan answered plainly.
“You’re a cop?” Peter Cole asked, trying to make some sense of the relationships.
“NYPD,” Buchanan answered in O’Donovan’s stead. “He was working on the consulate bombing.”
“Is he cleared for this?” Cole demanded with childish propriety.
“He’s with me,” said Roselli.
“But is he cleared?” Denny Baylor emphasized, backing up his boss.
Roselli spun on the young NIS agent. “He’s ex-SF, Tenth Group, clearances up the ass.” Everyone in the business knew that Special Forces operators had to survive the same vetting as the Agency’s most clandestine agents. “We were together at Desert One,” he added for effect. “Where were you?”
Baylor just blinked at Roselli. In 1980, he was a junior in high school.
“You been briefed on the latest, O’Donovan?” Buchanan asked.
“Affirmative,” said the detective.
“Thoroughly,” Roselli interjected.
“Then you know what we’ve got here.” Buchanan focused grimly on O’Donovan, not terribly pleased to see a man whom he had recently treated like a gofer. “Wish you’d nailed this bitch last week. Then we’d be preparing for indictments, instead of burials at Arlington.”
O’Donovan’s eyes narrowed, an expression that caused him physical pain. His voice dropped to a heavier caliber.
“I was just working the homicide angle. Remember? You run the terrorism task force, Jack.”
Buchanan’s lips worked soundlessly. Then he shut them.
“There isn’t time for this,” said Hal Novak. “Roselli, what’s your target assessment? People are waiting to deploy.”
Art Roselli rubbed his jaw, raising his eyes across the room to Benni. They had planned this next part carefully, but it was unrehearsed. “Well, we should assume that every American vessel between here and the Red Sea is at risk. Any ship exposed to open water of, let’s say . . . what’s the effective range?”
“The Minnow requires one hundred meters to arm itself,” said Dr. Carswell.
“One hundred meters of open-water exposure,” Roselli concluded.
“Shit,” said Peter Cole. “That’s hundreds of targets.”
“Pssss.” The nameless SEAL released a sound like a submarine blowing ballast. His men could never cover such a list of maybes.
“But I think,” said Roselli, “that our guest here might be able to narrow that.” He folded his arms as he continued gazing at Benni.
“I believe I told you, Mr. Roselli,” Benni said through a tight mouth, “that this particular risk is ours alone. An Israeli affair.”
“The target risk might be yours,” said Roselli, “but the device is ours.”
“What’s the deal here?” Jack Buchanan asked in frustration. “You two know each other? What the hell you talking about?”
“We’ve had contact before.” Roselli colored his tone with displeasure. “And we have our differences on this.”
“No fucking surprise,” said Buchanan.
“Come on, Baum,” said Roselli with more urgency. “Give it up. Tell them, or we’re all off on a wild-goose chase.”
That was exactly what the two men had planned, although it had been Baum who was more reluctant to squander the resources of American Intelligence and Defense. He was fairly certain of Martina’s intended landfall, the site from which she would jump off to assault Moonlight in the Mediterranean. Carrying her stolen American prize, she would certainly not set down in any European or African nation where there was a significant American presence, or in any area where Israelis could comfortably operate.
Algeria was openly hostile now to both countries, given its Moslem fundamentalist propensity, so the section of the Tango file suggesting Martina’s mobile command post in the Algerian Sahara appeared likely. Benni could, in fairly good conscience, withhold this guess from his interviewers, while Roselli had the authority to focus certain CIA reconnaissance assets on Algeria without specifying the motive. Yet Baum still did not feel comfortable with a more elaborate deception.
However, Arthur had reasoned that without concocting a full decoy, they could not deflect American attention from the secret prisoner exchange or the deadly predicament of Ruth. These people had to be given an alternative target.
“All right,” said Baum with exasperation. “All right.” He looked up at the ceiling as if begging forgiveness for the coming transgression. “Martina Klump has a bone to pick with us—with Israel, that is, and with the German government as well. As you all know, she was once a wanted member of the Red Army Faction. A joint Israeli-German operation resulted in her capture and imprisonment. She has sworn vengeance.”
It sounded awfully melodramatic as he said it, but that part was not far from the truth. He inhaled deeply, as if the next revelation would require all his moral strength.
“There is a clandestine deal about to be consummated between Bonn and Jerusalem,” he lied. “The Israeli Navy has purchased a pair of customized attack submarines from Germany. We are scheduled to take delivery next week, in Bremerhaven.” He raised his bare arms to show that nothing was left up his sleeves. “Those submarines, gentlemen, or one of them, are most probably Martina Klump’s target.”
As if disgusted by his own indiscretion, Benni dropped his hands onto the bed with a thud.
There was a short silence, then the men reacted like a basketball team that had nearly forfeited a game due to the fouls of one player. They groaned, someone smacked his forehead, and a string of low curses echoed in the stuffy room.
“Jesus fucking Christ, Baum!” Buchanan resumed his comfortable rancor. “You’ve been holding that back?!”
“Coul
d’ve saved us this whole damned square dance,” Peter Cole muttered.
“We are capable of discretion, Colonel,” said Hal Novak.
“I told you, Baum,” Roselli chastised.
Benni chose to address Novak’s comment. “I’m sure that you are,” he said. “And I am sorry. However, you must understand the sensitivity here. We have sworn to Bonn not to reveal this sale. Left-wing elements in Germany’s government are very powerful, and a vote of no confidence could result.” He paused. “I admit that I might have told you sooner. But I was not at liberty to do so.”
“Well, thank you for sharing.” Buchanan’s voice oozed. His mood was lifting, for at least the target was not American.
“And there are further complexities,” Baum continued as he completed his ruse. “We cannot warn the Germans of this danger, for they might withdraw from the deal. We need those boats. And,” he added, looking chagrined, “due to some past indiscretions, we have sworn not to operate on German soil.”
Roselli picked up his cue. “So you’re saying that Israeli security teams can’t be at the site, at the sub pens? Not even for defensive purposes?”
“Skeleton sub crews,” said Benni. “And nothing more.”
“All right,” said Buchanan, pulling his lip thoughtfully. “All right. At least we’ve got something to chew on.” He looked at Roselli. “Langley, did your sky eyes get anything on the aircraft.”
“Negative so far. We also ran it by the FAA, but they had no distress signal from any airplane in Atlantic sectors. Plus, yesterday’s weather was a break after heavy storm systems, so lots of backed-up traffic took to the air. It was a mess.”
“What about humint?” Peter Cole asked Roselli about information coming in from field agents.
“We’ve already got assets checking out every potential European strip, within reason, of course. I suggest you do the same.”
“We will,” said Cole as he puffed up a bit. He turned toward the nameless SEAL in the corner and began to make a suggestion. The man was gone. “Where’d he go?” he muttered.
The Nylon Hand of God Page 34