by Tom Clancy
Some things had changed in the intervening years. Some had not. There was still a suspicion of foreigners here at the customs post. The clerk was backed up by armed men, and their job was to prevent the entry of people like him. For the new UIR, as for the previous country, every new face was a potential spy.
“Klerk,” he said, handing over his passport, “Ivan Sergeyevich.” What the hell, the Russian cover identity had worked before, and he already had it memorized. Better yet, his Russian was letter-perfect. He’d passed as a Soviet citizen before a uniformed official more than once.
“Chekov, Yevgeniy Pavlovich,” Chavez told the next clerk over.
They were, again, news correspondents. Rules prohibited CIA officers from covering themselves as American reporters, but that didn’t apply to the foreign media.
“The purpose of your visit?” the first clerk asked.
“To learn about your new country,” Ivan Sergeyevich replied. “It must be very exciting for everyone.” For their work in Japan, they’d brought camera gear, and a useful little gadget that looked like, and indeed was, a bright light. Not this time.
“He and I are together,” Yevgeniy Pavlovich told his clerk.
The passports were brand-new, though one could not have told it from casual inspection. It was one of the few things Clark and Chavez didn’t have to worry about. RVS tradecraft was every bit as good as the former KGB’s had been. They made some of the best fake documents in the world. The pages were covered with stamps, many overlapping, and were creased and dog-eared from years of apparent use. An inspector grabbed their bags and opened them. He found clothing, clearly much used, two books, which he flipped through to see if they were pornographic, two cameras of medium quality, their black enamel well-chipped but the lenses new. Each had a carry-on bag with note pads and mini-tape recorders. The inspectors took their time, even after the clerks had done their work, finally passing their country’s visitors through with a palpable reluctance.
“Spasiba,” John said pleasantly, getting his bags and moving off. Over the years, he’d learned not to conceal his relief completely. Normal travelers were intimidated. He had to be, too, lest he stand apart from them. The two CIA officers went outside to catch a cab, standing together in line silently as the rank of taxis ate up the new arrivals. When they were two back, Chavez dropped his travel bag, and the contents spilled out. He and Clark let two people jump ahead of them in line while he repacked the bag. That almost certainly guaranteed a random cab, unless they were all being driven by spooks.
The trick was to look normal in all respects. Not too stupid. Never too smart. To get disoriented and ask for directions, but not too often. To stay in cheap hotels. And in their particular case, to pray that none of the people who’d seen them during their brief visit to this city crossed their path. The mission was supposed to be a simple one. That was usually the idea. You rarely sent intelligence officers out on complex missions—they’d have the good sense to refuse. The simple ones were hairy enough once you got out there.
“IT’S CALLED TASK Group COMEDY,” Robby told him. “They got their doorbell rung this morning.” The J-3 explained on for a few minutes.
“Playing rough?” the President asked.
“Evidently, they gave the P-3 a real air show. I’ve done that myself a few times, back in my young-and-foolish days. They want us to know they’re there, and they’re not intimidated. The group commander is Greg Kemper. I don’t know him, but his rep’s pretty good. CINCLANT likes him. He’s asking for a ROE change.”
“Not yet. Later today.”
“Okay. I would not expect a night attack, but remember dawn there is midnight here, sir.”
“Arnie, what’s the book on the P.M.?”
“She and Ambassador Williams don’t exchange Christmas presents,” the chief of staff replied. “You met her in the East Room a while back.”
“Warning her off risks having her call Daryaei,” Ben Goodley reminded them all. “If you confront her, she’ll weasel on you.”
“And? Robby?”
“If we get past the Indians, but she warns Daryaei? They can try to block the strait. The Med force will turn the corner in a few hours and join up fifty miles off the entrance. We’ll have air cover. It could be exciting, but they should make it. Mines are the scary part. The strait there is pretty deep for them. Closer into Dhahran is another story. The longer the UIR’s in the dark, the better, but they may already know what COMEDY is made up of.”
“Or maybe not,” van Damm thought. “If she thinks she can handle it herself, she might just try to show him what kind of balls she has.”
THE TRANSFER WAS called Operation CUSTER. All forty aircraft were aloft now, each carrying roughly 250 soldiers in a sky train six thousand miles long. The lead aircraft were now six hours out from Dhahran, leaving Russian airspace and overflying Ukraine.
The F-15 pilots had traded waves with a handful of Russian fighters which had come up to say hello. They were tired now. Their rumps were like painful lead from all the time in the same seat—the airliner pilots behind them could get up and move around; they even had toilets, quite a luxury for a fighter pilot who had an appliance called a relief tube. Arms tightened up. Muscles were sore from staying in the same position. It was to the point that tanking from their KC-135s was becoming difficult, and gradually they came to the opinion that an air-to-air engagement an hour out from their destination might not be much fun at all. Most drank coffee, tried to shift hands on the stick, and stretched as much as they could.
The soldiers were mainly sleeping, still ignorant of the nature of their mission. The airlines had stocked their aircraft normally, and the troops indulged what would be their last chance to have a drink for some time to come. Those who had deployed to Saudi in 1990 and 1991 told their war stories, chief among which was the memory that the Kingdom wasn’t a place you went to for the nightlife.
NEITHER WAS INDIANA. Brown and Holbrook had found, at least not now. They had at least been smart enough to get into a motel before the general panic, and here they were trapped. This motel, like the ones they’d used in Wyoming and Nebraska, catered to truckers. It had a large restaurant, the old-fashioned sort with a counter and booths, and now with masked waitresses and customers who didn’t group closely together to socialize. Instead, they ate their meals and went back to their rooms, or to sleep in their trucks. There was a daily dance of sorts. The trucks had to be moved, lest staying in the exact same spot damage the tires. Everyone listened to the radio for hourly news broadcasts. The rooms, the restaurant, and even some of the trucks had televisions for further information and distraction. There was boredom, the tense sort familiar to soldiers but not known to the two Mountain Men.
“Goddamned government,” a furniture hauler said. He had family two states away.
“I guess they showed us who was boss, eh?” Ernie Brown said, for general consumption.
Later, data would show that not a single interstate trucker had caught the virus. Their existence was too solitary for that. But their working lives depended on movement, both because they earned their living that way and because they had chosen to do so. Sitting still was not in their nature. Being told to sit still was even less so.
“What the hell,” another driver added. He couldn’t think of anything else to say. “Goddamned glad I got outa Chicago when I did. That news is scary.”
“You suppose this all makes sense?” someone asked.
“Since when does the government make sense?” Holbrook griped.
“I hear that,” a voice chimed in, and finally the Mountain Men felt at home somewhere. Then, by unspoken consent, it was time for them to leave.
“How the hell much longer will we be stuck here, Pete?” Ernie Brown wanted to know.
“You’re askin’ me?”
“A WHOLE LOT of nothing,” concluded the lead agent. Aref Raman was a little neat for a single man living alone, but not grossly so. One of the FBI agents had noted with surpri
se that even the man’s socks were neatly folded, along with everything else in the bureau drawers. Then one of the group remembered a study of NFL football players. A psychologist had determined after months of study that offensive linemen, whose job was to protect the quarterback, had neat lockers, while defensive linemen, whose job it was to pound the opposing quarterbacks into the turf, were slobs in every respect. It was good for a laugh, and an explanation. Nothing else was found. There was a photo of his parents, both dead. He subscribed to two news magazines, had the full cable options for his two televisions, had no booze in the house, and ate healthy. He had a particular affinity for kosher hot dogs, judging by the freezer. There were no hidden drawers or compartments they would have found them—and nothing the least bit suspicious. That was both good news and bad.
The phone rang. Nobody answered it, because they weren’t there, and they had beepers and cellular phones for their own communications needs.
“Hello, this is 536-3040,” the recording of Raman’s voice said, after the second ring. “Nobody’s here to answer the phone right now, but if you leave a message, somebody will get back to you.” Followed by a beep, and in this case, a click.
“Wrong number,” one of the agents said.
“Pull the messages,” the lead agent ordered the technical genius on the team.
Raman owned a digital recording system, and again there was a punch code programmed in by the manufacturer. The agent hit the six digits and another took notes. There were three clicks and a wrong number. Somebody calling for Mr. Sloan, whoever that was.
“Rug? Mr. Alahad?”
“Sounds like the name of a rug dealer,” another one said. But when they looked around, there was no such rug in the apartment, just the usual cheap wall-to-wall carpet you found in apartments of this type.
“Wrong number.”
“Run the names anyway.” It was more habit than anything else. You checked everything. It was like working FCI. You just never knew.
Just then the phone rang again, and all five of the agents turned to stare at the answering machine, as though it were a real witness with a real voice.
SHIT, RAMAN THOUGHT, he’d forgotten to erase the messages from before. There was nothing new. His control officer hadn’t called again. It would have been a surprise if he had. With that determined, Raman, sitting in a Pittsburgh hotel room, punched the erase-all code. One nice thing about the new digitals was that, once erased, they were gone forever. That wasn’t necessarily true of the ones using tape cassettes.
THE FBI AGENTS took note of that, sharing looks.
“Hey, we all do that.” There was general agreement. And everybody got wrong numbers, too. And this was a brother officer. But they’d run the numbers anyway.
SURGEON, TO THE relief of her detail, was sleeping upstairs in the residence. Roy Altman and the rest assigned to guard her had been going crazy with her on the fever ward—their term for it—at Johns Hopkins, as much from the physical danger as for the fact that she had run herself right into the ground. The kids, being kids, had spent the time like most other American children, watching TV and playing under the eyes of their agents, who now worried about seeing the onset of flu symptoms, blessedly absent from the entire campus. SWORDSMAN was in the Situation Room.
“What’s the time there?”
“Ten hours ahead, sir.”
“Make the call,” POTUS ordered.
THE FIRST 747, in United livery, crossed into Saudi airspace a few minutes earlier than expected, due to favorable arctic winds. A more circuitous routing at this point would not have helped very much. Sudan had airports and radars, too, as did Egypt and Jordan, and it was assumed that the UIR had informants somewhere in those countries. The Saudi Air Force, augmented by the F-16Cs which had sneaked in from Israel the previous day as part of BUFFALO FORWARD, stood combat air patrol along the Saudi-UIR border. Two E-3B AWACS were up and turning their rotodomes. The sun was rising now in that part of the world—at least one could see first light from their cruising altitude, though the surface, six miles below, was still black.
“GOOD MORNING, PRIME Minister. This is Jack Ryan,” the President said.
“A pleasure to hear your voice. It is late in Washington, is it not?” she asked.
“We both work irregular hours. I imagine your day is just beginning.”
“So it is,” the voice answered. Ryan had a conventional receiver to his ear. The conversation was on speakerphone as well, and feeding into a digital tape recorder. The CIA had even supplied a voice-stress analyzer. “Mr. President, the troubles in your country, have they improved?”
“We have some hope, but, no, not quite yet.”
“Is there any way in which we might be of assistance?” Neither voice showed the least emotion beyond the false amity of people suspicious of each other, and trying to hide it.
“Well, yes, actually, there is.”
“Please, then, how may we be of help?”
“Prime Minister, we have some ships heading through the Arabian Sea at the moment,” Ryan told her.
“Is that so?” Total neutrality in the voice.
“Yes, ma’am, it is, and you know it is, and I want your personal assurance that your navy, which is also at sea, will not interfere with their passage.”
“But why do you ask this? Why should we interfere—for that matter, what is the purpose of your ship movement?”
“Your word on the matter will suffice, Prime Minister,” Ryan told her. His right hand gripped a number 2 lead pencil.
“But, Mr. President, I fail to understand the purpose of this call.”
“The purpose of this call is to seek your personal assurance that the Indian navy will not interfere with the peaceful passage of United States Navy ships through the Arabian Sea.”
HE WAS SO weak, she thought, repeating himself that way.
“Mr. President, I find your call unsettling. America has never spoken to us about such a matter before. You say you move warships close to my country, but not the purpose for the move. The movement of such vessels without an explanation is not the act of a friend.” What if she could make him back down?
WHAT DID I TELL YOU? the note from Ben Goodley read.
“Very well, Prime Minister, for the third time, will you give me your assurance that there will be no interference in this activity?”
“But why are you invading our waters?” she asked again.
“Very well.” Ryan paused, and then his voice changed. “Prime Minister, the purpose of the movement does not directly concern your country, but I assure you, those ships will sail on to their destination. Since their mission is one of importance to us, we will not, I repeat not, brook interference of any kind, and I must warn you that should any unidentified ship or aircraft approach our formation, there might be adverse consequences. No, please excuse me, there will be such consequences. To avoid that, I give you notice of the passage, and I request your personal assurance to the United States of America that there will be no attack on our ships.”
“And now you threaten me? Mr. President, I understand the stress which has come to you of late, but, please, you may not treat sovereign countries in this way.”
“Prime Minister, then I will speak very clearly. An overt act of war has been committed against the United States of America. Any interference with, or attack on, any part of our military will be deemed a further act of war, and whatever country commits such an act will face the most serious possible consequences.”
“But who has done this to you?”
“Prime Minister, that is not your concern unless you wish it to be. I think in the interests of both your country and mine, it would be well if your navy returned to port forthwith.”
“And you blame us, you order us?”
“I began with a request, Prime Minister. You saw fit to evade my request three times. I regard that as an unfriendly act. And so I have a new question: Is it your desire to be at war with the United States of America?”
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“Mr. President—”
“Because if those ships don’t move, Prime Minister, you will be.” The pencil snapped in Ryan’s hand. “I think you may have associated yourself with the wrong friends, Prime Minister. I hope I am incorrect, but if my impression is correct, then your country could well pay dearly for that misjudgment. We have experienced a direct attack on our citizens. It is a particularly cruel and barbaric attack, utilizing weapons of mass destruction.” He enunciated these words very clearly. “This is not yet known to our citizens. That will soon change,” he told her. “When it does, Prime Minister, those guilty of launching that attack will face our justice. We will not send notes of protest. We will not call a special meeting of the UN Security Council in New York. We will make war, Prime Minister. We will make war with all the power and rage this country and her citizens can muster. Do you now understand what I am saying? Ordinary men, women, and now even children have been murdered within our borders by a foreign power. There has even been an attack upon my own child, Prime Minister. Does your country wish to be associated with those acts? If so, Prime Minister, if you wish to be part of that, then the war commences now.”