Threat Level Black

by Jim DeFelice

  “ ‘The only good infidel is a dead infidel,’ ” said Fisher.

  “Yeah, except we’re the infidels,” said Paesano.

  They’d passed the mosque on the way up; it looked more like the abandoned five-and-dime it had been than a house of worship. Metal grates and thick plywood covered all but one of the large plate-glass window areas, and the surviving glass was covered with advertisements and handbills. A piece of cardboard in the corner gave a lecture schedule; anyone interested in services was presumed to know when they were. According to the surveillance team, there were two guards at all times just inside the doorway.

  “Theory is, these guys are connected with the mosque. They worship there. Two of ’em have jobs at that shoe store on the corner,” continued the cop.

  He was a smoker, but he preferred Newport menthols, which to Fisher made no sense at all. Why screw up good tobacco with a candy flavor? You wanted mint, buy some Tic Tacs.

  “Maybe it’s a front or something, but they do business,” said the cop, referring to the shoe store. “We sent somebody in to check it out. They have used shoes and repairs. One of the DIA guys bugged the place.”

  “What’d they find?” asked Fisher.

  “That it’s hard to get EE width.”

  “Usual DIA efficiency,” said Fisher. “Probably reviewing it at the Pentagon right now.”

  “I heard that, Andy,” said Kowalski from the hallway. He and one of his lackeys came into the room.

  “Good to see you, too, Kowalski.”

  “Yeah, I’m real emotional about it. But at least you’re on the right team now. Maybe later on you can tell us how you screwed up in Moscow,” added the DIA agent, never one to miss a chance to twist the knife.

  “It was easy,” said Fisher. “I just asked myself what you would do in my situation.”

  “As I was saying,” continued Paesano, “ragheads stay in during the day, most days. They’re all there now.”

  “Fire escape’s clear,” said Fisher.

  “That significant?” asked the cop.

  “Only if there’s a fire.” Fisher pushed the window open, trying to escape the odor of cat piss that had been left by the last tenants. The odor of rotten eggs and overcooked cabbage wafted into the room. It was a decided improvement.

  “You shouldn’t make yourself conspicuous,” said Macklin.

  “You think a bunch of white guys wearing suits in this neighborhood isn’t conspicuous?” asked Fisher. He leaned out the window, casing the block. It seemed neatly divided between the man selling crack from the back of an old Toyota at the corner on the left and the two Rastafarians selling loose joints on the right. The Jamaicans seemed to be in a time warp: Most of the dealing in this area had been taken over by Nigerians long before.

  “We have a warrant, and we have backup manpower,” said Kowalski. “We can go in whenever we want.”

  “How about now?” asked Fisher.

  “You think it’s worth raiding the place?” asked Macklin.

  “No,” said Fisher. “But at least if you raid it you can close down this surveillance operation. Then Paesano can get the cat smell out of his clothes.”

  “Amen to that,” said the cop.

  It took several hours to set up the operation; in the meantime, Fisher and one of the city cops went down to the shoe store. The owner of the store spoke Spanish with a Puerto Rican accent, which gave him away as a longtime resident of the area. He was also nearly blind and partly deaf, though he did give Fisher a good deal on a new heel.

  The shoe was fixed just in time for the FBI agent to join in the raid, which began with two large police vans from the city’s emergency response unit blocking off the street. As they moved in, members from the SWAT team tossed military-style flash-bang grenades into the apartment window, then blew in through the windows and front door.

  “Too bad we couldn’t have been with the first wave,” said Fisher wistfully as he walked up the steps with Paesano after the apartment had been secured. “I always wanted to do a Tarzan swing into a New York City apartment.”

  “Maybe next time,” said the cop.

  “Sure you don’t want a Camel?” asked Fisher.

  “No, thanks.”

  Cat piss seemed to be the odor du jour; it was stronger here than across the street. But at least in the Arabs’ apartment it mixed with the scent of strong coffee and human excrement—the latter undoubtedly caused by the SWAT team’s sudden arrival. Among those joining in the operation were two members of an Immigration and Naturalization Service task force: Three of the four men here had student visas that had expired.

  There was a small amount of pot in one of the two rooms used as bedrooms. While under ordinary circumstances it might have drawn the equivalent of a parking ticket, the marijuana inspired creative thinking on the part of Paesano, who found grounds for a dozen related charges. Just the processing alone could keep them tied down for weeks.

  The men were led downstairs under heavy guard; in the meantime, Macklin’s people had begun interviewing neighbors for information.

  “Nice computers,” said Paesano.

  And they were: three brand new Dells, all lined up on the kitchen table. Wires snaked off the cracked Formica top of the table across a chair to a router; there was a DSL modem strapped to a shelf on the wall where a phone had once hung.

  “Hey, don’t touch!” shouted Macklin as Fisher went to tap one of the keyboards. “They may have them rigged to erase the contents of the drives, or maybe explode.”

  “You think?”

  “Fisher!”

  “I’m just seeing what they were doing before the screen savers went on,” said Fisher. “Relax.”

  One of the computers had not been on. The second had a word processing program active; it looked as though the user had been typing a letter home to Mom.

  The third had a game called Red Rogue on the screen. A terrorist with a gas mask pointed a souped-up Mac 11 point-blank at the viewer.

  “Computer guy is on his way,” said Macklin. “We’ll have everything analyzed. Don’t screw with it.”

  “We’ll wrap all this stuff up, get the crime scene guys in, dust around for prints,” added Kowalski. “Very good operation. Very good.”

  “Why would you dust for prints?” asked Fisher.

  “We don’t know who else might have been here.”

  “You’ve had the apartment under surveillance for almost a week,” said Fisher. “You know who was here.”

  “Yeah, but I want to dot all the i’s and cross all the t’s. Right, Macklin?”

  The Homeland Security agent nodded but then looked at Fisher. “Don’t we?”

  “Sure.” Fisher lit a fresh cigarette. If they wanted to waste their time, who was he to argue? Besides, crime scene guys usually got paid by the hour, and most of them could probably use the overtime.

  There was a pile of computer games on the floor. Fisher bent to examine the boxes.

  “Have these computer games checked out, too,” he said, “since you’re dusting for prints. Then give them to geeks and see if anything else is on them.”

  “Think there’s something there?” asked Macklin.

  “Probably not,” said Fisher. “But they’re bootlegs. I just want to make sure that’s all they are.”

  “How do you know they’re bootlegs?” asked Kowalski.

  “No holograms,” said Fisher, pointing at the boxes. “You know. Those shiny things.”

  “I know what a hologram is,” said Kowalski.

  “They could have messages, right? I’ve heard of that,” said Macklin.

  “Yeah,” said Kowalski. “We’ll ship them over to the NSA, get them decoded.”

  Fisher squatted down in front of the screen, examining Red Rogue. “One thing I always wondered…”

  “What’s that?” asked Macklin.

  “Why would someone put a high-power scope on an Ingram Mac 11? I mean, isn’t that kind of beside the point?”

  Chapter


  15

  Just over twenty-four hours had passed since the President had set the plan in motion. In that time, the situation in North Korea had deteriorated to the point that neither the CIA nor South Korean intelligence knew where Kim Jong Il or his family were. Two armored units, each with about two dozen tanks, were guarding roads to the capital, though it was not clear who beyond themselves they were loyal to.

  American troops were now on high alert, not just in Korea, but throughout the world. Two aircraft carriers and their assorted escorts were offshore, and two more were quietly but quickly steaming toward the peninsula. No less than six submarines with Tomahawk missiles and several surface ships were prepared to launch against North Korean targets on the President’s command. The Air Force had round-the-clock patrols and a host of contingency plans: With a single word from the President, an attack could be launched that would make the opening salvos of Gulf War II look like nothing more than a few rounds of target practice.

  President D’Amici had ruled out the use of nuclear weapons, even as a retaliatory measure. He saw no point: America’s awesome conventional capacity could level the country, and nuclear weapons would only complicate the aftermath, endangering the Americans and South Koreans who by necessity would have to pick up the pieces.

  “If Truman didn’t use them, I’m not going to,” the President told Blitz as they strode downstairs to the White House situation room, actually a suite of rooms with secure links and access to intelligence gathering around the globe.

  Under other circumstances Blitz might have asked the President if he thought Truman should have used the weapons. But this was not the time for what-if scenarios.

  The demise of the North Korean dictatorship—however much that was a good thing for the world—meant considerable uncertainty and danger for the South Koreans, the Japanese, and the Americans. Blitz was overwhelmed with estimates, questions, reports, bulletins: Tacit Ivan seemed almost small potatoes in the context of the situation.

  Almost.

  Homeland Security, the FBI, and local police had raided a New York City apartment the day before, following up leads on the E-bomb situation. The raid had not yielded anything beyond what the specially prepared eyes-only summary declared “potential leads.” But the NSA had picked up several offshore cell phone conversations over the past ten days that used the words black out. One of the interceptions had been traced to a phone connected to a credit card believed to be used by Caliph’s Sons. The information remained maddeningly vague, the connections convoluted, and the evidence elusive. True intelligence analysis required time and perspective; neither was available nor likely to be in the coming days.

  When they reached the wood-paneled conference room at the heart of the suite, the President walked over to a cluster of Air Force officers to discuss the latest target list that had been developed for the B-2 bombers stationed in South Korea. The Air Force was shuttling bombers into the air around the clock to maintain coverage of critical targets. The two warheads that the American forces knew about were triple-targeted; both of those weapons would be destroyed within ten minutes of the President’s direct and specific order to do so. Cruise missiles and air-to-ground weapons aboard other fighters would be aimed at nearly one hundred additional top-priority sites, including the suspected additional nuclear warhead missile sites. Missiles that managed to get off despite this would be handled by one of two airborne laser Cyclops aircraft, one over South Korea and one off the coast. An additional line of Patriot antimissile and aircraft batteries protected Seoul.

  Twenty minutes for everything to be hit, one of the intelligence officers had said to Blitz. Minuscule in the history of warfare; an eternity if you were in the enemy’s crosshairs.

  The President hunched over the shoulder of one of the military analysts going over the latest satellite photos showing North Korean troop movements. There were positive signs: One division near the border seemed to have mutinied and its vehicles were heading away from the demilitarized zone. They could see men following on the roads in the dust, and the sharpest-eyed analysts said a few had thrown away their guns.

  “So, Professor, do we move ahead with Tacit Ivan or not?” asked the President.

  “Yes, of course,” said Blitz. He put more confidence in his voice than he felt; somehow the atmosphere of the Pentagon always did that to him.

  “Even in the face of a coup and mutiny?”

  “That’s the best argument to proceed,” said Blitz.

  “I agree.”

  The President’s face changed momentarily, the heavy mask of responsibility melting. He smiled in a way that reminded Blitz of their much earlier days, ancient history now, spent discussing geopolitics in the dark days after Vietnam. Oddly, he could no longer remember the substance of the talks, but he could remember where they’d taken place: several watching the Orioles, a whole host in Syracuse, where the President spent a brief period as a college professor before running for Congress.

  “You’re worried about Howe,” said the President.

  “Yes, of course.”

  “There’s no question he’s the right man for the job,” said the President. “It comes down to the people on the line. He’s the right man.”

  “I don’t disagree,” said Blitz.

  “Besides, this will remind him of how important duty is.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “He’ll take your job,” said the President.

  “That’s the least of my worries right now.”

  The smile flickered as the mask of command once more took over the President’s face. “Are we set, then?”

  “Everything’s in place,” said Blitz. He looked across the room to Colonel Thos and nodded.

  “They’re waiting to hear from you at the Pentagon, Mr. President,” said Thos.

  Chapter

  16

  The MC-130 banked hard to the right, its wingtips coming within a few meters of the hillside. Turbulence off the rift in the earth pushed the aircraft downward, threatening disaster; the pilot had only a few feet to work with as he slipped the big four-engined craft through a hole in the North Korean air defenses. All the high-tech radar detectors and GPS locators in the world couldn’t overcome the basic laws of gravity and motion, and as the Hercules came through the narrow mountain pass the success of the mission and the lives of two dozen passengers and crew came down to the reflexes of the man at the helm, a veteran Air Force pilot who had passed up a parcel of supposedly better assignments to stay with the Herky birds and the Special Operations soldiers who relied on them.

  Back in the cargo hold of the plane, Tyler waited with his team members as the plane stuttered over the terrain. He checked his watch. They had about ten more minutes of flying time before they would reach the drop zone. He knew from experience those would be among the longest minutes of his life.

  And the shortest.

  He’d been right to insist on the assignment, and lucky to get it.

  Of course, if they augered in right now, he’d be neither. The plane’s nose bucked downward and the entire craft seemed to shift to the right, leaving Tyler temporarily hovering in space. His momentum caught up with that of the plane’s a second later, and he felt his boots slap against the metal decking. His stomach sloshed up somewhere around his gallbladder, then pressed against his lungs.

  He’d made the right choice. Definitely.

  “Almost there!” he shouted confidently to the rest of the team. “Almost there.”

  The canopy exploded above him, its cells ripped open by the rushing wind. Tyler fought not so much to control the parachute but to control himself: He had a tendency to pull too sharply on the steering togs.

  He could see the others nearby. Good chutes.

  He wanted the ground but couldn’t see it. He waited, the hardest thing.

  Where the hell was it?

  The plane had to crisscross back overhead, flying an extremely narrow corridor where the North Koreans couldn’t
find it on radar. A mile either way and not only would it be shot down but Duke and the twenty-two people who’d come out with him would be hung out to dry.

  So where the hell was the ground already?

  Tyler saw shadows and braced himself, trying simultaneously to relax and brace for the landing at the same time.

  It didn’t come. It wouldn’t.

  Too fucking long. A lot of guys wanted the jump to go on forever, or so they said; he was always anxious for it to end.

  He was off balance now, unsure what the hell was going on.

  More shadows. He braced again.

  Nothing.

  And then the ruck thumped behind him. His right leg touched down a millisecond before the left; he screwed it up, lost his balance, fell to the right instead of walking off like a champ. If this were a training film he’d be the shitful example, tumbling onto the ground, the idiot who did everything wrong, got his head messed up, doubted the equipment, dragged along on the ground as the chute inflated with the wind.

  His fingers fumbled against the restraint snaps.

  He was eating dirt. His face bashed against the rocks.

  Three months in Washington and I’m this far out of it?

  Tyler ignored the bumps and bruises, rolling up his chute and trying to hide the damage to his ego.

  The team leaders quickly gathered their men together. Besides eighteen Army Special Forces soldiers—one and a half A teams—they’d taken along two Air Force air commandos with special training so they could refuel the aircraft if necessary. They also had two CIA people with them, a female officer and a native Korean agent, who could provide assistance as well. The agent had some familiarity with the terrain and would be useful in case things went very wrong; had the CIA version of the plan been approved, they’d have been here alone.

  Tyler wasn’t the only one who had trouble landing. One of the soldiers had broken his arm but insisted he could travel. Tyler’s first call was whether to let him or not.