“He doesn’t make admiral as long as I’m president,” Rostow ordered. “Taking the ship would’ve given us a card to play with the media—”
“With all due respect, Mr. President, you’ve got that anyway,” Marshall pointed out. “There’s visible damage to the Vicksburg’s hull. The chief of naval operations says the sailors killed in the incident will be arriving at Dover Air Force Base later this morning and you know the media will cover that. I think Captain Riley’s decision to release the Almirante Brión will play well overseas, and especially with the countries that voted with you on the UN resolution. It makes President Avila look like the aggressor and your quarantine like a measured response.”
Rostow grunted but chose not to rebut the DNI’s observation.
The Oval Office door swung open and an aide hurried inside, clutching a piece of paper. Rostow pulled the report out of her hand and skimmed the text. He stared at the paper for a long time, long enough to make Feldman and the staffer uncomfortable. “Thank you,” he said. “That will be all.”
The staffer shuffled out a little slower than she had entered and closed the door behind. The president passed the report to Feldman. “CIA and State both say the Venezuelans are coming over the wall at the embassy.”
“But everybody’s going to get out,” Feldman noted, not looking up from the paper. “That’s good news. You won’t have a hostage crisis to manage like Carter did. That cost him reelection as much as anything else,” he observed, still reading the report. “This works in our favor as long as they only get the building.”
“Don’t you see it, Gerry?” Rostow asked. “This whole thing is coming apart. Avila’s not going to negotiate. He’s attacked one of our ships and he’s trying to seize the embassy. He wants to throw us off until he can figure out what to do.” The president stood up from the couch, walked to the Resolute desk, and pressed a button on his phone. “Get me Kathy Cooke at CIA,” he said. The secretary in the reception room outside the Oval Office complied.
“Good morning, Mr. President,” Cooke said.
“I just got your report on the embassy. What’s new with the warhead?”
“We have no new information on the state of the warhead itself. However, the latest imagery at the facility suggests they might be getting ready to move it. I’ll bring it to you—”
“Don’t bother,” Rostow said. “Just send the files to the Situation Room. What’re you seeing?”
“A new convoy of five-ton cargo trucks are lined up at the CAVIM plant by the boneyard. There were no heavy vehicles on-site prior to their arrival a few hours ago,” Cooke confirmed. “We can’t say for sure—”
“If they move that warhead, can your people track it?” Rostow said, cutting the woman off.
“We can’t guarantee it, no,” Cooke replied. “Satellite coverage isn’t perfect. We could get some drones in the air but the Venezuelans do have an air force. Without a tracking device on the warhead itself, there’s always a chance we could lose it.”
“That’s not acceptable,” Rostow said.
“It’s the reality, sir,” Cooke replied.
“How many troops are stationed at the CAVIM site?” Rostow asked Cooke.
“We don’t have a precise number but our analysts believe it’s somewhere around two hundred,” she replied.
“Thanks, we’ll let you know what we decide to do.” Rostow pressed a button on the phone, disconnecting the call.
“We could send in a Special Forces team to recover it,” Feldman suggested. “That invasion option is still on the table.”
Rostow shook his head. “I don’t want casualties,” he said. “It’s one thing for Avila’s people to kill ours when they cross the quarantine line, it’s another for us to invade their country, put boots on the ground, and then have them come out in body bags for the media to see. But we can’t lose the thing. If Avila squirrels it away somewhere and then it goes off next year in Baltimore or Denver or who-knows-where . . .” He trailed off, then shrugged. “If they’re trying to move it, we have to take it out. Call the National Security Council. I want the SecDef and the Joint Chiefs in the Situation Room in thirty minutes.”
U.S. Embassy
Caracas, Venezuela
The SH-60B Seahawk touched down on the grass as Marisa threw open the door to the rear courtyard. She sprinted across the asphalt onto the grass as the helicopter doors slid open and the last members of the embassy staff started to board, naval aviators pulling the civilians in. Marisa recognized the ambassador as the last man to climb onto the first aircraft. Good for you, sir, she thought.
She reached the second and the Marine sergeant who had ordered her out grabbed her hand and pulled her up. The helo began to lift off before he slid the door shut.
The Seahawk rose into the air, whipping the short grass underneath its blades until it cleared the embassy building, then leaned forward and began to move north. Marisa craned her head over the sergeant’s shoulder and looked out the window, down at the complex. Civilians were racing through the main gate and over the fence by the hundreds. The guard shack by the entrance was burning, smoke rising into the air high enough for the Seahawk to pass through the dirty column of ash.
The glass doors to the front entrance were already smashed open and the mob was moving inside.
Puerto Cabello, Venezuela
“You didn’t tell her what we’re going to do,” Kyra noted. She checked the rearview mirror. The highway behind was still empty.
“She’d say it was stupid. She’d be right.”
“And yet here you are,” Kyra said. “Besides, wasn’t this your idea?”
“Do you remember Sherlock Holmes’s old maxim that once you’ve eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“I have my own variation on that. Once you’ve eliminated the worst options, whatever remains, however stupid, must be the best option available,” he told her.
“And people say you don’t have a sense of humor.”
CIA Director’s Conference Room
Holland’s link chart was a masterpiece ten years in the making. The graphics depicting Hossein Ahmadi’s proliferation network had more than five hundred pieces scattered across it, with lines connecting people and companies, showing who had called whom, who had done business, where the money had flowed. The paper showing the Ahmadi network was eight feet long, three feet high, and getting wider by the year. It was a complex work of art so large that Holland’s office had invested in an industrial-size large-format printer just so he could put it all on one page. It was as close to producing a Monet as any DI analyst ever got, and there was the curse of the job. So long as Ahmadi was free to do business, Holland could never finish the chart because the Iranian doctor was making new contacts and creating new front companies, forcing the young man to add more and more nodes to the array.
Holland was tired of it. Ten years was enough; he now had five more banks and a tangle of new lines added to the picture, and he renewed his vow that he was going to make Dr. Ahmadi retire from business. That decision was out of his hands, but he now had friends in high places who were paying attention.
“That’s an impressive piece of work, Mr. Holland,” Cooke said. “Twenty-five years from now, when they can declassify everything, somebody should frame it and hang it in one of the hallways.”
“Thank you, ma’am,” the analyst replied, letting some pride seep into his voice. “It would be pretty to look at if it wasn’t showing something so ugly. But here’s what I wanted you to see.” He pointed at a series of linked nodes sitting near the right edge of the paper. “These are the front companies that hired the IRISL cargo ships that made the Venezuela trips. This”—he pointed to a bank in the center of the new nodes—“is the bank that secured the bonds for those companies for all of those trips. Treasury
sent over the records and I was able to dig up some extra information from the Counterterrorism Center and the Information Operations Center. They’ve been helping track where Ahmadi’s money goes and between the two, I’ve got his operation figured out.”
Holland moved back toward the center of the chart and waved his hands over the graphics. “This is the core of his network. Ahmadi receives money from the government in Tehran through a series of banks and front companies, which he then funnels into a secondary series of front companies that do business in Europe and Asia. That’s where he buys the nuclear tech that he ships home to Tehran. The money has always been moved through at least three front companies before any purchase is made and the technology always passes through at least three more front companies before it gets back to Iran.”
“That’s all to evade sanctions,” Cooke noted.
“Right,” Holland agreed. “But here’s the good part.” He moved back to the new nodes on the far right end of the chart. “These front companies stand apart from his usual network. The rest of this”—he waved at the other parts of the picture—“is for buying nuclear technology and bringing it home. But this”—he pointed to the new nodes—“is for selling nuclear technology, as far as I can tell. None of those last five IRISL shipments were handled through his usual network.”
“Meaning what?” Cooke asked.
Holland took a deep breath. He was about to leave the realm of pure fact for the land of analytic conclusions. “Whenever Ahmadi buys technology or moves money, he usually accounts for it with the mullahs through the central banks. But this operation in Venezuela is going through an outside bank he doesn’t use for anything else.” Holland traced a line from the new bank on the chart across the page to another node. “The Venezuelans have been paying Ahmadi through this bank here, and after the money comes back to him, he’s been diverting funds to this bank in Switzerland.”
The implications took a few seconds to settle in. “He’s skimming funds,” Cooke realized.
“I think so,” Holland said. “I’ve been looking at this stuff for ten years. I always got the feeling that the mullahs have given him wide latitude in how to run the proliferation network . . . not wanting to burden themselves with all the messy details, as it were. But the money behind this operation is all running through a separate network that doesn’t connect to anything linked up to the regular organization. I can’t imagine that the mullahs would approve of this. If they find out that he’s skimming funds and endangering their nuclear acquisition network, going home could be a very dangerous proposition for him.”
The CIA director finally smiled. “Good work, young man. Get this all ready to take on the road. You’re coming to the White House with me.”
CAVIM Explosives Factory
The sun was far above the low hills in the distance by the time they approached the summit. They hadn’t seen or heard a SEBIN patrol until they’d come within a mile of the base, and the Venezuelan jeeps were staying within a few hundred yards of the fence line. Jon and Kyra closed the last mile largely on their stomachs, pushing through the underbrush with their elbows and knees. Kyra watched her partner, tried to imitate his movements, and found herself impressed by how smoothly he moved.
“It doesn’t look like they’re running extra patrols,” she said, almost whispering. “If anything, they’ve pulled them all closer in.”
“The wider the radius out from a fixed point you want to patrol, the more people you need to cover the area,” Jon explained. “We got through once. The riots are probably tying up the military, and if they don’t have more people available to expand security here, it makes sense that they’d draw them closer in and sacrifice distance for coverage. Makes our job easier, if we’re lucky.”
Kyra’s legs burned as they pushed up the back side of the hill. There were some tire tracks in the underbrush now. Some crazed SEBIN driver had tried to steer his vehicle to the top, slid out on the steep grade, then turned back down. If anyone had made it to the top, they’d finished the journey on foot, and her own tracking skills weren’t good enough to find signs of that in the leaves and dirt. She scanned the hillside below, saw nothing, then paused to listen. She heard vehicles in the far distance, but no voices. “Almost there,” she said quietly.
Kyra shifted the Glock in her hand and moved forward.
USS Vicksburg
11°22' North 67°49' West
75 miles north of the Venezuelan coast
Marisa first saw the Vicksburg when the Seahawk was still ten miles out. She’d had to take it on faith that Kathy Cooke would twist the SecDef’s arm and her faith had been rewarded much sooner than expected. The trio of helos had all gone “feet wet” over the Atlantic, the pilots had confirmed which was carrying the chief of station, and the other two had peeled away from the third, headed for the Truman a hundred miles east. The unfortunate passengers aboard Marisa’s Seahawk, a pair of senior Foreign Service secretaries and a Marine, had been surprised to learn they wouldn’t be joining the ambassador and his party on the C-2A Greyhound that would fly him out. Vicksburg would ferry them over, just an hour or so late. The CIA chief of station had other business to conduct, the Vicksburg was the closest ship, and her needs trumped theirs so long as she had officers in hostile territory.
The Seahawk arced around the ship, tilted aft, as though the pilot wanted the passengers to see the damage to Vicksburg’s hull. Marisa stayed silent, but the other civilians couldn’t hold their peace, curses and gasps erupting as they saw the hole in the ship’s island. They were still a quarter mile out by the station chief’s guess. Engineers were welding plates over the open wound, and she could see the small lights of their torches flashing and dropping sparks into the blue water.
The helo took its place over the aft end of the ship and Marisa looked down at a flight deck that was too small for the purpose. And still moving, she realized. Vicksburg wasn’t a stationary target and the Seahawk pilot was matching the forward motion of the vessel as he descended. Marisa was sure that maneuver was far harder than he was making it look. The Seahawk was maybe sixty feet long, as best Marisa could judge, and the flight deck seemed smaller than that. She supposed the pilot could’ve lowered a cable and let the ship winch them down, but the Atlantic water was calm, visibility good, and the pilot didn’t bother, putting the aircraft down on the center of crosshair painted on the deck and giving his passengers a landing as smooth as any they’d ever felt. They uttered silent prayers of gratitude and scurried from the helicopter with the help of sailors outside as soon as the side door opened. Marisa waited until the rest were gone, then crawled out, declining the proffered hand of the master chief standing below to help her.
“I need to speak with the captain,” she yelled over the noise of the hangar doors sliding open.
“You’re Mills?” Master Chief Amos LeJeune asked. “Come with me, ma’am.”
• • •
Marisa had expected an escort to the Vicksburg bridge, but it made sense, she supposed, to have her conversation with Dutch Riley in a more private space. The J2 (intelligence) office was a Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility not unlike those at headquarters, probably not that different from the other offices aboard the Vicksburg except for the massive spin-dial lock on the heavy door. The SCIF was empty now except for the two of them, whether by some order Riley had given out of earshot Marisa didn’t know.
The captain closed the door behind them and took his seat on the edge of one of the low desks bolted to the bulkheads. “Well, Miss Mills, you got me down here,” Riley said. “What can I do for you?”
“I have two officers who were out in the field when the mob surrounded the embassy and they couldn’t get back—”
“And you want me to execute a personnel recovery mission?” the captain interrupted.
“Something like that.”
“I sympathize, but I just finished a shooting mat
ch with a Venezuelan warship that could’ve started a war,” Riley told her. “I don’t want to press my luck by violating Venezuela’s sovereignty without direct orders.”
“Captain, my people are in clear and present danger. They are in the woods somewhere, not ten miles from the coast—”
Riley held up his hand to cut her off. “I have no doubt that you’re telling me the truth and that your people are in some serious trouble. You’ve got promises to keep but I’ve got orders to follow. If we can help your people, we will, but I’ll need the green light from some higher-ups before I can violate Venezuelan airspace, and that’s the end of the argument.”
She felt her anger surge inside her, but fought it back. Cursing this man would accomplish nothing and she might well need his help later. She had no cards to play here and she was in no position to make enemies. “Captain, I need to contact Langley and then my officers.”
“You can use anything in here, and I’ll tell comms to render any assistance you might need,” Riley said, waving toward the rest of the SCIF. “We’ll get you set up with a rack and mess privileges for as long as you’re here.”
Marisa nodded blankly. She could hardly think. “I understand,” she said.
“If you’ll excuse me, I need to get back to the bridge.”
“Of course.” The captain let himself out of the security vault, the heavy door closing behind him with the sound of clanking metal. Marisa looked around, saw that she was alone in the intelligence center, then barely stifled a scream of frustration.
White House Situation Room
The members of the National Security Council looked around the table, counting heads. They weren’t idiots. Fools did not reach these men’s level and they weren’t oblivious to the fact that some members of the council weren’t sitting at the table—SecState, CIA director, all of the staffers. The only men around the table, they noted, were the ones directly involved in the movement of military forces and everyone else was out of the room, probably to minimize leaks, and that meant covert action was on the table. Then shouldn’t Kathy Cooke or Cyrus Marshall be here? they would be wondering.
Cold Shot: A Novel Page 28