by Tom Clancy
"Not really. You know him?"
"My boss does. I've met him once. Stems a decent bloke, and bloody smart as well."
"Really all I know is what I saw on the telly this morning." It wasn't entirely a lie, and Martin would understand in any case, Tawney knew.
"Well, whoever did the rescue, my hat is off to them. Smells like SAS to me."
"Really? Well, that wouldn't be a surprise, would. it?"
"Suppose mot. Good hearing from you, Bill. How about dinner sometime?"
"Love to. I'll call you next time fm in London."
"Excellent. Cheers."
Tawney replaced the phone. It seemed that Martin had landed on his feet after being let go from "Six," which had reduced its size with the diminution of the Cold War. Well, that was to be expected. The sort of thing the uninformed believe in, Tawney thought. Yes, that fit. Furchtner and Dortmund were communists, and would not have trusted or believed in the open market. In their universe, people could only get wealthy by cheating, exploiting, and conspiring with others of the same ilk. And what did that mean?…
Why had they attacked the home of Erwin Ostermann? You couldn't rob such a man. He didn't keep his money in cash or gold bars. It was all electronic, theoretical money, really, that existed in computer memories and traveled across telephone wires, and that was difficult to steal, wasn't it?
No, what a man like Ostermann had was information, the ultimate source of power, ethereal though it was. Were Dortmund and Furchtner willing to kill for that? It appeared so, but were the two dead terrorists the sort of people who could make use of such information? No, they couldn't have been, because then they would have known that the thing they'd sought didn't exist.
Somebody hired them, Tawney thought. Somebody had sent them out on their mission. But who?
And to what purpose? Which was-even a better question, and one from which he could perhaps learn the answer to the first.
Back up, he told himself. If someone had hired them for a job, who could it have been? Clearly someone connected to the old terror network, someone who'd know where they were and whom they'd known and trusted to some degree, enough to risk their lives. But -Fiirchtner and Dortmund had been ideologically pure communists. Their acquaintances would be the same, and they would certainly not have trusted or taken orders from anyone of a different political shade. And how else could this notional person have known where and how to contact them, win their confidence, and send them off on a mission of death; chasing after something that didn't really exist?…
A superior officer? Tawney wondered, stretching his mind for more information than he really had. Someone of the same political bent or beliefs, able to order them, or at least to motivate them to do something dangerous.
He needed more information; and he'd use his SIS and police contacts to get every scrap he could from the Austrian/German investigation. For starters, he called Whitehall to make sure he got full translations of all the hostage interviews. Tawney had been an intelligence officer for a long time, and something had gotten his nose to twitch.
"Ding, I didn't like your takedown plan," Clark said in the big conference room.
"I didn't either, Mr. C, but without a chopper, didn't have much. choice, did I?" Chavez replied with an air of self-righteousness. "But that's not the thing that really scares me."
"What is?" John asked.
"Noonan brought this one up. Every time we go into a place, there are people around - the public, reporters, TV crews, all of that. Wharf one of them has a cell phone and calls the bad guys inside to tell them what's happening? Real simple, isn't it? We're fucked and so are some hostages."
"We should be able to deal with that," Tim Noonan told them. "It's the way a cell phone works. It broadcasts a signal to tell the local cell that it's there and it's on, so that the computer systems can route an incoming call to it. Okay, we can get instrumentation to read that, and maybe to block the signal path-maybe even clone the bad guys' phone, trap the incoming call and bag the bastards outside, maybe even flip 'em, right? But I need that soft ware, and I need it now."
"David?" Clark turned to Dave Peled, their Israeli technogenius.
"It can be done. I expect the technology exists already at NSA or elsewhere."
"What about Israel?" Noonan asked pointedly.
"Well… yes, we have such things."
"Get them," Clark ordered. "Want me to call Avi personally?"
"That would help."
"Okay, I need the name and specifications of the equipment: How hard to train the operators?"
"Not very," Peled conceded. "Tim can do it easily."
Thank you for that vote of confidence, Special Agent Noonan thought, without a smile. "Back to the takedown," Clark commanded. "Ding, what were you thinking?"
Chavez leaned forward in his chair. He wasn't just defending himself; he was defending his team. "Mainly that I didn't want to lose a hostage, John. Doc told us we had to take those two seriously, and we had a hard deadline coming up. Okay, the mission as I understand it is not to lose a hostage. So, when they made it clear they wanted the chopper for transport, it was just a matter of giving it to them, with a little extra put in. Dieter and Homer did their jobs perfectly. So did Eddie and the rest of the shooters. The dangerous part was getting Louis and George up to the house so they could take down the last bunch. They did a nice ninja job getting there unseen," Chavez went on, gesturing to Loiselle and Tomlinson. "That was the most dangerous part of the mission. We had them in a light-well and the camo stuff worked. If the bad guys had been using NVGs, that would have been a problem, -but the additional illumination off the trees-from the lights the cops brought in, I mean-would have interfered with that. NVGs flare a lot if you throw light their way. It was a gamble;" Ding admitted, "but it was a gamble that looked better than having a hostage whacked right in front of us while we were jerking off at the assembly point. That's the mission, Mr. C, and I was the commander on the scene. I made the call." He didn't add that his call had worked.
"I see. Well, good shooting from everybody, and Loiselle and Tomlinson did very well, to get close undetected," Alistair Stanley said from his place, opposite Clark's: "Even so-"
"Even so, we need helicopters for a case like this one. How the hell did we overlook that requirement?" Chavez demanded.
"My fault, Domingo," Clark admitted. "I'm going to call in on that today.':
"Just so we get it fixed, man." Ding stretched in his seat. "My troops got it done, John. Crummy setup, but we got it done: Next time, be better if things went a little smoother," he cones. "But when the doc tells me that the bad guys will rally kill somebody, that tells me I have to take decisive action, doesn't it?"
"Depending on the situation, yes," Stanley answered the question.
"Al, what does that mean?" Chavez asked sharply. "We need better mission guidelines. I need to have it spelled out. When can I allow a hostage to get killed? Does the age or sex of the hostage enter into the equation? What if somebody takes over a kindergarten or a hospital maternity ward? You can't expect us to disregard human factors like that. Okay, I understand that yon can't plan for every possibility, and as the commanders on the scene, Peter and I have to exercise judgment,. but my default position is to prevent the death of a hostage if I can do it. If that means taking risks-well, it's a probability measured against a certainty, isn't it? In a case like that, you take the risk, don't you?"
"Dr. Bellow," Clark asked, "how confident were you in your evaluation of the terrorists' state of mind?"
"Very. They were experienced. They'd thought through a lot of the mission, and in my opinion they were dead serious about killing hostages to show us their resolve," the psychiatrist replied.
"Then or now?"
"Both," Bellow said confidently. "These two were political sociopaths. Human life doesn't mean much to that sort of personality. Just poker chips to toss around the table."
"Okay, but what if they'd spotted Loiselle and Tomlinson comin
g in?"
"They would probably have killed a hostage and that would have frozen the situation for a few minutes."
"And my backup plan in that case was to rush the house from the east side and shoot our way in as quickly as possible," Chavez went on. "The better way is to zipline down from some choppers and hit the place like a Kansas tornado. That's dangerous, too," he conceded. "But the people we're dealing with ain't the most reasonable folks in the world, are they?"
The senior team members didn't like this sort of discussion, since it reminded them that as good as the Rainbow troopers were, they weren't gods or supermen. They'd now had two incidents, both of them resolved without a civilian casualty. That made for mental complacency on the command side, further exacerbated by the fact that Team-2 had done a picture-perfect takedown under adverse tactical circumstances. They. trained their men to be supermen, Olympic-perfect physical specimens, supremely trained in the use of firearms and explosives, and most of all, mentally prepared for the rapid destruction of human life.
The Team-2 members sitting around the table looked at Clark with neutral expressions, taking it all in with remarkable equanimity because they'd known last night that the plan was flawed and dangerous, but they'd brought it off anyway, and they were understandably proud of themselves for having done the difficult and saved their hostages. But Clark was questioning the capabilities of their team leader, and they didn't like that either. For the former SAS members among them, the reply to all this was simple, their old regimental motto: Who Dares, Wins. They'd- dared and won. And the score for them was Christians ten, Lions nil, which wasn't a bad score at all. About the only unhappy member of the team was First Sergeant Julio Vega. "Oso" corned the machine gun, which had yet to come into play. The longriflemen, Vega saw, were feeling pretty good about themselves, as were the light-weapons guys. But those were the breaks. He'd bean there, a few meters from Weber, ready to cover if a bad guy had gotten lucky and managed to run away, firing his weapon. He'd have cut him in half with his M-GO--his pistol work in the base range was one of the best. There was killing going on, and he wasn't getting to play. The religious part of Vega reproached the rest of him for thinking that way, which caused a few grumbles and chuckles when lie was alone.
"So, where does that live us?" Chavez asked. "What are our operations guidelines in the case where a hostage is likely to get killed by the bad guys?"
"The mission remains saving the hostages, where practicable," Clark replied, after a few seconds' thought.
"And the team leader on the scene decides what's practicable and what isn't?"
"Correct," Rainbow Six confirmed.
"So, we're right back where we started, John," Ding pointed out. "And that means that Peter and I get all the responsibility, and all the criticism if somebody else doesn't like what we've done." He paused. "I understand the responsibility that comes along with being in command in the field, but it would be nice to have something a little firmer to fall back on, y'know? Mistakes will happen out there sooner or later. We know it. We don't like it, but we know it. Anyway, I'm telling you here and now, John, I see the mission as the preservation of innocent life, and that's the side I'm going to come down on."
"I agree with Chavez," Peter Covington said. "That must be our default position."
"I never said it wasn't," Clark said, suddenly becoming angry. The problem was that there could well be situations in which it was not possible to save a life - but training for such a situation was somewhere between extremely difficult and damned near impossible, because all the terrorist incidents they'd have to deal with in the field would be as different as the terrorists and the sites they selected. So, he had to trust Chavez and Covington. Beyond that, he could set up training scenarios that forced them to think and act, in the hope that the practice would stand them in good stead in the field. It had been a lot easier as a field officer in the CIA, Clark thought. There he had always had the initiative, had almost always chosen the time and place of action to suit himself. Rainbow; however, was always reactive, responding to the initiative of others. That simple fact was why he had to train his people so hard, so that their expertise could correct the tactical inequity. And that had worked twice. But would it continue to work?
So, for starters, John decided, from now on a more senior Rainbow member would always accompany the teams into the field to provide support, someone the team leaders could lean against. Of course, they wouldn't like the oversight right there at their shoulders, but that couldn't be helped. With that thought he dismissed the meeting, and teed AI Stanley, into his office, where he presented his idea.
"Fine with me, John. But who are the seniors who got out?"
"You and me, for starters."
"Very well. Makes sense-what with all the fitness and shooting training we subject ourselves to. Domingo and Peter might find it all a bit overpowering, however."
"They both know how to follow orders=and they'll come to us for advice when it's needed. Everybody does. I sure did, whenever the opportunity offered itself." Which hadn't been very damned often, though John remembered wishing for it often enough.
"I agree with your proposal, John," Stanley said. "Shall we write it up for the order book?"
Clark nodded. "Today."
CHAPTER 9
STALKERS
"I can do that, John," the Director of Central Intelligence said. "It means talking to the Pentagon, however."
"Today if possible, Ed. We really need this. I was remiss in not considering the need earlier. Seriously remiss." Clark added humbly.
"It happens," DCI Foley observed. "Okay, let me make some calls and get back to you." He broke the connection and thought for a few seconds, then flipped through his rolodex, and found the number of CINC-SNAKE, as the post was laughingly called. Commander in Chief, Special Operations Command at MacDill Air Force Base outside Tampa, Florida, was the boss of all the "snake eaters," the special-operations people from whom Rainbow had drawn its American personnel. General Sam Wilson was the man behind the desk, not a place he was especially comfortable. He'd started off as an enlisted man who'd opted for airborne and ranger training, then moved into Special Forces, which he'd left to get his college degree i" history at North Carolina State University, then returned to the Army as a second lieutenant and worked his way up the ladder rapidly. A youthful fifty-three, he had four shiny stars on his shoulders now and was in charge of a unified multiservice command that included members from each of the armed services, all of whom knew how to cook snake over an open fire.
"Hi, Ed," the general said, on getting the call over his secure phone. "What's happening at Langley?" The special-operations community was very close with CIA, and often provided intelligence to it or the muscle to run a difficult operation in the field.
"I have a request from Rainbow," the DCI told him.
"Again? They've already raided my units, you know."
"They've put'em to good use. That was their takedown in Austria yesterday."
"Looked good on TV," Sam Wilson admitted. "Will I get additional information?" By which he meant information on who the bad guys had been.
"The whole package when it's available, Sam," Foley promised.
"Okay, what does your boy need?"
"Aviators, helicopter crews."
"You know how long it takes to train those people, Ed? Jesus, they're expensive to maintain, too."
"I know that, Sam," the voice assured him from Langley. "The Brits have to put up, too. You know Clark. He wouldn't ask 'less he needed it."
Wilson had to admit that, yes, he knew John Clark, who'd once saved a wrecked mission and, in the process, a bunch of soldiers, a long time and several presidents ago. Ex-Navy SEAL, the Agency said of him, with a solid collection of medals and a lot of accomplishments. And this Rainbow group had two successful operations under its belt.
"Okay, Ed, how many?"
"One really good one for now."
It was the "for now" part that worried Wil
son. But "Okay, I'll be back to you later today."
"Thanks, Sam." One nice thing about Wilson, Foley knew, was that he didn't screw around on time issues. For him "right now" meant right the hell now.
Chester wasn't going to make it even as far as Killgore had thought. His liver function tests were heading downhill faster than anything he'd ever seen-or read about in the medical literature. The man's skin was yellow now, like a pale lemon, and slack over his flaccid musculature. Respiration was already a little worrisome, too, partly because of the large dose of morphine he was getting to keep him unconscious or at least stuporous. Both Killgore and Barbara Archer had wanted to treat him as aggressively as possible, to see if there were really a treatment modality that might work on Shiva, but the fact of the matter was that Chester's underlying medical conditions were so serious that no treatment regimen could overcome both those problems and the Shiva.
"Two days," Killgore said. "Maybe less."
"I'm afraid you're right," Dr. Archer agreed. She had all manner of ideas for handling this, from conventional-and almost certainly useless-antibiotics to Interleukin-2, which some thought might have clinical applications to such a case. Of course, modern medicine had yet to defeat any viral disease, but some thought that buttressing the body's immune system from one direction might have the effect of helping it in another, and there were a lot of powerful new synthetic antibiotics on the market now. Sooner or later, someone would find a magic bullet for viral diseases. But not yet: "Potassium?" she asked, after considering the prospects for the patient and the negligible value of treating him at all. Killgore shrugged agreement.
"I suppose. You can do it if you want." Killgore waved to the medication cabinet in the corner.
Dr. Archer walked over, tore a 40cc disposable syringe out of its paper and plastic container, then inserted the needle in a glass vial of potassium-and-water solution, and filled the needle by pulling back on the plunger. Then she returned to the bed and inserted the needle into the medication drip, pushing the plunger now to give the patient a hard bolus of the lethal chemical. It took a few seconds, longer than if she had done the injection straight into a major vein, but Archer didn't want to touch the patient any more than necessary, even with gloves. It didn't really matter that much. Chester's breathing within the clear plastic oxygen mask seemed to hesitate, then restart, then hesitate again, then become ragged and irregular for six or eight breaths. Then… it stopped. The chest settled into itself and didn't rise. His eyes had been semi-open, like those of a man in shallow sleep or shock, aimed in her direction but not really focused. Now they closed for the last time. Dr. Archer took her stethoscope and held it on the alcoholic's chest. There was no sound at all. Archer stood up, took off her stethoscope, and pocketed it.