Anderson turned back, not sure he had heard correctly and instantly suspicious of anything freely offered by someone as devious as McDowell. Carter’s smile had returned, McDowell not just a better negotiator than him but able to offer far more in exchange.
“That’s seems unusually noble of you, Pat. What exactly is in it for you?”
McDowell shrugged, picking his words carefully, “I owe Jon a favour; let’s just leave it at that.”
Anderson remained sceptical and he still needed to understand exactly what was on offer. “Thorn and Deangelo; they’re the only two names the FBI will settle for.”
“I know nothing about them,” said McDowell with emphasis. “Banker and FBI contact – that’s your two names.”
Anderson was conscious that their conversation was starting to draw an audience, with several bystanders watching them away to his right; it was also getting noisier, shouts and cheers from further back. By now there had to be more of Flores’ team in the park but for some reason McDowell didn’t seem in any hurry.
“Check with Flores,” advised McDowell helpfully.
Anderson grimaced and replaced the earpiece, not too sure how Flores would react to being ignored. “Did you get all that?”
“Banker plus agent,” Flores shot back. “Confirm that’s exactly what he’s offering.”
McDowell merely nodded when Anderson repeated the question, Flores able to pick up the response through his binoculars.
“Very well,” muttered Flores unhappily, “it’s the best we can do...”
The clamour to Anderson’s right was getting far louder, a game of soccer starting up. The eldest player was no more than thirty, it seeming to be men versus women, the play moving inexorably closer.
“Names?” Anderson encouraged.
McDowell seemed to want to delay, Anderson suddenly realising that the soccer game was a McDowell-inspired diversion to give him a chance to slip away, the threat to shoot Anderson maybe not considered enough of a deterrent.
McDowell spoke softly to Carter, something far more complex than two names and a simple goodbye, it taking a full minute. Once Carter nodded in understanding, McDowell gently pushed him towards Anderson.
“Jon will give you the names once he’s got his guarantee,” said McDowell. “Just find someone with rather more authority than Special Agent Flores... Give it thirty seconds, Mike; otherwise Lavergne might just think you’re trying something.”
The soccer ball suddenly landed just a few yards away, a half-a-dozen players swarming around it. McDowell loped away, leaving Anderson and Carter standing like statues, unsure quite what to do, Anderson for one not wanting to risk a bullet.
He gave it until Flores started bellowing in his ear, then shoved Carter towards the access road, not bothering to offer a helping hand. Assuming McDowell had been true to his word then the outcome was certainly one Anderson would have settled for earlier that morning. Flores too had to be happy that it had ended with his wife freed and unhurt.
Whether Paul Jensen would feel quite the same about the handling of the exchange was open to question and Flores’ lack of consultation was unlikely to be ignored, the embarrassment of a hefty slap on the wrist perhaps the best he could hope for.
* * *
Jensen had read Flores’ initial report with mixed feelings, impressed by his ability to deal with everything in such a detached way, angry that he had let the opportunity to catch McDowell pass; there was outrage too that McDowell had felt the need to involve Flores’ wife. Nevertheless, while McDowell’s methods were unfortunate, his willingness to betray two of his fellow conspirators represented the breakthrough Jensen had been so desperate to achieve and for that at least he should be grateful – if not to McDowell, then perhaps Rachel Flores.
Carter had duly received his formal guarantee, his preferred destination of Panama entirely dependent upon the authenticity of the two names; however, there was now little doubt that McDowell had been true to his word. In the end, the identity of his FBI contact had come as no real surprise, Special Agent Bill Yorke already near the top of a shortlist of just five, twenty-three years unblemished service now counting for nothing. Such easy confirmation had thus given added credence to McDowell’s second – and possibly more important – offering.
David Solomon was a New York-based hedge fund manager, someone whose profile would never have singled him out as being worthy of a second look. His personal wealth was significant, several million at least, but it perhaps wasn’t enough for Solomon to have funded the conspiracy by himself; more likely he was simply an intermediary, his every financial transaction and those involving his clients now under intense scrutiny.
Ritter, Yorke and Solomon – the minor players were gradually becoming known and a relieved Jensen finally felt they were making progress, the release of Jon Carter a worthwhile exchange in order to spur the investigation forward.
Despite there being no definitive evidence as yet, it seemed certain that Neil Ritter was also some sort of go-between, meetings with Washington’s political elite – including Mayor Henry – a normal part of his weekly routine. Yet even if the task force could link him to Thorn and eventually McDowell, it still wouldn’t be enough to prove a McDowell-Thorn conspiracy: a score of other politicians had met with Ritter over the past month – were they all to be considered equally guilty?
The investigation into Mayor Eugene Henry remained a futile search for something incriminating: no hint of any link to McDowell, phone and email records revealing nothing out of the ordinary. The Mayor’s security detail was provided by the D.C. police, a dozen officers for whom it was second-nature to check for signs of a tail; so far they had given no indication that they were aware the FBI were targeting Henry, but by their very nature the bodyguards’ standard precautions were hardly designed to give the surveillance team an easy ride.
The pursuit of Dick Thorn was similarly turning into a morass of conjecture and paranoia, and virtually everyone on Thorn’s contact list had some degree of political or military influence. Jensen had been foolish to expect anything less, and the fact Thorn was on first-name terms with a general or two and popular with the public was hardly good reason to suspect him of planning something underhand. Few in the Intelligence Community really believed a full-scale military takeover could ever succeed, the American people not that easily pushed around, and while many might be dissatisfied with certain aspects of democracy, specifically Congress, it was too ingrained a principle to seriously contemplate change.
Deangelo’s decisive actions against China had also been exactly what Thorn’s supporters had demanded and Jensen was now convinced his fears of an imminent coup were exaggerated, the joint task force investigation into Thorn needing to be more focused on past actions than any imaginary future concerns.
It was just one of various revisions having to be made, Jensen particularly irritated by Flores’s reckless disregard for protocol and the fact that Anderson’s personal feud with McDowell now directly involved members of the FBI. Flores’ ability to remain detached was certainly open to question and, in retrospect, Jensen’s continued faith in him had been unwise – three times Flores had had McDowell within his grasp and each time he had managed to slip away.
Jensen also had significant doubts about Anderson; his usefulness was increasingly debatable and the Englishman was becoming party to far too many secrets, the FBI’s ability to prevent any future revelations uncertain. And with Carter’s role finished, what purpose did Anderson – and indeed Terrill – actually serve? Anderson had clearly failed to anticipate McDowell’s next move and all he’d really achieved with Carter was to confirm that the campaign against Congress was primarily based on exaggeration and lies. Two government officials had been disciplined as a result but it was little enough to justify Anderson’s continued employment.
Public frustration with Congress showed no signs of ending anytime soon, it resurfacing once it became clear that Dick Thorn would struggle to be confir
med as Secretary of Defence; there were no second chances and unless Deangelo could guarantee a majority vote in the Senate, he was unwilling to take the risk of Thorn being rejected. Ryan Burgess had met no such problems, the committee hearings routine, and he had been duly confirmed as Secretary of State on the Tuesday with barely a murmur of dissent.
Jensen’s dossier of evidence as to a conspiracy against both President Cavanagh and Congress was growing steadily, virtually all of it circumstantial, and he was still undecided what he would do if the contents ever moved on from conjecture to become something rather more convincing; even now it seemed unlikely that they would ever find irrefutable proof, more a pattern of evidence that would merely indicate differing levels of guilt, with Thorn and Henry the prime movers alongside McDowell.
But that didn’t seem to include Bob Deangelo. Flores and his team had so far found nothing to directly implicate Deangelo, other than the fact that – like most of his peers – he knew Neil Ritter; even his relationship with Thorn wasn’t considered to be that close. No rumours of clandestine meetings, no links with anyone on Jensen’s target list, no past record of manipulating his way into power – Deangelo’s involvement in the conspiracy was clearly unproven.
Jensen had been surprised but also reassured, and he could hardly be accused of a cover-up if he simply chose to pass the dossier on to the President. Not that Deangelo would be left with any easy choices, the Administration somehow needing to maintain its veneer of stability while somehow ridding itself of Thorn.
There was one other possibility that Jensen had never thought he would consider, it almost a cowardly response to the problems the dossier would unleash. He could simply bury it.
The combination of Deangelo and Thorn was as yet unproven but at least it seemed to offer the chance of a robust and effective Administration, and one better able than its predecessor to stand up to China. Deangelo’s dilemma of justice or expediency was now equally relevant to Jensen, the consequences of the righteous approach far too complex to predict.
For the moment it was nothing more than a tempting option and Jensen put the thought to one side, trusting that the decision would be obvious nearer the time. So far only two of those named in the dossier were in the military, both in Naval Intelligence, and Jensen’s greatest fear was that the number would increase; maybe even enough to suggest Dick Thorn had significant support within the military. Then it could well prove impossible to conceal America’s frailty, every future President needing to look over their shoulder, wary of whom they hired and fired.
Chapter 7 – Thursday, November 17th
Vietnam – 06:28 Local Time; Wednesday 23:28 UTC
The Hongniao cruise missile checked its precise position with the American GPS network before confirming the coordinates via China’s Beidou equivalent. Attack profile duly re-calibrated, missile eighteen dove down to its cruising height of thirty metres, hugging the waves. With its small size and radar-absorbent surface, the Hongniao was designed to be almost invisible to enemy radar, a complex set of evasive manoeuvres helping it to bypass Vietnam’s anti-missile defences.
Hongniao: Red Bird was the English translation, a gentle name which gave no hint as to the missile’s real power. Based on a Soviet design and improved by ex-Soviet scientists working for Beijing, the original version had spawned a host of successors, and the latest Russian technology had even been reverse-engineered through missiles China had obtained from Ukraine. Accurate, effective, versatile, easy to maintain and – most importantly – cheap, China had taken the best from America and Russia to create a potent weapon, a decade spent building up its cruise missile inventory, Beijing’s military planners looking to overwhelm any U.S. strike force by sheer numbers. Their stockpile now exceeded three thousand – more than four times the number of Tomahawk missiles launched by the U.S. during Operation Iraqi Freedom.
Different versions of the Hongniao could be launched by surface ships, submarines and ground-based launchers, the two hundred and twenty missiles of the first phase now heading for a range of targets spread across a thousand kilometres. Missile eighteen had been launched from a destroyer cruising off the coast of Vietnam, China following the example of the U.S. by choosing to expend some of its stock of older missiles, the more modern HN-2000 kept in reserve. With the last waypoint reached, missile eighteen started its final approach, seven of its compatriots following-on close behind. Their target was Vietnam’s Phuc Yen Air Base, north of Hanoi, and its squadron of fighter aircraft. Three kilometres from impact, the defenders reacted with a swarm of surface-to-air missiles, the upgraded Soviet-era system struggling to cope. Missile eighteen skimmed a few metres above the ground in a relentless pursuit of its goal, the SAMs streaking past, just two cruise missiles destroyed. Moments later missile eighteen exploded, the airstrip’s control tower blown apart, the flaming debris seeming to entice the next Hongniao missile towards it. Within five minutes of the first strike, the air base was enveloped in an expanding cloud of smoke and dust, its buildings shattered, the two runways pockmarked and cratered, eight aircraft destroyed.
Seven more missiles streaked along the Lao Cai to Hanoi expressway, staying no more than twenty metres above the road surface. One Hongniao malfunctioned but the other six sped towards the Ministry of Defence building, no SAMs deployed against them. Despite the early attacks the Ministry was not evacuated until a bare five minutes before the first missile struck, the front of the massive building eventually collapsing in on itself.
Over the course of three explosive hours, every major army, air force and naval base was attacked, Vietnam’s command-and-control structure specifically targeted. The initial intelligence analysis put the Hongniao’s success rate at well over eighty percent, some 360 missiles achieving their objective. The number of casualties was anticipated to be high, U.S. analysts predicting anywhere between one and as many as three thousand.
China’s response to Vietnam’s missile attack on the Liaoning was far in excess of what might be considered ‘proportional and just’. One hour after the cruise missile attacks had ceased, a massive artillery bombardment pummelled the Vietnamese defences along the border. Hanoi was barely a 150 kilometres from the Chinese border, Beijing showing what it was capable of, determined to reduce the number of those arrayed against it by at least one. That was the stick. The carrot was presented to the Vietnamese Ambassador later that morning – a bribe of favoured economic status and financial inducements, even a share in certain resources garnered from the Spratly Islands.
It wasn’t accepted, but then nor was the offer formally rejected, Hanoi first waiting to see how the U.S. would react.
Russia – 16:53 Local Time; 13:53 UTC
The President’s suite of offices lay on the top floor of the triangular Kremlin’s Senate building, Evgeny Sukhov having his own numbered office just three doors down from Irina Golubeva. The President was still in Cologne, joining with certain other G-20 leaders and the U.N. Secretary General to try and thrash out some compromise over the Spratly Islands. That simply wouldn’t happen, none of the key players yet prepared to offer anything that might be even vaguely acceptable. China had certainly not given any indication that it was willing to return to the status quo, its actions of earlier that morning focusing the world’s attention far more than any pointless discussions.
The sustained attack on Vietnam had met with almost universal condemnation, the U.S. leading the verbal assault against the Politburo. Secretary of State Burgess had even given a brief interview from a Hanoi street, the rubble of the Ministry of Defence pictured behind him. Under such circumstances, with the injured and dead still being recovered, it was inconceivable that anything constructive would be decided. China had shown what it was capable of, daring America and Russia to do their worst.
Sukhov sat in semi-darkness, alone with his thoughts, wondering how long it would be before his fears for the future and the stress of his dual life ground him down. Forty would be young for a heart-attack but he wasn’t c
onvinced it was that unlikely: the clandestine nature of his work had been exciting at first; now with every secret trip and phone call the twitch in his right eyelid threatened to become permanent, his conscience still struggling with what he had willingly ordered others to do.
Sukhov believed himself to be capable rather than accomplished, trusting that loyalty and reliability would make up for the occasional lack of inspiration. Over the past nine months he had travelled the world, reinforcing President Golubeva’s message and working with people he once would have assumed were – at best – untrustworthy and no friend to Russia. Sometimes he felt overwhelmed with knowledge, fearful of forgetting which aspects were secret and which were not, worried as to what he would let slip and to whom.
So far – with one crucial exception – everything had gone far more smoothly than anyone could have anticipated, the situation in the South China Sea following the predicted pattern; it might all be happening a little quicker than planned but that was all to the good. Public pressure on the U.S. to act against China was unrelenting with a New York Times/CBS poll indicating that 62% of Americans would support military action against the Chinese mainland.
The sinking of the Koschei had been unfortunate, the wreckage now a potential embarrassment – but nothing more, no smoking gun. Even if ‘incontrovertible’ evidence came to light, or more specifically was dragged up from the sea bed, Moscow would merely cry foul and conclusively prove it was all a fabrication, the convenient truth the one that most people would believe. Conspiracy theories were common enough for it to be an expected response to any extreme event, books written and fortunes made, most generally treated with a hint of derision. The idea of converting a Project-633 submarine into a Chinese clone had always been controversial, it seen as a necessary evil to provoke America into a war; yet the Koschei’s attack on the USS Milius had blatantly failed to achieve that objective, China’s own actions potentially a far more effective trigger.
The Rule Of The People (Conspiracy Trilogy Book 3) Page 12