Marcus saluted, then asked for permission to use the ship’s comms to call McDermott in Washington.
“What for?” the captain asked, not looking up from the sheath of computer printouts he was scanning.
“As you’ve probably been briefed, I’m not actually with the SEALs,” Marcus said. “I work for Langley and have been tasked with helping hunt down these warheads.”
“You and about five thousand other people.”
“Nevertheless, I’d be grateful for permission to call Mr. McDermott. I’ve tried to be patient. But this is becoming increasingly time sensitive.”
“Don’t you have a handler?”
“I did, but that was Nick Vinetti,” Marcus said, lowering his voice. “Now I report directly to the president, which practically speaking means directly to the NSC.”
The captain finally looked up at Marcus and then at his XO. “Is this true?”
The XO nodded, offering his boss a folder containing Marcus’s orders. The captain neither took it nor read what was in it. Instead, he simply grunted his assent and turned back to the papers already in his hands.
The XO told Marcus to follow him.
Moments later, Marcus found himself parked in a cramped cubicle with a secure ship-to-shore phone and a direct line to the White House Situation Room. There was a hiss of static, and then the voice of a watch officer came on the line. Marcus explained who he was and whom he needed. He did not need to wait long.
“McDermott.”
“Bill, it’s Marcus.”
“Make it quick,” said the deputy national security advisor. “General Evans and I are about to brief the president.”
His tone was matter-of-fact at best. There was certainly no warmth. He did not ask about Vinetti. That stung, but Marcus didn’t have time to worry about it. What he needed was permission to call Oleg, and he wasted no time in asking for it.
“Why?” McDermott asked.
“He might be able to help us find al-Zanjani. I want to work with him on that.”
“Forget it. He can’t.”
“How do you know?”
“Because he’s sitting on a base outside of Tokyo twiddling his thumbs. The intel guys have tried to debrief him. He refuses to talk to them.”
“That’s because he’s supposed to be talking to me, Bill,” Marcus shot back. “I’m his handler. I’m the one he trusts.”
“Let it go, Marcus. We’ve got plenty of experts working on this. We’ll find al-Zanjani and the warheads soon enough.”
The patronizing tone infuriated Marcus and he had to fight to stay calm. “Bill, come on—this guy knows the Iranians. He’s been to Tehran. He’s met personally with the Supreme Leader numerous times—President Afshar, too. He knows their top advisors. He knows how they think. Maybe you’re right. Maybe it will do no good at all. But let me at least give it a shot. This is why the president brought us in. All I’m asking is that you let us do our jobs.”
“Do your job?” McDermott asked. “Do you know how much danger you’ve put our country in? Do you get just how much damage you’ve caused? If it were up to me, you and your Russian friend would be locked up in a supermax prison, not playing James Bond in the East China Sea. The answer is no. Now I’ve got to go meet with the president. So just keep your mouth shut and your head down and let us clean up the mess you boys have made.”
There was another hiss of static, and the line went dead.
77
Marcus sat in the cubicle in stunned silence.
He’d never been as close to McDermott as to Vinetti and Hwang. But he’d had no idea how angry his onetime Marine sergeant had become with him. Right now there was no time to process, much less fix, the situation. The clock was ticking.
Marcus needed to talk to Oleg, but that was never going to happen without the proper authorization. He ticked through the people who could give it. The list was short.
He could call Stephens. But could the man be trusted? The CIA director had already sold Marcus out to the Russians. Marcus couldn’t imagine that Stephens had taken the president’s directive to bring him and Oleg into the Agency any better than McDermott had.
There was Cal Foster at the Pentagon. But he had his hands full. And even if he could get through to Foster, what would he say? If the deputy national security advisor had refused to let him talk to the very agent he was assigned to handle, how would he persuade the secretary of defense to countermand McDermott’s order to stand down?
Marcus stared at the communications console in front of him for several minutes. But finally he knew what exactly he had to do. It seemed authorization to contact Oleg was not going to happen. But what about unauthorized contact? He’d been given direct orders from the commander in chief of the United States to serve as Oleg’s handler and find these warheads. The only way he could obey those orders was to ignore McDermott.
Marcus picked up the headset and spoke to the communications officer in the CIC, just as he had moments before. This time, however, rather than asking for the White House, he asked to be patched through to the watch commander in the intelligence division at the U.S. Fleet Activities Naval Base in Yokosuka. There was no reason for the officer, probably no more than nineteen or twenty years old, to believe he wasn’t authorized to make the call. After all, the XO himself had given the officer his personal clearance code to call the White House, and McDermott certainly hadn’t had the time to tell anyone of their conversation.
Two minutes later Oleg Kraskin was on the line.
“I can’t believe it’s you,” said the Russian. “Where are you?”
“I can’t say,” Marcus replied, “but it doesn’t matter. We don’t have much time and we’ve got a lot to do. Did they brief you on what happened in Tanch’oˇn?”
“Not in detail, but I got the gist. I’m so sorry about Nick and Commander Berenger and the others.”
“Not your fault.”
“I feel like it was.”
“I know, but don’t. Now focus. I need your help.”
“Name it.”
“Everyone’s looking for the warheads,” Marcus said. “But that’s a mistake. We need to find Alireza al-Zanjani. We find him, we’ll find the warheads.”
“I agree, but what can I do?” Oleg asked. “They’re not giving me access to any current intel. Mostly I’m confined to my barracks, guarded by military police.”
“But you’re at the intel headquarters now, aren’t you?”
“Every morning they bring me over here for a few hours to debrief me on everything I know about my time in Moscow under Luganov.”
“And you’re not talking?”
“Of course I’ve been talking,” Oleg said. “I’m exhausted from talking. They’re recording everything. They have me review memos and notes I wrote when I worked for Luganov, and we go over the details point by point—Who was in the meeting? What was the point of the meeting? What were the action items that came out of the meeting? And so on. They’ve probably recorded twenty-four hours of my recollections so far. Who told you otherwise?”
“Never mind. Maybe I misunderstood. Anyway, are they talking to you about al-Zanjani?”
“No. I mean, his name has come up, but obviously I don’t know where he is, so what could I say?”
Marcus quickly brought his Russian friend up to speed on the events of the last twenty-four hours and the thus-far fruitless hunt for the world’s now most wanted man. Oleg made clear he sympathized but didn’t see what he could possibly add.
“Listen, Oleg, you’re the only person employed by U.S. intelligence who has ever met with Iran’s Grand Ayatollah, and not once but multiple times. You’ve been to the home of Hossein Ansari. And you’ve spent hours with Yadollah Afshar. You know their people. You must have picked up clues about how they operate.”
“Of course,” Oleg said. “But you have to remember, al-Zanjani was a minor player for most of those years. He only became deputy director of the Revolutionary Guard Corps last spring. I’ve
met him once. He came to Moscow with his boss, General Entezam. But my interaction with him was minimal.”
“What did he come to Moscow for?”
“It was an advance trip. They were preparing for a summit that Luganov wanted to hold with the leaders of Iran, Turkey, Sudan, and several Central Asian countries.”
“And?”
“And what? It got sidelined.”
“Why?”
“What does it matter?”
“Just tell me.”
“Well, the summit was supposed to take place in November, but the whole thing got set aside because Luganov was spending more and more time planning for his insane invasion of the Baltics.”
“How long did Entezam and al-Zanjani stay in Moscow?”
“I don’t know—a day or two, I guess.”
“Would you have taken notes from Luganov’s meetings with them?”
“Of course.”
“Would those notes be included in all the material you gave us on the thumb drive?” Marcus pressed.
“I assume so—but why?” Oleg asked. “How does that help?”
“Can you access those files back at Langley right now?”
“Sure. Should I?”
“Yeah, do it now,” Marcus said. “Do a search for everything in your files that mentions al-Zanjani.”
78
Marcus glanced at his watch.
It was now 5:17 p.m. and he was certain the XO or an MP or two would burst in at any moment, cut the satellite link, and rip the headset off him. Yet he pressed on.
Oleg was scrolling through every document he had mentioning al-Zanjani and quoting a section here or there, but they were not hitting pay dirt. Most of the material involved a discussion of talking points for a summit that would never happen. Luganov had wanted to create a formal military and political alliance, a new Warsaw Pact of sorts, for the twenty-first century, incorporating the governments of Tehran, Ankara, Khartoum, and the others. General Entezam loved the idea. Al-Zanjani, so new in his post, hadn’t said a thing.
The main elements of the conversation had revolved around how to persuade Turkey’s leaders to leave NATO and join a new alliance headed by Moscow. Other points of interest involved whether the Sunni Arab states—most notably the Saudis—could be lured away from the American camp and into the Russian-Iranian orbit. The notes indicated that Entezam had bristled at the notion of tempting Riyadh away from the West, preferring instead a Russian–Iranian joint military operation to grab the Arabian Peninsula and radically upend the balance of power in the Middle East. According to Oleg’s notes, Luganov had actually laughed out loud at this suggestion, then turned the conversation to how to bolster the Palestinians and undermine the Israelis.
All of it was fascinating. None of it was actionable. The more Oleg cited memo titles, the more frustrated Marcus became. One memo included bios for every official Luganov planned to invite to the summit, both principals and their subordinates. Another included contact information for each potential invitee and their administrative staff. Others involved logistical details such as seating arrangements at the summit, hotel requirements for each delegation, vehicle needs, dietary restrictions, media planning, and security protocols.
“Luganov was involved in the planning of such minute details?” Marcus asked, as baffled as he was intrigued.
“Goodness, no,” Oleg said. “He cared only about the policy aspects of the summit. After that, he stepped out, and the chief of staff and the chief of protocol took over. But Luganov assigned me to sit in on the meetings and take detailed notes of everything so we could discuss it properly later on.”
Marcus glanced at his watch again, then leaned forward and closed his eyes. There was something there, something they were missing, but what was it?
“Pull up the memo on the security requirements,” he said.
“All right, I’ve got it; what am I looking for?” Oleg asked.
“I’m not sure,” Marcus admitted. “Look through it again. See if you find anything that could help us.”
The line was quiet for over a minute. “I’m sorry,” Oleg said finally. “There’s really not much of substance here. They hadn’t developed a detailed security plan. It’s mostly a series of questions that the Iranians had for the FSB and that our chief of staff had for the IRGC and President Afshar’s staff. But there aren’t many answers, I’m afraid.”
Marcus knew they were running out of time, but he refused to give up. Again, he pressed his eyes shut. Bios. Hotels. Transportation. Dietary restrictions. Media . . .
“Contacts,” he said, his eyes still shut tight and his hands now massaging his temples.
“What?”
“You said there was a memo with some sort of contact information.”
“Yeah, so?”
“Open that,” Marcus ordered.
“Okay, done. Now what?” Oleg asked.
“What’s in there?”
“Not much. It’s a bunch of mobile phone numbers, office phone numbers, fax numbers, email addresses, mailing addresses, shipping addresses . . .”
“Is al-Zanjani listed?”
“Of course.”
“And what do you have for him?”
Marcus could hear Oleg tapping keys as the Russian searched the document.
“A mobile number, two satellite account numbers, and three office numbers—his direct line, his chief of staff’s direct line, and the one for his personal assistant.”
“Is there an email address?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t know.”
“Does Entezam have an email address?”
“No.”
“Do any of the Iranian officials?”
“Yes.”
“Who?”
“Everyone who works in the office of the president has one. Those who work in the office of the Supreme Leader as well.”
“But no one in the IRGC?”
“No,” Oleg said. “What are you getting at?”
Marcus didn’t answer the question. He didn’t even know why he was asking. He was fishing and coming up empty, but something told him he was on the right track, that he was asking the right questions. Except that now he was stuck.
“Can you pull up a separate document without closing the document you’re currently looking at?” he finally asked.
“Of course.”
“Good—pull up all of your contact files.”
“Okay . . .”
“Pull up al-Zanjani’s contact listing.”
“Just a second—okay, I’ve got it.”
“Do you have an email address for him?”
“No.”
Marcus stood up. He needed to move, but there was barely enough room in the cramped closet-like compartment to stand next to his chair, certainly not enough to stretch or pace.
“How many phone numbers do you have for al-Zanjani?”
“Why?”
“Just tell me,” Marcus said, not wanting to be rude but increasingly certain they were going to be cut off at any second.
“Four.”
“What are they?” Marcus pressed.
“You want the exact numbers?”
“No—what phones are they for?”
“Three are the direct lines to his office, his assistant, and his chief of staff.”
“Are they the same as on the other document?”
Oleg took a moment to check and then confirmed that they were.
“What’s the fourth number for?”
“It’s his private, secure mobile number.”
“And is that number the same as on the other document?”
“Hold on—yes, it is.”
“Okay, give me that number,” Marcus ordered, jotting it down on a notepad as Oleg dictated it, then reading it back to Oleg, just to be sure. “Now, you said there were two other numbers you had in the memo, right?”
“Right.”
“Satellite accounts?”
/> “Correct.”
“And those aren’t in your contact file for al-Zanjani?”
“No, they’re not.”
“Okay,” Marcus said. “Give them both to me.”
Oleg complied. When he was finished, Marcus again read them back to Oleg to be absolutely certain he’d gotten them right. Oleg confirmed that he had.
“You did good, my friend,” Marcus told him. “Now you need to log off that account and go back to your barracks immediately and wait there. Don’t talk to anyone, if you can at all help it. And for heaven’s sake, don’t tell anyone that we spoke. Just sit tight, and I’ll get back to you as soon as I can.”
79
“Put me through to McDermott in the Sit Room,” Marcus told the comms officer.
Thirty seconds later, however, he was informed the deputy NSA was still in the Oval with the president.
“Would you like to leave Colonel McDermott a message?” the watch officer asked.
“No,” Marcus replied. “I’ll call back later.”
The moment the connection was terminated, he contemplated requesting to be patched through directly to the National Military Command Center at the Pentagon. But he knew he’d be denied.
Whom, then, should he call? There was no guarantee his strategy would prove useful. But Marcus was convinced it was worth trying. Should he take it to Sanchez? Marcus quickly ruled that out. The SEAL commander would likely discuss it with the captain and XO before taking it to PACOM, U.S. Pacific Command—or perhaps SOCOM, U.S. Special Operations Command—and Marcus would likely wind up in trouble anyway for doing an end run around them all.
No, the only way for this to work was to take it to someone above Sanchez and the captain. Or perhaps someone outside the chain of command entirely.
“You’re telling me we’re nowhere with this?”
President Clarke’s face was beet red.
McDermott had never seen him so angry.
“We’re not nowhere,” said Director Stephens. “I’ve spoken to my counterparts in two dozen countries stretching from South Korea to Western Europe. Everyone has offered their full cooperation. But unless we’re prepared to stop and board all 240 North Korean ships—”
The Persian Gamble Page 30