“Or that someone found his satellite phone,” said Rubens.
“Well, yes,” said Johnny Bib. “That, too.”
Johnny’s voice dropped, and Rubens realized he hadn’t thought of the obvious possibility.
“You have an exact location?”
“Yes. It’s within a military reservation in an unpopulated area.”
“Inform Ms. Telach.” He glanced at his watch. “Tell her that I would like Tommy and Mr. Dean to check it out. Tell her to prepare a mission, but to wait for my word to launch it.”
Fifteen minutes later, Rubens entered the cabinet room at the White House to find Collins giving a full briefing on Iron Heart. She was flanked by her boss, CIA Director Louis Zackart, and Jorge Evans — the CIA officer who had supervised Iron Heart. Secretary of Defense Art Blanders, who’d never been a big fan of the CIA, looked furious. Secretary of State James Lincoln, nominally a Collins ally, had his arms crossed and was shaking his head. In fact, only President Marcke seemed nonplussed by the disclosure that the CIA might have lost track of one of the warheads in the operation.
Collins glanced at Rubens as he came in. He was surprised that the look seemed not only benign but almost one of relief, as if he were an ally she’d been waiting for.
“Our best information then, and now, is that there was no third warhead,” said Collins. “But it should have been mentioned in the report.”
“That’s an understatement,” said Blanders.
Collins nodded. Her strategy was rather transparent: since this had all happened before her time, she could easily distance herself from it while claiming to give full disclosure.
“A search of the wreckage was conducted,” she said. “A wide range of assets were used. Just as a precaution.”
“Was this all mentioned to the president at the time?” Blanders demanded.
“I don’t personally have that information,” said Collins. “It was a different administration.”
That response didn’t sit well with Blanders, whose opinion of the previous administration was as low as his opinion of the CIA. He began telling Collins how idiotic—“I’m putting it politely,” he said — it was to transport a real nuclear weapon to South America to begin with.
Collins could have chosen to tell Blanders that the operation had been approved at the highest levels of the government — it had been authorized by a presidential finding and in the due course of things would have been subject to several reviews. She might also have mentioned that elements of the military had been involved in the operation and that the targeted weapon was never far from a sizable strike force. She could even have said — and here Rubens would actually have agreed with her — that having the operation end up in South America was no worse, and possibly a whole lot better, than having it take place in the Middle East or some other country where the local governments might be less than cooperative if things went sour. But instead she answered mildly, “I don’t disagree.”
Rubens glanced at Evans. Clearly, he was going to end up taking the brunt of whatever fallout ensued, the designated patsy for decisions made several pay grades above him. He seemed rather stoic today; then again, the paramilitary types tended to be like that. They’d seen their share of blood in the field, and little fazed them, at least outwardly.
“What the report should or should not have included is an issue for a different time,” said the president. He turned to Rubens. “And I’m in office now, not my colorful predecessor. We need to know now what it is we’re dealing with. Billy, you have an update for us?”
“As we all know, the warhead that has been discovered in the Amazonian area is not real.” He pulled his chair out and sat. “Or rather to be precise, it does not contain what the experts refer to as a radioactive pit — a bomb kernel, if you win. There’s no nuclear material. But the fact that it’s very similar to the warhead that was involved in Iron Heart does raise some possibilities.”
“We’re not sure it was the same as the ones in Iron Heart,” said Collins. “The data that your people brought back is less than definitive.”
They could have brought the warhead back here and dumped it in your lap and you’d still find some way to criticize them, thought Rubens.
“Everything I’ve seen, not just the Deep Black pictures but the images on Peruvian television, leaves absolutely no doubt,” said Blanders. “More than a dozen analysts have looked at it at the Pentagon. And these Deep Black people — the agents who were there — are experts in Russian nuclear arms. They’ve dealt with this sort of thing before. They’re not going to mess this up.”
“One of the people is an expert,” said Rubens mildly, referring to Karr. “He disarmed the weapon in southern Siberia last year. Not the same type of warhead, though there are many similarities.”
“There are two possibilities,” continued Rubens. “One, the warhead that has been discovered was a dummy from the very start. The CIA asset — I believe you refer to him by the name Sholk or Silk; am I right, Mr. Evans?”
“Sholk,” he said with a stony glare.
“Perhaps he intended to use it somehow, or used it when he made the original deal. When you shot down his plane in Ecuador, it was still inside. The rebels recovered it, maybe then, more likely in the recent past.”
Rubens glanced at Evans, unsure whether he would argue that the CIA had not shot down the plane. He didn’t.
“What’s the other possibility?” asked Lincoln.
“The other possibility is that the warhead is real, or rather was, but that the bomb material was removed at some point after the crash. The guerrillas could have the material or they could have sold it. Or perhaps someone else sold them this bomb, either as a dummy or even as a legitimate weapon, since they might not know how to test it properly. We’ve found no financial transactions or communications backing that theory, but it remains viable.”
“Let me straighten Mr. Rubens out on a minor point,” said Collins. “Two points. One, the crash occurred in Peruvian territory. I realize that the report is imprecise, but it was just over the border in the contested area. And two, the CIA did not shoot down the aircraft.”
“Are you sure, Debra?” said Rubens.
She turned to Evans. He in turn glanced at the director, then began to speak. “There was a misunderstanding at the airstrip. The pilots refused an order to get out of their airplane. As they took off, gunshots were heard. A shoulder-launched missile was fired.”
“A misunderstanding?” said Rubens. “That’s hard to believe.”
“That’s what happened,” said Evans.
Rubens met his gaze and realized that Evans had decided he could tough this point out.
Blanders, who was having trouble controlling his temper, asked with the help of several expletives why that wasn’t mentioned in the report.
“It wasn’t relevant,” said Evans. “The plane crashed. That’s noted.”
“Not relevant that you shot it down?”
The two men stared at each other. Rubens looked over at Collins, who sat stone-faced, gazing dead ahead at the wall opposite her. Most of the people looking at her would think she’d been blindsided, but Rubens suspected — knew — she hadn’t. She would have read the report and, just as he did, realize how convenient the crash had been. Not only that, but she would have known Sholk’s entire background — she would have known that the CIA was responsible for setting him up in business.
“OK, enough of this crap,” the president said. “I’m not going to waste my day sitting here listening to a rehash of a fucked-up CIA operation that occurred under the previous administration. I want a complete investigation done of this mess and I want to see the report. Mr. Zackart, see to it.”
“Yes, sir,” said the CIA director.
“Let’s move on. But before we do, one question: What happened to this guy, Sholk? Was he killed in the crash?”
“He was incinerated in the crash,” said Collins.
“Oh?” said Rubens. “We’v
e discovered that a Russian satellite phone has been used in the area where the warhead was found over the past several months. The encryption code is several years old, one the Russian mafia likes.”
“If he had survived the crash, I would’ve seen him,” Evans insisted. “I was there myself. He died in the crash or the fire that burned up the plane.”
Rubens asked Evans, “How long did it take for you to reach the wreckage?”
“Not long.”
“Hours?”
“In that country it can take a day to go two miles,” Evans explained. “It’s all jungle straight up and down. I don’t remember how long it took. Not all day. Less than that. A few hours, maybe.”
“Was the body in the wreckage?”
“The wreckage was ashes. The plane had fuel in it and burned fiercely. By the time we got there the fire was almost out. The bodies had been consumed.”
“No corpus delicti,” the president said. “Enough. We’ve got a hell of a mess right now that needs all our attention. We’ve got a fake bomb in Peru that the Peruvians think is real. They’re sitting on it. There may be a real bomb, and we need to find it if it’s there. Our entrée to Peru is to help them dispose of the one they have and search to ensure there aren’t any more. I spoke to the president of Peru on the telephone just before I came here. He promised full cooperation.”
They discussed the arrangements. A Delta Force team and a team from the State Department were en route. The entire Southern Command, headquartered at Fort Sam Houston in Texas, had been placed on alert. An emergency response unit trained to deal with disasters was heading to Lima so that it could respond immediately in a catastrophe. Two platoons of Marines and some aircraft had been dispatched to provide additional security at the embassy. Reconnaissance assets, planes and satellites, had been dedicated to the search. And finally, the USS Ronald Reagan and her task group were on the way to the waters off Peru, just in case the folks in Peru didn’t feel like cooperating in the search. “Sometimes a little intimidation prevents serious problems,” the secretary of defense said.
“The Peruvians will cooperate — are cooperating,” the secretary of state said.
“I don’t want to talk contingencies,” the president said. “The people at the Pentagon can handle that.” He turned to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs. “I understand you want Jack Spielmorph to head the search force?”
“Yes, sir.” Spielmorph was a two-star general.
“Fine.”
Collins weighed in. “One thing that needs to be determined is whether or not the Peruvian army manufactured this fake warhead. The generals are very much suspects.”
“So is our mysterious Mr. Sholk,” someone interjected. “Why do a fake warhead? Why not a coup?”
“Maybe the new generation is more subtle,” Collins replied. “The army found the weapon and got the political credit.”
“And the election is this coming Sunday,” the president said sourly. He glanced at Rubens, who suspected the president was wishing he had told the Peruvian president about the rigged vote-counting computers.
“Thank you, gentlemen and ladies, for sharing breakfast with me.” The president rose and left the room.
65
The helicopter stuttered to the left as it took off. Lia’s stomach floated in the wrong place for a moment, waiting for the rest of her body to catch up. She closed her eyes to regain her equilibrium; by the time she reopened them the helicopter was over a long valley, the mines and smelters behind them. The mountains stretched in all directions. The air had a dark purple hue; the ground mixed green and brown like a mottled blanket. It seemed to Lia the terrain rushed by while they stood still.
The drone of the helicopter’s engines shut her off from the others, putting her in a little cocoon where she could rest for a while. She had one more card to swap. Hopefully that would be done quickly and she could go home and rest, retreat to a beach or someplace quiet where rats didn’t run in the ceiling while you were trying not to freeze to death under blankets stiffer than cardboard and not half as warm.
The helicopter wove its way north following a series of long, deep valleys, generally staying a few hundred feet below the nearest peaks. It seemed impossible that anyone could live in these mountains, and yet the slopes were dotted with houses, new and old, as well as massive stone ruins. Some had come for gold and silver: large strip mines were scattered around as well, along with old-fashioned tunnels. But the terraces along the mountainsides, the cultivated fields a thousand feet high, showed that more than the hunt for treasure had kept them here.
After about a half hour’s flying time, Lia grew tired.
“I’m going to take a nap,” she told the others — and Rockman. She reached to her belt and clicked off the com system. Within a few moments, she felt her mind starting to drift and she was sleeping.
In her dream, she saw Charlie shaking his head at her.
Why?
She was back in the vault, looking at her hand trembling before her. But this time she stopped it, staring crossly at it.
I will not be afraid.
Charlie materialized again, once more shaking his head. Why? she asked him.
Before he could answer, there was a soft pop, followed by a louder bang. Lia felt herself lurch upward. Caught between sleep and consciousness, she thought she saw the nose of the helicopter skitter upward and then back down. The tail slid to the left, then back; in an instant the helicopter was yawing back and forth as well as up and down, flying in a large, unguided corkscrew through the sky.
Fernandez grabbed Lia’s arm and shouted something. As he did, the chopper pitched hard to the right, and Lia’s mind seemed to lift up away from her body, soaring into the azure sky.
66
Not only did fresh orders meet Dean and Karr in Iquitos, but Fashona did as well, this time at the helm of a large single-engine amphibious plane. Fashona was in an appreciably better mood than he had been the night before, giving Dean a thumbs-up and even half-smiling at Karr as the two men boarded the plane.
“New airplane, huh?” Dean asked.
“Very pretty beast,” said Fashona. “Cessna Caravan. Straight-at-you, what you see is what you get. With water wings.”
“Water wings,” echoed Karr in the back.
“I hope you haven’t let him eat those jungle leaves,” Fashona told Dean. “I’d hate to see him high.”
“Probably slow him down,” said Dean. “Like taking Ritalin if you’re hyperactive.”
Fashona throttled up. The aircraft felt more like a graceful sailboat than a speedboat, gliding along the river so smoothly that Dean didn’t even realize they were airborne until they started to bank. They flew south for about five miles, then began heading to the west. Their target was a pair of buildings near a military outpost above the Rio Orona.
As the crow flew, it was only about forty miles southeast of where they had been the night before, though by ground the journey would have been close to a hundred over unimproved roads and rickety mountain trails. Once at the installation, they would use a boat and then their feet to hike another ten miles before reaching their destination in the shadow of half-forgotten Inca ruins.
The Art Room wanted to know who, if anyone, was there. Specifically, they were looking for an old Russian satellite phone somehow linked to the warhead they had checked out the night before.
It sounded like a wild-goose chase to Dean. He wouldn’t have minded so much, except for two things: one, Lia was working without backup, and two, he was so tremendously tired now that he couldn’t keep his eyes open. He gazed out the side of the aircraft at the green jungle, teetering on the edge of slumber. His mind wandered back and forth, confusing the thick foliage with Vietnam. They were worlds apart, and he was even further from the kid he’d been thirty-some years before. But they jammed close now in his head, his consciousness giving way to the dreamscape of memory.
Turk was the one who’d deserved the medal for taking out the Vietnamese
sniper. Without Turk, Dean would have been another notch on the wooden stock of Fu Manchu’s ancient Russian weapon. Dean followed Turk out of the bunker area and through the hills, learning more in their first day together than he had during the entire year he’d been a Marine.
But Turk wasn’t around to get the medal. So it fell to Dean, who’d been the one to take the shot.
One shot, one kill, one shiny medal, one star in the firmament.
One certificate signifying you are the man.
Paper.
Was that why he was so cynical?
He wasn’t cynical. On the contrary. He valued honor and duty. He believed in them and lived them, did his best to — not for medals, not for anything of that, but because he felt sick, literally queasy, when he realized he’d let down someone who was counting on him.
Like Lia in Korea. Even though it wasn’t his fault — wasn’t even his mission. He’d been thousands of miles away at the time, but he still felt as if he should have been there for her.
Maybe it was medals he didn’t care for. He didn’t hold them against men who felt they were important. On the contrary — if he knew the man, especially if he knew the man, he took the medal as a sign that he’d been through hell and lost something important, trading it for something that couldn’t be explained. That experience set a person apart.
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