by John Weisman
“There are certain procedures—” the DCI began.
“I don’t give a damn about procedures,” the president interrupted. “These are your people we’re talking about. If Rocky wants something from you, he gets it. Immediately. No questions. No waiting. No bureaucratic delays for ‘procedures.’ “ He paused. “Have I made myself crystal clear, Nick?”
Pappas glanced around the room. “Yes, Mr. President.”
“Good.” Pete Forrest wheeled and left the room.
There was about a quarter minute of dead air. Rockman caught Monica Wirth’s eye. “Can you spare me a few minutes, Monica?”
“I was about to ask you the same question, Mr. Secretary.” The NSC adviser closed the document folder in front of her. “Mr. Director?”
“Monica?”
She held her hand out, palm side up. “I’m going to need those photographs and whatever else you have in that folder.”
The DCI started to object but then thought the better of it. Without a word, he handed the folder to Wirth.
“Thank you, Nick.” The national security adviser turned toward the doorway. “Mr. Secretary, let’s adjourn to my office, shall we?”
7
68 Kilometers west of Tazhong, Xinjiang Autonomous Region, China.
0239 Hours Local Time.
AT LEAST KAZ AND DICK CAMPBELL were alive. Sam Phillips thanked God for that. They looked like hell. But then, he and X-Man looked worse.
Sam and X-Man were yanked out of the truck, tossed onto the rocky, cold desert floor, and kicked and beaten for having freed themselves. Then they were dragged over to their commandeered 4x4—where Kaz and the Marine stood, still bound and gagged.
All the camera equipment as well as their luggage had been dumped onto the ground, illuminated by headlights from four big trucks with numerals and Chinese characters on the doors. Sam took a fast reading of the situation. The video equipment was still in its cases, sitting on the ground.
Sam gave his team a quick glance and saw in their eyes that they were ready to follow his lead. He wished he had one.
Shoazim. The guide was nowhere to be seen. Sam realized he was probably dead. Brutal as it might sound, that made sense. These people had to know that guides reported to the police. That made Shoazim a collaborator. Also, Shoazim was of no material value—in fact, he was a drain on whatever rations and supplies the terrorists might have. But they were passing as Brits, Irish, and Canadians—Westerners who could be ransomed.
He smelled cigarettes. Sam’s eyes swept a hundred and eighty degrees, trying not to make direct contact with any of the bad guys, but able to see half a dozen red spots in the darkness as they pulled on their smokes. No one spoke. The four of them were on display. The boss man, whoever he was, was probably trying to figure out how to deal with them. Sam hoped boss man wasn’t a Chechen. Brutality was a way of life in this part of the world, but the Chechens were the worst. In Afghanistan, al-Qaeda’s Chechen fighters had tortured and mutilated every American they’d gotten their hands on. According to one report Sam had read at the time, the Chechens at Takhur Ghar had cut the ears and privates off a Navy SEAL they’d captured before finally putting him out of his misery with a bullet to the brain. Even the Russian light colonel he’d recruited in Tajikistan had warned him to steer clear, “Sam, out here is what we call dikiy-dikiy vostok—the Wild, Wild East. Out here, the Tajiks, Turkmen, or Uzbeks, they take no prisoners. But compared to Chechens, Tajiks and Uzbeks—they are nice guys.”
Sam’s mind was racing. His most important job was to keep everyone alive. To do that, he knew that he had, somehow, to establish control. Control was the key. That was the first rule of case-officerdom he’d been taught at the Farm.
No matter how desperate or dicey the situation might be, the instructors told them over and over, you always try to gain control. Just the way you control your agents, your developmental—everyone you deal with. And even if you’re captured, or detained, you work to establish some form of control over the people who grabbed you. You come up with a tactical strategy—and you find a way to execute it.
It’s like that old cartoon, one instructor’d said, the one in which two guys are manacled to a wall, hand and foot, suspended twenty feet above a pair of hungry lions. There’s no window to their cell, and the lions are between them and the door—which is locked from the outside—and besides, they’re chained up. So one guy is saying to the other, “Now, here’s my plan…”
Sam understood that he had to find a way to establish control over the lions who were holding them hostage. Even though the lions had just beaten the crap out of them. Even though the lions were holding automatic weapons.
And so, he struggled to his feet.
From somewhere, a heavy boot swept his legs out from under him. Sam went crashing face first onto the desert floor.
Scattered laughter erupted from the darkness beyond the truck headlights.
Establish control. Sam fought the pain and the panic that was rising in his throat. He pushed himself off the sand.
A shadow loomed in front of him. Sam looked up. He was a large man, with a Saddam Hussein mustache and a single, prehominid eyebrow. He was dressed in a PLA uniform jacket and what looked like U.S. Army-surplus woodland-camouflage BDU trousers. Even in the nighttime coolness he reeked of sweat, garlic, and tobacco. In his left hand was an AK-47, its barrel pointed at the ground.
Slowly, Mustache Man brought the weapon up, up, up, until its muzzle was even with Sam’s clavicle. “Tökhtang—stop.”
Sam raised himself farther off the ground.
The AK’s front sight jabbed against his chest. “Tökhtang!”
Sam fought to keep his eyes steady and his voice even. “Siz Inglizcha gaplashasizmi? Do you speak English?”
In response, he received another shove with the AK’s muzzle.
He took the risk of getting shot by pushing back. “Siz Inglizcha gaplashasizmi?”
After what seemed to him like a decade, the pressure of the AK barrel on his chest was reduced slightly. “Inglizcha?”
Sam pushed himself on to his knees, and then stood up as straight as he could, looking directly into Mustache Man’s black eyes. He anticipated the boot coming at his legs again, but nothing happened. “Kha,” he said. “Yes, Inglizcha.”
“Men Inglizcha. Uzbekchada, Ruscha, Tojik.”
Mustache Man’s accent was Uzbek, not Chechen. A huge surge of relief washed over Sam. But outwardly, he showed nothing.
The Uzbek’s eyes bore into him. Sam realized he had to speak—the team’s lives depended on what he’d say, and how he’d say it. But he didn’t trust his Tajik or Uzbek. “We are English,” he said in halting Russian. “Journalists. Media. We work for a television company in London. We do not understand why you have taken us”—he tugged at his brain for the right word—“prisoner,” he finally said. He paused, translating in his head before he spoke. “Please free my friends. Please give us all some water, or tea, and some rice. It has been a long time since we have had anything to eat or drink.”
Mustache Man said nothing. But he stepped back three paces and lowered the AK’s barrel. Sam was relieved until he realized the muzzle was pointed directly at his crotch and Muzzle Man’s finger was still wrapped around the trigger.
There followed what could only be described as a long, unnatural pause. And then Mustache Man lowered the muzzle of the AK until it pointed into the desert floor. He looked at Sam and said in Russian, “Journalists?”
“Television journalists,” Sam said.
“Television. BBC?”
“Yes, just like BBC,” Sam said.
Mustache Man said, “You make television of us?”
“Of course,” Sam said. “We can make a video of you. An interview. And then, after we leave, we can show it on television. The whole world will see and hear you.”
Mustache Man said, “Show me.”
Sam looked at his three companions. “Free them. Give us water and rice. And then we will be happ
y to show you.”
“You show me now.” Mustache Man swept the AK’s muzzle across Sam’s body. One-handed, he fired a long burst into Dick Campbell’s chest. The Marine was blown two yards backward, dead by the time Sam screamed, “No!”
“I said you show me now.” Mustache Man butt-stroked Sam with the AK, knocking him onto his face. He reached down, grabbed Sam by the collar of his shirt, and started dragging him toward the video equipment.
Sam twisted free of Mustache Man’s grip. He rolled onto his hands and knees, crawled to get away. But the Uzbek followed. Sam tried to struggle to his feet. He got a roundhouse kick that sent pain from his hip into his eye sockets.
Mustache Man stood over him. The AK started to come up. Sam’s palms went up. “Please,” he said. “I’ll show you. But I’m going to need help.” Sam’s brain wasn’t being helpful. Suddenly he’d lost every bit of Russian he’d ever known. He fought to remember the vocabulary, then, like some kind of demented child, spoke slowly, in a monotone. “They have to help me.”
There was a pause. Sam chanced a quick look up at Mustache Man, wincing in anticipation of a rifle butt—or a bullet. Mustache Man’s face told him the guerrilla was debating whether or not to shoot them all.
Finally, the Uzbek said, “Da. Show me.” He flicked a glance into the darkness. Kaz’s gag was pulled off, and his arms freed. Sam looked into the kid’s eyes and knew he was in shock. Well, Kaz wasn’t the only one. Sam had never lost an agent. But now he’d just killed a colleague. Dick was dead because of him. Because of his stupidity. His game playing. Stupid goddamn game playing.
Sam’s eyes lost focus. He started to hyperventilate. It was X-Man who brought him back. Chris took him by the shoulders and shook him. “Sam,” he said. “Sam, we have to get to work. The man’s waiting.”
Sam blinked a few times. “Get to work.” He looked over at the Marine’s bound, gagged corpse. There’d been no time for anything. Not even a good-bye glance. Now Dick was dead. Murdered. The rage started to build inside Sam now. His eyes grew wide. His fists clenched. And then Sam’s training took over and he shut down the partition inside him that hurt more than he’d ever realized anybody could hurt, and he nodded his head and said, numbly, “Okay, Chris.”
Revenge would come. But later. The shock of seeing his teammate murdered would hit him hard. But not now. Sam couldn’t let anything touch him now. His only job was to keep himself, Kaz, and X-Man alive.
As quickly as they could, the three of them set to work. They pulled the camera out of its padded case and checked the battery. It was weak—drained from the earlier drilling.
Sam’s hip throbbed painfully. “How much time do we have on the battery?”
“Don’t know,” Kaz said. “Maybe eight, ten minutes.” He gave Sam a grim look. “The spare’s dead.”
Sam gritted his teeth. “Maybe they have a generator.”
“If not, I can recharge using the cigarette lighter in the Toyota.”
“Good.” Sam watched as Chris set up the tripod. Kaz placed the camera on the tripod head and secured it. Sam unpacked the zoom lens and twisted the bayonet mount until it clicked. Chris screwed the audio cable into the back of the camera.
Kaz found the hand mike and attached it to the cable. “Good to go.”
Chris positioned himself behind the camera and took a quick squint through the eyepiece. He nodded at Sam. “Ready when you are.”
Sam beckoned to Mustache Man. “We are ready.” He took the mike out of Kaz’s hands and waved it in the guerrilla’s direction. “What would you like to say?”
“Not here.” Mustache Man shouted something in a dialect Sam did not understand. Someone climbed into one of the PLA trucks, turned it around, and backed it in a half circle until the headlights of the truck in which Sam and X-Man had been held lit up the canvas covering the tailgate.
Mustache Man’s boots scrunched across the sand and stone. He stood twenty feet from the truck. “Put the camera here.”
Sam limped over to where Mustache Man stood. “C’mon, chaps, let’s do it.”
Mustache Man gave more orders. The canvas was pushed aside and the tailgate dropped. Half a dozen men slung their weapons and clambered aboard. Another four stood below.
Sam waited as the camera was brought up and set where Mustache Man wanted it. He got behind the tripod, sidled up to the eyepiece, and squinted through the viewfinder He adjusted the focus, then zoomed in on the knot of bodies struggling to wrestle a large, rectangular object that looked somewhat like one of those 1930s refrigerators—the ones with the compressors on the top—out of a cumbersome storage container.
They pushed and pulled for perhaps half a minute. Sam was about to shut the power off when the cluster of men separated long enough for him to catch a fleeting glimpse of the yellow-and-black nuclear radiation symbol stenciled on the storage container. He said, “Oh, my God,” and involuntarily took a big step backward.
X-Man said, “What’s up?”
Sam rubbed his face. “I don’t bloody believe this.” He watched as they wrestled the fridge out of the truck and lowered it onto the ground.
“Now,” Mustache Man said. “Now you give me the microphone.”
It was at that instant that Sam Phillips understood that he was a dead man, too. That they were all dead men. Dick Campbell wasn’t going to be SIE-l’s only casualty.
The West Wing of the White House.
1355 Hours Local Time.
RITZIK WAS SURPRISED to find the young woman who’d briefed in the Situation Room waiting for them in the national security adviser’s inner office. Monica Wirth said, “Mr. Secretary, Major Ritzik, this is Deputy Assistant Secretary of Energy Tracy Wei-Liu.”
Ritzik said, “Michael Ritzik. Nice to meet you.” He extended his arm and got a cool, firm handshake in return. She certainly was attractive, Ritzik thought. She had almond eyes and the well-conditioned body of an athlete under her well-tailored black pantsuit. Wei-Liu was probably, he decided, in her early thirties. Ritzik caught himself staring and self-consciously shifted his gaze toward SECDEF, who was looking at him quizzically.
Rockman said, “Major Ritzik will be leading the unit that’s going to bring the CIA sensor team back from China.”
Wei-Liu’s expression didn’t change a whit. “Not an easy job, Major, given the latest developments.”
“No, it’s not. But it can be done.”
“I certainly hope so. They’re brave men. We should do everything we can to bring them home.”
“I feel the same way.”
Monica Wirth’s heels tapped the wood floor as she crossed her office and dropped into a high-backed upholstered leather wing chair that faced away from the tall, narrow windows. “Why don’t we all sit down where it’s comfortable.” Wirth indicated the upholstered couch in front of which was a coffee table piled with foreign-policy journals.
‘Thank you, Monica. My old bones could use a comfortable chair.” The secretary eased into the wing chair facing Wirth. Ritzik and Wei-Liu stepped over his knees and settled somewhat self-consciously into the soft sofa cushions.
“So, Major,” the NSC chairman asked, “what did you think of our RIG?”
“Rig, ma’am?”
“Restricted interagency group.”
“I was wondering,” Ritzik said, “whether Admiral Buckley is always that quiet at meetings.”
A single, acidic cackle broke from the back of the national security adviser’s throat. “We call him the stealth chairman,” she finally said. Then her expression changed. “Major,” Wirth asked, “is there anyone in your unit who has experience in dealing with medium atomic demolition devices and the disarming of nuclear weapons under tactical situations?”
Ritzik didn’t have to think very long about that one. “We have trained with the Department of Energy’s counterterror NEST teams, ma’am. We have also worked counterterrorist scenarios in which nuclear warheads were tactical factors, and so we are familiar in a general way with t
he arming and disarming of such devices. But the weapons we’ve been exposed to are current generation—not thirty-plus-year-old MADMs.”
The national security adviser shot a quick glance in Rockman’s direction. “I see,” Monica Wirth said.
“So defusing the stolen weapon could present a problem.”
“It might,” Ritzik said. “But I’m confident that if Miss Wei-Liu draws a detailed diagram and explains the problem to me thoroughly, we’ll be able to deal with the situation efficiently.”
Wei-Liu swiveled toward Ritzik. “It’s somewhat more complex than just drawing a diagram, Major.”
“An IED is an IED,” Ritzik said. “A detonator is a detonator. An ignition wire is an ignition wire.”
Wei-Liu said, “Major, I may defer to you in all things military. But I have been dealing with these sorts of devices for more than fifteen years now. I have demilitarized Soviet ICBM warheads, dissected their cruise missiles, and examined the innards of the second-generation MADMs they left in bunkers in Poland, Czechoslovakia, and Hungary. I have even worked on the ignition sequencing for our own current generation of weapons. And believe me, this is not a matter of ‘Do I cut the red wire first or the blue wire first?’ Because there are no colored wires, Major. Not on the J-12. Moreover, as I started to explain in the Situation Room, capacitors can be very unstable. And the battery packs emit both acid and static, which can result in sparks and explosions. The J-12 is tricky and problematic. It is complex in its simplicity, if you know what I’m saying. You have to understand the gestalt of the J-12—be totally comfortable in its instability—or it is altogether likely that in the course of rendering it safe, you will cause an unintended detonation.”
Ritzik’s expression told Wei-Liu he wasn’t convinced.
“I’m telling you the truth, Major. I’ll draw you anything you want—and more. But believe me: you’ve got your work cut out for you.”
“Yes, you do, Major,” Monica Wirth said. “Because the implications of an unintended detonation are extremely far-reaching.” The national security adviser shot a glance at Rockman. “Mr. Secretary, don’t you agree?”