Tom Clancy - Op-Center 06 - Divide and Conquer

by Eikeltje

  deployment, tactics, and other battlefield details. Anything the

  military might need to know if the United States ever fought Soviet or

  Soviet-trained soldiers.

  That was back when the United States still had people on the ground

  collecting solid, firsthand intelligence instead of satellites gathering

  pictures and audio transmissions, which teams of experts then had to

  interpret.

  Former operatives like Battat who had been trained in HUMINT--human

  intelligence--called those experts "educated lucky guessers," since they

  were wrong just as often as they were right.

  Now, dressed in black boots, blue jeans, leather gloves, a black

  turtleneck, and a black baseball cap, Battat was watching for a possible

  new enemy. One of those satellites Battat hated had picked up a

  communication during a test run in Moscow. For reasons as yet unknown,

  a group known as "Dover Street" was meeting on the Rachel, presumably a

  boat, to pick up "the Harpooner." If this was the same Harpooner the

  CIA had missed grabbing in Beirut and Saudi Arabia, they wanted him.

  Over the past twenty-five years, he had been responsible for the deaths

  of hundreds of Americans in terrorist bombings. After discussing the

  contents of the message with Washington, it was decided that Battat

  would photograph the individuals and return to the American consulate in

  Baku for positive ID. After that, the boat would be tracked by

  satellite, and a special ops team would be dispatched from Turkey to

  take him out. No extradition debate, no political hot potato, just a

  good, old-fashioned erasure. The kind the CIA used to do before

  Iran-Contra gave black ops a bad name. Before "do something" was

  replaced by "due process." Before good manners replaced good

  government.

  Battat had flown to Baku. Clearing customs, he had taken the crowded

  but clean metro out to the Khatayi stop on the sea. The ride cost the

  equivalent of three cents, and everyone was exceedingly polite, helping

  one another on and off and holding the doors for late arrivals.

  The United States embassy in Baku maintained a small CIA field office

  staffed by two agents. The agents were presumably known to the

  Azerbaijani police and rarely went into the field themselves. Instead,

  they brought in outside personnel whenever necessary. The embassy would

  not be happy to be presented with the action as a fait accompli. But

  there were increasing tensions between the United States and Azerbaijan

  over Caspian oil. The republic was attempting to flood the market with

  inexpensive oil to bolster its weak economy.

  That represented enormous potential damage to American oil companies,

  who were only marginally represented here--a holdover from the days of

  the Soviet Union. The CIA in Moscow did not want to inflame those

  tensions.

  Battat spent the late afternoon walking around a section of beach,

  looking for a particular boat. When he found it, anchored about three

  hundred yards offshore, he made himself comfortable on a low, flat rock

  among a thatch of high reeds. With his backpack, water bottle, and bag

  dinner at his side and the camera hanging around his neck, he waited.

  The smell of salty air and oil from the offshore rigs was strong here,

  like nowhere else in the world. It almost burned his nostrils. But he

  loved it. He loved the sand under his rubber soles, the cool breeze on

  his cheek, the sweat on his palms, and the accelerated beat of his

  heart.

  Battat wondered how many foreign invaders had stood on these shores,

  perhaps in this very spot. The Persians in the eleventh century. The

  Mongols in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. The Russians in the

  eighteenth century, then the Persians again, then the Soviets. He

  couldn't decide whether he was part of a dramatic historical pageant or

  an ugly, unending rape.

  Not that it matters, he told himself. He wasn't here to safeguard

  Azerbaijan. He was here to redeem himself and to protect American

  interests.

  Crouched among the high reeds at this isolated section of beachfront,

  Battat felt as though he had never been away from the field. Danger did

  that. It was like a fond song or a familiar food smell, a bookmark in

  the soul.

  He loved that, too. He also felt good about what he was doing. Not

  just to atone for Annabelle but because it was right.

  Battat had been here for nearly seven hours now. The cell phone

  communications they'd intercepted said that the pickup was scheduled for

  eleven-thirty p.m. The Harpooner was supposed to be there to examine the

  parcel, whatever it was, then pay for it and leave.

  Just then, something happened on the boat. A hatch door opened, and a

  man climbed out onto the deck. Battat looked out at the water. The man

  turned on a radio.

  It was playing what sounded like local folk tunes. Maybe that was a

  signal. Battat's gaze swept across the water.

  Suddenly, an elbow locked around Battat's throat from behind and yanked

  him to his feet. He gagged. He tried to tuck his chin into the elbow,

  to relieve the pressure on his throat so he could breathe, but the

  attacker was well trained. He had locked his right arm around his

  throat and was pushing Battat's head with his left hand so he couldn't

  turn it. Battat tried to drive an elbow back into the attacker's gut,

  but the man was standing to the side. Finally, he tried to reach back

  and grab the shoulder of the choking arm and pull the attacker over.

  The attacker responded by tilting his own body back and lifting Battat

  from the ground. Although Battat was able to grab the man's shoulder,

  he couldn't throw the attacker. Battat's feet were in the air and he

  had no leverage.

  The struggle lasted five seconds. The attacker's arm squeezed against

  the American's carotid arteries from the side, immediately cutting the

  blood supply to the head and causing Battat to black out. Taking no

  chances, the attacker kept pressing the arteries for another half

  minute. Then he dropped the unconscious body to the sand.

  The Harpooner reached into the pocket of his windbreaker. He removed a

  syringe from his pocket, pulled off the plastic tip, and injected the

  man in the neck. After wiping away the small drop of blood, he took out

  a flashlight and flicked it on. He waved it back and forth several

  times. Another flashlight answered from the Rachel.

  Then both lights went dark. Moments later, a motor dinghy lowered from

  the boat and headed toward shore.

  Camp Springs, Maryland Sunday, 4:12 p.m.

  Paul Hood sat on an armchair in the corner of the small, TV-lit hotel

  room. The heavy shades were drawn and a football game was on, but Hood

  wasn't really watching it. He was watching reruns in his mind. Reruns

  of over sixteen years of married life.

  Old pictures in my new home, he thought.

  Home was an anonymous fifth-floor suite at the Days Inn on Mercedes

  Boulevard, located a short distance from Andrews Air Force Base. Hood

  had moved in late Saturday night. Though he could have stayed at a

>   motel right next to the base where Op-Center was located, he wanted the

  option of being able to get away from work.

  Which was ironic. It was Hood's dedication to Op Center that had cost

  him his marriage.

  Or so his wife maintained.

  Over the past several years, Sharon Hood had become increasingly

  frustrated by the long hours her husband kept at Op-Center. She grew

  tense and angry each time an international crisis caused him to miss one

  of their daughter Harleigh's violin recitals or their son Alexander's

  ball games. She was bitter that virtually every vacation they planned

  had to be canceled because of a coup attempt or assassination that

  demanded his attention. She resented how he was on the phone, even when

  he was with his family, checking with Deputy Director Mike Rodgers on

  how the mobile Regional Op-Center was performing in field tests or

  discussing with Intelligence Chief Bob Herbert what they could do to

  strengthen the new relationship with Op-Center's Russian counterpart in

  Saint Petersburg.

  But Hood had never believed that work itself was really the problem. It

  was something older and deeper than that.

  Even when he had resigned his position as director of Op-Center and went

  to New York for Harleigh's performance at a United Nations reception,

  Sharon still wasn't happy. She was jealous of the attention that other

  mothers on the junket gave him. Sharon realized that the women were

  drawn to Hood because he had been a highly visible mayor of Los Angeles.

  After that, he had held a powerful job in Washington, where power was

  the coin of the realm. It didn't matter to Sharon that Hood put no

  stock in fame and power. It didn't matter to her that his replies to

  the women were always polite but short. All Sharon knew was that she

  had to share her husband again.

  Then came the nightmare. Harleigh and the other young musicians were

  taken hostage in the Security Council chambers by renegade United

  Nations peacekeepers.

  Hood had left Sharon at the State Department's understaffed crisis

  center so that he could oversee Op Center successful covert effort to

  rescue the teenagers and the captive foreign delegates. In Sharon's

  eyes, he had not been there for her again. When they returned to

  Washington, she immediately took the children to her parents' house in

  Old Saybrook, Connecticut. Sharon had said she wanted to get Harleigh

  away from the media zoo that had pursued the children from New York.

  Hood couldn't argue with that. Harleigh had seen one of her friends

  seriously wounded and several other people executed. She was almost

  killed herself. She had suffered the clinical consequences of classic

  stress or triggers for post-traumatic stress disorder: threats to the

  physical integrity of herself and others; fear and helplessness;

  and a guilt response to survival. After all that, to have been

  surrounded by TV lights and shouting members of the press corps would

  have been the worst thing for Harleigh.

  But Hood knew that wasn't the only reason his wife had gone back to Old

  Saybrook. Sharon herself needed to get away. She needed the comfort

  and safety of her childhood home in order to think about her future.

  About their future.

  Hood shut off the TV. He put the remote on the night table, lay back on

  the bunched pillows, and looked up at the white ceiling. Only he didn't

  see a ceiling. Hood saw Sharon's pale face and dark eyes. He saw how

  they had looked on Friday when she came home and told him she wanted a

  divorce.

  That wasn't a surprise. It was actually a relief in some ways. After

  Hood had returned from New York, he met briefly with the president about

  repairing the rift between the United States and the UN. Being back at

  the White House, being plugged into the world, had made him want to

  withdraw his resignation from Op-Center. He liked the work he was

  doing: the challenge, the implications, the risk. On Friday evening,

  after Sharon had told him of her decision, he was able to withdraw his

  resignation with a clear conscience.

  By the time Hood and Sharon talked again on Saturday, the emotional

  distancing had already begun. They agreed that Sharon could use their

  family attorney. Paul would have Op-Center's legal officer, Lowell

  Coffey in, recommend someone for him. It was all very polite, mature,

  formal.

  The big questions they still had to decide were whether to tell the kids

  and whether Hood should leave the house immediately. He had called

  Op-Center's staff psychologist Liz Gordon, who was counseling Harleigh

  before turning her over to a psychiatrist who specialized in treating

  PTSD. Liz told Hood that he should be extremely gentle whenever he was

  around Harleigh. He was the only family member who had been with her

  during the siege. Harleigh would associate his strength and calmness

  with security. That would help to speed her recovery. Liz added that

  whatever instability was introduced by his departure was less dangerous

  than the ongoing strife between him and his wife. That tension would

  not show Hood in the light Harleigh needed to see him. Liz also told him

  that intensive therapy for Harleigh should begin as soon as possible.

  They had to deal with the problem, or she ran the risk of being

  psychologically impaired for the rest of her life.

  After having discussed the situation with Liz Gordon, Hood and Sharon

  decided to tell the kids calmly and openly what was happening. For the

  last time as a family, they sat in the den--the same room where they had

  set up their Christmas tree every year and taught the kids Monopoly and

  chess and had birthday parties. Alexander seemed to take it well after

  being assured that his life wouldn't change very much. Harleigh was

  initially upset, feeling that what had happened to her was the cause.

  Hood and his wife assured Harleigh that was not the case at all, and

  they would both be there for her.

  When they were finished, Sharon had dinner with Harleigh at home, and

  Hood took Alexander out to their favorite greasy pit, the Corner

  Bistro--the "Coroner Bistro" as the health-conscious Sharon called it.

  Hood put on his best face, and they had a fun time. Then he came back

  to the house, quickly and quietly packed a few things, and left for his

  new home.

  Hood looked around the hotel room. There was a glass-covered desk with

  a blotter, a lamp, and a folder full of postcards. A queen-sized bed.

  An industrial strength carpet that matched the opaque drapes. A framed

  print of a painting of a harlequin whose outfit matched the carpet. A

  dresser with a built-in cabinet for a mini refrigerator and another

  cabinet for the TV. And, of course, a drawer with a Bible. There was

  also a night table with a lamp like the one on the desk, four

  wastebaskets, a clock, and a box of tissues he had moved from the

  bathroom.

  My new home, he thought again.

  Except for the laptop on the desk and the pictures of the kids beside

  it--last year's school photos, still in their warping cardboard

&nb
sp; frames--there was nothing of home here. The stains on the carpet

  weren't apple juice Alexander had spilled as a boy. Harleigh hadn't

  painted the picture of the harlequin. The refrigerator wasn't stocked

  with rows of plastic containers filled with that wretched

  kiwi-strawberry-yogurt juice that Sharon liked.

  The television had never shown home videotapes of birthday parties, pool

  parties, and anniversaries, of relatives and coworkers who were gone.

  Hood had never watched the sun rise or set from this window. He had

  never had the flu or felt his unborn child kick in this bed. If he

  called out to the kids, they wouldn't come.

  Tears pressed against the backs of his eyes. He turned to look at the

  clock, anything to break the steady succession of thoughts and pictures.

  He would have to get ready soon. Time--and government--stopped for no

  man. He still had professional obligations. But lord God, Hood thought,

  he didn't feel like going. Talking, putting on a happy face the way he

  did with his son, wondering who knew and who didn't in the instant

  message machine known as the Washington grapevine.

  He looked up at the ceiling. Part of him had wanted this to happen.

  Hood wanted the freedom to do his job.

  He wanted an end to being judged and criticized by Sharon. He also

  wanted to stop constantly disappointing his wife.

  But another part of him, by far the largest part, was bitterly sad that

  it had come to this. There would be no more shared experiences, and the

  children were going to suffer for their parents' shortcomings.

  As the finality of the divorce hit him, hit him hard, Hood allowed the

  tears to flow.

  Washington, D.C.