by Eikeltje
her desk. She flashed a concerned look at Hood, and he indicated that
he would call her. She mouthed a thank-you and then showed the Boy
Scouts inside. Hood walked briskly to his car. He started the engine,
then took out his cell phone and checked his messages. There was only
one. It was from Bob Herbert. As Hood headed toward Fifteenth Street,
he called Herbert back.
"Bob, it's Paul," said Hood.
"What's up?"
"Plenty," Herbert said.
"First of all. Matt traced the call that came from the Hay-Adams."
"And?"
"The call originated on Fenwick's cell phone."
"Bingo!" Hood said.
"Maybe, maybe not," Herbert replied.
"Explain," Hood said.
"I got a call a few minutes ago, one I didn't expect to get," Herbert
said.
"From?"
"Penwick," Herbert replied.
"He was open and sounded surprised by what I had to say. He told me he
didn't speak to the president last night. He said his briefcase was
stolen, which is why he didn't get the calls I left on his cell phone.
He only got the one I left at his office."
"I'm not ready to buy that," Hood replied.
"The president did receive a call, and it was routed through the hotel."
True," Herbert said.
"But do you remember Marta Streeb?"
"The woman who had the affair with Senator Lancaster?" Hood asked.
"Right."
"What about her?"
"Her calls were run through a phone bank at Union Station so they
couldn't be traced," Herbert said.
"I remember," Hood said.
"But the president isn't having an affair."
"Are you sure?" Herbert asked.
"His wife said he was acting strange. That could be guilt--"
"It could be, but let's rule out the national security issues first,"
Hood snapped.
"Sure," Herbert replied. Hood took a moment to calm down. His anger
surprised him. Hood had never had an affair, but for some reason,
Herbert's comment made him feel guilty about Sharon.
"What else did Fenwick have to say?" Hood asked.
"That he doesn't know a damn thing about any UN initiative," Herbert
said.
"He didn't get any calls about it and didn't read about it in the paper.
He told me he was sent to New York to help the Iranians with the
situation involving the Harpooner and possible Azerbaijani terrorists in
the Caspian. And there could be some truth to that," Herbert pointed
out.
"If the CIA was compromised over there, the Iranians might need to turn
to someone else for help. Someone that could get them signal
intelligence capacity ASAP."
"Were the Iranians working with the CIA on this?"
"I'm trying to find that out," Herbert said.
"You know those Company guys. They don't like to share. But think
about it. Op-Center's worked with other governments, some of them
hostile. We'd get in bed with Teheran if all we were going to do was
snuggle a little." That was true. Hood had to admit.
"And Fenwick was at the mission," Herbert continued.
"That much is pretty clear."
"It's about the only thing that is," Hood replied.
"Bob, you said that Fenwick was sent to New York. Did he say who sent
him?"
"Yes," Herbert replied, "and I don't think you're going to like this.
Fenwick says the president was the one who sent him."
"Triple-0?" Hood asked. Triple-0 was oral orders only. They were
given when an official didn't want to leave a paper trail to or from a
potentially explosive situation.
"Triple-0," Herbert told him.
"Jesus," Hood said.
"Look--someone else would have to have been in this Iranian loop."
"Sure," Herbert agreed.
"The veep, probably. The chief of staff--"
"Call Vice President Cotten's office," Hood said.
"Find out what he has to say. I'll be there as soon as possible."
"I'll call out for pizza," Herbert told him. Hood hung up and
concentrated on getting himself through the maddening rush-hour traffic.
At the moment, it was a welcome diversion.
Gobustan, Azerbaijan Tuesday, 1:22 a.m.
The other men had gone to sleep on threadbare bedrolls they
had bought secondhand in Baku. But Maurice Charles was still awake,
still sitting at the wooden table in the shepherd's shack. Though he
never had trouble sleeping before a mission, he did have trouble waiting
for other people to do things. Things on which the mission depended.
Until then, he would not--could not--rest. When the phone finally
beeped, he felt a nearly electric shock. This was it. The last
unfinished business before H-hour. Charles went to the equipment table.
Beside the Stellar Photo Judge 7 was a Zed-4 unit, which had been
developed by the KGB in 1992. The secure phone system was the size and
general shape of an ordinary hardcover book. The small, flat receiver
fit neatly into the side. It was a remarkable improvement over the
point to-point radios Charles had used when he was first starting out.
Those had a range of two and one-half miles. The Zed-4 utilized a series
of satellite links to pick up cellular transmissions from around the
world. A series of internal audio enhancers and boosters virtually
eliminated breakup and lost signals. The Zed-4 was also quite secure.
Most secure-phone calls, including the United States Tac-Sat units, were
encrypted with a 155-digit number. In order to crack the code,
eavesdroppers had to factor that into its two component prime numbers.
Even using sophisticated computers like the Cray 916, that could take
weeks. The CIA had managed to cut that time into days by stealing
computer time from personal computers. In 1997, the agency began using
Internet servers to piggyback the numbers into home computer systems.
Small amounts of memory were appropriated to work on the problem without
the user being aware of it. Networked throughout a system of millions
of PCS, the CIA was able to add gigabytes of computation power to the
problem. It also created a problem for counter programmers since it was
not possible to shut down the Cia's so-called Stealth Field System.
Thus, the Zed-4 was created using a complex encryption code of 309
digits. Even the SFS lacked sufficient power to break that code in a
timely fashion. Charles answered on the third ring.
"B-sharp," he said. That was the receiver code name.
"C-natural," said the caller.
"Go ahead," said Charles.
"I'm across the street from the target," said the caller.
"They're bringing him out the side door."
"No ambulance?"
"No," said the caller.
"Who's with him?" Charles asked.
"Two men," said the caller.
"Neither of them in uniform." Charles smiled. Americans were so
predictable. If there were more than one operative, they invariably
went to the user's manual.
"How to Be a Soldier or Spy," Rule Fifty-three: Put the man above the
mission. That thinking went at least as far back as the United States
cavalry out West. Whenever the more aggressive Native American tribes
&nbs
p; like the Apaches were being pursued, they would stop to attack
homesteaders. The warriors would always rape one of the women, leaving
her where the cavalry was certain to find her. Invariably, the soldiers
would send the woman back to the fort with an escort. That would not
only delay the pursuing column but leave them depleted.
"Is backup in place?"
"Yes, sir."
"Then take them," Charles said.
"It's done," the caller said confidently.
"Out." The phone went dead. Charles hung up. That was it. The last
piece. He'd allowed the one agent to live to draw the others out. An
injection in the neck, a fast-acting bacterial pneumonia, and the entire
local cast was out of commission. Now there would be no one to put
pieces together, to stop him from completing the mission. Charles had
one more call to place before he went to bed. It was to a secure line
in Washington, to one of the few men who knew of Charles's involvement
in this operation. To a man who didn't follow the rule book. To a man
who helped devise one of the most audacious schemes of modern times.
Baku, Azerbaijan Tuesday, 1:35 a.m.
The ride to the V.I.P Hospital took
just under ten minutes. The V.I.P was the only hospital the American
embassy deemed to be up to the standards of western health care. They
had an arrangement with Dr. Kanibov, one of the city's few
English-speaking physicians. The fifty-seven-year-old Kanibov was paid
off the books to be available for around-the-clock emergencies and to
recommend qualified specialists when necessary. Tom Moore didn't know if
a specialist was going to be necessary. All he knew was that Pat Thomas
had woken him twenty minutes earlier. Thomas had heard David Battat
moaning on his cot. When Thomas went over to check on Battat, he found
him soaked with perspiration and trembling. The embassy nurse had a look
at him and took Battat's temperature. He had a fever of 105. The nurse
suggested that Battat may have hit his head or suffered capillary damage
when he was attacked. Rather than wait for an ambulance, Thomas and
Moore loaded Battat into one of the embassy staff cars in the gated
parking lot and brought him to the hospital themselves. The medic called
ahead to let Dr. Kanibov know that they had a possible case of
neurogenic shock. This is all we need, to be down a man, Thomas thought
as he drove through the dark, deserted streets of the embassy and
business district. It was bad enough to have too few people to deal with
normal intelligence work. But to find the Harpooner, one of the world's
most elusive terrorists, was going to take more. Thomas only hoped that
his call to Washington would get them timely cooperation on a Saint
Petersburg connection. Dr. Kanibov lived just a block from the hospital.
The tall, elderly, white-goa teed physician was waiting when they
arrived. Battat's teeth were chattering, and he was coughing. By the
time a pair of orderlies put him on a gurney just inside the door, the
American's lips and fingernail beds were rich blue.
"Very restricted blood flow," said Kanibov to one of the orderlies.
"Oxygen." He looked in Battat's mouth.
"Traces of mucus. Suction, then give me an oral temperature."
"What do you think is wrong?" Thomas asked.
"I don't know yet," Kanibov said.
"The nurse at the embassy said it could be neurogenic shock," Thomas
said to the doctor.
"If it were, his face would be pale, not flushed," the doctor said with
annoyance. He looked at Thomas and Moore.
"You gentlemen can wait here or you can go back and wait--"
"We'll stay here," Thomas informed him.
"At least until you know what's wrong."
"Very well," the doctor said as they wheeled Battat into the ward. It
seemed strangely quiet for an emergency room, Thomas thought. Whenever
his three boys hurt them selves back in Washington or in Moscow, the ERS
were like the West Wing of the White House: loud, purposeful chaos. He
imagined that the clinics in the poorer sections of Baku must be more
like that. Still, the silence was unnerving, deathlike. Thomas looked
at Moore.
"There's no sense for both of us to be here," Thomas said.
"One of us should get a little sleep."
"I wasn't sleeping," Moore said.
"I was making those contacts we discussed and reviewing files."
"Did you find anything?" Thomas asked.
"Nothing," Moore said.
"All the more reason for you to go back to the embassy," Thomas said.
"David is my responsibility. I'll wait here." Moore considered that.
"All right," he said.
"You'll call as soon as you know something?"
"Of course," Thomas said. Moore gave him a reassuring pat on the
shoulder, then walked back through the lobby. He pushed the door open
and walked around the front of the car to the driver's side.
A moment later, Tom Moore's head jerked to the right and he dropped to
the asphalt. Washington, D.C. Monday, 6:46 p.m. Paul Hood arrived at
Op-Center, where he was to meet with Bob Herbert and Mike Rodgers. He
also telephoned Liz Gordon. He asked her to wait around so he could
talk to her later. He wanted to get her input on what, if anything,
might be happening with the president from a clinical standpoint. Hood
bumped into Ann Farris on the way to his office. She walked with him
through the tight, winding maze of cubicles to the executive wing. As
Herbert had joked when he first went to work at Op-Center, that was
where the cubicles had ceilings.
"Anything interesting going on?" Ann asked.
"The usual confusion," Hood said.
"Only this time, it's happening in Washington, not overseas."
"Is it something really bad?"
"I don't know yet," Hood said.
"There seems to be a loose cannon somewhere in the NSA." Hood didn't
want to say anything about the president possibly having mental lapses
of some kind. It wasn't that he. didn't trust Ann, but Megan Lawrence
had told him something in confidence. For now, he wanted to keep the
number of people with whom he shared that as small as possible.
"What's going on in your department?"
"The usual efficiency and expert coordination," she said with a
disarming smile.
"You mean nothing's going on."
"Exactly," Ann said. She waited a moment, then asked, "Do you expect to
be here long?"
"A couple of hours," he said.
"There's no reason to go back to the hotel. I'd just sit there and
watch some bad sitcom."
"Can I interest you in dinner?" she asked.
"It may be a long night," Hood said.
"I don't have any plans, either," she said.
"My son is staying with his dad this week. There's nothing for me to go
home to but a spoiled cat and those same sitcoms." Hood's heart began
thumping a little faster than usual. He very much wanted to say yes to
Ann. But he was still a married man, and going out with a divorced
female coworker could cause trouble, legally as well as ethically. And
Op-Center did not need this distraction. The intelligence team was
brilliant at uncovering information. Hood having dinner with Farris
would be common knowledge by morning. Besides, if dinner with Ann was in
the back of his mind, he would not be focusing on a crisis in the
executive branch.
"Ann, I wish I could," he said sincerely.
"But I don't know when I'll be finished here. Some other time?"
"Sure," she said with a small, sad smile. She touched the back of his
hand.
"Have a good meeting."
"Thanks," Hood said. Ann left, and Hood continued on his way. Hood felt
terrible now. He had not done what he really wanted to do, which was
have dinner with Ann. And he had hurt her feelings. He stopped. He
wanted to go after her and tell her he would have the dinner. But once
he started down that road, there was no turning back. Hood continued
toward his office. Hood buzzed Rodgers and Herbert when he arrived.
Rodgers said he would be right over. Herbert was on the computer and
said he would be with them in a few minutes. Rodgers was alert and