Tom Clancy - Op-Center 06 - Divide and Conquer

by Eikeltje

  between the Great Indian Desert in the Rajasthan province of India and

  the Thar Desert in Pakistan. But more than that, the Indian

  subcontinent was the place where the next big war would begin, perhaps

  triggered by a nuclear exchange. Friday wanted to be in there, helping

  to manipulate the politics of the region. It had been a dream of his

  ever since he was in college. Since the day when he had first gone to

  work for the National Security Agency. Friday put the key in the door

  and listened. He heard the cat cry. Her mewing was a normal welcome.

  That was a very good indication that no one was waiting for him inside.

  Friday had been recruited by the NSA when he was in law school. One of

  his professors, Vincent Van Heusen, had been an OSS operative during

  World War II. After the war. Van Heusen had helped draft the National

  Security Act of 1947, the legislation that led to the founding of the

  Central Intelligence Agency. Professor Van Heusen saw in Friday some of

  the same qualities he himself had possessed as a young man. Among those

  was independence. Friday had learned that growing up in the Michigan

  woods where he attended a one-room schoolhouse and went hunting with his

  father every weekend--not only with a rifle but with a longbow. After

  graduating from NYU, Friday spent time at the NSA as a trainee. When he

  went to work for the oil industry a year later, he was also working as a

  spy. In addition to making contacts in Europe, the Middle East, and the

  Caspian, Friday was given the names of CIA operatives working in those

  countries. From time to time, he was asked to watch them--to spy on the

  spies, to make certain that they were working only for the United

  States. Friday finally left the private sector five years ago, bored

  with working for the oil industry. They had become more concerned with

  international profits than with the vitality of America and its economy.

  But that was not why he quit. He left the private sector out of

  patriotism. He wanted to work for the NSA full-time. He had watched as

  intelligence operations went to hell overseas. Electronic espionage had

  replaced hands-on human surveillance. The result was much less efficient

  mass intelligence gathering. To Friday, that was like getting meat from

  a slaughterhouse instead of hunting it down. The food didn't taste as

  good when it was mass produced The experience was less satisfying. And

  over time, the hunter grew soft. Friday had no intention of growing

  soft. So when his Washington contact told him that Jack Penwick wanted

  to talk to him, Friday was eager to meet. Friday went to see him at the

  Off the Record bar at the Hay-Adams Hotel. It was during the week of

  the president's inauguration, so the bar was jammed, and the men were

  barely noticed. It was then that Fenwick suggested a plan so bold that

  Friday thought it was a joke. Or a test of some kind. Then Friday

  agreed to meet with some of the other members of the group. And he

  believed. Oh, how he believed. They sent him here and, through contacts

  in Iran, he was put in touch with the Harpooner. Iran did not realize

  they were going to be double crossed That once they had an excuse to

  move into the Caspian Sea, a new American president would move against

  them. And the Harpooner? He did not care. Friday and the Harpooner had

  worked closely organizing the attack against Battat and the program of

  disinformation to the CIA. Friday was still dressed in yesterday's

  clothes. In case anyone saw him, that would support the story he would

  tell them. It was just one of the many stories he had perfected over

  the years to cover meetings he had to make with operatives. Or targets.

  Friday was glad the Harpooner had put one of his other men inside the

  hospital as backup. They had hoped that Friday would be able to get

  both Moore and Thomas while they were outside. But the way the

  ambulance was parked he did not have a clear shot at Thomas. Friday

  hoped the Iranian assassin had been able to get the other man. It would

  have been easier, of course, if Friday could have taken all three men

  out in the embassy. But that might have exposed him. The embassy was

  not that large, and someone might have seen them. And there were

  security cameras everywhere. This way had been cleaner, easier. After

  firing the shot, Friday had dropped the rifle the Harpooner had given to

  him. It was a G3, a Heckler & Koch model, Iranian manufacture. He had

  others at his disposal if he needed them. Friday had tossed the weapon

  in a shallow pond near the hospital. He knew the local police would

  search the area for clues and would probably find it. He wanted it to

  be traced back to Teheran. Friday and his people wanted to make very

  sure that the world knew Iran had assassinated two officials of the

  United States embassy. The Iranians would disavow that, of course, but

  America would not believe the Iranians. The NSA would see to that. The

  Iranians who were working with the Harpooner had made cell phone calls

  to one another during the past few days. They had discussed the attack

  on the oil rig and described the two pylons that had to be destroyed:

  "target one" and "target two." The Iranians did not know that the

  Harpooner made certain those calls were monitored by the NSA. That the

  conversations were recorded and then digitally altered. Now, on those

  tapes, the targets the Iranians were discussing were embassy employees,

  not pylons. In a phone call of his own, the Harpooner had added that the

  deaths would be a warning, designed to discourage Americans from

  pursuing any action against Iran in the coming oil wars. The Harpooner

  pointed out in the call that if Washington insisted on becoming

  involved, American officials would be assassinated worldwide. Of course,

  that threat would backfire. After President Lawrence resigned, the new

  president of the United States would use the brutal murders as a

  rallying cry. He was not a live-and-let-live leader like the incumbent.

  Someone who was willing to cooperate with the United Nations to the

  detriment of his own nation. The assassinations, like the attacks on

  the oil rigs, would underscore that the United States had unfinished

  business from the previous century: the need to strike a decisive, full

  scale blow against terrorist regimes and terrorist groups that were

  being protected by those regimes. Friday entered his apartment. He saw

  the red light on his answering machine flashing. He walked over and

  played the message. There was only one, from Deputy Ambassador

  Williamson. She needed him to come to the embassy right away. She said

  that she had tried his cell phone but could not reach him. Well, of

  course she could not. His cell phone had been in his jacket, and his

  jacket had been slung over a chair in another room. He had not heard

  the phone because he was in the bedroom of a woman he had met at the

  International Bar. Friday called her back at the embassy. Williamson

  did not bother to ask where he had been. She just told him the bad

  news. Tom Moore had been shot and killed by a sniper outside the

  hospital. Pat Thomas's thro
at had been cut by an assassin inside the

  hospital. Friday allowed himself a small, contented smile. The

  Harpooner's assassin had succeeded.

  "Fortunately," Williamson went on, "David Battat was able to stop the

  man who tried to kill him." Friday's expression darkened.

  "How?"

  "His throat was cut with his own knife," she said.

  "But Battat was ill--"

  "I know," said the deputy ambassador.

  "And either Battat was delirious or afraid. After he stopped the

  killer, he left the hospital by the window. The police are out looking

  for him now. So far, all they've found was the rifle used to kill Mr.

  Moore. Metal detectors picked it up in a pond."

  "I see," Friday said. The assassin did not speak English. Even if

  Battat were lucid, he could not have learned anything from the killer.

  But Fenwick and the Harpooner would be furious if Battat were still

  alive.

  "I'd better go out and join the search," Friday said.

  "No," Williamson said.

  "I need you here at the embassy. Someone has to liaise between the Baku

  police and Washington. I've got to deal with the political

  ramifications."

  "What political ramifications?" Friday asked innocently. This was going

  to be sweet. It was going to be very sweet.

  "The police found the rifle they think was" used in the attack on

  Moore," she said.

  "I don't want to talk about this on an open line. I'll tell you more

  when you get here." That was good news, at least. The deputy ambassador

  had concluded that the killings were political and not random.

  "I'm on my way," Friday said.

  "Watch yourself," Williamson said.

  "I always do," he replied. Friday hung up, turned around, and left the

  apartment.

  "I always do."

  Baku, Azerbaijan Tuesday, 6:16 a.m.

  The Harpooner and his team reached the oil rig just before dawn. The

  boat cut its engines one thousand feet from the nearest of the four

  columns. Then the Harpooner and four members of his Iranian team

  slipped into the water. They were all wearing wet suits and compressed

  air cylinders. Slipping beneath the dark surface of the sea, the men

  swam toward the rig. Two of them carried waterproof pouches containing

  water gel high-energy explosives. The Harpooner had carefully injected

  the blue sticks with heat-sensitive pentanitroaniline. As the sun rose,

  the heat would cause the foil packet to warm. The sunlight itself would

  detonate the explosion. Two other men carried an inflatable raft. This

  would allow them some stability underneath the platform. Many rigs had

  sensors on the columns and motion detectors along the sea line. Avoiding

  the columns and going under the motion detectors was the safest way to

  get inside the perimeter. Once the explosives were placed, it would be

  virtually impossible for the crew of the rig to get to them in time. The

  Harpooner carried a spear gun and night-vision glasses. He would use

  the gun to fire the water gel packets around the support struts beneath

  the platform. The Harpooner had brought along only a dozen of the seven

  eighths-inch sticks of explosive. He had learned long ago that the

  trick to destroying something big is not necessarily to hit it with

  something big. In hand-to-hand combat, a foe could be driven back with

  a powerful roundhouse punch. He can be debilitated faster, more

  efficiently, and with more control, with a finger pressed against his

  throat, just below the larynx and above the clavicle. Hooking the top

  of a foot behind the knee and then stepping down with the side of the

  foot will drop someone faster than hitting them with a baseball bat.

  Besides, all it takes to neutralize a bat attack is to move in close to

  the attacker. The Iranian oil rigs in the Caspian Sea are mostly semi

  submersible platforms. They rest on four thick legs with massive

  pontoons that sink below the waterline. There is a platform on top of

  the legs. The riser system--the underwater component, which includes

  the drill--descends from the derrick, which is mounted on the platform.

  The key to destroying a platform like that is not to take out the

  columns but to weaken the center of the platform. Once that has

  happened, the weight of the structures on top will do the rest. The

  Harpooner's team had been able to get copies of the oil rig blueprints.

  He knew just where to place the water gel The men reached the underbelly

  of the rig without incident. Though it was dark in the water, the

  higher struts of the rig caught the first glint of dawn. As the

  Harpooner eyeballed the target, two men inflated the raft while the

  other two attached a pair of water gel sticks beneath the tip of three

  spears. The twelve-inch-long sticks were carefully taped

  belly-to-belly. This configuration allowed the spear to be fitted into

  the tube muzzle. It also made sure that the sticks of water gel would

  not upset the balance of the spear. Though it would have been easier to

  assemble the package on the boat, the Harpooner had wanted to keep the

  water gel packets as dry as possible. Though moisture would not harm

  the explosives, wet foil would take longer for the sun to warm. These

  packets would only be exposed to direct sunlight for a half hour. He

  had to make certain they were dry enough--and thus hot enough--to

  explode within that time. The raft was a six-man hexagonal platform. The

  Harpooner did not need it to hold six men. He wanted the larger size

  for stability. Larger rafts tended to ignore the smaller waves. That

  was important when he lay on his back to fire. He had removed the

  canopy to make it lighter. The large case in which it had been carried

  was discarded. The Harpooner climbed on board while the other men hung

  onto the sides to steady the raft even more. The spear gun was made of

  stainless steel. It was painted matte black to minimize reflected

  sunlight. The spears were also black. The weapon was comprised of a

  forty-inch-long black tube and a yellow grip and trigger at the end.

  Only a foot of spear protruded from the end. Normally, a rope was

  attached to the spears so that prey could be hauled back to the

  spearman. The Harpooner had removed these back on the boat. There were

  six-inch-thick acoustic dampeners beneath the platform. They were

  located fifty feet above the sea. The hard rubber pads had been placed

  there to muffle the sounds of activity. This was done so that people

  who lived on the rig would suffer as little noise pollution as possible.

  The Harpooner had chosen his targets from the blueprints. He would fire

  two harpoons. The first would go into the padded area below and to the

  northeast of the derrick. The derrick was in the southwest corner of the

  platform. When the detonation occurred, the derrick would fall toward

  the center of the platform. A second harpoon would be fired into the

  platform at the point where the heavy center of the derrick would land.

  The second explosion, plus the impact of the derrick, would shatter the

  platform and cause it to collapse inward. Everything would slide to the

  center and tumble int
o the sea. The Harpooner would not need the third

  harpoon to destroy the rig, though he did not tell his people that. The

  terrorist donned night-vision glasses and lay on his back. The spear

  gun had terrific recoil, equivalent to a twelve-gauge shotgun. That

  would give him quite a bump. But his shoulder could take it. He aimed

  the weapon and fired. There was a sound like a metallic cough and the

  spear flew through the dark. It hit the target with a faint thunk. The

  Harpooner quickly repositioned himself to fire the second shaft. It,

  too, struck its target. He motioned the men to start back. As soon as

  the others ducked underwater, the Harpooner pulled the tape from the

  spear, grabbed one of the equipment bags, and slipped the water gel

  sticks inside. Then he slid into the water and followed his men back to

  the boat. Upon boarding the vessel, the men dropped the remains of

  Sergei Cherkassov into the sea. On the way over, they had burned the

  body. It would look as though he had been killed in the blast. The

  photographs that had been taken from the airplane were already in his

  pocket. As far as the Iranians on board knew, the Russians and the

  Azerbaijanis would be blamed for the attack. The Harpooner knew

  differently. When Cherkassov was in the water, the boat departed. They

  were nearly out of visual range when the oil rig exploded. The Harpooner

  was watching through high-powered binoculars. He saw the puff of yellow

  red smoke under the platform. He saw the tower shudder and then do a

  slow pirouette drop toward the center. A moment later, the muted pop of

  the first explosion reached the boat. The Iranians on the deck all

  cheered. Which was odd, the Harpooner thought. Even though they thought

  they were doing this for the national good, they were happy about the

  deaths of at least one hundred of their countrymen.

  A moment before the derrick hit, the second water gel packet exploded.

  The Harpooner had positioned the two to go off nearly at the same time.

  It would not have done for the derrick to crash, knock the spear from

  the rubber padding, and drop it into the sea. A second cloud of red and