by Tom Clancy
“Oh? How so?” Carol Brightling asked.
The president of the Sierra Club looked into his wine. “We destroy everything we touch. The shores, the tidal wetlands, the forests—look at what ‘civilization’ has done to them all. Oh, sure, we preserve some areas—and that’s what? A hot three percent, maybe? Big fucking deal. We’re poisoning everything, including ourselves. The ozone problem is really getting worse, according to the new NASA study.”
“Yeah, but did you hear about the proposed fix?” the President’s science advisor asked.
“Fix? How?”
She grimaced. “Well, you get a bunch of jumbo jets, fill them up with ozone, fly them out of Australia, and release ozone at high altitude to patch it up. I have that proposal on my desk right now.”
“And?”
“And it’s like doing abortions at half-time in a football game, with instant replay and color commentary. No way it can possibly work. We have to let the planet heal herself—but we won’t, of course.”
“Any more good news?”
“Oh, yeah, the CO2 issue. There’s a guy up at Harvard who says if we dump iron filings into the Indian Ocean, we can encourage the growth of phytoplankton, and that will fix the CO2 problem almost overnight. The math looks pretty good. All these geniuses who say they can fix the planet, like she needs fixing—instead of leaving her the hell alone.”
“And the President says what?” Mayflower asked.
“He says for me to tell him if it’ll work or not, and if it looks like it’s going to work, then test it to make sure, then try it for real. He hasn’t got a clue, and he doesn’t listen.” She didn’t add that she had to follow his orders whether she liked them or not.
“Well, maybe our friends at Earth First are right, Carol. Maybe we are a parasitic species on the face of the earth, and maybe we’re going to destroy the whole damned planet before we’re done.”
“Rachel Carson come to life, eh?” she asked.
“Look, you know the science as well as I do—maybe better. We’re doing things like—like the Alvarez Event that took the dinosaurs out, except we’re doing it willfully. It took how long for the planet to recover from that?”
“Alvarez? The planet didn’t recover, Kevin,” Carol Brightling pointed out. “It jump-started mammals—us, remember? The preexisting ecological order never returned. Something new happened, and that took a couple of million years just to stabilize.” Must have been something to see, she told herself. To watch something like that in progress, what a scientific and personal blessing it must have been, but there’d probably been nobody back then to appreciate it. Unlike today.
“Well, in a few more years we’ll get to see the first part of it, won’t we? How many more species will we kill off this year, and if the ozone situation keeps getting worse—my God, Carol, why don’t people get it? Don’t they see what’s happening? Don’t they care?”
“Kevin, no, they don’t see, and, no, they don’t care. Look around.” The restaurant was filled with important people wearing important-looking clothes, doubtless discussing important things over their important dinners, none of which had a thing to do with the planetary crisis that hung quite literally over all their heads. If the ozone layer really evaporated, as it might, well, they’d start using sunblock just to walk the streets, and maybe that would protect them enough . . . but what of the natural species, the birds, the lizards, all the creatures on the planet who had no such option? The studies suggested that their eyes would be seared by the unblocked ultraviolet radiation, which would kill them off, and so the entire global ecosystem would rapidly come apart. “Do you think any of these people know about it—or give a damn if they do?”
“I suppose not.” He sipped down some more of his white wine. “Well, we keep plugging away, don’t we?”
“It’s funny,” she went on. “Not too long ago we fought wars, which kept the population down enough that we couldn’t damage the planet all that much—but now peace is breaking out all over, and we’re advancing our industrial capacity, and so, peace is destroying us a lot more efficiently than war ever did. Ironic, isn’t it?”
“And modern medicine. The anopheles mosquito was pretty good at keeping the numbers down—you know that Washington was once a malarial swamp, diplomats deemed it a hazardous-duty post! So then we invented DDT. Good for controlling mosquitoes, but tough on the peregrine falcon. We never get it right. Never,” Mayflower concluded.
“What if? . . .” she asked wistfully.
“What if what, Carol?”
“What if nature came up with something to knock the human population back?”
“The Gaea Hypothesis?” That made him smile. The idea was that the earth was itself a thinking, self-correcting organism that found ways to regulate the numerous living species that populated the planet. “Even if that’s valid—and I hope it is, really—I’m afraid that we humans move too fast for Gaea to deal with us and our work. No, Carol, we’ve created a suicide pact, and we’re going to take down everything else with us, and a hundred years from now, when the human population worldwide is down to a million or so people, they’ll know what went wrong and read the books and look at the videotapes of the paradise we once had, and they’ll curse our names—and maybe, if they’re lucky, they’ll learn from it when they crawl back up from the slime. Maybe. I doubt it. Even if they try to learn, they’ll worry more about building nuclear-power reactors so they can use their electric toothbrushes. Rachel was right. There will be a Silent Spring someday, but then it’ll be too late.” He picked at his salad, wondering what chemicals were in the lettuce and tomatoes. Some, he was sure. This time of year, the lettuce came up from Mexico, where farmers did all sorts of things to their crops, and maybe the kitchen help had washed it off, but maybe not, and so here he was, eating an expensive lunch and poisoning himself as surely as he was watching the whole planet being poisoned. His quietly despairing look told the tale.
He was ready to be recruited, Carol Brightling thought. It was time. And he’d bring some good people with him, and they’d have room for them in Kansas and Brazil. Half an hour later, she took her leave, and headed back to the White House for the weekly cabinet meeting.
“Hey, Bill,” Gus said from his office in the Hoover Building. “What’s happening?”
“Catch the TV this morning?” Henriksen asked.
“You mean the thing in Spain?” Werner asked.
“Yep.”
“Sure did. I saw you on the tube, too.”
“My genius act.” He chuckled. “Well, it’s good for business, you know?”
“Yeah, I suppose it is. Anyway, what about it?”
“That wasn’t the Spanish cops, Gus. I know how they train. Not their style, man. So, who was it, Delta, SAS, HRT?”
Gus Werner’s eyes narrowed. Now Assistant Director of the FBI, he’d once been the special agent in charge of the FBI’s elite Hostage Rescue Team. Promoted out, he’d been Special Agent in Charge of the Atlanta field division, and now was the AD in charge of the new Terrorism Division. Bill Henriksen had once worked for him, then left the Bureau to start his own consulting company, but once FBI always FBI, and so now, Bill was fishing for information.
“I really can’t talk much about that one, buddy.”
“Oh?”
“Oh? Yes. Can’t discuss,” Werner said tersely.
“Classification issues?”
“Something like that,” Werner allowed.
A chuckle: “Well, that tells me something, eh?”
“No, Bill, it doesn’t tell you anything at all. Hey, man, I can’t break the rules, you know.”
“You always were a straight shooter,” Henriksen agreed. “Well, whoever they are, glad they’re on our side. The takedown looked pretty good on TV.”
“That it did.” Werner had the complete set of tapes, transmitted via encrypted satellite channel from the U.S. Embassy in Madrid to the National Security Agency, and from there to FBI headquarters. He’d seen the whole thing
, and expected to have more data that afternoon.
“Tell them one thing, though, if you get a chance.”
“What’s that, Bill?” was the noncommittal response.
“If they want to look like the local cops, they ought not use a USAF helicopter. I’m not stupid, Gus. The reporters might not catch it, but it was pretty obvious to somebody with half a brain, wasn’t it?”
Oops, Werner thought. He’d actually allowed that one to slip through his mental cracks, but Bill had never been a dummy, and he wondered how the news media had failed to notice it.
“Oh?”
“Don’t give me that, Gus. It was a Sikorsky Model 60 chopper. We used to play with them when we went down to Fort Bragg to play, remember? We liked it better than the Hueys they issued us, but it ain’t civilian-certified, and so they wouldn’t let you buy one,” he reminded his former boss.
“I’ll pass that one along,” Werner promised. “Anybody else catch on to that?”
“Not that I know of, and I didn’t say anything about it on ABC this morning, did I?”
“No, you didn’t. Thanks.”
“So, can you tell me anything about these folks?”
“Sorry, man, but no. It’s codeword stuff, and truth is,” Werner lied, “I don’t know all that much myself.” Bullshit, he almost heard over the phone line. It was weak. If there were a special counterterror group, and if America had a piece of it, sure as hell the top FBI expert in the field would have to know something about it. Henriksen would know that without being told. But, damn it, rules were rules, and there was no way a private contractor would be let into the classification compartment called Rainbow, and Bill knew what the rules were, too.
“Yeah, Gus, sure,” came the mocking reply. “Anyway, they’re pretty good, but Spanish isn’t their primary language, and they have access to American aircraft. Tell them they ought to be a little more careful.”
“I’ll do that,” Werner promised, making a note.
“Black project,” Henriksen told himself, after hanging up. “I wonder where the funding comes from? . . .” Whoever those people were, they had FBI connections, in addition to DOD. What else could he figure? How about where they were based? . . . To do that . . . yes, it was possible, wasn’t it? All he needed was a start time for the three incidents, then figure when it was the cowboys showed up, and from that he could make a pretty good guess as to their point of origin. Airliners traveled at about five hundred knots, and that made the travel distance . . .
. . . has to be England, Henriksen decided. It was the only location that made sense. The Brits had all the infrastructure in place, and security at Hereford was pretty good—he’d been there and trained with the SAS while part of the FBI’s Hostage Rescue Team, working for Gus. Okay, he’d confirm it from written records on the Bern and Vienna incidents. His staff covered all counterterror operations as a normal part of doing business . . . and he could call contacts in Switzerland and Austria to find out a few things. That ought not to be hard. He checked his watch. Better to call right away, since they were six hours ahead. He flipped through his rolodex and placed a call on his private line.
Black project, eh? he asked himself. He’d see about that.
The cabinet meeting ended early. The President’s congressional agenda was moving along nicely, which made things easy for everyone. They’d taken just two votes—actually, mere polls of the cabinet members, since the President had the only real vote, as he’d made clear a few times, Carol reminded herself. The meeting broke up, and people headed out of the building.
“Hi, George,” Dr. Brightling greeted the Secretary of the Treasury.
“Hey, Carol, the trees hugging back yet?” he asked with a smile.
“Always,” she laughed in reply to this ignorant plutocrat. “Catch the TV this morning?”
“What about?”
“The thing in Spain—”
“Oh, yeah, Worldpark. What about it?”
“Who were those masked men?”
“Carol, if you have to ask, then you’re not cleared into it.”
“I don’t want their phone number, George,” she replied, allowing him to hold open the door for her. “And I am cleared for just about everything, remember?”
SecTreas had to admit that this was true. The President’s Science Advisor was cleared into all manner of classified programs, including weapons, nuclear and otherwise, and she oversaw the crown jewel secrets of communications security as a routine part of her duties. She really was entitled to know about this if she asked. He just wished she hadn’t asked. Too many people knew about Rainbow as it was. He sighed.
“We set it up a few months ago. It’s black, okay? Special operations group, multinational, works out of someplace in England, mainly Americans and Brits, but others, too. The idea came from an Agency guy the Boss likes—and so far they seem to be batting a thousand, don’t they?”
“Well, rescuing those kids was something special. I hope they get a pat on the head for it.”
A chuckle. “Depend on it. The Boss sent off his own message this morning.”
“What’s it called?”
“Sure you want to know?” George asked.
“What’s in a name?”
“True.” SecTreas nodded. “It’s called Rainbow. Because of the multinational nature.”
“Well, whoever they are, they scored some points last night. You know, I really ought to get briefed in on stuff like this. I can help, you know,” she pointed out.
“So, tell the Boss you want in.”
“I’m kinda on his shit list now, remember?”
“Yeah, so dial back on your environmental stuff, will you? Hell, we all like green grass and tweety birds. But we can’t have Tweety Bird telling us how to run the country, can we?”
“George, these really are important scientific issues I have to deal with,” Carol Brightling pointed out.
“You say so, doc. But if you dial the rhetoric back some, maybe people will listen a little better. Just a helpful hint,” the Secretary of the Treasury suggested, as he opened his car door for the two-block ride back to his department.
“Thanks, George, I’ll think about it,” she promised. He waved at her as his driver pulled off.
“Rainbow,” Brightling said to herself as she walked across West Executive Drive. Was it worth taking it a step further? The funny part about dealing with classification issues was that if you were inside, then you were inside. . . . Reaching her office, she inserted the plastic key into her STU-4 secure telephone and dialed up CIA on the Director’s private line.
“Yeah?” a male voice answered.
“Ed, this is Carol Brightling.”
“Hi. How’d the cabinet meeting go?”
“Smooth, like always. I have a question for you.”
“What’s that, Carol?” the DCI asked.
“It’s about Rainbow. That was some operation they ran in Spain last night.”
“Are you in on that?” Ed asked.
“How else would I know the name, Ed? I know one of your people set it up. Can’t remember the name, the guy the President likes so much.”
“Yeah, John Clark. He was my training officer once, long time ago. Solid citizen. He’s been there and done that even more than Mary Pat and I have. Anyway, what’s your interest?”
“The new tactical-radio encryption systems NSA is playing with. Do they have it yet?”
“I don’t know,” the DCI admitted. “Are they ready for prime time yet?”
“Should be in another month. E-Systems will be the manufacturer, and I thought they ought to be fast-tracked into Rainbow. I mean, they’re out there at the sharp end. They ought to get it first.”
On the other end of the line, the Director of Central Intelligence reminded himself that he should pay more attention to the work done at the National Security Agency. He’d allowed himself to forget, moreover, that Brightling had the “black card” clearance that admitted her into that Holy of Hol
ies at Fort Meade.
“Not a bad idea. Who do I talk to about that?”
“Admiral McConnell, I suppose. It’s his agency. Anyway, just a friendly suggestion. If this Rainbow team is so hot, they ought to have the best toys.”
“Okay, I’ll look into it. Thanks, Carol.”
“Anytime, Ed, and maybe get me fully briefed into the program someday, eh?”
“Yeah, I can do that. I can send a guy down to get you the information you need.”
“Okay, whenever it’s convenient. See you.”
“Bye, Carol.” The secure line was broken. Carol smiled at the phone. Ed would never question her about the issue, would he? She’d known the name, said nice things about the team, and offered to help, just like a loyal bureaucrat should. And she even had the name of the team leader now. John Clark. Ed’s own training officer, once upon a time. It was so easy to get the information you needed if you spoke the right language. Well, that’s why she’d gone after this job, frustrations and all.
One of his people did the math and estimated the travel times, and the answer came up England, just as he’d suspected. The triangle of time for both Bern and Vienna both apexed at London, or somewhere close to it. That made sense, Henriksen told himself. British Airways went everywhere, and it had always had a cordial relationship with the British government. So, whoever it was, the group had to be based . . . Hereford, almost certainly there. It was probably multinational . . . that would make it more politically acceptable to other countries. So, it would be American and British, maybe other nationalities as well, with access to American hardware like that Sikorsky helicopter. Gus Werner knew about it—might it have some FBI people in the team? Probably, Henriksen thought. The Hostage Rescue Team was essentially a police organization, but since its mission was counterterrorism, it practiced and played with other such organizations around the world, even though those were mainly military. The mission was pretty much the same, and therefore the people on the mission were fairly interchangeable—and the FBI HRT members were as good as anyone else in the world. So probably, someone from HRT, perhaps even someone he knew, was on the team. It would have been useful to find out who, but for now, that was too much of a stretch.