Divide and Conquer (2000)
Page 12
After a short sleep, which was all he needed, Charles and his comrades had climbed into a van that was parked behind the shack. Their gear was already on board, and they drove from Gobustan back toward Baku. They traveled along roads that were utterly deserted at this time of night. Though Charles did not drive, he did not sleep. He sat in the backseat with a .45 in his lap. If anyone approached the van for any reason, he wanted to be awake.
The van arrived in sleepy Khachmas shortly before 4:30. They had driven the seventy miles nonstop. No one had approached them.
The Rachel—now the Saint Elmo—was waiting in a slip at a ramshackle marina. The berth was close to shore. The hired crew had been dismissed. They had departed in their own boat, a fishing vessel, which had accompanied the motor yacht north.
Wearing night-vision goggles, Charles stood watch while the equipment was transferred from the van to the Saint Elmo. When all the gear was on board, one of the team members drove off in the van. The vehicle would be painted locally and driven to another city. Finally, the motor yacht set off.
The trip to the target would take fifty minutes. The sun would just be coming up when they arrived. That was important. Working at sea, Charles did not like to use artificial lights. They were too easy to spot in the dark and reflected on the water. He also didn’t like to work during bright daylight when the wet suits glistened. Early dawn was best. There would be just enough time to get the job done and depart without being seen.
Then he would leave Azerbaijan and do nothing but enjoy life for a month or two. Savor the international ramifications of what he had accomplished. Cherish the fact, as he always did, that no world leader, no army, no business, had a greater impact on international events than he did.
TWENTY-FIVE
Saint Petersburg, Russia Tuesday, 4:47 A.M.
After the fall of the Soviet Union, many officials in Moscow were afraid of the Ministerstvo Bezopasnosti Ruskii, or MBR, the Security Ministry of Russia. They were even more afraid than when the intelligence agency had been known as the KGB and was routinely tapping their phone lines and opening their mail. The officials feared that leaders of the former Soviet intelligence group would either support ousted Communists in an effort to recapture power or attempt to seize power themselves. Because of this, the Kremlin’s new regime had created an autonomous intelligence agency outside of Moscow, away from the immediate reach of the MBR. They based it in Saint Petersburg. And, following the adage of hiding in plain sight, they located the Op-Center in one of the most visited places in Russia: the Hermitage.
The Hermitage was built by Catherine the Great as a retreat. The towering, white, neoclassical building was formally known as the Winter Palace. It was a place where Catherine could enjoy the gems and great old masters paintings, drawings, and sculptures she had collected. She literally acquired them at a rate of one every other day from 1762 to 1772. When Catherine first opened her home to the patrician public, her only comments were that visitors should be joyful. However, she added, they “shall not try to damage, break, or gnaw at anything.” The Hermitage remained a repository of the imperial collection until 1917. After the Russian Revolution, the Hermitage was opened to all the people. Its collection was expanded to include art from other schools as well as modern art. It currently houses over 8,000 paintings, 40,000 etchings, and 500,000 illustrations. Today, it is second only to the Louvre in Paris in terms of the size of its collection.
The Russian Op-Center was constructed underneath a fully operational television studio. Though the broadcast facility had been built as a cover for the construction of the intelligence center, satellite dishes beamed famed Hermitage programs around the world. Most of the time, however, the highly advanced uplinks allowed the Op-Center to interface with satellites for both domestic and international electronic communications. The comings and goings of museum staff and tourists helped to disguise the presence of Op-Center personnel. Also, the Kremlin had decided that in the event of war or revo lution, no one would bomb the Hermitage. Even if an enemy had no use for art as an aesthetic possession, paintings and sculptures were always as negotiable as currency.
It was still dark when the fifty-three-year-old Orlov arrived at the museum. Because the Hermitage was still closed, he entered through an inconspicuous studio door on the northeastern side of the museum. As he did, he gazed north across the dark Neva River. Directly across the water were the stately Academy of Sciences and Museum of Anthropology. Nearby was the Frunze Naval College. In addition to training cadets, the college housed the dozen soldiers of the center’s special operations force, Molot, which meant Hammer.
There was a guard seated behind a desk inside the TV studio. Orlov acknowledged him as he passed. The elderly guard stood and saluted. The general reached a door and used the keypad to enter. Once inside, he made his way through the dark reception area and down a short flight of stairs. At the far end, he punched the new day’s four-digit code on a keypad, and the door popped open. The next day’s number was always given to Orlov by the center’s security chief at the end of each workday. When Orlov shut the door behind him, the overhead lighting snapped on automatically. There was another, longer set of stairs. He walked down where a second keypad gained him access to the Op-Center.
The facility consisted of a very long corridor with offices to the left and right. Orlov’s office was at the end, literally at the shores of the Neva. There were times when he could hear barges passing overhead.
Ordinarily, Orlov did not arrive until nine o’clock. There was a skeletal night staff, and they were surprised to see the general. He greeted them without stopping. When he entered his small, wood-paneled office, he shut the door and walked over to his desk. The desk faced the door. On the walls were framed photographs Orlov had taken from space. There were no photographs of the general himself. Though he was proud of his accomplishments, he didn’t enjoy looking at the past. All he saw was how short he fell of his goals. How he had hoped to walk on the moon and command a manned mission to Mars. How he had dreamed of seeing the cosmonaut corps grow and prosper. Perhaps if he had used his celebrity more constructively, more aggressively, he could have helped make that happen. Perhaps if he had spoken out against the war in Afghanistan. That struggle drained the nation’s resources and pride and hastened the union’s downfall.
There were no photographs of himself because General Orlov preferred to look ahead. The future held no regrets, only promise.
There was a voice mail from Paul Hood. The message did not say very much. Only that the matter was urgent. Orlov sat down and booted his computer. As he opened his secure phone list and auto-dialed Hood, he thought back to how the American Op-Center had helped him prevent a cabal of right-wing Russian officials from overthrowing the government. The counterattack had cost Hood one of his top field operatives, Lieutenant Colonel Charles Squires. Since then, the two Op-Centers had occasionally exchanged information. But they had never become fully integrated partners, which was something both Hood and Orlov had wanted. Unfortunately, like many of the progressive dreams Orlov had, the bureaucrats had not been ready for this. Distrust between the nations was still too deep.
The phone beeped once. Hood answered.
“Hello?” Hood said.
“Paul, it’s Sergei,” Orlov said.
Op-Center’s translator was on standby. It only took her a moment to get on the line.
“General, I need your trust, and I need it fast,” Hood said. His urgent tone left no room for discussion.
“Of course,” Orlov said.
“Our team searching for the Harpooner suffered a catastrophic hit at a hospital in Baku,” Hood informed him. “It happened a little over an hour ago. Two of our men were killed. The first was taken down by a sniper outside the hospital. The second had his throat cut inside the lobby. The last man is a patient. His name is David Battat, and he is ill with a fever of some kind.”
Orlov took a moment to write the name down.
“The police are
at the hospital, but we don’t know who the killer is,” Hood said. “He or she may still be in the hospital.”
“The killer could be a police officer,” Orlov pointed out.
“Exactly,” Hood said. “General, do you have anyone in Baku?”
“Yes, we do,” Orlov said without hesitation. “In what room is Mr. Battat located?”
“He’s in one fifty-seven,” Hood said.
“I will send someone at once,” Orlov said. “Tell no one.”
Hood gave him his word.
Orlov hung up.
The three most powerful Russian intelligence groups had their own personnel. These groups were the MBR; the military’s Glavnoye Razvedyvatelnoye Upravlenie, or GRU, the Main Intelligence Directorate; and the Ministerstvo Vnutrennikh Del, or MVD, the Ministry of Internal Affairs. The Russian Op-Center did not have the financial resources to maintain its own network of intelligence and counterintelligence personnel, so it was necessary to share people with other relatively small Russian agencies. These were administered by the Sisteme Objedinennovo Utschotya Dannych o Protivniki, or SOUD, the Interlinked System for Recognizing Enemies. SOUD also provided personnel for the Sluzhba Vneshney Razvedki, or SVR, the Foreign Intelligence Service; the Federal‘naya Sluzhba Bezopasnosti, or FSB, the Federal Security Service; the Federal’naya Sluzhba Kontr-razvedky, or FSK, the Federal Counterintelligence Service; and the Federal’naya Sluzhba Okhrani, or FSO, the Federal Protective Service.
Orlov quickly accessed the SOUD files. He input the highest-priority code, Red Thirteen. This meant that the request was not only coming from a senior official—level thirteen—but involved a case of immediate national emergency: the apprehension of the Harpooner. The Red Thirteen code gave Orlov the names, locations, and telephone numbers of field personnel around the world. Even if the operatives were involved in other situations, he would be authorized to commandeer them.
Orlov went to the file for Baku, Azerbaijan.
He found what he was looking for.
He hesitated.
General Orlov was about to ask a deep-cover operative to try to help an American spy. If the Americans were planning an operation in Baku, this would be the quickest way to expose and neutralize Russian intelligence resources. But to believe that, Orlov would have to believe that Paul Hood would betray him.
Orlov made the call.
TWENTY-SIX
Washington, D.C. Monday, 9:00 P.M.
Paul Hood was angry when he hung up with Orlov.
Hood was angry at the system, at the intelligence community, and at himself. The dead men were not his people. The man at risk was not his operative. But they had failed, and the Harpooner had succeeded, partly because of the way spies did business. The Harpooner commanded a team. Most American agents worked as part of a team. Theoretically, that should give the operatives a support system. In practice, it forced them to operate within a bureaucracy. A bureaucracy with rules of conduct and accountability to directors who were nowhere near the battlegrounds. No one could fight a man like the Harpooner with baggage like that. And Hood was guilty of supporting that system. He was as guilty as his counterparts at CIA, NSA, or anywhere else.
The irony was that Jack Fenwick had apparently done something off the books. It was Hood’s job to find out what that was.
The bureaucrats are checking up on the bureaucrats, Hood thought bitterly. Of course, he probably should not be thinking at all right now. He was tired and frustrated about the situation with Battat. And he had not even called home to see how Harleigh was doing.
Rodgers had stayed with Hood between the time he first phoned Orlov and Orlov returned the call. While they waited for Bob Herbert to come back, Rodgers left to grab a soda. Hood decided to call home. It did not improve his mood.
He was doing just the thing that Sharon had always hated. Working late. Calling home as an afterthought. He could hear the anger in her throat, in the tightness of her mouth, in the brevity of her answers.
“I’m doing laundry,” Sharon said. “Harleigh is in the den playing solitaire on the computer. Alexander is in his room doing homework and studying for a history test.”
“How does Harleigh seem today?” Hood asked.
“How do you think?” Sharon said. “Your own psychologist said it’s going to be a while before we see any kind of change. If we see any kind of change,” Sharon added. “But don’t worry, Paul. I’ll handle whatever comes up.”
“I’m not going anywhere, Sharon,” Hood said. “I want to help.”
“I’m glad. Do you want me to get Alexander?” she asked.
“Not if he’s studying,” Hood said. “Just tell him I called.”
“Sure.”
“Good night,” Hood said.
He could feel Sharon hesitate. It was only a moment, but it felt much, much longer. “’Night, Paul,” she said, then hung up.
Hood sat there holding the phone for several moments. Now he was a bastard and a bureaucrat. He lay the phone in its cradle, folded his hands, and waited for Rodgers. As he sat there, something began to tick inside him. It wasn’t a clock or a bomb. It was like a cam and rocker arm. And with each click of the arm, a spring grew tighter inside him. A desire to do something—and not just debate or call the Russians for help. Hood wanted to act. Something was not right, and he needed to know what it was.
Rodgers and Herbert arrived together. They found Hood staring at the back wall of his office where plaques and framed photographs once hung, the mementos of his years in government. Pictures with world leaders, with constituents. Photographs of Hood laying cornerstones or working in a Thanksgiving soup kitchen.
His life as a bloody goddamn bureaucrat. As part of the problem, not the solution.
“Are you all right?” Herbert asked.
“Fine,” Hood said.
“Did you get news?” Herbert pressed.
“No,” Hood said. “But I want to make some.”
“You know where I stand on that,” Herbert said. “What were you thinking of?”
“Battat,” Hood said. That was not entirely true. He was thinking that he never should have withdrawn his resignation. He should have left Op-Center and never looked back. He wondered if resigning had actually been for him and not to spend more time with his family, as he had believed. But he was back, and he was not going to run away.
Battat was the next stop in his thought process. “This man was sent to the hospital with some kind of sickness where a pair of assassins were waiting,” he said. “That doesn’t sound like a coincidence.”
“No, it doesn’t,” Herbert agreed. “My brain trust and I have been looking into that.”
Herbert’s brain trust consisted of four deputy intelligence directors who had been brought to Op-Center from military intelligence, the NSA, and the CIA. They were three men and one woman who ranged in age from twenty-nine to fifty-seven. With input from Darrell McCaskey, who liaised with the FBI and Interpol, Op-Center had the best per capita intelligence team in Washington.
“Here’s what we’ve been thinking,” Herbert said. “The CIA is ninety-nine percent certain the Harpooner passed through Moscow and went to Baku. A DOS agent thinks he saw him on a flight to Moscow, but that may have been intentional.”
“Why?” Rodgers asked.
“It wouldn’t be unprecedented for a terrorist to let himself be seen,” Herbert said. “Back in 1959, the Soviet spy Igor Slavosk allowed himself to be seen at Grand Central Station in New York so he could draw police attention and bring FBI personnel to his apartment. When they got to the place down on Jane Street, it blew up. Slavosk came back, collected badges and IDs, and had perfect fakes made. He used them to get into FBI headquarters in Washington. So, yes, it’s possible the Harpooner allowed his presence to be known through channels.”
“Go on,” Hood said quietly. He was getting impatient. Not at Bob Herbert; the intelligence chief was simply a convenient target. Hood wanted Orlov to call him back. He wanted to hear that everything
was all right at the hospital. He wanted some good news for a change.
“Sorry,” Herbert said. “So the Harpooner somehow lets it be known that he’s going to Baku. He has some kind of operation planned. He knows there are CIA personnel attached to the embassy. He also knows that the CIA might not want to expose those people since police from the Azerbaijani Ministry of Internal Security are probably keeping an eye on embassy personnel, watching for foreign intelligence operations. So the CIA brings someone in from Moscow.”
“Battat,” said Hood.
“Yes,” Herbert said. He seemed a little uneasy. “David Battat was the head of the CIA’s New York City field office. He was the man who hired Annabelle Hampton.”
“The junior officer we busted during the UN siege?” Rodgers said.
Herbert nodded. “Battat was in Moscow at the time. We checked him. He’s clean. One of our CIA contacts told me he was sent to Baku to do penance for the New York screwup.”
Hood nodded. “All right. You’ve got Battat in Baku.”
“Battat goes out to a target area to watch for the Harpooner and gets taken down,” Herbert said. “Not taken out, which the Harpooner could have done with no problem. Battat was apparently infected with a virus or chemical designed to drop him at a specific time. Something serious enough so that he’d be taken to the hospital.”
“Under guard from his fellow CIA operatives,” Hood said.
“Exactly,” Herbert replied. “Pretty maids all in a row.”