Divide and Conquer (2000)

by Clancy, Tom - Op Center 07

  Gable did not smile. He could not. The situation was too serious. But he was gratified. The reporter and many of his colleagues were very concerned about the president’s state of mind. By tomorrow afternoon, the rest of the nation would also be concerned. Events that were about to unfold a world away and in Washington had been very carefully orchestrated. Events that would be misinterpreted by everyone except the third and most important leader of their team: the vice president. The president would insist that Azerbaijan had attacked an Iranian oil rig. He would recommend staying out of the conflict because it was a local issue. As Iran built up its forces in the region, the vice president would publicly urge a different tack. He would say that he did not trust Iran and would strongly advise building up an American military presence in the Caspian. Fenwick would back up the vice president. He would report that during his meetings with the Iranians, they had spoken vaguely of events that were on the horizon. He would say that they asked the United States to do nothing while they strengthened their hold on oil reserves in the region.

  The Iranians would deny that, of course. But no one in America would believe them.

  The disagreement between the president and vice president would cause a very public rift.

  And when the Harpooner’s Iranian cohorts were found dead with photographs and other evidence of sabotage on their bodies—murdered by the Harpooner himself—the vice president and Fenwick would be vindicated.

  Reporters would then openly discuss the president’s questionable judgment. Washington would be abuzz with rumors that the president was unstable. Senators like Barbara Fox would have no choice but to support a motion to impeachment. Sex scandals were one thing. Mental illness was something much different. There would be calls for Lawrence to step down. For the good of the nation, Lawrence would have no choice but to resign.

  Vice president Cotten would become president. He would ask Jack Fenwick to become his new vice president. Congress would quickly endorse his selection. Meanwhile, the American military would move into the Caspian. They would help the Azerbaijanis protect their rigs.

  In the heat of rising tensions, President Cotten would remain strong.

  And then something else would happen. Something that would demand an American response so firm, so devastating, that religious fanatics would never again attack a target under American protection.

  In the end, Gable told himself, the career of a president was worth that sacrifice.

  TWENTY-NINE

  Baku, Azerbaijan Tuesday, 6:15 A.M.

  When forty-seven-year-old Ron Friday first arrived in Baku, he felt as though he had been dropped into medieval times.

  It was not a question of architecture. Embassy row was in a very modern section of the city. The modern buildings could have been lifted whole from Washington, D.C., or London, or Tokyo, or any other modern metropolis. But Baku was not like those cities where he had spent so much time. Once you moved past the embassies and business center of Baku, there was a pronounced sense of age. Many of the buildings had been standing when Columbus reached the Americas.

  No, the architecture was not what made Baku seem so old, so feudal. It was a sense of entropy among the people. Azerbaijan had been ruled from the outside for so long, now that the people were free and independent, they seemed unmotivated, directionless. If it were not for petrodollars, they would probably slip deep into the Third World.

  At least, that was Friday’s impression. Fortunately, when the former Army Ranger and his people were finished with what they were doing here, Azerbaijan would not be quite so independent.

  Friday entered his seven-story apartment building. The ten-year-old brick building was located two blocks from the embassy. He made his way up the marble stairs. Friday lived on the top floor, but he did not like being in elevators. Even when he was with the other embassy workers who lived here, he took the stairs. Elevators were too confining, and they left him vulnerable.

  Friday walked toward his apartment. He could not believe that he had been here nearly six months. It seemed much longer, and he was glad his tenure was coming to an end. Not because Deputy Ambassador Williamson didn’t need him. To the contrary, Friday had proven valuable to the diplomat, especially in her efforts to moderate Azerbaijani claims on Caspian oil. Friday’s years as an attorney for a large international oil company served him well in that capacity. But Friday’s real boss would need him elsewhere, in some other trouble spot. He would see to it that Friday was transferred.

  To India or Pakistan, perhaps. That was where Friday really wanted to go. There were oil issues to be dealt with there, in the Arabian Sea and on the border 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 long-bow. 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 Fenwick 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 meeti
ngs 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 throat 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.”

  THIRTY

  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 watergel 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 watergel 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 semisubmersible 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 watergel.

  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 watergel 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 watergel would not upset the balance of the spear. Though it would have been easier to assemble the package on the boat, the Harpoone
r had wanted to keep the watergel 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 speargun 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.