by Tom Clancy
Colonel Brett August liked Quantico, and he really liked Upshur. He spent his time equally between drilling his Striker squad and giving classroom lectures in military history, strategy, and theory. He also liked to put his people through rigorous sports competitions. To him, those were as much a psychological as a physiological workout. It was interesting. He had set it up so that the winners pulled extra duty. Garbage, kitchen, and latrine. Yet no one had ever tried to lose a basketball or football game, or even a weekend piggyback fight in the pool with their kids. Not once. In fact, August had never seen soldiers so happy to be doing drudge work. Liz Gordon was planning to write a paper on the phenomenon, which she’d dubbed “The Masochism of Victory.”
Right now, though, it was August who was suffering. Upon returning from action in Spain, promotions and long-in-the-works transfers had cost him some key Strikers. In the few days following the depletion, he’d been working hard with four new warfighters. They’d been concentrating on night targeting with 105mm Howitzers when the call came from General Rodgers to put the team on yellow alert. August had wanted to give the new members more time to integrate with the old, but it didn’t matter. August was satisfied that the new people were ready to see action if it became necessary. Marine Second Lieutenants John Friendly and Judy Quinn were as tough as August had ever seen, and Delta’s Privates First Class Tim Lucas and Moe Longwood were their new communications expert and hand-to-hand combat specialist. There was natural competitiveness between the two branches, but that was good. Under fire, the barriers vanished, and they were all on the same team. Skill-wise, the new people would fit in nicely with seasoned Strikers Sargeant Chick Grey, Corporal Pat Prementine — the boy-genius of infantry tactics — Private First Class Sondra DeVonne, burly Private Walter Pupshaw, Private Jason Scott, and Private Terrence Newmeyer.
A yellow alert meant gearing up and waiting in the ready room to see if the team was going to take the next step. The ready room consisted of a gunmetal desk by the door, which was manned round the clock by a desk sergeant; hard wooden chairs arranged classroom style — the brass didn’t want anyone getting too comfortable and going to sleep; an old blackboard; and a computer terminal on a table in front of the blackboard. In the event that they were needed, a Bell LongRanger fifteen-seat Model 205A-1 was being fired up on a nearby landing strip for the half-hour ride to Andrews Air Force Base. From there, the team would be flown by C-130 to the Marine Air Terminal at New York’s La Guardia Airport. Rodgers had said that Striker’s potential target was the United Nations building. The C-130 didn’t need a lot of runway, and La Guardia, though not a regular stop for military traffic, was the field closest to the United Nations.
The one thing the tall, lean, thin-faced colonel hated above all was waiting. A holdover from Vietnam, it gave him a sense of being out of control. When August was a prisoner of war, he had to wait for the next middle-of-the-night interrogation, the next beating, the next death of someone he served with. He had to wait for news, passed along in careful whispers, by new arrivals in the camp. But the worst wait of all came when August tried to escape. He had to turn back when his partner was wounded and needed medical care. He never got another chance to break out. His captors saw to that. He had to wait for the long-winded, heel-dragging, face-saving diplomats in Paris to negotiate his release. None of that taught him patience. It taught him that waiting was for people who had no other options. He’d once told Liz Gordon that waiting was the real definition of masochism.
The United Nations was on the water’s edge, so Colonel August had the Strikers bring their wet gear. And since they were going to Manhattan, they were dressed like civilians. While the ten team members checked their suits and equipment, August used the ready room computer to visit the United Nations home page. He had never been to the building and wanted to get an idea of the layout. As he navigated to the web site, the on-line news of the day talked about the breaking story in New York, the hostage situation at the United Nations. August was surprised — not just that a nonpartisan facility would be attacked by terrorists but that U.S. troops would be on call to assist. He couldn’t think of a single scenario in which American armed forces would be invited to help out in a situation like that.
As he studied the web site options, Sondra DeVonne and Chick Grey came up behind him. There were icons for Peace and Security, Humanitarian Affairs, Human Rights, and other feel-good topics. He went to the icon for Databases to try and find a map of the damn place. Not only had he never been there, he had no desire to go. For all their tub-thumping about peace and rights, they’d left him and his comrades from Air Force Intelligence in a Vietnamese prison for over two years.
There were other reference materials in the databases. Video records of Security Council and General Assembly meetings. Social indicators. International treaties. Land mines. Peacekeeping Training Course database. There was even a site for a glossary of United Nations Document Symbols, which was itself an acronym: UNI-QUE for UN Info Quest.
“I hope Bob Herbert is having better luck,” August said. “There isn’t a single map of the compound.”
“Maybe publishing it is considered a security risk,” DeVonne suggested. Since joining Striker, the pretty African-American had been training for Geo-Intel — geographic intelligence — which, in addition to planning reconnaissance, was being used more and more to target smart missiles. “I mean,” she said, “if you posted a detailed blueprint, you could plan and even run a missile attack without ever leaving your post.”
“You know, that’s the problem with security today,” Grey said. “You can set up all the fancy antiterrorist protection you want, they can still get through the old-fashioned way. A jerk with a meal knife or a hat pin can still grab a flight attendant and take over an airplane.”
“That doesn’t mean you have to make it easy,” DeVonne said.
“No,” Grey agreed. “But don’t kid yourself that any of it’s really going to work. Terrorists will still get anywhere they want to go, just as a determined assassin can still get to a world leader.”
The phone beeped, and the desk sergeant answered the call. It was for August. The colonel hurried over. If and when they left this room, the squad would instantly switch to the secure, mobile TAC-SAT phone. While they were here, they still used the secure base lines.
“Colonel August here,” he said.
“Brett, it’s Mike.” In public, the officers observed formal protocol. In private conversation, they were two men who had known each other since childhood. “You’ve got a go.”
“A go is understood,” August replied. He glanced over at his team. They were already beginning to gather their gear.
“I’ll give you the mission profile when you arrive,” Rodgers said.
“See you in thirty minutes,” August replied, then hung up.
Less than three minutes later, the Striker squad was buckling themselves into the helicopter seats for the ride to Andrews. As the noisy chopper rose into the night and arced to the northeast, Colonel August was puzzled by something Rodgers had said. Typically, mission parameters were downloaded to the aircraft via secure ground-to-air modem. It saved time and allowed the process to continue even after the team was airborne.
Rodgers had said he was going to give them the mission parameters when they arrived. If that meant what he thought it meant, then this was going to be a more interesting and unusual evening than he had expected.
FIFTEEN
New York, New York
Saturday, 10:08 P.M.
When the violinists had first arrived in the Security Council chambers, they assembled behind the horseshoe-shaped table on the main floor. Their musical director, Ms. Dorn, had just arrived. The twenty-six-year-old had given a recital in Washington the night before and had flown in that day. While Ms. Dorn reviewed the score, Harleigh Hood stood by the curtains in front of one of the windows. She peeked outside at the darkening river and smiled at the jiggling lights reflected on the surface. The bright, col
orful spots reminded her of musical notes, and she found herself wondering why sheet music was never printed in color — a different color for each octave.
Harleigh had just released the edge of the curtain when they heard pops in the hallway. Moments later, the double doors on the north side of the chamber slammed open, and the masked men ran in.
Neither the delegates nor their guests moved, and the young musicians remained where they were, in two tight rows. Only Ms. Dorn moved, protectively positioning herself between the children and the intruders. The masked men were too busy to notice her. They were running down the sides of the chamber, surrounding the delegates. None of the intruders said anything until one of the men grabbed a delegate and pulled him off to the side. The intruder spoke to the man quietly, as though he were afraid of being overheard. The delegate, who had been introduced to the violinists earlier in a receiving line — he was from Sweden, though she forgot his name — then told the group that no one would be harmed as long as they stayed quiet and did exactly as they were told. Harleigh didn’t find him convincing. His collar was already sweaty, and the whole time his eyes were moving all over the place like he was looking for a place to run.
The intruder resumed talking to the delegate. They sat down at the horseshoe-shaped table. The delegate was handed paper and a pencil.
Two of the intruders checked the windows, opened the doors to see what was behind them, then took up other positions. When one of them had been standing beside her window, practically at her shoulder, Harleigh had had to fight the urge to say something. She’d wanted to ask this person what he was doing. Her father had always told her that a reasonable question, reasonably asked, rarely provoked an angry response.
But Harleigh could smell the tartness of the gunpowder — or whatever the smell was — wafting from the man’s gun. And she thought she saw blood spots on his glove. Fear froze her throat and loosened her insides. Her legs really did go weak, though at the thighs, not the knees. She didn’t say anything and then got angry at herself for having been afraid. Talking could have gotten her shot, but it also might have made the intruders sympathetic toward her. Or maybe they would have made her a spokesperson or a group leader or something that would have taken her mind off her fear. And what if they all got shot later? Not necessarily by these people but by whoever came to save them. Her dying thought would be that she should have said something before. As she watched him go, she almost said something again, but her mouth wouldn’t let her.
Shortly thereafter one of the men — again speaking very quietly, with an accent that sounded Australian — began collecting people around the table. The children were first. He told them to leave their instruments where they were, on the floor, and come over.
Harleigh’s violin case was already open, and she took the time to lay the instrument inside. It wasn’t a small, belated act of defiance. She wasn’t even testing the man to see what she could get away with. Her parents had given the violin to her, and she wasn’t going to let anything happen to it. Fortunately, the man either didn’t notice or decided to let it go.
As Harleigh sat at the circular table, she felt very exposed. She’d liked it better by the drapes, in the corner.
The fear, which had been liquid, began to solidify. Harleigh began trembling as she sat there and was almost glad when one of the girls beside her began to shake. Poor Laura Sabia. Laura was her best friend, but she was a skittish girl to begin with. She looked like she wanted to scream.
Harleigh touched her hand and caught her eye and smiled at her. It’s going to be okay, her smile said.
The girl didn’t respond to that. She did respond when the masked man began walking toward them. He didn’t have to say a thing, didn’t even have to walk all the way over. Just coming over scared her to silence.
Harleigh patted the girl’s fingers and then withdrew her hand. She folded her hands in front of her. Harleigh drew a deep breath through her nose and stopped herself from trembling. A girl across the table saw her and did likewise. After a moment, the girl smiled. Harleigh smiled back. She discovered that fear was like being cold. If you relaxed, it wasn’t as bad.
The cavernous room became quiet. There was a feeling of tense resignation at the table, an awareness that the quiet was thin and could be broken at any moment. Inside the table, the diplomats seemed a little more restless than the musicians, probably because they were the most vulnerable. The intruders seemed very angry about somebody not being there, but Harleigh didn’t know who. Perhaps the secretary-general, who had been late.
Ms. Dorn was sitting at the head of the table. She made eye contact with each of her violinists, making sure they were all right. Each girl responded in turn with a little nod. It was all bravery, Harleigh knew; no one was really okay. But in the absence of anything else, the sense of we’re all in this together was something to hold onto.
Harleigh thought she heard footsteps outside the door. Security people were bound to show up. She looked around for places to hide if something did happen, if people began shooting. Behind the horseshoe table looked like the safest spot. She could run over, slide across, and be on the other side in a matter of moments. She lifted her knees very slowly against the bottom of this table, like she did to her desk at school when she was bored — make it seem to float. The table rose slightly, which meant it wasn’t bolted to the floor. They could turn it over and duck behind it if they had to.
As Harleigh thought about defending themselves, she experienced a flash of terror. She wondered if this might have something to do with her father and Op-Center. He had never talked about work at home, not even when he and her mother had argued. Could it be that Op-Center had wronged these people in some way? She had learned in civics class that except for Israel, the United States was the largest target of terrorism in the world. The violinists were the only Americans here. Were they after her? What if they didn’t know her father had resigned? What if they wanted to control her to control him?
The flesh of her neck and shoulders grew warm. Harleigh began to perspire along her sides. The gown that had felt so new, so elegant, clung to her like a bathing suit.
This isn’t happening, she thought. It was the kind of thing you saw on the news happening to other people. There were supposed to be safeguards here, weren’t there? Metal detectors, guards at the doors, security cameras.
Suddenly, the man who’d been talking to the delegate from Sweden called the Australian man over. After a short discussion, the Australian man grabbed the delegate by the collar, hoisted him up and, at gunpoint, walked him up the stairs toward the door.
Harleigh wished she had her violin to hug close. She wished she could be held by her mother. Her mom was probably frantic — unless she was trying to be Ms. Calm to other frantic mothers. She probably was. That had to be where Harleigh got it from. Then she thought of her father. When Harleigh’s mother had taken her and Alexander to visit their grandparents and figure out their future, her father decided to give up his career rather than lose them. She wondered if he’d be able to look at this as another crisis and think calmly, even though his daughter was involved.
The Australian man returned. After exchanging a few rough words with the delegate, he took the paper from him and shoved the man along the stairs. Harleigh assumed that their captors had just given someone a list of demands. She no longer thought that she might be the target. She felt her neck cool. They were going to get through this.
The Swedish delegate was seated with the other delegates, back on the floor with his hands on his head. Harleigh assumed it was time to wait. That would be all right. Her father had once said that as long as people were talking, they weren’t shooting. She hoped so.
She decided not to think about it. Instead, quietly, very quietly, she did what she came here for.
She hummed “A Song of Peace.”
SIXTEEN
Andrews Air Force Base, Maryland
Saturday, 10:09 P.M.
After hanging up with Col
onel August, Mike Rodgers looked at the clock on his computer screen. The LongRanger would be at Andrews in about twenty-five minutes. The C-130 would be ready to go by then.
Bob Herbert looked over at the general. The intelligence chief scowled. “Mike? Are you listening?”
“Yes,” Rodgers said. “You’ve got a team working on Mala Chatterjee’s past to see who might want to humiliate the new secretary-general. Possibly fellow Hindus who oppose her public stand on behalf of women’s rights. You’re also checking the whereabouts of the people Paul helped to stop in Russia and Spain, in case this is about him.”
“Right,” Herbert said.
Rodgers nodded and rose slowly; the damn bandages were constricting. “Bob, I’m going to need you to run the show here for a while.”
Herbert seemed surprised. “Why? Aren’t you feeling okay?”
“I’m feeling fine,” Rodgers said. “I’ll be going to New York with Striker. I’m also going to need a base of operations once we get there. Something near the United Nations that could also serve as a staging area. The CIA must have a shell in that neighborhood.”
“There’s one right across the street, I believe,” Herbert said. “Eastern tower of the twin skyscrapers, UN Plaza. The Doyle Shipping Agency, I think it’s called. They keep an eye on the comings and goings of spooks pretending to be diplomats, probably gather ELINT as well.”
“Can you get us in?”
“Probably.” Herbert’s mouth twisted unhappily. He glanced across the table at Lowell Coffey.
Rodgers caught the look. “What’s wrong?” he asked.