Blindfold Game

by Dana Stabenow

  “Well, what can I do for you today, Hugh, my boy?”

  No one called Hugh “my boy,” not even his own parents. Especially not his own parents. “I’ve just had a report, sir, from one of our operatives. It concerns the October bombing in Pattaya Beach.”

  The paternal attentiveness on the director’s face didn’t change. “Tell me all about it, my boy.”

  Hugh did, beginning with a recap of the experts’ best reconstruction of the bomb itself, going on to the death and destruction of which it had been the direct and proximate cause, the body count, with American casualties a separate category, and ended with Arlene’s sighting of the four men in the beach-side cafe.

  “Arlene Harte?” the director said. “The Associated Press reporter?” The director kept close tabs on the Washington press corps.

  “Retired,” Hugh said.

  “She’s still a reporter.”

  “A column for an international travel magazine,” Hugh said. “Reporters are by definition trained observers, sir. This wouldn’t be the first time the agency has made use of their skills, and I have every confidence in Harte. We’ve had her on the payroll for some time now, freelance, and she has brought us a great deal of quality product.”

  He hated using the word “product” but it was the current director’s determination to scrub the intelligence vocabulary clean of anything that might give off the even slightest aroma of actual spying. Hugh supposed it was marginally better than humint, agency speak for human source intelligence.

  “Still, my boy, a reporter,” the director said, a little reprovingly.

  Hugh inclined his head, acknowledging the indisputable fact of Arlene’s chosen profession, and moved on. “Harte tailed the two Koreans she observed meeting with Fang and Noortman to London, where she further observed them boarding a plane for Moscow.”

  “And did they stay in Moscow?”

  “She was unable to follow them beyond London, unfortunately. But I think they went to Odessa.”

  “Really. And why do you think that, my boy?”

  Hugh opened a folder and extracted a file. “I have also received a report from Bob Dunno, our operative at the American consulate in Odessa. As you know, third-world nations are being flooded with surplus arms from the former Soviet states. It’s about the only way the former states have of raising cash, and it’s a buyer’s market. Odessa is home to several high-profile arms dealers, including Pyotr Volk, a.k.a. Peter the Wolf.” He saw the director’s look, and nodded. “Peter’s little joke, he’s a Prokofiev fan.”

  “Not his real name?”

  Hugh didn’t dignify that question with an answer. “Over the past five years Peter has used the cash flow generated from selling Russian arms in bulk quantities to expand his inventory, which now includes weapons and materiel from every nation that manufactures them, including our own. This of course has led to a certain amount of, well, friction with our security services.”

  The director gave his rich chuckle. “I would certainly hope so.”

  “Bob Dunno met him at an embassy party they both attended in Moscow.”

  “What was the party for?”

  Hugh was thrown off his stride. “I, uh, don’t know, sir.”

  The director gave a reproving shake of his head. “You know how I savor the details, Hugh.”

  “Yes, sir.” Recovering his momentum, Hugh continued his briefing. “Peter has a well-developed sense of self-preservation for an international arms dealer. This occasionally leads him to sell us the odd tidbit of information. He deduced, and rightly, that we’d be more inclined to look away from his activities if he cooperated with us now and then.”

  “And he’s hoping we’ll take out his competition with the information he gives us,” the director said.

  Hugh smiled because it was expected of him. “And leave him in place, yes, sir. At any rate, Peter contacted Bob on October sixth and passed on the news that two young Asian men who fit the description of the two men Arlene followed had come to Odessa and placed an order.” Hugh passed the director a sheet of paper.

  The director read down the list. “What’s cesium?”

  “Cesium-137 is one of twenty radioactive isotopes artificially derived from the naturally occurring element cesium.” At the director’s request, Hugh spelled it. “It is used in radiology for medical and industrial purposes.”

  “Like X rays?”

  “It is used in radiotherapy machines, sir, for the treatment of cancer.”

  The director meditated on this for a moment. “My aunt had breast cancer. She had surgery, followed by chemotherapy, followed by radiation therapy. That what we’re talking about here?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “It actually burned her skin,” the director said. “She looked like a molting lizard for a while there.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “What’s it look like? This cesium-137?”

  “Not much different from talcum powder.”

  “Does it glow in the dark?”

  “A luminescent blue, sir,” Hugh said.

  The director looked up. The question had been asked in a jocular tone and Hugh’s answer had been dead serious. “I see. And Peter’s report of this purchase of this substance upsets you why?”

  “Cesium-137 is one of many substances that would be most effective in the manufacture of a dirty bomb.”

  The director sat back. “What kind of damage are we talking about here?”

  “Use enough TNT to explode a couple of ounces of cesium, sir, and the fallout would spread a minimum of sixty square blocks. In a city of any size, Los Angeles, say, or New York, or Washington, D.C., such an event could render hundreds of buildings uninhabitable and put hundreds of thousands of people in the hospital with radiation sickness. It would take years and very probably billions of dollars to clean up the mess. The medical and emergency infrastructure of the nation would be overwhelmed. There would be a severe impact on essential services.”

  “I imagine someone has done some sort of test scenario.”

  “Unnecessary, even if true, sir.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “In 1987 in Brazil a private medical clinic went belly up and the three doctors who owned it walked away, leaving the building to deteriorate and eventually be looted. It was a cancer clinic. It had a radiotherapy machine which contained a lead canister containing approximately fourteen hundred curies of cesium-137.”

  The director gave him a long, level look.

  Hugh elaborated. “Enough that when the looters opened the canister adults and children both could rub the powder on their bodies so that they would, as you say, glow in the dark.”

  “Why on earth would they do that?”

  “They thought it was pretty. Later, the powder transferred from their hands to their food, which was of course toxic when ingested. It was a week before a health care worker who’d had some training diagnosed what four people had already died from and what two hundred forty-four people had been contaminated with on a first-contact basis. The authorities ran a Geiger counter over the people they considered the most likely to have been contaminated, but unfortunately they didn’t take the procedure seriously enough to put their techs into protective gear. They didn’t decontaminate the ambulances used to carry the victims. Homes, businesses, soil-” Hugh shook his head. “Goiania has a population of seven hundred thousand. They ran the Geiger counters over thirty-four thousand people, about all they could fit into the soccer stadium, but… well. It’s got a half-life of thirty years.”

  “The people who died. What did they die from, exactly?”

  “Radiation destroys human cells, most rapidly those of the skin, hair, gastrointestinal tract, and bone marrow. They died of pneumonia, blood poisoning, and hemorrhaging.”

  Hugh used the following silence to tidy up his paperwork.

  “A nasty kind of talcum powder,” the director said finally.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Is Peter willing a
nd able to give us any further information?”

  Hugh hesitated. “I don’t know, sir.”

  The director raised an eyebrow.

  “This was the last time we heard from him. His office blew up later that same evening.”

  “Our Korean friends?”

  “We don’t know. It seems likely. They had motive, in wanting to hide their business with him. They certainly had means if they are the people behind the Pattaya bombing. And they had opportunity, being the only business meeting Peter had that day, according to the security guard at the entrance.”

  “Is Peter dead?”

  “We don’t know, sir. His body wasn’t found, but then there wasn’t a lot left from which to make an identification. The explosion took place after midnight when the building was closed, so he could well have left for the evening. On the other hand, I don’t think Peter keeps banker’s hours.” Hugh raised his shoulders. “If he’s alive, he hasn’t surfaced. Bob Dunno talked to the girlfriend, who knows less than nothing, naturally.” Hugh was sure there was plenty Bob wasn’t telling him about the girlfriend but he refrained from saying so. “I have instructed informants to keep watch in all the likely places. He could be dead, or he could be anywhere.”

  “Switzerland?” the director said.

  “More likely Nassau, or Brazil, or Seattle.”

  The director was startled. “Seattle?”

  “He hasn’t broken any American laws, at least not yet, and he has a distant relative in the Russian emigre population there.”

  “Mmmm.” The director meditated upon the photographs. “These two young men appear to have no appreciable money problems.”

  “Peter was given a phone number in Switzerland. An electronic transfer. I’ve got a source ferreting around, but you know the Swiss.”

  There was a brief silence. The director stirred. “Odessa,” he said ruminatively. “Odessa. So that’s where we put Bob Dunno out to pasture.”

  Hugh said stiffly, “Hardly out to pasture, sir. At last count there are over fifty sites in what was the Soviet Union housing enough weapons-grade fissile materials to make as many as seventy thousand nuclear bombs, most of it unsecured. I believe Bob was stationed in Odessa because of his knowledge of Soviet weaponry and his contacts there. Not to mention his fluency in Russian.”

  “Hugh, my boy, everyone who reads the front page of the Washington Post knows all about how familiar Bob Dunno is with his contacts.” The director leaned forward. “Do you think it’s true? Was he really sleeping with the premier’s daughter?”

  Doggedly, Hugh kept to the point. “When Harte lost the two men in London, she returned to Pattaya Beach and made further inquiries. During the course of those inquiries she found three witnesses who saw two young Asian men fitting the descriptions of the two men she saw meeting with Fang and Noortman. These witnesses noticed these young men in particular because, unlike everyone else in the area immediately following the blast, they were so calm of manner. One of the witnesses said they seemed almost to be observing.”

  The director shrugged. “Not conclusive in and of itself.”

  “But interesting nonetheless, sir.” Hugh put the file back together. “I think these two men should be red-flagged, sir. I think we ought to have mug shots from the pictures that Harte brought us and circulate them to all desks and field agents in the Far East, and possibly the entire network. Further, I think we should alert the FBI and the other agencies, including the Coast Guard.”

  “The Coast Guard?” The director chuckled.

  “I would point out, sir,” Hugh said, and this time he was unable to keep the edge from his voice, “that these two men were observed in the company of the Chinese pirate, Fang, and his longtime confederate, the Singaporean Noortman. Fang and Noortman we know to be responsible for the high seas piracy of as many as twenty-three freighters, at least a dozen of which held cargoes owned all or in part by American corporations. If Fang and Noortman are involved in whatever these two men are planning, it only makes sense that the planned attack is coming by sea. The Coast Guard will have to be involved, and sooner rather than later.”

  The director raised a quizzical eyebrow. “You haven’t been talking this over with that wife of yours, have you, Hugh, my boy?”

  Hugh set his teeth. “No, sir.”

  “I should hope not. There is no point in starting a panic with what is at this point pure speculation.” The director settled back into the couch.

  “Do you have any independent confirmation of weapons sales such as you have described? Any satellite confirmation of weapons movement? The larger item certainly would be noticed, I would think.”

  “Admittedly, sir, our evidence to date is circumstantial, but if our agent is right and these two men are responsible for the Pattaya Beach bombing, the construction and detonation of that bomb implies a high level of experience, expertise, and commitment. Not to mention imagination. To my knowledge the Pattaya Beach bombing is the first terrorist attack employing a soccer ball.”

  The director inclined his head. “Point taken.”

  “It follows that they will be planning their next operation, and that it will include a similarly imaginative plan. The involvement of Fang and Noortman indicates that the attack will come from the sea. Their purchases from Peter Wolf suggest that-”

  The director picked up one of the photographs. “Didn’t I read somewhere in that file you gave me a while back that Noortman’s a fag?”

  Hugh blinked. “Sir?”

  “Stands to reason Fang is, too, otherwise why they been together for- What was it you said? Nine years? Ten years?” The director tossed the picture back on the coffee table. “I’m glad you brought this to my attention, Hugh. I can see where there is cause for some concern. Let’s alert the Far East staff to keep a watching brief for our four Asian friends, try to keep track of their actions.”

  “Yes, sir,” Hugh said, “our staff and-”

  “Let’s not rile up the other agencies just yet.”

  “Sir-”

  The director got to his feet. “I sure appreciate you coming in, Hugh, my boy. Keep up the good work.”

  And Hugh found himself on the other side of the director’s door, his hand shook, his back patted, the recipient of a genial invitation for a game of tennis, which he did not play.

  He steamed past the director’s assistant without saying goodbye, which didn’t matter because the head of the Middle Eastern desk was chatting her up in preparation for entry into the inner sanctum, a sheaf of reports in the crook of one elbow that undoubtedly included several items that would jack up the Homeland Security threat advisory to orange. “Harvey,” Hugh said tightly.

  Harvey Moskowitz, taking in the situation at a glance, said, not without sympathy, “Hey, Hugh.” He stood up. “Talk to you for a minute?”

  “The director’s waiting for you, Mr. Moskowitz,” the secretary said disapprovingly.

  Moskowitz bestowed a ravishing smile upon her, beneath which she wilted visibly. “Tell him I’ll be right in, will you, Georgia?”

  The secretary murmured a dazed acquiescence as Moskowitz took Hugh by the elbow and steered him into the hall.

  “Not for attribution, Hugh, I don’t have any hard evidence, but a couple of my people have been hearing rumors about a large sale of some radioactive material.”

  Hugh’s head came up. “I got the same rumor. Through Odessa?”

  “My guy says Tiraspol.”

  Hugh closed his eyes to locate Tiraspol on an internal map. He opened his eyes again and Harvey said, “What?”

  “Come with me,” Hugh said. Harvey followed Hugh down the hall to a conference room with a bookshelf full of reference texts and pulled down an atlas. He flipped rapidly through the pages. “Here.”

  Harvey followed Hugh’s finger. “Tiraspol, Moldova. So? Oh. I see. Right on the border.”

  “Not ninety miles from Odessa,” Hugh said.

  “Crap,” Harvey said, inelegantly but accurately. />
  “Yeah.”

  “Is your info linked to al-Qaida?” Harvey said.

  “God damn it, Harvey,” Hugh said with enough anger to cause the other man’s eyes to widen. “Does nothing other than al-Qaida register on anyone’s radar around here?”

  “Come on, Hugh. They found documents describing research into the construction of CBRN weapons in a house in Kabul, Afghanistan, and in the al-Qaida caves. It’s not like they don’t know how to make a chemical weapon, or a biological one, or a radioactive one, or even a nuclear one.”

  Hugh couldn’t deny it.

  “The nuclear one is the most expensive, so the thinking is they’ll probably go with one of the other three,” Harvey said. “Again, I ask the question. Is your info linked to al-Qaida?”

  Hugh hesitated, and shook his head. “No. I think it might be connected to the same people who did the Pattaya Beach bombing.”

  Harvey relaxed a little. “And that was what, your standard black market plastic explosive and a timer packed inside a-what was it?”

  “Soccer ball.”

  “Right. Right.” Harvey nodded. “Points for originality. You wouldn’t look twice at someone sauntering down the street with a soccer ball tucked under one arm, unless you were in the U.S. And filled with nails and bolts. Instant shrapnel. Nasty.” He meditated for a moment. “You got a real thing going on here, Hugh?”

  Hugh’s jaw tightened, and he had to work at it not to glance over his shoulder toward the director’s office. “Nothing with enough evidence to warrant action.”

  “Ah,” Harvey said. “Well, if I hear anything else.”

  “Yeah. Harvey?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Where did the rumor originate?”

  “My guy heard about it in Hong Kong. Big operation, well funded, is what he heard.”

  Fang and Noortman operated out of Hong Kong. “Okay. Thanks again, Harvey.”