by Dale Brown
“Yeah.”
“Looks like you got someone else, too,” said Nuri.
“Tilia, Uncle Dpap’s aide,” said Danny. “It was an accident.”
“It’s not important. Don’t worry. Damn. The Sudanese are throwing all sorts of troops at these guys. This must be Egypt’s doing, helping them. Damn.”
“I don’t know if our guy is going to get out,” said Danny. “They have a lot of troops coming.”
“That may not be critical right now,” said Nuri.
“Turn into field, point-one miles,” said the Voice.
Danny told Nuri to hold while he helped Boston navigate. The rutted field was filled with large rocks, but the ground was firm. They slowed to about five miles an hour, then followed a serpentine section of wall to a shallow streambed. Nearly a mile later they came to the road.
“All right,” said Danny.
“I was beginning to wonder if you’d decided to drive back to the States,” said Nuri when he got back to him.
“Just having trouble with the terrain. How did you do?”
“Better than expected. And worse. I think the Iranians are building a bomb.”
“Here?”
“No, I don’t know. We got some hits on uranium, but not weapons grade.”
Actually, the detectors had found traces of material that typically accompanied uranium, signaling that some sort of storage or processing was carried out there. Finding actual weapons grade uranium required very sensitive gear placed very close to the material, and even then would have taken quite a bit of luck. Still, the finding was critical.
“I don’t have it all figured out,” added Nuri, “but I think they’re doing this in stages. This would be an early stage. I have to talk to Reid and Stockard.”
“Right.”
“I’ll let them know we’ve tagged the Iranian and we’re going to follow him. If they have other plants, he’ll take us to them.”
“If he makes it out of the ambush,” said Danny.
“I’ll be at the base in another twenty minutes,” said Nuri, ignoring Danny’s pessimism. “Let me know if anything comes up.”
Two minutes later the Voice warned Danny that four Sudanese army trucks were traveling on the road they were headed for. Rather than engage in a firefight, Danny decided their best option would be to simply go far enough off the road so they couldn’t be seen and wait for them to pass. They crossed the field until they found a cluster of low trees and waited.
* * *
Meanwhile, the remains of colonel Zsar’s forces had regrouped south of the road and were sweeping east to escape the army troops. Four of Zsar’s men had been killed; nearly all the rest, including himself, had suffered at least minor injuries.
Tarid was among the few who hadn’t been hit. He found the colonel as he retreated, and joined him in a pickup truck. They rode together in the front of the pickup, jostling against each other and the colonel’s driver as they streaked across the rutted road.
“Red Henri must have betrayed us,” said Zsar. “He must have planned the entire venture.”
“More likely it was one of Dpap’s men,” said Tarid. “Or one of yours.”
Colonel Zsar bristled. “Maybe the arms dealer was the culprit.”
“No.”
“No rebel would do this.”
“His men shot down two of the helicopters,” said Tarid. “He warned us. He has very good intelligence. He’s smarter than you think. Greedy, but smart.”
“The helicopters may have been a show,” said Colonel Zsar. He prided himself on never having retreated in the face of the Sudanese army. His ego had been stung by the reversal. “We could have taken them, all of them,” he added. “If I’d brought more men.”
“You can take them another time.”
The more Colonel Zsar brooded about his reputation, the more he realized that he couldn’t simply run. He had to do something — he had to defeat the army.
“Turn the truck around,” he told the driver. He took out his satellite phone.
“What are you doing?” asked Tarid.
“We’re going back.”
“You can’t go back — they’ve got you outgunned. They’re bringing more reinforcements.”
“So will I.”
Tarid argued, but it was a waste of breath. Colonel Zsar had decided his reputation demanded that he defeat the army soldiers who had attacked. Even if the victory was symbolic — a simple return to the battlefield would do — he would be able to restore his reputation.
“You’re letting your ego guide you,” said Tarid. “A dangerous thing.”
Zsar frowned.
“Then let me out,” said Tarid.
The door was locked. As he reached to pull up the lock, Colonel Zsar pointed his pistol at him. If he let Tarid go, the others might follow.
“No cowards,” he hissed.
Tarid let go of the door.
* * *
As they waited for the Sudanese troop trucks to pass, Danny had the Voice give him periodic updates on the Iranian’s position.
He’d clearly escaped, cutting south.
Good, thought Danny.
He was stopping.
Why?
He was returning to the battlefield.
What?
“Are you sure?” Danny asked.
“Affirmative.”
“What’s the situation there?”
“Positioning Owl UAV,” reported the Voice. A few minutes later MY-PID delivered a sitrep; situation report. “Reinforcements still en route. Sudanese army capturing wounded rebels. Helicopters approaching from the west.”
Tarid was driving back into a trap. And Danny knew there was nothing he could do about it.
* * *
When he saw the fires in the distance, colonel Zsar decided to wait on the road for his reinforcements to arrive. There was little harm in waiting, he realized; the longer he took to strike back, the more relaxed the regular soldiers would become, and the easier his victory.
He figured that it would take a little over thirty minutes for the rest of his army to arrive. Once they were there, he would sweep onto the battlefield, routing the regulars the way they had routed him.
He would pick only a small group, attack and flee. That would be enough for the symbolic victory he wanted.
The colonel was sketching his plan out in his head when he heard the helicopters approaching. He got out of the truck to look for them; when he did, he saw the dark shadows well over the horizon, heading in their direction.
“Out of the trucks!” he ordered. “Prepare for an attack.”
Tarid was livid. “You idiot!” he yelled at Zsar. “We have to get out of here!”
“Shut up and prepare to fight,” said Zsar, starting to turn away.
“You idiot! Where are your troops?”
The colonel stopped. “What did you call me?”
“An idiot!” said Tarid, taking two steps and screaming in Zsar’s face. “You were safe. You—”
Colonel Zsar delivered a roundhouse to Tarid’s head. The Iranian staggered back, then coiled his legs and arms to strike back. Before he could, Zsar’s driver smashed him across the back of the head with his AK-47. Tarid fell to the ground, unconscious and oblivious to the firefight starting around him.
32
Washington, D.C.
Within hours of Nuri’s return from Blemmyes Village, his discovery and theory had been disseminated to a small coterie of analysts and officials in Washington, D.C. The news focused a great deal of intelligence for the analysts, giving them a framework to arrange a veritable warehouse worth of data.
It also alarmed Breanna, Reid, and everyone else who heard about it.
The machined aluminum was now identified as part of a tool holding a centrifuge assembly. To grossly oversimplify the process, the tool could be used to separate elements of different atomics weight from each other. Such a tool was needed in one step of the process of extracting “special” u
ranium from “regular” uranium. The special uranium — an isotope with a different atomic number — could then be used to create an atomic bomb.
Jasmine was now viewed as part of a much larger, more important project. It could also be seen as one of several similar operations around the world, directly related or not. At least three possibilities had already been identified.
But the data raised a large number of new questions. Assuming there were other processing plants, where were they? How did material get from one location to another? Was the intention to stockpile the material, or was bomb construction contemplated — or maybe even under way? Where did this occur?
Breanna contemplated all of these questions the next morning as she waited for Jonathon Reid’s car to pick her up at the Pentagon. She expected them to be raised at the hastily scheduled briefing she and Reid were going to give to the National Security Council. The council had already been scheduled to meet; they were added to the agenda when their information was added to the daily intelligence report.
The one question Breanna hadn’t contemplated was the one Reid asked as soon as she slipped into the back of car: “Do you think it’s time we turned this over to traditional channels?”
Surprise was obvious on her face.
“Whiplash is still experimental,” explained Reid, who’d been considering the matter even before Nuri reported in. “The unit is very small. Something of this magnitude is beyond its scope.”
“I wouldn’t call Whiplash experimental.”
“Whatever we call it, we didn’t anticipate this big a situation when we sent Nuri out,” said Reid. “Or Danny Freah and his people. We were looking at a bugging and surveillance operation, nothing more. The next step is more involved.”
“No, the next step is to gather more information.”
“We’ll have to destroy the plant.”
“They can do that as well. But we don’t want to do that yet, do we? We need to flesh out the entire network. We don’t know how big the operation is there, not to mention where else it’s operating.”
“A huge undertaking,” said Reid. “One for a very large, and experienced, task group.”
“Danny Freah can run this. He’s had experience. Especially with nuclear warheads.”
“I’m not questioning him or his ability,” said Reid. “The scope of the project is simply greater than what we foresaw. We need more people.”
Reid was also concerned about Nuri. The CIA officer had been selected as the program’s first operative primarily because of his comfort with the technology and his familiarity with Africa. He had barely three years of experience with the Agency, and before that was in college. While he’d done fine so far, at this point it made sense to bring a more experienced officer onto the scene.
“I can see more people,” said Breanna. “Obviously, these other leads have to be examined. But we have people in the field. They’re doing a good job. We can’t pull them off.”
“Who coordinates the mission? Who compiles the data?”
“We do. It moves forward exactly as it has.”
“You don’t understand the scope,” said Reid. “Or the politics.”
“What politics?”
Reid stared at the glass divider that separated the hybrid-powered Town car’s passenger compartment from the driver. Many members of the Agency considered him an old school idealist, but he thought of himself as a realist. As much as he hated Agency and bureaucratic politics, as much as he isolated himself from them, he nonetheless realized they had to be taken into account at all times.
“You’re DoD,” he said, referring to the Department of Defense. “I’m Central Intelligence. Whiplash is split between those agencies. It starts there.”
“And we can end it there.”
“No. We can’t.”
“Do you want to be in charge?” Breanna asked. “Is that it?”
She felt her cheeks starting to flush. She was trying to control her anger, but it wasn’t easy. She liked Reid, but she felt he had ambushed her in an attempt to get an advantage in a ridiculous bureaucratic game. It seemed out of character, or at least out of sync with the way he had acted until now.
“Depending on where this goes, we may have hundreds of people in the field, and thousands behind them supporting them,” said Reid. “We don’t have the infrastructure to pull off a large operation. It’s simply a matter of size.”
“You have the infrastructure, at CIA, as deputy director. Is that the point?”
“I’m not deputy director.”
“He’d run it through you. So you take Whiplash out of the loop and run it on your own?”
“It’s possible that would happen,” admitted Reid. “But that wouldn’t be my recommendation. We would turn the entire matter over to Operations, and let them handle it the way they’ve handled missions like this in the past. Some of the people who worked on sabotaging the original Iranian program under the previous administration—”
“There’s a recommendation,” said Breanna bitterly.
“They’re experienced people. Some of the results were not that good. Some were. In any event, there’s a structure set up, institutional memory—”
“But that’s just the point, Jonathon. Everything we’ve done — Whiplash, MY-PID, the other gear — everything is an attempt to break out of the old mode.”
“Sometimes you don’t have to reinvent the wheel.”
“But we did. And now that we see it working, you want to go back to the horse and buggy.”
Reid put his hand on the blue briefing book on the seat next to him, sliding his fingers along the top edge. He realized she did have a point. They were pioneering new techniques for combining covert action and intelligence gathering, using high-tech tools with a streamlined command structure. They had gotten results.
“I will talk briefly about the unit, just enough to let those who aren’t aware of it understand its capabilities,” said Breanna, deciding to move on to what they’d planned to discuss. “You can talk about mission.”
“And when they ask for recommendations?”
“I’ll say we should continue. You can say whatever you want.”
* * *
As she stepped from the car to head into the West Wing, Breanna’s personal cell phone rang. She reached into her pocketbook and took it out. Her daughter’s face was on the screen — Teri was calling from school.
Breanna felt her heart stop as she hit the Talk button.
“Honey, what’s up?”
“Mom—”
“She’s all right, Mrs. Stockard,” said a male voice in the background. “Tell her you’re all right.”
All Breanna could think of was that Teri had been kidnapped.
“I fell during gym, Mom.”
Oh, thank God, thought Breanna. “Are you okay, honey?”
“My leg hurts.”
“Is that the doctor behind you?” she asked, her relief receding. “Honey — is that the doctor?”
“Actually, Mrs. Stockard, I’m the nurse practitioner at Day School,” said the man. “Your daughter is okay. I don’t think she broke any bones, but with your permission I’d like to have her taken to the hospital just as a precaution. For X rays. I’ve seen dozens of these, ma’am. Usually this is just a little twist and bruise. They’re out running by the afternoon. But I would prefer to err on the side of caution. I hope you understand.”
“I appreciate that, Doctor—”
“Simon. Nurse Simon, or just Simon.”
“I’m sorry, Simon. Yes, please — she should go to the hospital right away.” Breanna looked up at Reid, who was staring at her with the most concerned expression she’d ever seen on his face. It’s okay, she mouthed.
“We’re going to need you or, uh, someone to meet her at the hospital,” said Simon.
Today, of all days, thought Breanna.
“Someone will be there,” she told him, barely remembering to ask which hospital before hanging up.
; “Your daughter?” asked Reid.
“Just a silly sports injury,” she said.
“Do you want me to fill in?”
Breanna was torn between the impulse to run to her daughter’s side and the briefing she was supposed to give.
“Let me get Zen on the phone,” she said. She forced a smile. “I think he’s on hospital duty today.”
* * *
Zen was in the middle of a committee hearing when his legislative aide, Steph Delanie, tapped him on the shoulder.
“It’s your wife,” she whispered. “Urgent.”
Zen gripped his wheels — after all these years, he still preferred a nonpowered chair — and backed away from his spot at the table. He caught the eye of the committee chairman, who nodded, then turned and went out into the hall with Delanie. Another member of his staff, Jason Black, stood nearby with a cell phone.
“Probably forgot where I hid the peanut butter,” said Zen, trying to joke as he reached for the phone. “Hey, babe, what’s up?”
“Jeff, they’re taking Teri to the hospital. She hurt her leg. She’s OK, but they want X rays to make sure. Can you go over? I’m — I’m just on my way to see the President and the National Security Council. I’m right outside the door.”
“Where is Teri? Is she OK?”
“Yes, she’s OK. The school nurse called. They want to take her there as a precaution and I said fine. The nurse is a he, by the way.”
“Which hospital, Bree? Is she all right?”
“She’s fine.”
Zen could withstand any amount of pain without whimpering — he might complain, curse, and stomp things with his fist, but never whimper. If his daughter or wife had a cold, however, he suffered incredibly. There was simply no way he could be stoic when either of them was in pain.
“She’s at Dominion,” added Breanna, a little less emphatically. “In the emergency room.”
“I’m on my way. I’m there.”
“Jeff—”
“She’ll be fine Bree. I have it under control.”
Zen hung up. He told Delanie to have the rest of his day’s schedule canceled, then had Jason Black accompany him to the hospital.
Black was just out of college, low enough on the totem pole that a boring job like escorting the senator seemed exciting. Ordinarily, Zen might have regaled him with stories about how boring the hearing had been, or the New York congressman who was rumored to be sleeping with his campaign coordinator, but he was too focused on Teri to think about any of that. He drove himself — he could never have been patient enough to let someone else take the wheel.