by Brad Taylor
Standish paused, realizing he was thinking about the slaughter of untold innocent civilians, not simply numbers in a news report. He pondered the cost and benefits. He decided the deaths were necessary. Great leaders throughout history have had to make hard choices such as this. He knew that Truman himself had made the decision to drop the atomic bomb based on this very same principle. Hundreds of thousands of Japanese civilians killed to save millions of Americans. This is no different. There’s a greater good here. He, of course, would need to go on vacation for about a month to ensure he was out of the blast radius, should Washington be in the crosshairs. This town could stand to lose a little deadweight anyway.
He called his in-staff intelligence officer and asked him to run down any “chatter” on terrorist threats within the last three days involving the words Israel, WMD, Iran, and poison weapons. Within thirty minutes, the man arrived with fourteen NSA reports that had some tangential relationship to the search criteria. Most were clearly not what Standish was looking for, only detailing vague information of little value. Using the Prometheus cable, he necked down the reports until he found a NSA cut describing a WMD attack against Israel. He didn’t have the background in terrorism to understand the reference to the far enemy, and was unsure why the intercept mentioned the historical state of Persia instead of the modern nomenclature of Iran, but since this was the only bit of intelligence that talked of pushing the Zionists into the sea via a single weapon — something that anyone could understand — he honed in on it, noting the reference to something called Operation Badr. He was pleased to see the intel was raw, meaning nobody had analyzed it yet, and thus nobody knew it existed.
“Ken, run a search on Operation Badr. Bring me what you find immediately.”
Five minutes later Ken returned with a single message. “This is the only thing that’s come in with those search terms.”
Standish read the report, which simply said that Operation Badr was progressing and that a device had been tested successfully. He connected the dots. “Okay, do an open-source search on anything strange happening in Belize. Focus on a group of unexplained deaths. See if anyone in the press has reported anything like that.”
After another wait, Ken returned, saying, “There was nothing in Belize. The only thing I could find was a bus crash on the border, but it was on the Guatemalan side.”
“What’s so fucking strange about that? I told you unexplained deaths.”
“Well, everyone on the bus died, but nobody died from the crash.” He handed the press report to Standish. “Apparently, they all died of some strange illness.”
Standish read the news report and smiled. The weapon’s real. “Ken, I want you to destroy any mention of these two intercepts about Operation Badr. Figure out who else got them, and erase them. Do it without their knowledge. Those reports never existed. Understand?”
Ken, a sycophant cut from Standish’s mold, didn’t question the directive. “Easy enough. I’ll do it as soon as I get back to my office.”
“Good. In addition, I got a cable from Belize today. Rescind that cable as well. Ensure it also doesn’t exist.” He gave the intelligence officer the cable cite number.
Ken asked, “What about the station in Belize? Won’t they ask why it was rescinded?”
“I’ll handle the station when they come in to work tomorrow. Just get rid of the cable right now.”
“Okay — I’m on it.”
Standish reflected on what he knew. On the one hand, it was a golden opportunity to accomplish exactly what he believed was necessary. On the other, while not out of control yet, it was an opportunity that had quite a few leaks. He had managed to stop the raw intel from being spread but couldn’t be sure about the Prometheus cable. If that thing’s not rescinded in time, I’ll never be able to deny I knew about it. Luckily, it had come from Belize. CTC would probably shunt that cable to the back of the pack, focusing on Pakistan, Iran, and whatever else was brewing right now. They won’t give a shit one way or another about a rescinded cable from Central America.
His primary problem was the Taskforce. They would get the Prometheus alert and would act on it. He had to shut them down right away. There was no love lost between himself and the unit, but they would listen to him, since they were still on shaky ground and couldn’t afford an enemy of his stature. He could bring them down with a well-placed leak, and they knew it.
He called the Taskforce duty officer, went secure on his STE telephone, identified himself, and asked if the unit was planning any new movement in the next twenty-four hours.
On the other end, the duty officer Mike, knowing who it was, stated no. He didn’t literally lie, as his bosses were traveling true-name as part of their true affiliation — Kurt as a member of J3 SOD, and George as a TDY member of the Office of Southern Hemispheric Relations — thus they weren’t traveling under any of the covers used by the Taskforce. His answer was technically correct — there was no Taskforce movement. Standish next asked to speak to the commander and was told that he was out.
Standish hung up after leaving a message for Kurt to call first thing in the morning. He was satisfied that he was good for the time being. The cap was in place.
55
I woke up to the phone ringing, answered and perked up, replying quickly and ending the call. I saw that Jennifer was awake and leaning on an elbow, wearing a cheap tourist T-shirt with her hair sticking out all over the place, making me grin. Rubbing her eyes, she asked who was on the phone.
“It was the embassy. They want to see us at ten o’clock. The cable must have worked, because we’ve been invited behind the green curtain. We get to talk to the wizard.”
Waking up fast, Jennifer tried to brush her hair in place, asking, “What’s that mean? Who’d you talk to?”
“That was the asshole Eric.” Shit… Be nice… “Sorry. That was the nice man from the embassy, Eric. He asked us to come back.”
“That’s good news, isn’t it? Do we need to do anything before we go?”
“No. I’m not sure what the cable caused. We’ll just see how it goes. Either way, we got some action, so that’s good.”
She looked at me like I was hiding something, and I was, but she let it go. “Okay, Jason Bourne, I’ll follow your lead.”
When we got to the embassy, even I was surprised at who was waiting.
* * *
Standish called the Taskforce first thing in the morning, early enough to get Mike before his twenty-four-hour shift as the duty officer was over. Going secure on his STE, Standish asked to speak to Colonel Hale.
“Sir, he’s gone TDY this morning.”
“What? I thought you told me last night that he was out with his wife. Where is he?”
“Sir, he was out with his wife last night. Today he left.”
Who does he think he’s talking to? “Tell me where he is right this minute.”
“Sir, I can’t give you that information on this phone.”
Standish was on the verge of frothing at the mouth. “I’m on a fucking secure line. You will tell me where he is, right this minute. Do you understand me? Is that clear?”
“Sir, I’m not trying to be difficult, but I must follow security procedures. Colonel Hale’s location is top secret. Your phone is only certified up to secret message traffic. I’m not allowed to tell you his location on this line. Not my rule.”
Standish realized he was done. The STE secure phone was only certified by the NSA to pass information up to the secret level. He couldn’t order the man to break classification rules, since he would be on record violating the safeguard of national secrets. He also knew that he was being stiff-armed on purpose by the duty officer, but couldn’t fight it. At least not right now. You mess with the bull, you get the horns.
“Listen to me Mr. Duty Officer. Pick up a fucking pen. Write this down. I want Kurt Hale and George Wolffe in my office within twenty-four hours or I will go to the president and have all unit operations canceled pending an investigat
ion of improper actions. Is that understood?”
“Yes, sir. I have it.”
“Don’t test me on this. If you value your mission, you won’t push me. I will see Hale and Wolffe or you’ll cease operations.”
Standish slammed the phone down. When I get control of that unit, he’ll be out greeting people at Walmart.
Done with the Taskforce, he turned his attention to the next problem: dealing with the CIA station in Belize. He couldn’t call the station directly because they weren’t in his chain of command and wouldn’t have a clue who he was. He would have to do it through the Latin America Division in the headquarters at Langley. Luckily, he knew the chief of LA and could use him to clamp down on Belize. All he had to do was control the conversation correctly. Satisfied with his strategy, he picked up the phone and dialed the chief of LA on his gray line, a direct secure connection into the CIA.
56
“Holy shit! What’re you doing down here?” I said.
After giving me a handshake and an embrace, Kurt verbally poked me, saying, “Well, I’ve got nothing better to do than chase phantom Prometheus cables. It’s what I do on my off-time.”
I got out, “Sir—” before he cut me off with a hand.
“Just kidding. How’re you doing?”
I figured the question held more than it seemed, and that he wasn’t asking how I was doing this morning. I answered truthfully, “Well, honestly, sir, I’m doing better now than I was a week ago.”
“Still blocking punches with your face, huh?”
I smiled and touched the cut above my eye. “Long story, sir.” Turning to Jennifer, I continued. “This is Jennifer Cahill. She’s the reason I’m down here, and also the one who figured out what’s going on.”
He greeted Jennifer politely, then said, “Okay, how about letting me in on the secret.”
I laid out the whole story, with the exception of the discovery of the e-mail addresses. After the bullshit shenanigans, I didn’t trust Eric as far as I could throw him. There was no telling what the station here would do with that information.
After about an hour of give and take, Kurt got to the bottom line. “Given your lack of ability to do anything, I get the Prometheus alert, but, really, is there any proof that such a weapon exists? What do you want me to do now?”
I had known that was coming and, in reality, agreed with his skepticism. “Sir, I’m with you. I’ve been struggling with the whole Mayan WMD thing since this started. Whether that weapon is real or not is an open question. In my mind, what’s not a question is that two intelligent terrorists with multiple passports believe it’s there, and are trying to get it to kill as many people as possible.”
“Okay. I can see that. Sounds like something that’s happening all over the world every five seconds. Why bring us in? You know this isn’t what we do.”
“I didn’t intend for you guys to fly down here to see me. I just wanted to talk to the chief of station. Sorry, but I played the only card I had. I think someone needs to check this out, to see if something strange happened on an expedition in the Petén region. If not, no harm. If so, investigate further.”
Kurt looked at Eric, who said, “That makes sense to me. It’s very little work to run this to ground. I’ll give the station in Guatemala a call and have them check it out.”
Kurt thanked him for the support, then asked George if there was anything else they were missing.
George said, “No, Pike’s right. Let the station get some assets on the ground. We’ll figure this out pretty quickly.”
Satisfied, Kurt wrapped up the meeting. He told us to come on back at nine the next morning to see where we stood. I walked with him out the door, stopping to allow him to retrieve his cell phone from the cubicles outside the station spaces. Since the cell phones could be used as eavesdropping devices, they weren’t allowed inside any secure government facility.
Turning on his phone, Kurt said, “Well, I’m not going to blow smoke up your ass. I don’t think there’s much chance of some secret Mayan weapon being out there, but since we’re here, might as well play the hand. No harm done by poking around a little bit.”
He stopped when his phone chirped. “Jesus. I got six calls while I was inside there.”
He closed the phone. “Let’s get some dinner tonight. I’m sure you’ve got some things you want to tell me that you didn’t want to say in there.”
Smart man. “You read my mind. I held some cards back. There’s a great little fish stand near our hotel. Give me a call at the hotel when you’re ready to go.”
I watched him walk off, dialing his phone.
* * *
Inside the station, Eric finished his coordination with his compatriots in Guatemala to check out Pike’s story. Talking to the deputy, he was disappointed to hear that it would be a couple of days before they could get on the ground at Flores, but was satisfied when he said they could make some calls to contacts up there for an initial snapshot. Eric thanked him, asking him to call back tomorrow at eight A.M. with any results, and hung up.
The phone rang with his hand still on it, startling him. Picking it back up, he was startled again when he found out that the chief of the Latin America division was giving him a personal call from Langley. Listening intently, he began to take notes.
* * *
When Jennifer and I got back to our room, I noticed the red light blinking on our old-fashioned phone. Jennifer went to the bathroom, leaving me to get the message.
Coming back out, she asked, “Who was that? Kurt? Is he going to take us out to a nice dinner instead of the taco stand?”
“I wish. Kurt’s been called back to D.C. Something important came up, and he’s got to get back immediately. He said to send him a message through Eric, and he’d take it from there.”
“Well, he seemed like a pretty busy guy. I’m surprised he even flew down.”
She could see that I was disappointed, and tried to make a joke. “He clearly knew better than to mess with you. I’m sure if you send another cable, he’ll do something with it. Maybe you should tell him to meet us in the Caribbean, and that he needs to give us some tickets to get there.”
“He’ll do something with it, but cables are never as good as face-to-face. Whatever called him back will take front seat. It’ll be hard to pry him away from that now.”
I was surprised at the level of my disappointment, and wondered if I was more upset at our theories taking a backseat to something else, or that this adventure was drawing to a close. I hadn’t realized how much I had wanted to go to that meeting tomorrow, and to continue on with this excursion. I think in my heart I was hoping Kurt would take me with him to figure out what was going on. What a fantasy.
I said, “Let’s go get a flight out of here for tomorrow. No sense hanging around here now. Whatever we find out at the meeting tomorrow morning, the rest of this will be in someone else’s hands.”
“That sounds good to me. I’m ready to get back to my simple college life.”
Her words gave me another kick in the gut. I hear you. Boy, am I ever ready to get back to being a worthless fucking bum. Once we left the embassy tomorrow, she would go back to her life and I’d go back to mine. All I had to look forward to was waking up in a rage every morning. I could already feel my self-worth eroding. The thought was depressing and must have showed on my face.
“What’s wrong? Are you really that worried about the cable doing nothing? I thought Kurt was the Wizard of Oz.”
I lied, “Yeah, I’m worried about the cable. You’re probably right, though. No sense in crying over it now. Let’s see what happens tomorrow. Come on. I’d like to get a plane that doesn’t allow goats in the aisle.”
* * *
“Palmer,” President Warren said, “can you hang on a second?”
Alexander Palmer stopped at the door to the Oval Office, letting the other members of the president’s national security team leave.
“Sure, sir. What’s up?”
&nb
sp; Warren stood up and leaned against his desk. “The Taskforce got a Prometheus alert, but I never saw it.”
“Oh, yeah. Standish told me about it. He’s run it to ground already. Some sort of misfire. It wasn’t Prometheus material. Sorry if I didn’t bring it to your attention, but it was nothing.”
“What do you think about him?”
“Standish? Ahh… I think if he wasn’t around you wouldn’t be president, but he’s not really giving us much in the administration. He’s just taking up space on the NSC. Is that what you mean?”
Warren had been thinking about what Kurt had said months ago. About some unknown terrorist with the skill and patience to really do some damage. The thought scared him. As president, he’d created the Project Prometheus at significant risk and let them run at full throttle. He had thought they were winning, that the risk had been worth every penny. But the commander didn’t. Kurt thought they had just been lucky — as if the Taskforce was no match for a smart terrorist, and that that man was out there right now, planning. The revelation had caused him to lose sleep.
President Warrant was a political infighter. A winner. He took no quarter and wasn’t above dirty tricks to win — just like every other politician at this level. He had a lot on his plate — the economy, global trade issues, the constant bickering between parties — but only one issue really scared him: the loss of American lives because of something he had failed to do. And not in a political way either. It scared him in a personal way. He couldn’t imagine being president on 9/11, watching the bodies fall from the burning towers. It was the one issue where politics had no business. And probably the one thing that allowed him to relate to Kurt Hale. Everything else he did in the name of democracy would make Hale’s stomach turn.