Blood Covenent, page 23
Some solace. The bad guys might blow themselves up waiting for the right opportunity.
“Do you have any idea where Yarovitsin might be?” asked Louis.
Chaim shook his head sadly.
The rest of the meeting wound down with promises to keep each other apprised on new developments.
After escorting Louis to his car, Chaim returned to his office and pulled a second file folder from his desk drawer. It was also labeled Yarovitsin.
He thought for a moment longer before picking up the phone. It was time forThe Guys to write another chapter in Israel’s secret war.
CHAPTER 23
Berlin, Germany
Wednesday, July 14, 1999
1:00 P.M. MESZ
The Hotel Villa Kastania sits just off the Heerstrabe Kaiserdammi between the Autobahn servicing Hamburg, Rostock, and Schwerin, and Hitler’s Olympic Stadium. It is located in Berlin’s Charlottenburg district close to the city center. The Kastania is a forty-three room, five-story white brick building surrounded by chestnut trees.
Louis Edwards sat in the Marron Restaurant’s garden terrace. He fiddled with his silverware and watched the birds perch atop the terrace wall. He considered the fan-folded napkins, and startling white linen cloth. Mister Smith and Mister Jones settled into a pair of tables bracketing Louis. They effectively sectioned off a corner of the terrace. Their eyes constantly examined, identified, and cataloged everyone moving through the area. It was not the type of place where either man enjoyed placing their charge. Things can happen in public places.
Louis moved his napkin and waited.
He saw the form before he recognized the man. Russian generals tend to walk like they are balancing the Urals on their shoulders. Oleksei Kolokol wandered through the crowded interior onto the garden terrace with the grace of a cement mixer. His attendant bodyguards fanned out and made no apologies; after all, they were Russians, and Berlin had been theirs for forty-five years after the war.
Kolokol settled into a chair across from Louis. It was a rare sight to see the commander of Russia Strategic Rocket Forces amble into the Marron Restaurant.
“I wasn’t sure you’d come.”
Kolokol waved a hand and settled himself. His eyes darted from side to side to ensure his own bodyguard took up stations around them.
“I rented the entire terrace,” Louis explained in a soothing voice.
“You were very certain I would come.”
“You sounded very certain that there were no suitcase bombs running about loose, but you and I know differently.”
“So you say.”
Louis sighed. “In this we are on the same side.”
Kolokol grunted. “It is hard to believe an American these days. For years, you told the world NATO was a defensive alliance, and the first time NATO ever acted, it was to invade the sovereign territory of another country. Tell me, was it the Yugo automobile you feared or their aging Soviet equipment?”
Louis did not want to get bogged down in a debate. “General, I can no more control my President than you can yours.”
Kolokol stared through Louis to some hard spot between his shoulder blades. “That is true, but we are both soldiers of a sort, and we will do our master’s bidding.”
“General, last year you came to Washington and testified about Russian compliance with disarmament accords.”
Kolokol gave him a pained expression. “I sat before your senators. I talked with your congressmen and attended the parties I was told to attend. It was a farce.” He spread his hands.
“A farce?” Louis shook his head. “General, you testified that there were no missing weapons. I sent you an email saying there were and I knew where they might be. If I am wrong, why are you here?”
Kolokol swallowed. His eyes darted to and fro. It was a difficult moment as he chose between the obvious course he should take and the subtler one he must follow. There were not many generals left who had faced an enemy in combat. Kolokol faced Afghan rebels in their mountains on their terms. The scars left from molten metal burning though his uniform, and the blood and cries from his own men forced him to rethink his tactics.
Sometime during his first tour, he threw away the Soviet tactical manual and determined for himself how he would keep his head atop his shoulders. His success eventually gave him a red stripe down his trousers. Today, this American who had helped destroy the Soviet Union told him they were on the same side. His brain screamed to walk away and his intuition cautioned him to stay a while longer.
“I am here,” he heard himself saying, “because there are missing weapons. Some were probably prototype and sampling tests.”
“But not all of them,” added Louis quickly.
“No.” He shook his head slowly as if he were unburdening his soul. “But you should know this.”
Louis paused considering his table companion.Why should he know anything? Louis reached into his briefcase and produced theSAMSON folder. He flipped it open to the Energy Department’s photographs. “This is what we are talking about.”
Kolokol pulled the folder across the table. “These pictures are not the ones we took,” he said after a while.
“No, they’re the ones we took.”
Kolokol gave him a puzzled look.
“Before I explain, tell me why I should know about this.”
“A trade?”
“General, I realize you don’t trust me and there’s no reason why you should, butwe have a problem.”
Kolokol shook his head. “You may have a problem, I’m here to listen more than talk.”
Louis sighed again, and asked quietly, “What do you think the American President will do if one of these is detonated on American soil?”
Kolokol remained silent for several moments. Somewhere behind the man-mountain a calculation was being made. Louis had no doubts about the access that Kolokol had to leadership profiles for any potential nuclear adversary. Part of his job was to assess threat potential. The black eyes refocused on Louis, “Are you suggesting this is likely?”
Louis nodded.
“Then we could be facing a catastrophe,” he concluded finally. “Your President is unpredictable in foreign affairs. The only constant is his propensity to launch missiles and bombers.” He examined theSAMSON photographs closer. “Where are these from?”
“You haven’t answered my question yet,” reminded Louis.
He rubbed his chin before deciding the source of the photographs was more important than a secret already shared with the Americans. “The matter of the suitcase bombs is an open secret between our governments.” He studied Louis’s expression. “You’ve been left out of the loop.”
Louis nodded.
“I see. Our Foreign Minister met with your National Security Advisor and reviewed the status of these weapons. We believe 125 were produced, however there may have been as many as 132 for testing purposes and the like. They were built for the KGB, and wepresume they are under KGB control.”
“Presume? Don’t you know?” snapped Louis.
“The weapons were built for the KGB. Somewhere between then and now, the KGB and its successor agencies lost track of the weapons. We know they were placed in secure storage lockers. But we don’t know where or who had access to them.”
“You were kept out of the loop, too,” he concluded.
Kolokol nodded. “So where did these come from?” he pressed, pointing at the photographs.
“These are from two bombs we recovered in the last ten days.”
“Recovered?” he rasped. “Recovered where?”
“New York,” replied Louis. “Perhaps you see whywe have a problem.”
Kolokol grunted. “These are our weapons?”
Louis nodded. “The chemical analysis of the trigger explosive and the fissile materials indicate Soviet origin.” He remained quiet and waited as Kolokol considered the problem.
“You have a solution, perhaps?”
Louis smiled. “I have a name. Obviously, someone has commenced on an extremely foolish venture, General. A Russian nuke taking out part of Manhattan is not my idea of a future I’d care to be part of.”
Louis slid the photograph of Major Yevgeny Yarovitsin toward Kolokol. “This man might have the—”
“I know this man,” spat Kolokol. He leaned back and studied the picture. It made a macabre sort of sense. The man was a whore and pig cavorting about Europe while Russian boys were emasculated in Afghanistan. He never understood how a mere major could command so much. Such men were a disgrace to their rank and their uniform. “Yes, I know this man,” hissed Kolokol. He started to stand—his thoughts racing ahead to Yarovitsin.
“There is one more thing, General.”
“Yes?”
“The bombs—”
“What of them?” He clutched Yevgeny’s photograph in the paw he used for a hand.
“They’re booby trapped. They’re designed to explode before the end of the year.”
Kolokol stared at him and whispered, “Madness.”
* * * *
New York
Michael Rehazi flipped open the Yellow Pages. He turned to FREIGHT, which was between FLORISTS and FUNERALS. The entries were the front and back of the page. He produced a razor blade and sliced the page out of the binding and set the page next to the open phone book.
He walked across the floor, raising dust as he went to the corrugated green door. He rolled it up to uncover the remaining two bombs. He moved the plastic gun case containing the 1911 Springfield and the Taurus .22 on to the floor. Leaning down, he grasped the end handle on the case and pulled it from its storage area into the relatively brighter light offered by some of the windows.
Rehazi flipped open the latches on the case and waited as the hydraulic pumps lifted the lid. The silent steel-canister bomb with the rounded hump on one end lay quietly in its place. He sat up on his knees examining the weapon in the darkness. After a while he reached out and stroked the bomb’s casing. The cold steel met his hand and he closed his eyes. The power lay beneath his fingertips. In this one moment, he could send this portion of Brooklyn spiraling into the sky with a horrendous fireball.
He breathed out slowly and whispered, “Soon.”
Rehazi lowered the lid and walked towards the far room where there was a mirror, light, and complete makeup kit. He decided the first place should see him as an elderly Jewish man sending a trunk to his daughter. It did not matter that the address was another warehouse. The shipping clerk at the freight company would care about weight, distance, and payment. He intended to list the contents as books.
When he was finished, Rehazi wrestled the weapon into an ancient Buick Skylark with a fading metallic-blue paint job. He picked up the paper from the desk and left the pole building. He was almost done in New York. Soon it would be time to move west.
CHAPTER 24
New York
Thursday, July 15, 1999
6:30 P.M. EDT
Larry Wheeler looked across Yankee Stadium’s field. He stood in the shadows of the Yankee dugout. Hung around his neck were his credentials, and beside him were two NYPD SWAT Team members. Their black body armor glistened, the ammunition pouches hung off their belts, and they held their Heckler & Koch MP5 submachine guns slung across their chests. Their police badges were pinned on the side of their belts.
Larry lifted his binoculars to his eyes and examined the base line leading towards the outfield. It was a game hyped as a rematch of the last year’s World Series, and the crowds were expected to be boisterous and large—the perfect combination for someone plotting a little mayhem.
* * * *
He spent the morning in Captain Buford Rodgers’s office. He showed Buford Harvey’s photographs. “We think these men have one of the bombs,” he began.
Buford examined the photos before asking, “Where did these come from?”
“The Bureau,” he lied.
Buford shook his head. “No, these didn’t come the Bureau.” He looked up from the photos. “At least, not the Bureau Feldman is running over there at Federal Plaza. You know, you’re not a very good liar, so where did they come from?”
“My old partner,” he whispered.
Buford chuckled. “That the one parading around in the cowboy boots and driving Feldman up a tree?”
Larry grinned. “Yeah.”
“Don’t care for Feldman yourself, do you? The rumor is Feldman’s afraid to get rid of the cowboy, because he used to be some hot stuff with the Bureau.”
“Harvey’s one of the best.”
Buford nodded. “Loyalty is a good trait, but if he’s so good, what’s he doing checking on buffalo in West Yellowstone?”
“There was a falling out,” suggested Larry. “Harvey got involved in a Chinese thing and it angered the White House. So he took responsibility for the whole thing. Claimed I knew nothing about what happened. We were running a counter-intelligence sting against an agent calledGoldenrod. He was running an agent out of the White House. The agent they were running disappeared one day and Harvey took the heat. He never told me what happened.” Larry paused, examining something between his feet. “One day we’re chasing spies, the next Harvey disappears and I end up getting transferred to the New York office.”
“Sounds like he was banished to me.”
Larry nodded and repeated, “He’s one of the best.”
“These are his pictures?” asked Buford.
“Yes.”
“So why didn’t he take them to Feldman?”
“He did,” admitted Larry. “It was a case ofnot invented here. ”
Buford nodded understanding. “Okay, Agent Wheeler what do you want.”
Larry breathed deeply realizing he was stepping across a line. This was Feldman’s show, and Harvey was brought in for window dressing.But what if Harvey was right? He decided the risks were too great to ignore Harvey’s intuition. “Harvey thinks there will be an attempt over the next three nights to detonate one of these things at Yankee Stadium.”
Buford leaned back in his chair. The wheels squeaked on the chipped linoleum. “That’s quite a theory. Got anything to support it?”
“There was the schedule with today circled,” he said, referring to the Yankee Schedule found in the twin’s van. “The Yankees open a three night home stand today against the Atlanta Braves. A replay of last year’s World Series. Lots of hype and probably lots of people.”
Buford nodded slowly. “But the Yankee schedule didn’t seem to be connected to the actual target. There were all these drawings for the Rockefeller Center; what’s the Yankee schedule got to do with anything?”
It was a reasonable question. “Harvey thinks there are two teams.” Larry explained about the videotapes from the Trump Tower security cameras. He explained Harvey’s accounting for everyone except these last two shooters.
“Two teams?” mused Buford. He sensed where this was going. “That would mean you think there are three bombs.”
“Harvey thinks the Yankee schedule got into their instructions by accident. It makes no sense otherwise. Harvey’s got everyone identified except for these two guys and the guy who killed Jamal a week ago Sunday.”
“Let me get this straight. Your old partner is hanging this entire theory on the basis that something got mixed up when their instructions were put together, and some grainy photos from a security camera. Maybe these two wanted to take in a baseball game.” Buford shook his head. “That’s pretty thin don’t you think?”
“You sound like Feldman. I mean, we have a piece of evidence that doesn’t fit into his tidy view of the world. Harvey specialized in picking his way through inconvenient pieces of evidence,” replied Larry.
Buford leaned forward examining the photographs again. It sounded like basic police work. “He did this on his own?”
“Feldman doesn’t care what he does as long as he doesn’t get in the way.”
“As long as he doesn’t upstage Feldman,” finished Buford.
Larry nodded.
“You’ve stepped over the line haven’t you?”
“Yeah.”
“You realize you’re putting your butt on the line here. I can deploy my men without any overriding authority, but Feldman will hear about this little dance. He’s talking with everyone three times a day,” warned Buford.
“Driving you a little nuts?” asked Larry.
“Yeah, you could say that.” Buford smiled again. “You need firepower to pull this off, because you can’t convince Feldman this is a real threat. Therefore, the vaunted Hostage Rescue Team won’t show up, because that road runs through Feldman.”
“You understand completely.” Another case of the Feds versus the locals.
Buford wondered about Wheeler. The kid had guts. He stayed in the room with Eddie and defused the first bomb. It took a different kind of courage to show up at his office ready to beg. He was putting his career on the line.
“Do you think your old partner is right?”
“Like I said, Harvey’s one of the best. He figures things out. Sometimes he treads where he shouldn’t and gets himself in trouble,” explained Larry.
“That’s not what I asked you. I asked you if you think Harvey is right?”
Larry fixed Buford with a glare and answered, “Yes.”
* * * *
Harvey Randall sat in the bleacher seats next to the big scoreboard behind center field. He sat in the top row examining the crowd. Not too many people were gathering in this section of the stadium. He had listened to Larry’s excited voice on the phone this afternoon. The kid had taken a tough path. Now, he wondered whether it would be better to be right or wrong.
Harvey made a second phone call to a number he had used twenty months ago. After a series of clicks and snaps, Louis Edwards answered the phone. Harvey explained what he needed. Louis sent him his less-than-tame wolf. Jim Harper was on the other side of the scoreboard. Harper was a dangerous commodity. The very fact that Louis released Harper into a domestic terrorism situation underscored the seriousness Edwards attached to the crisis. The image of the twins still warm on the marble floor with carefully placed double taps came to mind. Not many people confronted two rifle-toting terrorists with only a handgun and lived to talk about it. He had seen Harper’s work before. There was a primitive element to the man, and Harvey was hesitant to admit it, but he believed he was a little bit afraid.
