ROGUESTATE, page 32
It took theWild Bunch longer to notice the activity, because they did not have the VISA card numbers. They had not thought to hack further into the Treasury Department’s database. They were temporarily circumspect since thePhreaks dropped the data bomb on their servers. Revenge and anger fueled their efforts to rebuild four of their most able systems and strike back across the electronic battlefield.
Invisible to the computer ghosts marshalling on both sides of the Atlantic were the pair of Iranian minders quietly tracking Parvez. The Bureau might have raised questions about them in calmer times. The Bureau’s major resources were controlled by the SIOC teams still attempting piece together the bombing of theUSS Cole and the terror bombings spreading across Washington’s streets. The country was locked into the aftermath of closest presidential election in a century. The talking heads had dusted off the Constitution to find out what might happen next, and Constitutional law professors pontificated on what the House of Representatives or the Florida legislature might ultimately do.
* * * *
Building 37, USN Atlantic Fleet Combat Training Center
Virginia Beach, Virginia
Ellen and Cecil had been driven to a windowless building festooned with antennae, radar dishes, and signal towers. A modest parking lot sat to one side of the building and a flat sign identified the building as the Integrated Undersea Surveillance System (IUSS).
IUSS was a series of ocean-and shore-based sensor arrays capable of detecting manmade noise at extreme distances. The advent of submarine warfare during World War II and the impact of the German U-Boats on allied shipping demonstrated the need tosee the enemy first. The second half of the twentieth century evolved an ever increasingly sophisticated monitoring system at key locations in the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. Multiple array and signal processors have replaced the original single beam hydrophone systems, and high-speed computer arrays supplanted the old plot boards.
The Sound Surveillance System (SOSUS) is one of several fixed IUSS components. It is a series of large aperture, hydrophone arrays mounted on the continental slope and seamounts at locations where long-range surveillance can be performed with minimal distortion.
Lieutenant Commander Nancy Hoyle met them in the building’s miniscule lobby. She was five-and-half-feet tall, and had dark hair and brilliant brown eyes. She examined their credentials and issued them visitor badges before leading them into the building’s main floor. The room consisted of a series of cubicles and workstations manned by uniformed and contract personnel. At the end of the cubicles was a conference room staffed by Tom Cochran.
“Tom, these people are from the FBI.”
Tom was an angular Texan who abandoned Dallas twenty years ago. He had a solid handshake and nodded. “What exactly are we looking for?”
Nancy closed the door behind them and drew the blinds.
“We suspect a rendezvous took place maybe four or five days ago,” began Ellen.
Cecil walked over to a map of the Atlantic seaboard and rubbed his chin. “We’re guessing it would not have been far from here.” He pointed at the areas beyond Hampton Roads, leading into the Atlantic.
“Smuggling?” queried Tom.
“Maybe,” replied Ellen.
The projection screen replicated Tom’s terminal and a map of Hampton Roads leading into the Atlantic popped up on the screen. “We’ve developed several search profiles over the years, “ he explained. “Most of them have to do with Soviet submarines.”
Cecil looked at the screen as white dots appeared on the ocean blue background.
“The white dots are surface plots, and black is for submerged targets,” said Nancy.
Ellen noted uncomfortably the difference between a plot and a target. She wondered if these people were still fighting the red menace—it was obvious from Cecil’s enraptured face that he was.
“Do you get many Russian submarines?” he asked off handedly.
A carefully groomed mask descended on Lieutenant Commander Hoyle’s features as she said, “I’m afraid I can’t tell you.”
Cecil graced her with a disarming smile. Ellen had learned it was about as harmless as an enraged rattler snake. “Of course,” he answered quietly.
“Most smuggling operations take place beyond the twelve mile limit,” continued Tom smoothly. He decided to ignore Nancy’s nervousness. He chuckled. “They must think we’ll neversee them, but we can hear everything.”
Lieutenant Commander Hoyle bristled at Cochran’s flippant attitude and sat down in one of the chairs huffily. Cecil seemed unperturbed. He only viewed Hyder as a means to his Russian, and he knew he wouldcatch his man. It might be the last thing he ever accomplished as an FBI agent. He no longer cared.
Ellen considered the friction between the naval officer and the contractor. She had three murders on her hands, and the appearance of a plot with global implications. Parvez Hyder was no longer a victim fleeing for his life across country. He had become a predator just as deadly and guilty as the murderer of Hyder’s mother and grandfather.
Cochran said, “These are the tracks from the eighth. Can you tell me a point of origin? We might be able to track things faster.”
Ellen turned to the Texan and said, “One of the boats came from Virginia Beach. I don’t know where the other one came from—or even if there was another.”
Cochran looked at here strangely, shrugged and started typing on his keyboard.
“There was another boat,” said Cecil as he examined the screen over a steeple of fingers. “Hyder would not have stolen theGay Chance unless he had need for a boat.”
Cecil’s certainty unnerved her. Ellen asked, “How do you know?”
Cecil uncoiled from the chair and turned to her. “He’s a soldier, Ellen. He’s been fighting a land war for four or five years now. Probably the most water he saw was when spring melted the snow in the mountains. He needed a boat for a very specific reason. He needed something not readily available and he needed it fast.”
Ellen forgot about Nancy Hoyle and Tom Cochran. “That suggests a support organization, and you said he was Chechen. Cecil, the Chechens are barely hanging on; how could they send someone here?”
Cecil nodded. “Precisely the question. How could the Chechens project power to our shores, and the answer is just as simple—they can’t.”
She shook her head. “You’re talking in circles.”
“Am I?” he asked. The ice blue eyes twinkled knowingly. “The Russians sent a man here to kill him. They believed he could project power here. They’re scared of something, and they don’t want us to know.”
“The Russians have a two-bit navy,” murmured Nancy truculently.
Cecil’s quick eyes found her and asked, “What did you say?”
Nancy Hoyle looked up at Cecil and said, “They have a two-bit navy. The Russians never tell us anything. For example, when theKursk went down they lied to us over and over. We knew better. Those men were dead within hours of the first explosion. The only reason there wasany rescue mission was to protect their technology. They hide things when there is no need to.”
Cecil stared at her like she had just answered the riddle of the sphinx.
Tom Cochran piped up. “I think we have something here.”
Their attention swiveled to the screen. The time was running according to Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) in the top right hand corner. It indicated a little past midnight last Wednesday.
“We have light craft, here.” The pointer danced around a white oval. “This one came out of the Virginia Beach area. What exactly it is, I don’t know. We don’t keep track of small craft like this—although, you might want to check with the DEA.”
Nancy Hoyle rolled her eyes. She did not wantthose cowboys disturbing her carefully ordered world—the FBI was bad enough.
The clock rolled forward a few minutes. A larger oval appeared. The pointer clicked on the second oval and a box identified the blip:
SHIP NAME: Blue Marlin / Cambodian Ship Registry
Built in Holland 1978
LAST PORT OF CALL: Dublin
NOMINAL VESSEL SPEED: 15 Knots
CAPACITY: 400,000 tons
LENGTH: 650 feet
BEAM: 100 feet
ENGINE: 14,000 HP Man
“How do you know?” whispered Cecil.
Tom gave a glance Lieutenant Commander Hoyle’s way, and received a shrug in response. “All ship registries are computerized. We have a blade count and sound signature for every ocean-capable vessel in the world.”
Ellen’s eyes grew a bit larger. “Every vessel?” she whispered.
Tom nodded. “We may lose track of a boat in deep water, but once they come in range of a SOSUS array, we’ve got them. Of course, you have to contend with owners who move their ships around from registry to registry, but once we have a sound signature there’s not much they’re going to do that we won’t know about.”
Cecil turned his chair back to the screen. “You wouldn’t happen to know what she was carrying?”
Tom laughed. “That’s more your department. I can find them and plot them, but I don’t know what they’re carrying.”
Nancy said, “If it is of any help to you, that’s about nine or ten days steaming time from Dublin to Norfolk at fifteen knots.”
Cecil looked across the table to Ellen knowingly. It was another connection through Great Britain, and a very strange pattern was beginning to emerge.
* * * *
Washington, D.C.
Dwayne Morton smiled as he examined the wiring mechanism inside the evidence bag. It was a piece of forensic evidence manufactured by an American corporation. It was evidence they could trace, analyze, and assign to specific times and places.
The blast residue was on its way to the labs, and Dwayne expected to discover the same signature from the other three. The explosive experts told him it was a concoction based most likely on the homemade plastic explosive recipe found inThe Anarchist’s Cookbook .
It caused Dwayne to question whether they were dealing with an amateur who had managed not to blow himself or herself up, or a professional attempting to look like an amateur.
It was turning into a cold windy day. The yellow police tape flickered around the blast site, and the D.C. police had closed off both ends of the street. The fourth estate was pressing in around the edges. They expected him to make a statement. It could have been worse. The national press corps had descended on Florida and Texas. The familiar and famous faces were chasing a story they thought would have finished a week ago. What remained in Washington trailed the Vice President around, waiting for a statement.
Dwayne ignored the opportunity to stand in a hastily-drawn area and behind a platform of clustered microphones. He walked around the broken wreck. He wondered if the bomber was still watching the proceedings, or perhaps, he was channel-surfing, expecting an announcement.
The radio detonator suggested skills beyond the backyard anarchist—a professional. It occurred to Dwayne that Irv Fredricks had been in Minneapolis last month, and he realized the purpose could have only been to recruit or contract a killer. Another circumstantial lead provided by an intelligence system totally inadmissible in a courtroom. Quite suddenly, Dwayne had a renewed purpose as he started back to his car.
Heknew why Irv had gone to Minneapolis. His gut, which he had never relied on before, was bringing him to a revelation. Feldman wanted him to fail, and Cecil had an agenda totally removed from catching the bomber. Rita Mason probably had her eye on Dwayne’s job, and Ellen was chasing her own villains. The Director had given him one hundred agents to find and stop this scourge before someone important got killed. Yet when he asked Feldman to issue a warrant for Irv’s arrest he was stonewalled. No one expected him to succeed in this investigation. In fact, he suspected the top floor at the Hoover Building was quietly relieved that the country was involved in the presidential election disaster. They were gleefully hoping for a constitutional crisis. It would not be the first time the Bureau placed self-interest above national security.
The Bureau frowned on improvisation, and should Feldman realize he had solicited thePhreaks help in nailing Irv, then a new position might open up in Alaska. Dwayne was not even sure thePhreaks existed. They were little more than a shadowy rumor, and the Bureau lived and died on internal legend and lore. Dwayne decided it did not matter. He had the Minneapolis CYCLOPS’ tapes.
He decided he was not pursuing an amateur, but a stone-cold professional capable of killing anyone—a professional, who would not willingly sacrifice his life for a crack-ball ideology. A professional would have demanded money up front, and he would have assessed the risks. He did not have to find the bomber as much as stop Irv and rattle everyone’s cages.
* * * *
Even though it took theWild Bunch longer to process the purchases made by Parvez in Plum Point, Maryland, Eduard Gurov received notification before Ellen and Cecil. It was a risk to receive his intelligence using a cell phone, but safer than exposure on the Internet.
TheWild Bunch had transmitted Cecil Bixby’s “Observe and Report” order in the last email he read. The FSB’s SORM-2 system (System for Operational-Investigative Activities) had a node housed in the Russian Federation’s Embassy. SORM-2 was the Russian version of the Bureau’s CARNIVORE. It was a black box designed to plug into everything from Internet Service Provider servers to cellular packet-switching stations. It enabled the FSB to monitor all digital communications inside the Russian Federation.
Privately, the mole hunters inside the CIA commented on the amazing similarity between SORM-2 and CARNIVORE. It caused more than one counterintelligence officer to wonder if they had spent the last six years pursing the ghosts in the wrong agency. It would be another three months before FBI Special Agent Robert Philip Hanssen would be arrested and charged as a Russian spy.
Regardless of the source, theWild Bunch had successfully penetrated the Defense Department’s and the Bureau’s Internet and email systems. Cecil’s email regarding Gurov was simultaneously routed to a SORM-2 node and the Microsoft Exchange server managing the Bureau’s email system.
TheWild Bunch lifted Cecil’s computerized personnel file and audit logs of his recent activity. According to the current assignment roster, Cecil had been moved to an extremely sensitive case regarding a series of bombings in and around the District. However, the audit logs told a different story. Cecil appeared to have ignored the bombings completely. Instead, he had focused on tracking down Parvez Hyder and pursuing a covert FSB agent.
The still-frame photograph of Eduard exiting the coin exhibit at the Smithsonian Museum caused Gurov’s blood to run cold. Eduard had stared at the photograph in his hotel room for a very long time. According to theWild Bunch , FBI surveillance of Gennadiy Panferkov had been cancelled. TheWild Bunch confirmed that those orders were still current. It meant the photograph had come from a different source, and Cecil might have access to assets beyond the Bureau. It suggested a scenario beyond theWild Bunch ’s reach.
Eduard set about to alter his appearance dramatically. He bleached his hair blond and shaved off his mustache. A different set of glasses sat on either side of his nose, and he sported a ball cap—so very popular with Americans. He changed from polyester and tweed to denim and cotton. His leather shoes were discard in favor of Nike Air Soles. He tucked the Makarov beneath a nylon windbreaker and kept the extra ammunition in the glove box.
He drove away from the District’s ever-busy beltway into the Maryland countryside. He rolled down Maryland State Highway 4 past Dunkirk and Chaneyville to the fork just south of Sunderland where Highways 4 and 2 ran together. He continued towards Huntingtown, watching for the turnoff to Plum Point Road
. In the back of his mind he was conscious of the Patuxent River Naval Air Warfare Center and the difficulty he would have explaining his presence anywhere near a vital military reservation.
The Plum Point Road
eventually looped around to Breezy Point Road
and Ridge Road
. They formed a loose boundary around the villages of Willow Beach Colony, Breezy Point, Plum Point, and Wilson. A series of simple towns formed around summer cottages, fishing, small marinas, and struggling farms. Had it not been for the sign thanking Eduard for visiting Plum Point, he might have missed it all together.
He turned around at Breezy Point and doubled back on Shore Point Road
. It was the same road as Plum Point, but names changed as quickly as the municipal boundaries. He slowed the car to the posted twenty-mile-per-hour limit and rolled down Bay Boulevard
taking in the storefronts. Eduard found a room to rent above one of the shops. It cost him seventy-five dollars a week plus a three-hundred–dollar damage deposit. It did not matter; the room had an unobstructed view of the scant marina and theGay Chance.
Eduard would wait for the Bureau, Parvez, or both.
* * * *
Plum Point, Maryland
The black, Neoprene clad Iranian diver slithered through the evening’s deepening shadows. He left his tanks tied off at the stern ladder, and he carried a watertight bag across the deck before vanishing inside theGay Chance.
The Iranian watcher’s boots left a wet print along his path as he headed for the engine room and the diesel fuel tanks. They feared the possibility of forensic evidence leading back to Parvez Hyder’s, and their fear led them to this desperate measure.
While the Americans had sheepishly produced evidence that Flight TWA 800 was the result of fuel vapors in an empty fuel tank ignited by faulty wiring, the Ayatollah Kambiz Abbasi never believed the officially sanctioned story. Especially since he had had a hand in the downing of Flight 800.
Iran’s Ruling Council had watched the proceedings carefully, and marveled as the Bureau explained away over one hundred eyewitnesses describing a rocket motor’s streak from the Long Island Sound to the sky. Charts were produced, explaining a Stinger missile could not have reached the doomed 747.
Incredibly, the searchers had recovered a spent ejector-motor can from the ocean bottom. It looked remarkably like the primary boost stage for a Stinger—and it should have. The Chinese produced QW-1Vanguard was an improved copy of the Stinger. The QW-1 had an improved range over the original Stinger and the doomed TWA flight came well within the missile’s flight envelope.
