ROGUESTATE, page 33
Abbasi believe someone inside the American intelligence community knew the truth, but bowed to the White House’s predictable political judgment. Clinton had proved several times he had no stomach to confront an enemy that could conceivably do him serious harm. Iran had quietly gathered an impressive array of weapons over the previous ten years—weapons capable of striking across the pitifully slim distances of the Persian Gulf and harming one of America’s precious carriers.
The quandary over the presidential elections gave Abbasi pause. Most analysts predicted a continuation of Clinton’s policies—particularly in the foreign policy arena by Vice President Gore. However, Governor Bush was a different matter. After all, his father had sent the armed might of the United States against Iraq in 1991, and Iraq had possessed the fourth largest tank army in the world at that time. Bush devastated Hussein’s armies with massive amounts of American airpower and a warrior spirit that demonstrated the vital nature oil held for the Western powers.
If Governor Bush prevailed in Florida, Abbasi and others might face an American President willing to abandon the meals-on-wheels military and return to posture of overwhelming firepower reserved for her enemies. Abbasi did not wish to place himself or Iran in the crosshairs of an angry American president.
The diver unfolded a series of shaped charges connected to a sophisticated radio-controlled remote detonator. He fastened the charges to explode into the fuel tanks and upwards through the deck. The super-heated copper cores from the shaped charges would ignite the diesel fuel and create a window-shattering fireball. It was the same charge they had used on theKursk.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
Palm Beach, Florida,AP,November 13, 2000 –The Florida recount is producing new votes, and most of those appear headed for Vice President Gore’s column. Republican activists accuse election judges of flexing, bending, twisting and manipulating the punch card ballots in such a manner as to pop off chads.
Chads are the tiny specks of paper that cover the holes in a punch card ballot. When a counter sees more than one hole, the process shifts from an objective count to a partisan argument over legal votes.
Republicans charge mishandled ballots and democrats counter with voter intent. The only certainty in this process is that Governor Bush’s lead continues to evaporate as the recount discovers more votes for Vice President Gore.
Crystal City, Virginia
Tuesday, November 14, 2000
1:00 P.M. EST
Louis Edwards scowled menacingly as he walked around the conference table. In his hands, he had a report filed by the CIA’s Inspector General’s office. The documents at the head of the table where he was seated were an action authorization order signed by the DDO (Deputy Director of Operations); a cleanup request issued by Jonas last weekend; an inventory of dead people, weapons, and materials retrieved from the cleanup site; and a terse note from the IG.
Harvey Randall, Brian Stillwell, Mark Schaeffer, and Jonas Benjamin watched the aging spymaster circle the table. They each had a copy of the documents. The problem with surveillance is it can become bi-directional. The National Security Agency had a record of Jonas using aPredator squadron over the last two weeks; phone intercepts remained imaged on hard disks or CD-ROM towers, computerized logs were buried in multiple directories, and the most damning evidence was the transcripts from Bridger’s phone calls.
Louis folded his hands behind his back and breathed out slowly. He had already counted to ten—a couple of times. The inside of his cheek was bitten raw and the coppery blood taste mingled into a foul soup. The second half of 2000 had not been kind to Louis. Simultaneously the Taiwan Strait and the Panama Canal erupted in war and near war.
He had just recovered Jonas and nearly lost Harper, only to acquire an equally vexing problem calledSpanish Poppy. He had effectively forgotten about Damon Layne, and the possibility of a rogue agency inside the company—not exactly traitors, but certainly not patriots. Over the last ten years—during the peace—he had grudgingly accepted that there was little he could about Layne.
Of course, it all began to shrivel like hot flames on rice paper when Harper tripped over Layne in Panama, and Harvey shot it out in Baltimore. Louis still was able to manage the problem. No one else really knew of Layne’s complicity inGoldenrod ’s operation besides Harvey. Certainly, the Bureau and the Company did not have the complete picture, and Louis was disinclined to paint them an accurate portrait.
It did not help for Harper to end up bringing Conner Fadden to the exit point in northern Panama. Conner Fadden held too many secrets and private guilt to have been permitted access to the country, but it was a decision beyond recovery.
Bridger posed a more dangerous problem. Louis could arrange for Bridger’s outright death, but dead people occasionally raise more questions than they bury. Bridger certainly fit that profile. There were equivalent risks in permitting him to continue his current activities. The only solace Louis took was the fact Bridger did not realize he had attracted the old spymaster’s attention. Perhaps they could avoid an uncomfortable meeting by one of them simply moving in a slightly different direction.
Louis was not even involved in an active operation. He had lost two men—Darby Hayes and Conner Fadden—and Harper was missing. Lois should have realized the potential firestorm when Darby died. He had been through this once before with Harper after Jerry’s untimely death in Iraq. Harper went after Kurt Martin—Darby’s murderer. Presumably he had found the man, although none of the documents revealed that to be the case.
He wondered as he began how many lies he would hear today. “I thought I told you to drop this matter,” he began.
Jonas glanced up from his hands and explained, “We did. But we were still searching for Conner Fadden.”
Louis nodded slowly as he took a seat. The reports simply stated Conner was dead. The cleanup report did not identify him as one of the casualties.
“So what happened to his body?” asked Jonas.
Harvey shrugged.
Louis sighed and leaned forward. “Dead people don’t get up and walk away.”
Mark Schaeffer interceded, asking, “Are you going to charge these guys with something?”
Louis cast him a disparaging glance and said dismissively, “Don’t be ridiculous.”
“Perhaps, we should just let things lie,” suggested Brian.
Louis focused on the defense analyst. They were sitting in Brian’s conference room that was basically funded by the intelligence community and Defense Department. “I wish this mess had never happened, but you know as well as I do we have a couple of loose ends. I have an IG memo demanding to know the disposition of operations inside the country.”
Mark nodded in agreement, but the rest of them responded with stone-faced silence. Louis watched the four of them and asked, “Any idea what happened to Kurt Martin?”
Stillwell resisted the urge to roll his eyes. Kurt Martin was under heavy sedation chained to a hospital bed in his house. Harvey came up with the doctor. No one probed too deeply on where he found a doctor willing to dispense drugs, set bones, and tend knife wounds, and not report the incident. Harvey had hired two private security guards to keep Kurt Martin in one place.
“Haven’t a clue,” answered Harvey blandly.
Lois did not believe the hefty ex-FBI agent, and he suspected they all knew Kurt Martin’s location. “How about Harper?”
Jonas sighed. “Jim is missing—I don’t know where he is.”
“Maybe he has found Kurt Martin,” suggested Louis. It was the logical conclusion.
“I doubt it, “ murmured Mark.
“Why is that?” queried Louis.
Mark rubbed his hands together, “It seems we would have found a body, or someone would have tripped over a body.”
Louis nodded and returned to the problem of Conner Fadden’s missing remains. “We appear to have a problem with missing bodies.”
Harvey nodded uncomfortably.
“Let’s face it—your Harper is a psychopath who probably should be locked up in a rubber room somewhere,” said Mark caustically.
Louis understood the sentiment and quietly replied, “He’sour psychopath, and the last thing that I want to have happen is for him to be locked up.”
Mark shook his head. “I’ve heard it all. I heard it from Darby Hayes and Jonas and Stillwell—about how spectacular this guy is. The problem is he came unhinged when Hayes got killed, and none of us knows where he is.”
Louis sighed and gathered his papers up. “Then I suggest you find him,” replied Louis.
“How?” protested Jonas.
Louis raised a hand to cut off debate. “Let me make something clear. We have no juice with the administration, and we certainly have no standing with either the Gore or Bush campaigns. I don’t know what game you folks think you’re playing, but it would be best if you didn’t get caught. If you do get caught, we’re all basically dog meat.”
He stood and concluded, “It would be best if you never went close to Adrian Bridger again. Wherever you’ve squirreled Kurt Martin away to, it might be time to consider what you’re going to do with him.” He let his eyes play across the four men and said, “I don’t think any of you have the stomach for what probably needs to happen. As for Harper, if he is not after Kurt Martin, then he’s probably hunting Damon Layne. Layne is the one person we never want to explain to anyone—ever.”
“But I need Layne for the legal case you have me working on,” said Mark.
Louis fixed the lawyer with a tired glare. “If you find Layne, we aren’t destined for a court of law, but a cold, icy grave twenty miles past the continental shelf. We’re way beyond the law now.”
* * * *
Washington D.C.
Damon Layne keyed the security code and slipped inside the Georgetown brownstone. He closed the front door behind him and stepped quickly down the wooden stairs leading to the cellar. A second solid steel door greeted him and Damon tapped in another code.
The second door yielded to an air-conditioned, humidity-controlled stainless steel room. It was an anachronism from the Cold War when covert operations were conducted against foreign embassies. It was a mentality that stretched back to the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) and Wild Bill Donovan. While the OSS metastasized into the CIA—a bureaucracy employing thousands around the world—the covert and secretive nature remained.
Damon ran his hand over the rack of Heckler & Koch MP-10 submachine guns, and quietly he lifted one of the .45 SOCOM pistols from its holding peg. He gathered a silencer and four magazines in his canvas bag. He moved across the room to a green cabinet. The doors had a government hazardous materials symbol on the outside. Damon doubted the Company had ever brought an OSHA inspector to evaluate their hazmat procedures. He grabbed a pack of pencil mercury detonators, three radio controllers, and ten pounds of C4 plastic explosives.
He hefted the canvas bag and closed the door. He had spent less than five minutes inside the Company safe house.
* * * *
New York City
Adrian Bridger had moved to his Manhattan office after the deadly Saturday night at his Long Island home. He sent three of his defense lawyers to manage the clean up of his property and the destruction of evidence. Considering his other activities, the last thing Bridger needed was a lot of questions about dead bodies, bullet holes, and explosions all over his property.
However, morning brought a curious circumstance. With the exception of the blown power transformer, the dead people he expected to find were missing. The anticipated police inquiry never happened. In fact, everyone except for the repair technicians who arrived with a new transformer studiously ignored the entire incident. The absence of any official investigation caused him to worry even more. He wondered if had inadvertently stumbled over his past and the very dangerous people he had dealt with during the eighties and nineties.
Bridger decided the fortieth floor in his Manhattan office was safer than any home on Long Island. He surrounded himself with armed rent-a-cops, and he kept a loaded revolver on his desk. The windows in office were going to be replaced by bulletproof glass. He left the bullet holes in his desk as a reminder of the dangerous waters he traveled.
He placed Saturday night’s massacre in the back of his mind as events in Florida spun out of control. He had twenty lawyers researching challenges to a state’s elector slate. If the county boards in Broward, Dade, and Palm Beach failed to produce enough votes to push the Vice President across the finish line, then they would need to mount an effective legal challenge. It was becoming difficult to maneuver under the intense media scrutiny. He had already rejected any plans to blackmail various Florida judges—the risks simply outweighed the benefits.
His desk was a battleground of blinking phones, computer terminals, and reports. A Florida map adorned one wall and photographs of the players were gradually obscuring another wall. He had successfully seeded stories about uncounted votes and invalid ballots throughout the ravenous media. His next target was the Florida Secretary of State, Katherine Harris. He intended to make it seem totally unreasonable for her to follow Florida’s election law.
He was understandably surprised when one of his armed guards stumbled backwards through his office door fending off a clipboard jammed in his face and blood spurting from a smashed nose. A New York City fire inspector followed the cartwheeling rent-a-cop into the office and quietly closed the door.
Bridger might have had a revolver on his desk, but he was a man of letters more accustomed to verbally cutting the ground from beneath a legal opponent’s feet than actually watching the hard earth explode. The fire inspector gave him a perplexed glance as he pulled the security man to his feet and relieved him of his Beretta 92F pistol.
“Never had much use for this kind of weapon,” explained the inspector.
Bridger cast about on his desk, searching for his revolver.
Everyone heard the Beretta’s hammer as it was thumbed back and the safety slipped away from above the red fire dot. “Don’t.”
Bridger’s eyes focused on the round dark muzzle.
Harper pushed the sniffling rent-a-cop towards a corner and said quietly, “No one gets hurt as long as you cooperate.”
Bridger inched his hand towards the security alarm, but Harper added menacingly, “Touch the button and I’ll put a hole between your eyes.” A smiled played over his lips, “Your choice Mister Bridger.”
Bridger’s hand froze.
“I want you to back away from the desk and stand up,” continued Harper. “But do it kind of slow.”
Bridger did as he was told. His eyes strayed towards the revolver hidden beneath a stack of reports.
Harper fished out a pair of plastic restraints and dropped them on the floor between him and the rent-a-cop. “Put those on Mister Bridger, and do a good job—we wouldn’t want anyone taking flying lessons off the fortieth floor today.”
The rent-a-cop wiped a bloody smear across the back of his sleeve and reached towards the plastic restraints. His head was buzzing from the blow he had just received.
“Who are you?” demanded Bridger.
Harper often wondered the same thing, but he answered, “A nightmare come to visit.”
The plastic cuffs tightened on Bridger’s wrists. His eyes never left the revolver resting on his desk, but nothing prevented his rent-a-cop from moving him around the desk at Harper’s direction. Once Harper had Bridger seated in a chair jammed against the office door and the rent-a-cop sitting on his hands in the corner next to Bridger, Harper settled into Bridger’s desk chair. He uncovered the revolver and shook his head sadly.
“Were you expecting someone?” asked Harper. He flipped open the cylinder and let the cartridges spill across the desk. “Forty-four magnum—maybe Dirty Harry?”
Bridger glowered at Harper.
Harper examined the reports and noted the Florida map on the wall. “A busy man like you appreciates the value of time,” continued Harper. “So I don’t expect you to waste mine.”
“What do you want?” snarled Bridger.
“Damon Layne,” replied the warrior.
Bridger shook his head. “I don’t know anything about Damon Layne. You must be mistaken.”
Harper smiled laconically. It did little to hide the rage boiling behind his eyes. “You hired a man named Kurt Martin.”
Bridger pressed his lips together and waited.
Harper tossed the empty revolver across the room and examined his prey. “Kurt Martin probably won’t be bothering anyone again, but before he finished his business he killed my sergeant.”
“What has that to do with me?” shot back Bridger.
“My sergeant is dead,” whispered Harper.
“Well that’s really too bad,” hissed an incensed Bridger.
Harper rose from behind Bridger’s desk. “You employed Martin to kill Conner Fadden; that makes you responsible for my sergeant’s death.”
Bridger fumed and tugged at his bonds. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Harper moved around the desk and said, “I wonder what you fear most—physical harm or exposure.” He nodded to the Florida map. “You’ve been working very hard at stealing an election, Mister Bridger.”
“I am working on behalf of the Vice President’s legal team—”
“You’ve been stealing votes,” snarled Harper. He pulled a micro cassette recorder from his trouser pocket.
Bridger’s eyes fastened on the recorder.
“Tape recordings of your phone conversations—although, I’m not sure who I would give them to. The Justice Department hasn’t exactly enforced the law lately.” Harper looked towards the windows and said, “Maybe we should see if you can fly. Forty floors would do nicely. Plenty of nice soft air before you hit the really hard pavement. More than enough room to see if a worm can sprout wings.” He dropped the micro cassette recorder back into his pocket. The tape was blank, but the threat had been enough.
