Blood Covenent, page 41
“Do you know this man?”
Yevgeny leaned forward. He recognized the cockiness in the photographs from the time he met Rehazi in Switzerland.
“I’m surprised you don’t know your own man,” Yevgeny mused.
A cold spot formed in Louis’s chest.
“He is most recently known asthe Terror of Tehran. He works for theKhat-e Emami faction in Iran. I’m sure he would have told you the same thing, if he had the chance.” Yevgeny focused on the glazed black fish eyes staring up from the table. “Before that he worked for the Shah’s SAVAK and learned to fly fighter planes at your Top Gun school. You know as well as I do fingerprints can be altered. I believe he graduated from Princeton, I’m sure if you went through their year books you would find him.”
Yevgeny smiled. “Considering what has transpired in the last several weeks, what do you plan to do with the information? Start a war?” He laughed out loud, “Oh, but that was spring’s tactic.” The taunt regarding NATO’s American-led Kosovo bombing campaign left a sour taste in Louis’s mouth.
Louis sampled one of the shrimp from an appetizer tray. “I have a man who works for me.” He savored the taste of the shrimp on his tongue. “Once upon a time, he entered a place called Arzamas-16 and came out with a man and his family. He is the same man I sent after yourTerror of Tehran. I believe you were connected with security at Arzamas-16 for a period of time. I certainly could send him to visit you as well,” Louis concluded.
Yevgeny examined the last set of photos on the table.Harlequin’s shattered features cried out from the grave.
“I would find itdisturbing to read such things in the newspapers. This is a story best left between the three of us,” Louis concluded.
Louis gathered the photographs back into the file folder and slipped it into the valise. He finished his shrimp cocktail, took a sip of water, and stood up from the table. “General, maybe another time.”
Kolokol nodded and watched Louis’s retreating back. “I hope you told him the truth.”
Yevgeny grunted and held up his wrist to Kolokol. The general examined the former KGB officer and scowled. He stood up from the table as well. “Maybe you should call a locksmith, Major. A man with your resources can afford it.”
Kolokol walked across the terrace. His squad of bodyguards gathered around him. He left Yevgeny chained to the table and chair with the tab. After all, Kolokol had rented the entire outside terrace as well.
* * * *
Mister Smith and Mister Jones hustled Louis into a waiting Mercedes armored limousine. His minders did not appreciate the heavy, almost Cold War presence of Russian bodyguards surrounding Kolokol. Nor did they approve of the handcuffed man at the table. They had circled one another like hungry sharks considering where to take the next nibble. The evidence of concealed short-stocked weapons, hand grenades, and the constant radio chatter suggested the extreme nature placed on the meeting. Kolokol’s bodyguards were just as nervous about their charge as Smith and Jones were regarding Louis.
The limousine headed directly for the Autobahn. Technically, Louis never left the United States for this meeting. The White House had issued an edict banning any further unapproved contacts between intelligence officers and Russian military personnel. The violence plaguing Kosovo and Serbia, the unannounced military maneuvers by both America and Russia, and the administration’s desire forSAMSON simply to vanish gave rise to a series of secret directives designed to dampen any further revelations.
The weapon seizures in St. Louis and Chicago conducted by Energy Department NEST teams and two Marine companies were explained to the public as another anthrax scare. The cases carted away in government tractor-trailers were described as containment vessels for dangerous chemicals. The administration and the leadership for Senate and House Intelligence committees agreed to quietly dismissSAMSON . The President’s minority leaders signed on to the subterfuge, because they had no desire to frighten the public into demanding more defense spending. The committee chairmen for both intelligence committees recognized the narrowness of their survival and had no stomach for another confrontation with the White House. The Joint Chiefs gave their tacit approval, for their forces were in no shape to prosecute another war half way around the world. It was estimated it would take a minimum of six months to recover from Yugoslavia, and that did not include the replenishment of weapon stores.
General George Carnady never revealed the identity ofHarlequin’s masters to the National Security Council, although he had a file describing the specific email and Internet traffic for one Ayatollah Kambiz Abbasi. The thin dossier identified Abbasi as the cleric responsible for revolutionary actions under theKhat-e Emami’s —Line of the Iman—sponsorship. EmailsHarlequin sent and received terminated with Abbasi. Carnady controlled both Internet accounts owned byHarlequin, and he maintained the terse heartbeat across cyberspace as he set the groundwork in a series of short messages for a meeting in Cyprus.
The biggest problem facing the Administration was the disaster at Westchester, Connecticut. The horrendous fires that raged for a week blurred the devastation from the bomb. The radiation cloud drifted over the eastern part of Connecticut and parts of Rhode Island before spreading into the Atlantic. It was much smaller and more localized in its effects than Chernobyl—the Russian graphite pile nuclear reactor that exploded, then burned, in the late eighties. No one warned the civilian population regarding the environmental threat drifting through their backyards and over their roofs. The administration preferred for the matter to quietly go away. They put off the truth regarding Westchester until some point in the future after they had retired, and written their memoirs. Westchester andSAMSON could become a future administration’s nightmare.
The Federal Emergency Management Administration (FEMA) was responsible for the disaster recovery operations in Connecticut. Hired experts decried the terrible environmental damage and suggested legislation be proposed to more closely monitor natural gas pipelines. Otherself-appointed spokesmen twisted their hands and mourned the loss of life, before cautioning, it could have been a lot worse. The Vice President found a pair of Red Wing work boots, blue denims, and a plaid shirt for a photo-op as he toured the site from a Marine helicopter. The evening news programs showed him nodding seriously as an unnamed official pointed out the damage. When he landed in Hartford—a city safe from any radioactive fallout—he promised a great many Federal dollars.
The Chief of Naval Operations easily explained the second explosion off Bloodworth Island as a forgotten piece of unexploded ordinance—probably something from the days of the old battlewagons. The Navy was investigating the possibility that someone might have dumped a number of unused shells at a site five hundred yards off Bloodworth Island. Buoys had been hastily established warning all watercraft away from the area. The lies were carefully crafted around the fortunate fact the second weapon appeared to have been a dud. No one realized that except for the bomb hitting the JetRanger’s skid and the subsequent impact in the water, the second blast could have been more spectacular than the first.
Peter Rasmussen was recovering from a broken collarbone, two broken legs, and a shattered wrist. He spent the first couple of days at Walter Reed Hospital, before he was quietly transferred to a convalescence home in South Carolina. The home was run by the Defense Intelligence Agency and provided services to keep the more embarrassing clients quiet. Peter was kept reasonably drugged up and allowed to heal whileTweedledee andTweedledum determined what to do with him. Peter knew he had been transporting a ticking nuclear weapon, and he was involved in an incident everyone agreednever happened.
The two dead cops were easily handled. The tragic story of two upstanding officers caught in the deadly crossfire of a drug deal gone badly was broadcast the day following Peter Rasmussen’s heroic flight across Maryland. The FBI collaborated with the District of Columbia’s Police Department to choose some suitable candidates to assume the blame for this crime. They received full honors for policeman lost in the line of duty, and their families were given a folded American flag, a certificate of honor, and adequate financial compensation for their loss. Bloodworth Island andSAMSON were never mentioned.
It was in this context that Louis considered the list Kolokol handed him. He ticked off the sites in Great Britain, France, Germany, and Japan. The security partners were easily handled. He had spent the time during his last European trip consulting with his contacts.
Tony Gwinn at MI6—Great Britain’s Secret Intelligence Service—appreciated Louis’s initial warning. The special relationship between America and England continued to work its magic. He worked with Scotland Yard and Special Branch to search for the weapons. It was very much like looking for the proverbial needle. There were seven weapons scattered around England and Scotland. A plan designed to cripple the capabilities of US and Royal Navies. Heathrow was the focus of two weapons, and it appeared a terror weapon was aimed directly at Parliament.
France was a more difficult problem.TheDirection de la Surveillance du Territoire (DST) viewed the CIA as a hostile intelligence service.The Russians still maintained a presence, but the MOSSAD and CIA began targeting senior French civil servants as potential intelligence sources in the early nineties. Relations with France had been cordial and distant even during the heights of the Cold War. The advent of peace shifted national priorities from the hunkering Soviet presence to underlying friction between the sometime Western allies. The forced politeness turned into a cold wind and information sharing between the CIA and DST was a lost art. Louis had the private email address for Paul Morlet. Perhaps Louis would garner a chit to cash in at another time.
Erwin Knecht worked inside Germany’sBundesnachrichtendienst (BND). It did not help for the National Security Agency to purposely target German corporate Internet sites and corporate systems to garner trade and corporate secrets. The American air force bases had antennae farms formerly pointed towards the Soviet threat. Today they were capturing every German cellular and microwave transmission—very little happened inside the unified Germany that did not pass through the extensive computer systems and find itself summarized in the massive databases at Fort Meade.
In many ways, theBoeicho Jieitai (Japan Defense Agency) was more or less an extension of the United States Navy. Aki Hara understood the dangers poised by a surging Red China and an overly aggressive North Korea. Launching intermediate range ballistic missiles over the Japanese Islands did nothing to quell the omnipresent ethnic hatreds between the Japanese and Korean cultures. He would readily accept Louis’s information and immediately collect the weapons. The very concept of offensive weapons on Japanese soil was something the government readily wished tonever happen. The scars from Nagasaki and Hiroshima fifty-four years after World War II remained in the social consciousness.
The Tel Aviv and Tehran weapons seemed to be designed to erupt the entire Persian Gulf and Middle East into a fiery cauldron. The resulting conflagration might have further distracted the United States from prosecuting a major confrontation in Europe between NATO and the Warsaw Pact. Chaim Wanberg would certainly handle the Tel Aviv weapon, and Israel had the means to effectively dispose of the weapon at their Negev Nuclear Facility.
It left a single weapon in Tehran. There was no one with whom to discuss the matter. After several moments, Louis pulled out a fountain pen and crossed out the listing for the Tehran weapon. George was working on the message. Louis decided he would handle the retribution. As the limousine wound down the Autobahn, Louis flipped open his laptop and transcribed Kolokol’s list into five separate emails. He purposely failed to transcribe the Tehran weapon’s location. When he was finished, he extracted a Zippo lighter and burned the paper document. It blackened and curled in the small wet bar. He finished his work by crushing the ash and running water to flush it down the drain. He plugged the laptop into the vehicle’s communication system and sent the emails.
CHAPTER 40
Chicago, Illinois
Friday, July 30, 1999
11:00 A.M. CDT
The stifling summer heat wave gripped the Midwest and the eastern seaboard with a relentless blanket of high humidity and high temperatures. Harper stepped under the watching elm and mighty oak trees. The lawn seemed to be more weeds, than actual grass. It was watered and cut. The dampness sprinkled across the tops of his boots.
He made his way through the upright gray and reddish brown granite stones. Here and there, an inscription caught his eye: BELOVED SON Born 1915 Died 1917. He wondered if anyone still visited and tended the grave. It frightened him. The cemetery was old. It went back to the Revolutionary War. He found the row and remembered the friends who came to the gravesite helping him carry the casket from the hearse those fifty yards to the waiting hole.
It had been a day much like this one—a sapphire blue sky with a few wispy clouds and a faint breeze. He had been dressed in an uncomfortable suit, but he hardly noticed. The night before the funeral, Harper decided to depart from the proscribed order of service. He chose two scriptures to explain to those who came. To declare to anyone who would listen, it was his father lying there. He felt so much like a little kid again. The world had turned so sick and sour. The cancer showed no mercy and gave no quarter as it consumed his dad.
Harper found himself standing under one of the smaller trees. He looked down at the stone. It was a simple red granite stone inscribed with a stand of pines, a lake, and a cross. He knelt down and pulled the grass along the edges. It occurred to him it was Friday, and for years, they had had a standing Friday lunch engagement. It might have been pizza or sandwiches. It did not matter. It was time simply to share each other’s company. Those times were gone now.
He stood up slowly and said quietly. “It’s been a while. You probably know what I’ve been up to these last weeks. Well, it’s not over yet.” He grew quiet again. “I really could use a talk right now. I’ve got to go and do something, and—” He sighed. It was still very painful in this lonely place. “And I need your help.” He got it out in the end.
He stood a minute longer before turning away. His neck was stiff and he ground his teeth. He sucked in a deep breath, but detected nothing of the cut lawn or the summer aromas. Harper was coming to a conclusion, and he did not like the answers facing him.
The walk back to the black Suburban with the tinted glass and government plates was a blur. He climbed into the back jump seat silent and alone. Sitting on the seat where he left them was his Glock 19, a Spyderco knife, and the Browning Hi Power. The walk to the gravesite was across holy ground and he would not violate the sacredness it held by carrying weapons. Mechanically, he replaced the guns in their respective holsters and slid the knife into his side pocket.
Jonas Benjamin and Darby Hayes left Harper to his own thoughts as the government vehicle slid into traffic and headed for O’Hare and aGulfstream V .
* * * *
Over the Atlantic.
TheGulfstream V was arranged with a front conference room and four rear cabins for sleeping. Harper hung up his jacket and the shoulder holster in his cabin. There was a small overnight grip, a United States Diplomatic Passport, and a Kevlar vest with trauma plates laid out on the bunk. He washed his face in cold water at the sink and stared at the reflection in the mirror. He did not necessarily like the person looking back at him.
Harper made his way forward to the conference room. The executive jet was streaking over Ohio and in a couple of hours it would sail over the Atlantic. When he retired after the Gulf War, he promised himself he would never come back. Louis Edwards and his ilk constantly oozed, slithered, and pulled at his feet like ankle deep mud.
The opportunity to set things right in Iraq, or so he thought, came up two years ago. He agreed to go for his own reasons, to sate his own corrosive revenge. After the killing was done and the smoke settled, he found vengeance strangely unfulfilling. In the last few weeks, he had killed three men and threatened a fourth. He was flying across an ocean and a sea to do the same again. He would have letHarlequin walk away. The addition of another face to his rogue’s gallery of victims was not his desire. He closed his eyes for a moment and whispered, “Why?”
He left his cabin and walked forward to the main cabin. Brian Stillwell sat at the head of the table. He was bent over a series of photographs with Darby. Stillwell was a weapon’s analyst; perhaps one of the most knowledgeable experts on futuristic weapon systems and weapons of mass destruction in the world. He was brilliant, divorced, and had a young son. Stillwell looked up from the conference table dressed in trademark black denim trousers, a Naval Academy T-shirt and a fairly new pair of Nike running shoes.
Harper examined the players: Jonas, Darby, Stillwell, and himself, plus a couple of pilots who probably reported to General Carnady. It was the kind of group Louis would assemble to ensure nothing ventured beyond his domain. It was the kind of compartmentalization characteristic of the eighties when he and Jerry jetted across the quiet battleground between the superpowers. Louis always provided a tight envelope, and tight envelopes sometimes did not have enough resources to prevent casualties. Carnady accepted casualties as one of the costs incurred during war.
“Lieutenant, it’s good to see you again,” he said, taking a seat at the end of the table.
“Major,” acknowledged Stillwell.
Jonas clapped his hands together. “We all set then?”
Harper folded his hands and set his chin on his knuckles. Darby nodded and slid in his chair, going over a small inventory list. Harper realized it was a weapons list the former Marine was reviewing. Stillwell gathered his papers together and spun the remote control over to where he was sitting. Jonas settled into his own chair.
A cube emerged from the center of the table and the photograph of a sixty-something man dressed in a white robe and black turban with a fairly healthy beard appeared. Stillwell began the briefing by explaining the photograph. “Ayatollah Kambiz Abbasi controls the Revolutionary Guard. In reality, no one rules in modern Iran without the tacit approval of the Revolutionary Guard. Dissidents—while they exist—do not last very long, especially if they are effective. We have no insight into his inner circle. We do know that religious and ideological purity is strictly maintained. His opponents simply vanish. The Mullahs have gotten a bit smarter since the early days of the Islamic Republic; they no longer line people up against the wall and pull a trigger.”
