Covert Action

by Dick Couch

  “Is that a fact? Well, let’s get you aboard and cleaned up a little.”

  Steven Fagan left Judy Burks in the care of Garrett and Janet and went straight for Elvis Rosenblatt. He found him standing off to one side with another white man, talking quietly while the Africans helped break camp and load the transport. Steven glanced at a third figure who sat bound and blinded in a chem-bio suit. One of Tomba’s men, the one they called Wilson, stood nearby with his M-4 rifle at the ready. During the trip to Lusaka, Fagan had been kept apprised of events at the Makondo Hotel—the successful attack, the regrettable loss of the two Africans, and the two scientists brought out from the hotel. He also had a sketchy report from AKR that the Makondo Hotel was in fact a bio-weapons development site. What troubled him most was that a biological weapon might have already left the site and be in the hands of the wrong people. If that were the case, then all their efforts—the training, the planning, the diplomatic risks, the superb performance by their assault element—were for nothing. Whether or not that lethal cat was or was not irretrievably out of the bag was known only to Elvis Rosenblatt.

  He called Rosenblatt off to one side and, in his typically polite and self-effacing manner, asked for an accounting of events at the Makondo. Rosenblatt, under Fagan’s mild, insistent gaze, complied. Fagan listened, interrupting occasionally to clarify a point or gently guide the doctor back to the central theme. When Rosenblatt finished, Fagan thanked him for his service and report. Moments later he was on his sat phone to Jim Watson.

  Inside the belly of the big transport, Bill Owens still sat at his console in one of the control vans. While Owens and his van were being loaded, he and Cheetah guided a helo to a mountain clearing where five men waited. Once they were aboard the Jet Ranger, he gave Cheetah her instructions and released the UAV from her responsibilities in Zimbabwe. With a little more than half her fuel gone and nothing under her wings, she took a northerly heading and easily climbed back up to 60,000 feet. When she was in Malawian airspace, she called home.

  In the Global Hawk control van at Kilimanjaro International, a controller suddenly noticed a blinking light on his console. It was from a transponder aboard Cheetah.

  “Hey, Stan,” he said to the other tech. “Looks like our prodigal cat has returned to the pride.”

  Stan came over and peered over the controller’s shoulder. “Where is she?”

  “A long way off. She’s over Lake Malawi, almost into Mozambique airspace and heading our way.”

  “I’d sure like to know where she’s been and what she’s been doing.”

  “I don’t think she’s going to tell us, and we probably shouldn’t ask.”

  “Probably not.”

  As the last helo lifted away from the Jeki strip, the C-130 powered up and began to roll. Tomba and the last three Africans raced up the loading ramp as the transport turned for the downwind end of the runway. AKR leapt aboard, the last boots on the ground. The big Hercules used every bit of runway, power, and pilot skill to claw its way back into the air, turning north out over the muddy ribbon of the Zambezi River. Four hours later it touched down at Kilimanjaro, just ahead of a Gulfstream G550. The two aircraft couldn’t be more different. One was a blunt, hulking giant of pure utility, the other as sleek as a spaceship. Both had the logo of the Joseph Simpson Jr. Foundation blocked on their tails. Eight people deplaned from the Hercules and boarded the Gulfstream. One of them was dressed like an astronaut and seemed, to the Global Hawk technicians watching at a distance, to have his hands bound. Both aircraft immediately took off. Five hours later, Cheetah set down neatly onto the strip and demurely taxied over to the control van.

  Armand Grummell often slept in the apartment that adjoined his office at the CIA headquarters building in Langley. It was a spartan studio arrangement with a single bed and shower. Whenever there was a potential crisis brewing, which recently seemed to be about every other week, Grummell liked to be near the building. It was not his agency’s elaborate information-gathering apparatus he needed to be close to, nor his organization’s extensive communications network. In a locked drawer of his very secure office was a small Rolodex that was simply referred to by his top aides as “the Director’s File.” In the Rolodex were perhaps three dozen cards, and each one held two entries. The first were the initials of an individual contact, and the second was a telephone number. The cards were changed as phone and contact numbers changed, but only occasionally was a new card added. The removal of a card usually meant the death or compromise of that individual.

  Grummell had served as the Director of Central Intelligence for close to three decades. Administrations came and went, but Grummell stayed. During some changes of administration, his status changed from DCI to interim DCI while a suitable replacement was sought. But once the new president and his national security team compared the old spymaster with a new appointee, however qualified, he was quickly reinstated as Director. There were many reasons for this—competence, patriotism, loyalty, experience, devotion to duty, to name a few. But the Rolodex was one of them. The names and contacts in that reference file represented decades of personal trust and respect. They were not something easily handed off to a successor, nor did any replacement have such a resource. The Rolodex was sitting on the desk at Grummell’s elbow when Jim Watson came in. It was 5:30 A.M. on a Sunday morning, and Grummell, though freshly shaved and showered, was still in his bathrobe. It was obvious that he had been up for a while. Jim Watson himself had been at his desk for quite some time.

  “So,” the older man began after Watson took one of the two chairs in front of his desk, “it would appear that we are a day late and perhaps a dollar short. Coffee?”

  “That’d be great, sir.”

  Grummell filled a mug and pushed it across the desk to Watson, then rewarmed his own.

  “So bring me up to date.” The tone was soft, but commanding.

  “The IFOR assault on the laboratory in Zimbabwe was an apparent success. But it seems the bio-weapon developed there, a particularly virulent and lethal form of smallpox, from what I’m told, was shipped from the lab only the day before. A corporate jet under lease by a Saudi multinational left Harare, landed in Nairobi, and discharged a single passenger. A passenger matching that description boarded a Kenya Airlines flight for Dubai and then took a Saudi Air flight to Riyadh. The flight arrived at King Khalid International Airport about a half hour ago. We can only assume that this biological weapon is now in the Saudi capital.”

  Grummell was silent for several moments. “And the IFOR contingent?”

  “Most of them are on their way to Diego Garcia, where they will break down their equipment and return to Hawaii. But Steven Fagan and some members of his team, along with the two scientists from the lab in Zimbabwe, are headed for Paris. As I understand it, they are tracking a lead there. Apparently one of the scientists who helped develop this pox is a French national.”

  Grummell began to thumb through his Rolodex, then picked up the receiver to one of his desk phones. Very seldom when he made one of these calls was someone else allowed in the room. Watson rose to leave, but Grummell waved him back to his seat. Grummell greeted the person on the other end in Arabic, then switched to English.

  “Saeed, we have a problem—a very serious problem. This problem has just arrived in your country, so in a sense, it’s also your problem, at least for now. I think it will take both of us working together if we hope to resolve it. Let me explain.” Grummell spoke for several minutes and then listened without speaking to the short reply. Then a coldness Watson had never heard came into Grummell’s voice. “How sure are we? Sure enough that I will ask my president to place Saudi Arabia under a no-fly restriction. That means all commercial or military aircraft attempting to leave Saudi airspace will be turned around or shot down.” Again another pause. “I think that is very wise…. Thank you, Saeed…. Good-bye.”

  Grummell replaced the phone, and looked across the desk to Watson. “He says he will do what he can. I b
elieve him, but only time will tell. And now, I had best bring the White House up-to-date. I’m not sure the President will be keen on imposing a no-fly zone on the Arabian Peninsula,” Grummell mused, and Watson thought he detected a slight twinkle in the old spymaster’s eye, “but our friend Saeed Al-Qahtani seems to think he might. Thank you for staying with this, Jim.” Watson again rose to leave, and this time Grummell did not try to stop him. “Keep me apprised of events in Paris.”

  “Yes, sir, and thank you, sir.”

  In a well-appointed office in Riyadh, a man in traditional Arab dress set aside his Havana cigar and quickly made two phone calls. One resulted in the closing of King Khalid International Airport. It was not the first time that the airport just five miles north of Riyadh had been shut down due to a bomb threat. The other placed him on the calendar for a thirty-minute meeting with Crown Prince Abdullah that evening.

  Al-Qahtani’s quick action produced immediate results of a sort. Within minutes, security police were swarming over the airport. Only two people on the flight from Dubai had connected from Nairobi. One was an African diplomat whose papers were in perfect order. The other was a businessman who was stopped as he tried to leave the airport by taxi. When questioned, he proudly admitted that while he was not Al Qaeda, he supported Al Qaeda. And yes, he had brought a briefcase from Harare to Riyadh. He told them that per his instructions, he had set the case down next to the baggage claim and walked away. When the police raced there to find it, there was no case to be found.

  When Pavel Zelinkow rose the following day, he was of two minds. He knew that he had delivered on his end of the contract and that the toxin for which he had been contracted had been produced and also delivered. A terse message left on one of his voice mails confirmed that. Technically, he was in compliance with his contract and had earned his fee. He also knew that there were any number of loose ends, and a man in his business did not live with loose ends. His contacts in Africa had gone silent, and any pursuit of information there, or in Iran or Saudi Arabia for that matter, would only invite attention to himself. Nothing was to be gained by asking questions. He could only guess that something, somewhere, had gone wrong. Late last evening he had placed a call to Boris Zhirinon. This old mentor, in so many words, said that he had asked an old colleague to go to Africa to look into the matter. But Zhirinon had heard nothing from the man in several days, and feared the worst. This did nothing to assuage Zelinkow’s apprehension about the loose ends.

  Bank transfers, even large ones, are overnight transactions. Since yesterday was Sunday, as well as the day he made delivery, he would not know if the funds, per his instructions, had been paid to his account until the following day, Tuesday, though authorization should have been given on Sunday. His only leverage to ensure payment was that he too could be a loose end, and those who had employed him would want him to quietly disappear with his funds. He would know tomorrow. Meanwhile, it was going to be a long day. Carefully sipping his morning espresso, he again went over it in his mind and again decided that his only option was to wait; nothing could be gained by further inquiries. He pushed himself from the table and retired to his bath. There he shaved, showered, and put on freshly pressed slacks, shirt, a tweed jacket, and comfortable shoes. He next called for a car to take him to the Colosseum. For Zelinkow, the only way to deal with uncertainty and apprehension was to surround himself with art. He would have preferred to lose himself in one or two of the many art galleries in Rome. But since Rome art galleries are closed on Mondays, he would have to content himself with ruins. This, he hoped, was not a portent of his fortunes.

  The flight from Kilimanjaro International to Paris was about 4,300 miles, which made for close to eight hours of air time. Because of the limited services available at the Kilimanjaro airport, they had to stop in Cairo for fuel. They were finally over the Mediterranean just a little before midnight. Fortunately the Gulfstream G550 is a very comfortable aircraft. At $35 million a copy, it should be. The organization had two of them, one registered to the Joseph Simpson Jr. Foundation and the other to Guardian Systems International. The one that raced across northern Africa for the Mediterranean belonged to the foundation. Aboard were Garrett, Steven, Janet Brisco, Judy Burks, Elvis Rosenblatt, AKR, Johann Mitchell, and a bound and hooded François Meno. Even if Meno had not been confined to the crew galley, there would still have been plenty of room in the plush sixteen-passenger aircraft.

  Settled side by side in a pair of tucked-leather seats, Garrett and Judy both immediately fell asleep. He was still in jeans and T-shirt. The crew on the C-130 had found Judy a small pair of overalls, and had dressed and bandaged the cuts on her hands. Janet had cleaned her up a bit with alcohol swabs and gauze pads. They looked like a longshoreman and his daughter taking a nap together. Rosenblatt had stretched out on the four-place divan and fallen asleep as well; AKR had done the same, simply flaking out alongside him in the aisle. Dodds LeMaster had immediately found the computer workstation, logged on, and gone to work. There was something bothering him and he could not rest until he had the answer. Steven and Janet talked quietly at a small table, relishing a spinach quiche with toast and jam after close to three days of MREs. Mitchell kept to himself and sat staring out the window. Meno, on Rosenblatt’s instructions, was kept isolated and hooded, sealed inside the chem-bio suit.

  “Well, I’ll be damned. I don’t believe it,” he said chuckling aloud. “I simply don’t believe it.”

  This mild outburst from the normally taciturn Dodds LeMaster caused both Steven and Janet to push back from their food and join him at his workstation.

  “What have you got?” Janet asked, resting a hand on his shoulder.

  “I think I might have him.”

  “Him?” Steven asked, looking to Janet, who raised her eyebrows in conjecture.

  “The guy who’s behind all this, or at least the one who has been giving all the orders.” Now he had their full attention. “You see, encrypted cell phones are very hard to decipher, not impossible but very, very hard. It takes a great deal of computer power, massive amounts. A lot more than we have in our organization. So I tapped into the NSA data bank. They probably have the most capable computing engine on the planet. We’ve taped all the calls made to and from that makeshift lab in Zimbabwe, hoping that someone would make a mistake or give us something that would allow us to break the encryption algorithm. Usually, if you can get a known piece of information or component of the conversation, then the computers can take that known bit of data and use it to defeat the encryption and break the code.”

  “And you’ve done that?” Steven queried.

  “I’ve done nothing, but he made a mistake. On one of the calls, before the ciphering clicked in, we picked up the name of Poulenc. Just an accommodation name, I thought—one chosen at random. Most covert operators who have to deal with multiple clandestine contacts use aliases. They choose them at random and change them frequently. But this one had an indulgence.” LeMaster paused, and permitted himself a triumphant smile. “Classical French music.”

  “French music?”

  “Exactly. Poulenc was not chosen at random. Francis Poulenc was an eighteenth-century French composer. When I ran the encrypted cell phone intercepts against a listing of French composers and arrangers, I came up with several more names—Drouet, Boulez, Frémaux, Baudo, among others. All are French orchestral or operatic luminaries. Their names recur in the cell phone intercepts. These names, when matched with the recorded calls, provided the computers with enough data to begin to decipher the encrypted intercepts. It’ll take a little more time; the NSA computers are grinding away as we speak, but we can read their mail. It will be after the fact, but we will know what they said.”

  “Excellent work, Dodds,” Steven said. “Absolutely superb. Do you have any idea where this French music lover lives?”

  “I do,” LeMaster said, wreathed in smiles. “Rome.”

  Steven took a seat next to LeMaster, and they began to talk about how to use t
his information to their advantage. Janet worked her way through the aisle of the Gulfstream, waking people up. They were due into Charles de Gaulle Airport in a few hours. There were calls to be made and planning that had to be done if they were to execute what Elvis Rosenblatt had in mind.

  The office, while exquisitely furnished, was not as opulent as the anteroom or the rest of the palace. Saeed bin Abdullah Al-Qahtani, head of security for all of Saudi Arabia, was admitted that evening to a private meeting with the effective ruler of Saudi Arabia, Crown Prince Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz. King Fahd had been ailing for so long that Abdullah had become the defacto monarch. He listened carefully as Al-Qahtani relayed the details of his conversation with Armand Grummell and the events at the airport. All air traffic in Saudi Arabia had been grounded. When Al-Qahtani finished, the crown prince rose from his desk and walked to the window, which opened to a magnificent view of an immaculately tended courtyard, bathed in artificial light. He did not feel the need to tell Al-Qahtani of his private conversation with the American president. If Grummell had been direct with the Saudi security chief, the President had been downright blunt with the crown prince. America would not tolerate another catastrophe that involved Saudi Arabia or Saudi Arabian nationals. In spite of Grummell’s doubts, the President had declared a no-fly zone over the entire Arabian Peninsula until the pathogen that came into the country had been recovered. If it was not recovered, and this pandemic reached America, the United States would consider it an act of war. The President did not need to remind the crown prince how quickly the American Third Army could be in Riyadh. He turned to Al-Qahtani.

  “Place the city, indeed the entire nation, under martial law. You will do everything in your power to find and recover this disease and anyone who may be infected with it. If you do not, the kingdom will cease to exist. Now go, and keep me informed of your progress.”