by Mike Maden
“I sure as hell wouldn’t be invading my neighbors.”
“Really? If Cuba suddenly got nuclear weapons? Or the Russians staged Bear bombers on bases in Canada? You’d advise the President to be patient? To not see any of that as a threat?”
“But we’re not the Russians!”
“Russians.” Dixon shook her head in a pitying gesture. “What is it with you neocons and Russia? It’s a glorified gas station with nukes that they’ll never use. A third-rate power, at best.”
“Tell me, Deborah. What’s the color of the sky in your world? Because in mine, it’s blue, and in my world, the Russians are an aggressive and dangerous nuclear power that won’t stop expanding unless someone stops them. The Germans sure as hell aren’t going to do it. The Poles will—or at least help us stop them.”
“Our current defense budget is ten times larger than Russia’s, and larger than the combined defense spending of the next eight countries, including Russia and China. Hell, our defense budget is three times larger than the rest of NATO combined. You think one more American base in Poland will finally do the trick?”
Arnie sighed. “We used to be on the same page. I don’t quite get you. So tell me, straight up, what do you want?”
“What do I want?” Dixon stood. “I’ll tell you what I want. A bourbon and rocks. You want one, too?” She crossed over to her office minibar.
As Dixon dropped ice in her glass, Arnie rubbed his head, thinking, What’s her game?
He scanned the walls absentmindedly. He’d seen the photos before. Dixon with kings and presidents, popes and CEOs. In one, she knelt by the bedside of a double amputee at Walter Reed. In another, she sat in the cockpit of an F-35, and in a third, her eyes were glued to the periscope of a Los Angeles–class attack submarine.
There were also photos of projects in Africa and around the world paid for by the Dixon-Gage Charitable Trust.
The wall of photos said it all. She was an effective legislator, a compassionate leader, a foreign policy expert and, to judge from her tailored Fendi suit and Manolo Blahnik Estipulas, a woman of expensive tastes married to big money.
She was, in a word, ambitious.
Dixon took her seat behind her desk and sipped her bourbon. “Where were we?”
“I need you to know that this will not stand. President Ryan is determined to get this treaty passed. He reached out to you before and now you’ve bitten his hand. That’s a stupid mistake, especially for someone who has her eyes on the prize.”
Dixon snorted. “Hell, Arnie. I once caught a White House janitor sitting in the President’s chair. Everybody in this town has their ‘eyes on the prize.’ The question is, what would any of them do with it if they actually got ahold of it?”
“Defend the nation from all enemies, foreign and domestic. Or so I hope.”
“At least we agree on something. The devil is in the details.”
“Look, Deborah. You want to run for President? Fine. But you’re better off with a Ryan endorsement than without one.”
“Is that something you’re guaranteeing today?”
Arnie shook his head. “You know I can’t do that. The President will endorse whom he thinks is the best man or woman for the job.”
“Then the choice is clear, don’t you think?”
“Running for the presidency against this President’s agenda is a mistake, especially the President of your own party.”
“You know I’ve never been a party hack. I’m an independent thinker.”
“Then you can run as an independent.”
“And lose? No, thank you. I need the GOP nomination if I want to win.”
“Then mind your manners, wait your turn, and get in line with the President’s agenda.”
Dixon’s face visibly reddened behind the bleached white smile.
“I’ll take that under advisement.”
“Good. And consider the consequences if you don’t.” Arnie stood. “I’ve got another meeting, Senator. Thank you for your time.” He turned on his heel and left, not waiting for her response.
Dixon sat back in her chair, rolling the bourbon glass in her fingers, fuming. President Ryan was pissed off. She knew he would be. But that was part of the price she was willing to pay. Besides, she had no choice. On the Polish treaty, her instructions were made crystal clear.
And she had no intentions of waiting her turn.
She sipped her bourbon thoughtfully. The idea of Ryan coming after her sent shivers down her spine.
But the alternative was far worse.
4
TEHRAN, IRAN
MINISTRY OF INTELLIGENCE AND SECURITY (VEVAK)
SATISFIED?
Dr. Mehdi Mohammadi, head of VEVAK, Iran’s intelligence ministry, had been staring at that single-word query on the computer screen for more than a minute. It was an interesting question, full of possibilities.
And dangers.
The countdown clock didn’t help clarify matters. Forty-two seconds to go.
“Sir?” The bearded young technician smiled hopefully. He liked his job. He liked breathing even better. Crossing Dr. Mohammadi threatened both.
“I’m still thinking.” Mohammadi stroked his gray beard with his one good hand.
In truth, he was satisfied. The intel provided by CHIBI was as good as promised. Perhaps too good.
On the one hand, it had allowed the Quds Force to set a trap and wipe out the Argentine crusaders, opening the door for further Hezbollah actions in that country and, perhaps, the entire subcontinent, providing yet another distraction for the Americans and Israelis in the war they could never win against the Most High.
“Thirty seconds, sir.”
“Even with one blinded eye, I can still read a clock.”
VEVAK—Vezarat-e Ettela’at va Amniat-e Keshvar—was the largest, most powerful, and best-funded agency in Iran, and Dr. Mohammadi reported only to the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Yasseri—even the Assembly of Experts had no say in his affairs. His agency was second only to Mossad in the region, and nearly equal to the other great power services. Intelligence was key to everything. His Unknown Soldiers of Imam Zaman carried out clandestine intelligence-gathering operations all over the globe. But never had they gathered this kind of intelligence.
The kind of intelligence that would change everything.
Intelligence of inestimable value.
And how did CHIBI come by it? A single, anonymous e-mail—his best technicians still couldn’t trace the source—with a simple offer. “A free sample,” it promised.
Mohammadi’s first thought was that it was a trap, some kind of elaborate ruse by the Americans or Israelis to expose Quds Force and Hezbollah operations in Latin America.
But even the Americans wouldn’t sacrifice more than two dozen Argentine special operators for an act of deception.
This all seemed too good to be true. But Allah was known to confound the minds of the infidels. And every intelligence professional knew that the greatest intelligence coups of the Cold War didn’t come from traditional methods but rather through persons choosing to walk in the door and deliver the goods of their own volition, motivated by their own sense of ideology, ego, or greed.
Was this the case now? Or was this, indeed, an elaborate and bloody trap designed to finally destroy the Revolution? And if so, by whom?
The Persian Spring operation had been an utter fiasco. Thanks be to Allah that he had opposed it from the start, Mohammadi thought. But that fool Ghorbani had won the argument. His death was Allah’s judgment, surely, but the Russians were badly burned by the failed operation. Perhaps they were seeking some sort of revenge for Reza Kazem’s failure?
If Mohammadi passed on this opportunity, he risked losing the greatest sword Allah could ever have put in his hands to defeat his crusader enemies. Perhaps Allah would not forgive him if he fo
olishly refused the generous offer.
The Ayatollah surely would not forgive him if he refused it. Mohammadi cast his one eye not blinded by the Shah’s SAVAK torturers at the technician seated next to him. Did the young man realize his life hung in the balance of the next few seconds?
There was another possibility. Could this be the devil’s sword, aimed at the heart of the Republic? A sword plucked out from the fires of hell by his own hand because he had allowed himself to be deceived by the infidel on the other end of this computer connection?
Risk versus reward. Isn’t that how the Americans would view this?
Dr. Mohammadi touched the knot of fused bone and melted flesh that used to be his left hand. Another gift of the CIA and Mossad-trained SAVAK scum that tried to strangle the Revolution in its mother’s womb. His hatred for the Americans and Jews knew no bounds. Allah had used his suffering to make him as hard as the stump at the end of his arm. His study of the holy texts taught him many things, but none so important as the truth that there are no cowards in Paradise.
Just four seconds left on the clock.
“Type, ‘Yes, quite satisfied,’” Mohammadi finally said.
The tech sighed silently and typed quickly.
They worked in English, the language chosen by CHIBI. When he was still a young Islamic scholar, Mohammadi fled to Canada to escape the Shah’s murderous reach. He became fluent in both French and English in his years there before SAVAK found him and brought him back to Tehran for extensive interrogation.
Another proof of Allah’s omniscient guidance in his life.
“Now ask, ‘How much?’”
The tech typed again.
A response appeared instantly.
YOU KNOW THE TERMS.
“Name your price,” Mohammadi replied.
YOU KNOW THE TERMS.
“At least tell me whom I’m bidding against.” Mohammadi feared that someone else would win the auction and wield this weapon against the Republic. But he also feared paying too much. Iran’s economy was in shambles now. He would have to ask the Ayatollah for ungodly sums of money if he wanted to guarantee a win. But what if the other bidders were lesser agencies?
YOU KNOW THE TERMS.
Clearly, CHIBI was being careful. Syntax, vocabulary, and logical arguments could give away his identity.
“Enemies of the Revolution?”
YOU KNOW THE TERMS.
He did. Anonymity of the bidders had been guaranteed. But the other bidders must be the other major intelligence agencies locked in battle with the Americans. Who else would want what CHIBI was selling?
YES OR NO?
“Yes. I will send a representative to London on the date specified.”
INSTRUCTIONS TO FOLLOW.
CHIBI disappeared from the screen. Another digital jinn in the wilderness of the Dark Web.
A quick, cold look from Mohammadi’s blinded eye sent the tech scurrying out of the air-conditioned room. The intelligence chief sat alone in the underground bunker, surrounded by the hum of a dozen large-screen monitors, rubbing his stump and thinking.
CHIBI was a genius. A single, silent bid in an anonymous auction would guarantee maximum profit. If CHIBI offered the same quality “free sample” to the others as had been offered to him, they would all be champing at the bit—and bidding high.
Time to meet with the Supreme Leader. He stood, brushing away the wrinkles in his clerical robe.
With the economy in shambles, it would take some effort to gather the vast sum he had in mind.
Priceless didn’t come cheap.
Inshallah.
5
FORT MEADE, MARYLAND
NSA HEADQUARTERS
Dead rats. Sometimes pigeons. But dead, desiccated rats were better. We slathered them with hot sauce to keep the feral cats away and stuffed film rolls or transposition ciphers in them for dead drops. That was how we did it in Moscow back in the day.”
So said Director of National Intelligence Mary Pat Foley, sitting at the head of a large mahogany table in the fourth-floor conference room. Her husband, Ed Foley, had been the youngest CIA Moscow chief of station ever. They served together. Brought and raised their kids over there. It was the late eighties. It was the Cold War.
It was a long time ago.
Mary Pat glanced around the room. Polite smiles, mostly. Indulging the boss, no doubt.
The faces were all so young. Forties, mostly, a few even younger. On either side of her sat the security department head or their representative from each of the sixteen agencies that comprised the Intelligence Community (IC) Cloud, as well as the rep from her own office, the ODNI. The room’s glass walls were electronically shaded from the dozens of NSA analysts at their workstations on the floor beyond. Total security all around.
She used to be the youngest person in every room. More often these days, she was the oldest.
When did that happen? she thought.
One fleeting day at a time.
The youngest face in the room sat directly opposite her on the far end of the table. Amanda Watson was also the most attractive. Blond and athletically built, the thirty-three-year-old computer savant looked more like a Fox News anchor than CloudServe’s senior design engineer and principal architect of the IC Cloud. Watson was also in charge of IC Cloud security and personally ran the Red Team hacking group that routinely assaulted the IC Cloud, searching for any hardware or software weak spots to exploit. Who better to do this than the woman who had designed the world’s first “unhackable” cloud network?
“Rats? Sounds kinda gross,” Watson said, flashing a perfectly engineered smile. “But I’m guessing it worked.”
“Like a charm.”
Foley scanned the room again. She was trying to find a way to make her point. The average technical IQ around the table was several orders of magnitude beyond hers, especially Watson’s. Who was she to challenge these brainiacs?
The decision to put all IC intelligence onto a single “cloud”—really, just racks and racks of servers in a secured data-storage facility—was made by people smarter than she was and who assured both her and President Ryan that this was the future of intelligence processing, sharing, and security. No more firewalls or turf wars that prevented one federal agency from knowing vital information that another agency had. No more missed opportunities. No more FUBARs. Everything the IC departments did—ELINT, HUMINT, and SIGINT—was uploaded to the cloud. Everyone had access. Everyone would be on the same page. It was exponentially more efficient for information sharing among all IC agencies and organizations, rendered enormous cost savings, and increased computer security by reducing the number and complexity of machines and access nodes.
On paper, it was a brilliant idea.
And all of it more secure than ever before. Or so they said. As one of her aides explained to her, instead of having a bunch of little banks scattered all over the country, where every local bank robber had a chance to break into any one of them, now you had a giant Fort Knox where all the money was kept.
And nobody could break into Fort Knox.
Right?
“Rats were great because nobody likes rats, not even Communists, especially dead rats dropped around garbage cans.”
Watson’s flawless brow furrowed with an unspoken question. And your point is?
“You all are digital natives,” Foley said. “You grew up with this stuff like a second language. You’re fluent in ‘Hadoop nodes’ and ‘bit lockers’ and ‘SaaS.’ My generation are digital poms.”
“Poms, ma’am?” the young analyst from the FBI Intelligence Branch asked.
“Poms. Pomegranates. Rhymes with ‘immigrants.’ It’s an Aussie word I picked up recently. It’s a tiresome way for me to say I’m a digital immigrant. I came to all of this late. I know it’s the future—heck, it’s the now—but I’m analog. I know what works fo
r me.”
“I assure you, Madame Director, the IC Cloud works, too.” Watson didn’t pile on. They’d just spent the last two hours reviewing the stunning successes of the system in today’s quarterly meeting. Perfect operability, zero breaches.
Foley touched her tablet. “I know it does. Your data prove it.”
“But you’re still concerned,” Watson said. She was the only private-sector person in the room, and her company’s future depended on making and keeping her federal government clients happy.
“A professional habit,” Foley offered with a weary smile. She hadn’t been sleeping well lately, another hazard in her line of work. What was really bothering her? Was it her own insecurity she was worried about? Unable to keep up completely with all of the technobabble? Just feeling her age?
It was easy to dismiss someone as young and pretty as Watson. Women Foley’s age often did, for all of the wrong reasons. Youth and beauty were still the coin of the realm. But that would be a mistake. Foley had studied Watson’s file.
She was, without question, brilliant.
What had made Watson particularly interesting to the Ryan administration was her unreserved patriotism, a lamentably rare thing in the privileged corporate boardrooms of the San Francisco Bay Area. Amanda’s brother, Kyle “Rex” Watson, was a Delta sniper, killed by an eighty-two-millimeter mortar strike along with his spotter “Mutt” in Sevastopol just a few years ago during the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Since his death, Watson had worked tirelessly on behalf of wounded veterans and their families, winning numerous awards for her charitable work. Mary Pat’s sources told her that Watson even visited his grave at Arlington National Cemetery before today’s meeting.
