Viper Team Seven (The Viper Team Seven Series Book 1)

by Lewis, Rykar

  “There’s more proof,” Solomon began. “Siraj also said that during vun Buvka’s operation he kept direct contact with the mole. The man would tell vun Buvka where we were and where to go to skirt around us. It worked great until contact was lost with the mole. You know when the contact was lost?”

  “After the second attempted roadside strike,” Parks answered immediately.

  “Yes sir. After the second time, the mole wouldn’t answer vun Buvka’s calls. Hmmm, that’s interesting. I wonder why,” Solomon mocked.

  “The mole couldn’t keep contact with them because he was sitting in the Situation Room,” Parks voiced.

  “That’s my guess.” Solomon hesitated before making his last point. “And here’s the most disturbing thing. Siraj said that vun Buvka was honored for a valiant attack on the U.S. and he was thrown into a leadership position. Siraj claims he’s the lead terrorist of the organization.”

  “What organization?” Parks wondered.

  “That’s what the agents asked. The terrorist made a frightening point. He said that he is not a terrorist but he will not betray his country. He repeated that to himself quietly.”

  The lights went on for Parks. “So this isn’t just a terrorist group at work but an entire country. Did he say what country? Was it Lebanon, Iran, Afghanistan?”

  “He didn’t make a peep about the topic after that,” Solomon informed him. “But something big must be going on, because he didn’t mind telling us all he knew about vun Buvka and the mole, which means that isn’t very significant.”

  “Good point. But that doesn’t answer the question of which country is at work.”

  “I know it. We can worry about that later, for now let’s find the mole,” Solomon suggested. “Let’s go over what we know already.”

  “We know that it’s either the Director of the FBI, CIA, National Intelligence, Secret Service, or the National Security Advisor. We confirm that assumption since we know that no other people knew about when and where we deployed. To back that further, those guys didn’t have any information on where we were at after the sleeper’s house incident, and neither did the terrorists. Also with vun Buvka’s operation, everything went downhill after the Directors and NSA stayed in the Situation Room, because his contact with the mole was hampered.” Parks patted the desk. “I’d say we have enough evidence to conclude that there is a mole and that it’s either our boss or one of the Directors.”

  “We sure do,” Solomon agreed. “Now comes the hard part. How are we going to prove who it is? What leads do we have?”

  “None whatsoever. But we need some. Do you know any more friends that’d be willing to conduct background checks on our suspects?” Parks hoped.

  “That’d be sketchy. I’m not sure that the guys I have in mind wouldn’t ask questions. We can’t answer questions because we can’t really let anyone in on this.”

  “I know that, but could you try anyway? Do you know of anyone that could accomplish that task without anyone knowing that he’s doing it?”

  Solomon grumbled something under his breath as he thought of just the right person. “KP, I’ll really be sticking my neck out by asking anyone, but since I have to, I’ll ask Sally Irving. She’s pretty good but low enough on the hierarchy that she can do things without too much interest.”

  “Fine. Just get me the report by 1800, will you?”

  Solomon shot a quick look at the clock. “It’s 0730 now. That’s hardly enough time, KP.”

  “Just get me what you can,” Parks begged. “We need anything we can get, because time is running out.”

  * * *

  Parks didn’t need to see the clock to know that it was 1815, and not a word had come from Solomon ever since he left the office that morning. Parks knew he couldn’t leave his office without the reports, but what could he do besides wait?

  Parks decided to give Solomon a call and check on his progress. He didn’t use his desk phone but pulled out his cell and punched in Solomon’s cell phone number.

  “KP, I have only half of what you asked for,” Solomon admitted as soon as he answered. “She’s going as fast as she can but she doesn’t want to make a mistake.”

  “Okay, how’d she send the reports?” Parks asked.

  “Classified email. I deleted them the minute after I printed them. I’ll bring them over.”

  Parks didn’t bring to light that Solomon was fifteen minutes late. He knew his friend was working hard so he’d cut him some slack. “All right I’ll see you in a second.”

  Parks snapped his phone shut and waited. He didn’t have to wait long, only about a minute, before Solomon entered the office and handed him the papers.

  “She did the D/CIA first, then the FBI Director. We still have three left to go. I was pressing her as hard as I could, KP,” Solomon reiterated.

  “Yeah that’s okay, I understand. What’s it look like?”

  Solomon raised his eyebrows. “Their records are cleaner than a Sunday shirt. If the rest of the reports are like this then the mole’s good at covering his tracks. Of course you have to remember who we’re dealing with: the Directors of intelligence agencies. If one of them really is the mole then it’ll be impossible to prove it by doing background checks.”

  Parks read the first few pages and had to admit that things weren’t looking so good. “I got as much out of your little reports,” he told Solomon. “You’re right, this will be impossible. I don’t know what I was trying to find.”

  “At least you tried.”

  “How much did you tell this woman?” Parks questioned. “Does she know why you asked for this?”

  “I didn’t tell her anything and she didn’t ask. You don’t have to worry.”

  Parks rested his head on his hand. “Solomon, I don’t know what to do,” he admitted. “We’re not just trying to catch a bad guy, we’re quite possibly dealing with a master terrorist that has nothing on his mind but the destruction of the U.S. What man would do this?”

  “I don’t know, KP,” Solomon said. “But we are going to find out.”

  Parks crumpled the papers on his desk. “I am more stumped than I’ve ever been in my entire life. This is crazy. All we have is question upon question and very few answers.” Parks stopped crumpling the papers. “But wait, the mole eventually has to get involved in the game, especially since ‘the organization’ has lost their best terrorist. The mole’s going to have to explain what went wrong to whoever’s really heading this thing up, if he hasn’t already. The real boss of this kit and caboodle isn’t going to just let his mole sit and do nothing. He’ll need him more than ever to help pull off future terrorist attacks.”

  “All right, I follow you.”

  “So that will mean another terrorist attack will be coming soon. When it does, the terrorists will be making contact with the mole, indirectly or directly, it doesn’t matter.”

  “What you’re saying is that we monitor the Directors’ and NSA’s contacts to see who’s making contact with the terrorists,” Solomon guessed. “We’d know for sure who it is then. Great plan, there’s just ten million things wrong with it. I’ll just name two for the sake of time though. First of all, we’d have to get lots of intelligence officials to hack into the guys’ emails and phone lines, and that would tip off the mole, making him run for it. The second thing is that since we can’t let anyone else in on this, that means you and I would have to do the hacking, and we both know that’s impossible. We just can’t hack in and monitor five guys’ contacts without a lot of effort.”

  Parks put up his hand to stop Solomon. “Listen, I’m not finished. We wouldn’t have to monitor five guys’ contacts, just one. That would be the lead terrorist inside the U.S. He’ll lead us right to the mole or at least to the middle man.”

  Solomon approved wholeheartedly. “Now all we have to do is find some terrorists and find a way to track their calls without anyone knowing about it.”

  Parks smiled. His plan was sketchy and could fall apart given cert
ain circumstances, but it could work, and those odds were good enough for him.

  51

  Thursday, April 17th – 0630 hours

  The Oval Office

  The Director of the Central Intelligence Agency entered the Oval Office and went straight to business without any formalities.

  “Mr. President, we need to talk,” he said urgently.

  Winnfield nodded and waited for the Director to begin speaking.

  Cummins was sweating due to nervousness as he leaned on the President’s desk. “Mr. President, we have reason to believe that Lebanon...well, we know...Lebanon has acquired a nuclear weapon.”

  The President’s mouth dropped open and he stood from his chair. “What are you talking about?” he demanded.

  “Sir, I’m afraid that Lebanon has–”

  “I heard what you said. Give an explanation – now!”

  “As we both know the U.S. has a mole inside the lower echelon of the Lebanese government,” the D/CIA continued. “It seemed that he’s not high enough to give us good, solid information; as a matter of a fact he really has known nothing, until now.”

  “Spit it out,” Winnfield ordered through clenched teeth.

  “Yes, Mr. President. The mole is an officer in the Lebanese army and evidently he says that there was a stir in Lebanon about a cargo shipment coming from a different country. This shipment is quite important, apparently because the prime minister himself has been to the place where the shipment will be delivered many times just to make sure everything’s going as planned. The shipment delivery site is a location where our mole has been working for quite a while.”

  “Why hasn’t he reported this information sooner?”

  “He’s been watched closely, sir, and hasn’t been able to contact us. Anyway, this delivery site happens to be a war bunker under a mosque somewhere in Tripoli, Lebanon. The mole says it’s a military center deep, deep, underground and completely secure. He says it’s real top-of-the-line and that it’s no wonder no one has known about the activity since it’s buried so deeply and in such a strategic location. Well, one day the prime minister and several top officials came to the military center and just hours later the shipment was delivered.”

  “You mean to tell me our mole was watched that closely for that long that he couldn’t report to us at all?”

  “That’s what he says, Mr. President, and I believe him.”

  “Did he ever see the shipment?” Winnfield wondered.

  “He saw it being unloaded and moved.”

  “To where? And was it what I’m thinking?”

  “To where, he didn’t know; he was relieved of duty the minute after the shipment began to be transported elsewhere. But he guesses it’s being transported to a safer place. As for what it was, he had a real quick look at it. It was a nuclear warhead, equipped with multiple independently targetable reentry vehicles.”

  The President recoiled. “MIRVs? How many independent warheads are in that thing?”

  Winnfield knew that a nuclear warhead was a devastating force but a warhead with MIRVs was a million times worse. The MIRVs were several independent warheads that could hit multiple cities or pound the same one several times. A few countries possessed that technology but even the U.S. was not as stocked up on them as it should be.

  “Mr. President, the mole has no clue,” Cummins admitted. “But who cares? Lebanon has a nuclear warhead and it’s only a matter of time before they mount it on an ICBM. If Aziza’s right and they really do intend to wipe out Israel – or worse yet, us – we have to take that thing out.”

  “How much time do we have?” Winnfield questioned. “We must have a timeframe.”

  The Director’s face was expressionless. “It’s my guess that if they wanted to they could mount the warhead on a missile and launch that nuclear weapon any day.”

  The President was getting very upset. “Mike, Lebanon had to have bought the warhead from someone because they couldn’t have made a nuke that quickly and without us knowing about it. But from whom? China doesn’t have that many warheads to spare, neither do the North Koreans, and I doubt the NK has MIRVs to begin with. The only ones that seem liable are the Russians.”

  Cummins stopped the President. “Our main objective, Mr. President, needs to be planning a way to take out that nuclear warhead. We can worry about the other things later,” the D/CIA pointed out.

  “What day did this warhead arrive?”

  “Yesterday sir.”

  “And the mole is relieved of his duty at the military center?”

  “Yes, Mr. President.”

  “They must trust him a lot if he was allowed to witness that.”

  The Director shook his head. “He was relieved of duty with the threat that if any country found out about the weapon his head would come off.”

  President Winnfield faced the American flag as his thoughts began to take shape. He knew a preemptive strike was the only option. But who should do it? Israel or the U.S.? Winnfield knew it was a matter of which country the warhead would be aimed at. But there was no time to find out which nation it would be. That warhead needed to be destroyed or the lives of millions could be in danger, if they weren’t already.

  * * *

  The National Security Council was gathered in the Situation Room awaiting the topic that would be discussed. The President had gathered the NSC on short notice saying simply that it was an urgent meeting. Everyone had arrived quickly and nothing was stopping Winnfield from starting. Quietly he cleared his throat and took charge of the meeting.

  “As you might guess, this concerns Lebanon,” he began. “More specifically it concerns the MIRV nuclear warhead that they received yesterday.” Nearly everyone gasped and several people’s hands flew over their mouths. “We suspect that the Lebanese bought the warhead from the Russians, due to its high technology. It needs to be taken out. We can’t let a hostile nation keep a nuclear weapon if we know that it’ll be used against us or our allies. To make a long explanation short, I need advice on what to do.”

  “Where is this warhead?” Steve Danner asked. “And how do we know it even exists?”

  “The warhead was in a military center deep underground below a mosque,” the President answered. “They probably used Hussein’s idea. Anyway, I’ve been told that the warhead was delivered to that location and then moved elsewhere. What we need to do is pinpoint the weapon to an exact location and not let it out of our sight until it’s destroyed.”

  “What about my second question, Mr. President?” Danner pressed. “How do we know this even exists?”

  “That’s none of your concern, Steve. We know it’s around and that’s all that matters.”

  “Why doesn’t the Mossad know about this?” Roxon wondered. “And why didn’t we catch wind of it until now?”

  “I’m not so sure the Mossad doesn’t know about it,” Winnfield said. “But I’m positive that the whole purchase was done in utmost secrecy, and if the Russians are the suppliers, then that would explain how it was smuggled into Lebanon in such an unnoticeable way.

  “Will we be able to find the warhead again?” Anders asked.

  “We’ll find it,” the President replied. “The thing that worries me is that I doubt Lebanon was a one-item customer. They’ll probably be getting others and hiding them somewhere too.”

  “Why would Lebanon send in Qasim before they had that weapon though, Mr. President?” Watkins questioned. “It makes no sense that they wouldn’t have waited for a fight until the warhead was delivered.”

  “Let me get something straight – I’m not saying Lebanon did send in Qasim but I’m leaning more toward that way,” Winnfield declared. “I originally was thinking Iran was to blame but now I’m having my doubts. Anyway, here’s why they wouldn’t have waited to send in Qasim. They knew they would be getting a warhead soon and I don’t think they thought it necessary to wait for a fight any longer. They obviously had lots of faith in their supplier.”

  “They had a r
ight to,” Cummins stated. “When doing anti-American business with the Russians they knew they’d get what they wanted.”

  “All right let’s get to the meat of this,” the President commanded. “That warhead needs to go. If anyone disagrees with that let me know about it right now.” Winnfield scanned the room and when no one spoke, he took the silence as agreement. “Good. Now we need to figure out three things. First, are we going to take this weapon out or are we simply going to back an Israeli attempt? If we are, then we need to figure out how and when. Probably the most important thing for now is we need to find where this warhead is and if there are any more coming. Any comments?”

  “Mr. President, I completely believe that this warhead needs to go as fast as possible and by whatever means necessary,” Treasure Secretary Sandra Wright voiced. “We are playing with fire every minute it remains in Lebanon’s hands. We cannot afford to take any chances with this matter.”

  The President looked to his Treasure Secretary and responded, “I agree, Sandra. I do. And I thank you for giving your opinion. But the big question is, what means are necessary to take out the nuke?”

  The room fell silent for just a moment and then the Secretary of Defense spoke up. “Mr. President, I must say that this whole business of Lebanon acquiring a nuclear warhead is very disturbing. Also, I must say that Lebanon is considered to us as a hostile nation, and the fact that they are armed with nuclear weapons gives me a bad feeling. We both have to admit that we are not sure that they aren’t the ones who are responsible for the attacks on our nation on 1/16. But not even factoring that in, we can’t let them keep that nuke. Yes sir, we can’t let them keep it. This is not Israel’s job, it’s ours, and we need to take care of it.”

  Winnfield thanked the SecDef and moved on. “Anyone else have something to say?”

  The Situation Room was silent until Secretary of State Dan Bradley cleared his throat. “Mr. President, it is with all due respect that I say that this whole notion is crazy,” he commented with confidence. “Lebanon could not obtain a nuclear weapon, even from the Russians. They know we’d obliterate them once we got wind of it. I hate to say this but I feel we’re chasing shadows. If you can tell me how you’re sure that they have a nuclear weapon then maybe I won’t feel this way. But until then I don’t see how I can support a preemptive strike.”