Line Of Control (2001)

by Clancy, Tom - Op Center 08

  "We'll make it," she replied.

  "Not in time," Friday insisted. He did not know that for a fact. But saying it emphatically would make it sound true to Nanda.

  Nanda did not respond.

  "If either side drops a nuclear missile anywhere in the mountains, this glacier will become a freshwater lake," Friday pointed out. "Let me leave Samouel with your grandfather. You come with me. When we reach Pakistan we can send help."

  "Leave my grandfather with one of the men who held us captive?" she said. "I can't trust a man like that."

  "Circumstances have changed," Friday said. "Samouel wants to save his people. That means protecting your grandfather."

  The young woman continued to help her grandfather along. Friday could not see her expression in the dark. But he could hear the farmer's feet drag along the ice. Just the sound had an enraging quality.

  "Nanda, I need your cooperation on this," Friday pressed.

  "I am cooperating," she replied evenly.

  "You don't understand," Friday said. "We have no idea what's happening in the outside world. We need to get you across the line of control as quickly as possible."

  Nanda stopped. She told her grandfather to rest for a moment. The farmer gratefully lowered himself to his knees while the woman took Friday aside. The American told Samouel to keep moving. Friday would find him by the bursts from the flashlight.

  "If we leave the terrorist and my grandfather here, no one will come back," Nanda said. "I know this border region. There will be a great deal of tension on both sides of the glacier. No one will want to make any unnecessary or provocative military moves. Samouel will leave without him."

  "We'll send a civilian helicopter back here," Friday said. "The American embassy can arrange it quickly."

  "They'll be dead by then," Nanda told him. "My grandfather is pushing himself as it is. If I leave he'll give up."

  "Nanda, if you don't leave, two nations may cease to exist," Friday pointed out. "You played a key role in this. You have to set it right."

  The young woman was silent. Friday could not see her in the blackness but he could hear her breathing. It had slowed somewhat. Nanda was thinking. She was softening.

  She was going to agree.

  "All right," she said. "I'll do what you ask but only if you stay and help my grandfather."

  That caught Friday by surprise. "Why?"

  "You know how to survive out here," Nanda replied. She placed her hand on the unlit torches for emphasis. "I think I saw a valley to the west. You will be able to get him down there in the dark, find shelter, warmth, and water. Promise me you'll take care of him and I'll go ahead with Samouel."

  The perspiration on the American's face was beginning to freeze. It was a strange feeling, like candle wax hardening. The insides of his thighs were badly chafed and his lungs hurt from the cold air they had been breathing. The longer he stood here the more aware he became of how vulnerable they were. It would be easy to stand still a moment too long and die.

  Friday set the two torches down and removed the glove from his right hand. He scratched the frozen sweat from his cheeks and forehead. Then he slipped his hand into his coat pocket. Nanda was Friday's trophy. He had no intention of staying behind or being dictated to.

  He removed the pistol from his pocket. Nanda could not see it or know what he was going to do. If he put a bullet in the farmer's head Nanda would have no choice but to press on, even if only to bring Friday to justice. Friday, of course, would argue that Apu was distraught about holding the others back. He had tried to reach the gun to end his own life. There was a fight. It went off.

  Friday hesitated. He considered the possibility that a shot might attract the attention of the Indian soldiers from the line of control. But he realized that the many peaks and winding ice valleys would make the sound impossible to pinpoint. And those ice peaks were far enough away so that a shot would probably not bring loose sections crashing down. Especially if the blast were muffled by the parka of the dead man.

  Friday walked around Nanda. "All right," he said with finality. "I will take care of your grandfather."

  FORTY-EIGHT

  Washington, D.C. Thursday, 1:28 P.M.

  Ron Plummer was not a patient man. And that had been a great help to him throughout his career.

  Intelligence officers and government liaisons could not afford patience. They had to have restless minds and curious imaginations. Otherwise they could not motivate their people or themselves to look past the obvious or accept impasses. However, they also needed to possess control. The ability to appear calm even when they were not.

  Ordinarily, Ron Plummer was also a calm man. At the moment his self-control was being tested. Not by the crisis but by the one thing a former intelligence operative hated most.

  Ignorance.

  It had been nearly forty-five minutes since Ambassador Simathna left the office. Plummer had sat for a few minutes, paced slowly, sat some more, then stood and walked in circles around the large office. He looked at the bookcases filled with histories and biographies. Most were in English, some were in Urdu. The wood-paneled walls were decorated with plaques, citations, and photographs of the ambassador with various world leaders. There was even one of Simathna with United Nations Secretary-General Chatterjee. Neither of them was smiling. The PEO hoped that was not an omen. He stopped in front of a framed document that hung near the ambassador's desk. It was signed in 1906 by Aga Khan III, an Indian Muslim. The paper was an articulate statement of objectives for the All-India Muslim League, an organization that the sultan's son had founded to oversee the establishment of a Muslim state in the region. Plummer wondered if that was the last time Indian and Muslim interests had coincided.

  Plummer saw his own reflection in the UV glass. The image was translucent, which was fitting. A political liaison had to have enough substance to know what he stood for but enough flexibility to consider the needs of others. He also had to have the skill to intermediate between the different parties. Even good, sensible, well-intentioned men like Hood and Simathna could disagree strongly.

  Plummer glanced at his watch. Paul Hood would be waiting for an update. But Plummer did not want to call Op-Center. For one thing, the political liaison had nothing to report. For another, the embassy was certainly wired with eavesdropping devices. The office and phones were surely bugged. And any number Plummer punched into his cell phone would be picked up by electronic pulse interceptors. These devices were about the size and shape of a pocket watch. They were designed to recognize and record only cell phone pulses. Thereafter, whenever that number was used within the listening range of the embassy's antennae, Pakistani intelligence--or whomever Islamabad sold the data to--could hack and listen in on the call. It was one thing when cell phone users accidentally intercepted someone else's conversation. It was different when those calls were routinely monitored.

  Plummer considered what Ambassador Simathna might be up to. Plummer decided on three possibilities. He certainly would have reported the intelligence to the chief executive of the republic, General Abdul Qureshi. Either Islamabad or the embassy might then draft a press release condemning New Delhi for their duplicity. The Indians would vehemently deny the charges, of course. That would rally the people around their respective leaders and ratchet tensions even higher. Especially at Op-Center, which would surely be cited by Islamabad for having provided them with the information.

  The second possibility was that there would be no press release. Not yet. Instead, Qureshi and the generals of Pakistan's National Security Council would plan a swift, merciless nuclear strike against India. They would attempt to destroy as many missile installations as possible before releasing the intelligence Op-Center had provided. That would drag the United States into the conflict as a de facto ally of Pakistan.

  Hood and Plummer had known that those were both possibilities. They simply hoped that reason would triumph. On the whole, Ambassador Simathna was a reasonable man.

  That
allowed Plummer to hold out hope for a third possibility, what he called "the one-eighty." It was an option the experts never considered, a development that popped up one hundred and eighty degrees from where the common wisdom had staked its tent. It was the Allies invading Normandy beach instead of Calais during World War II, it was Harry Truman beating Thomas Dewey for the presidency in 1948.

  Simathna's parting words, about there being a footnote that only he could access, gave Plummer hope for a one-eighty.

  The door opened while Plummer was reading the ninety-year-old paper signed by Khan.

  "I often stand where you are and gaze at that document," the ambassador declared as he entered the room. "It reminds me of the dream for which I am an honored caretaker."

  The Pakistani shut the heavy door and walked toward his desk. The ambassador seemed to be a little more distracted than before. That could be a good thing or a bad thing for Plummer. Either diplomacy had triumphed and Islamabad would give Mike Rodgers time to try to finish the mission. That meant the ambassador would be the hero or the scapegoat. Or else the children of Aga Khan III were about to write a new Muslim League document. One that would be blasted into the history books by plutonium 239.

  Simathna walked quickly behind his desk. He gestured toward a chair on the other side. Plummer sat after the ambassador did. Simathna then turned a telephone toward the American political liaison.

  "Would you please call Mr. Hood and ask him to connect you to General Rodgers," Simathna said. "I must speak with them both."

  Plummer sat forward in the armchair. "What are you going to tell them?" he asked.

  "I spoke with General Qureshi and the members of the National Security Council," the ambassador told him. "There was deep concern but no panic. Preparations are quietly being made to activate defense systems and policies already in place. If what you say about the Indian woman is true, we believe the situation need not escalate."

  "How can Op-Center help?" Plummer pressed.

  Ambassador Simathna told Plummer what the Pakistani leaders had discussed. Their plan was more than a one-eighty. It was an option that Plummer never could have thought of.

  Plummer also realized that the plan carried an enormous risk. The Pakistanis could be looking for an ally in the war against India. If the ambassador were misleading Plummer about their intent, the Pakistani proposal would put the United States at the epicenter of the conflagration.

  Literally.

  Fortunately or unfortunately, all Ron Plummer had to do was make the call.

  Paul Hood was the one who had to make the decision.

  FORTY-NINE

  Washington, D.C. Thursday, 1:36 P.M.

  Paul Hood was stealing a slice of pizza from his assistant's desk when the call came from Ron Plummer. Hood asked Bugs to have Bob Herbert join him. Then he hurried back to his desk to take the call.

  "What have you got?" Hood said as he picked up. He heard the slight reverberation sound that indicated he was on speaker. Hood engaged his own speaker option.

  "Paul, I'm here with Ambassador Simathna," Plummer said. "He has a proposal."

  "Good afternoon, Mr. Ambassador," Hood said. "Tell me how we can help you."

  Herbert wheeled in then and shut the door behind him.

  "First, Director Hood, I want to offer my condolences on the tragic loss of your Striker unit, and my government's appreciation for what they were attempting to accomplish," Simathna said.

  "Thank you," Hood replied. The ambassador sounded a little too compassionate. He had obviously figured out that the team had not been in the region to help stop Indian aggression.

  Herbert was a little more blunt. The intelligence chief made an up-and-down motion with his fist.

  "Second, my government has a plan that may assist General Rodgers and his personnel," Simathna went on. "As I have already explained to Mr. Plummer, it will require an understanding with your government that details of the operation must remain confidential."

  "I am not in a position to speak for the government, only my small corner of it," Hood said. "If you tell me your idea I will immediately confer with people who are in a position to offer those assurances."

  Paul Hood was dying inside. Vital seconds and quite possibly lives were slipping away while he and Ambassador Simathna postured. But this was how the dance was done.

  "The plan we propose is that your group proceed to a nuclear missile site that our military has erected in the glacier," Simathna said. "It is a remotely operated site with video cameras monitoring the interior. The Indian woman can make her broadcast from inside the silo."

  Hood stared at Bob Herbert. Mike Rodgers was being invited to visit one of the silos Striker had originally been sent to find. The irony of the proposal was almost painful. What was difficult to process, however, was the dangers inherent in the plan.

  "Mr. Ambassador, would you excuse me a minute?" Hood asked.

  "Given the situation I would not take much longer than that," Simathna replied.

  "I understand, sir, but I need to confer with one of my associates," Hood replied.

  "Of course," Simathna said.

  Hood punched the mute button. "What do your instincts tell you, Bob? Are they using us?"

  "Man, I just don't know," Herbert admitted. "My gut says that the team needs to get to the nearest, warmest refuge as soon as possible. The more I looked at photographs of the glacier the more I started thinking they'll never be able to cross it without more gear and supplies than they're carrying. And the weather reports for the region suck. It's going to be around ten below zero before midnight. But I have to tell you, of all the places they could go, a Pakistani nuclear silo would be my absolute last choice."

  "I agree with all of that," Hood replied. "The problem is we also have to get Nanda Kumar on-camera as fast as possible."

  "Nanda, yes," Herbert said. "The problem is Mike and Ron Friday. If the Pakistanis get them on video there's no telling what bullshit story Islamabad might concoct. They could kill the audio, release the video to the news media, and say that Mike and Friday are there as technical advisors. How's that going to play in India, Russia, China, and God knows where else? An American general and intelligence officer working closely with Pakistani nuclear missiles?"

  "They'd say we were in on the Pakistani operation from the start," Hood said. "I'm just not seeing any other viable options."

  Herbert shook his head. "Nothing's jumping out at me either."

  "Then let's move this along and just watch our step," Hood told him. "The first thing we have to do is try to get Brett on the line. Let's see if he can even contact Mike."

  "I'm on it," Herbert said.

  "I'll get the coordinates of the missile silo from Simathna," Hood told him. "Then I'll call Hank Lewis, Senator Fox, and the president and let them know what we want to do."

  "You won't get support from Fox or the president," Herbert said.

  "I know, but I don't think they'll shut the operation down," Hood replied. "We're already in this too deep. If Mike and Friday cross the line of control with the Pakistani cell, Islamabad will say the United States was helping them escape. That would be nearly as damaging."

  Herbert agreed. He turned and wheeled himself into a corner of the office and punched the TAC-SAT number into his wheelchair phone.

  Meanwhile, Paul Hood got back on the line with Ambassador Simathna. Hood turned off the speakerphone so his conversation would not interfere with Herbert's call.

  "Mr. Ambassador?" Hood said.

  "I am here," Simathna replied.

  "Thank you for holding, sir," Hood said. "We agree that your proposal should be pursued."

  " 'Pursued,' " the ambassador replied. "Does that mean you are also considering other courses of action?"

  "Not at the moment," Hood said.

  "But you might," the ambassador pressed.

  "It's possible," Hood agreed. "Right now we're not even certain we can contact General Rodgers, let alone get him to the silo. We also
don't know the condition of his party."

  "I appreciate your uncertainty but you must understand my concern," the ambassador said. "We do not wish to give out the location of our defensive silo unless your officer is going to use it."

  The conversation was becoming an exercise in hedging, not cooperation. Hood needed to change that, especially if he were going to trust Mike Rodgers's fate to this man.

  "I do understand, Mr. Ambassador," Hood said.

  Suddenly, Herbert turned. He shook his head.

  "Hold on, Mr. Ambassador," Hood said urgently. He jabbed the mute button. "What is it, Bob?"

  "Brett can't raise Mike," Herbert told him.