“I know you’re intentionally leaving gaps in what you’re telling me, Michael, but I need you to be a bit more linear. You have an Iranian Ansar Corps officer’s laptop, and I assume it has certain information that leads you to believe that his country is planning something beyond, or in addition to, a strike in Israel.”
“I’m sorry. I sanitized the narrative a little. I’ll back up. We were in a firefight with these guys. It didn’t last very long—we went in hard, fast, and hot. About twenty of them retreated into a tunnel beneath the complex. They must’ve been working on the tunnel for quite a while—it wasn’t just a crawl space.
“Anyway, we advance and methodically take them down. After we’ve taken out the last one, we video them and examine them for intel. The Ansar Corps guy has a laptop in his backpack. I switch it on and begin examining the files. A few seconds later, one of my guys starts yelling that he’s found a timer. Turns out they’d wired the tunnel. Semtex. We had less than a minute to get clear. We’re scrambling, climbing over dead bodies, trying to get out. We barely made it. I lost the laptop in the process. A couple of my guys took some shrapnel, but everyone made it out alive.”
“What was on the laptop that makes you think the Russians and Iranians are planning something beyond an attack on Israel?”
“Photos.”
“Photos? Photos of what?”
“Jordan Manchester, Joseph Bauer, and Evan Dellinger.”
“Manchester, Bauer, and Dellinger,” Olivia repeated.
Garin could see a look of recognition washing over her face.
“Manchester and Bauer are missile defense at the Pentagon,” Olivia said. “I don’t think I know who Dellinger is.”
“He’s an expert on, among other things, EMP defense,”
Garin said.
“How did you know who they are?”
“Olivia, it’s my job to know.”
Olivia put a hand to her forehead. She understood instantly the connection that Garin had already drawn.
“Was there anything else in the file? Any text?”
“Not that I could make out. It was in Farsi.” Garin returned to the desk chair and sat down. Muscle in repose. “At first, I didn’t know what to think about the file. Thought it was peculiar, something that nagged at me. But the night after we returned from the operation, I had other concerns on my mind, like staying alive.”
“And then when the Iranians killed your team and came after you, you revisited the matter,” Olivia said. “You asked yourself why Iranian agents were so intent on destroying America’s counter-WMD capability.”
“That’s certainly part of it. Like I said before, why take out Omega if your objective is Israel? Also, taking out Omega still leaves the US with SEAL Team Six and Delta, both of which could be tasked to deal with WMD. They’ve done so before. But it’s more than that.”
“What else?” Olivia was leaning forward within inches from Garin. He thought he detected a faint scent of sandalwood.
“A couple of things. The Iranians have invested a ton in intelligence but still don’t have the assets to conduct an operation as sophisticated as eliminating Omega. The Russians do, although I’m a little surprised they farmed out the actual assassinations to second-stringers like the Iranians.
“The Iranians also don’t have a missile capable of coming anywhere near the US. So why would they be interested in our missile defense system? What do our missile defense systems have to do with their plan to hit Israel?”
“Well,” Olivia offered weakly, “we supply Israel with certain missile defense technology.”
“Not the high-end ICBM laser intercept defenses that Manchester and Bauer are involved in. That’s strictly US missile defense. Again, the Iranians are not in a position to test our defenses. So what’s their interest in Manchester and Bauer?”
Olivia shrugged. “Being interested in US missile defenses doesn’t necessarily mean that Iran’s not going to hit Israel.”
“True, maybe they’re going to hit Israel. Maybe not. But having photos of America’s top missile defense guys on the laptop of an Ansar Corps officer who just happens to be trying to access a nuclear facility sure isn’t the product of casual interest.”
Garin rose suddenly. Nervous energy in the middle of the night. Olivia wondered idly if the man ever needed more than a couple of hours of sleep a night.
“If that’s not enough,” Garin continued, “now it appears that the guy running the Iranians is none other than Taras Bor. A joint Russian-Iranian operation run by the Russian president’s pet dragon.”
“We don’t yet know for sure it’s Bor.”
“It’s him,” Garin countered. “We always underestimate the bad guys and refuse to believe they intend to do us harm.”
“I don’t disagree with you, Michael. Just playing a little devil’s advocate to crystallize what we know.” Olivia stood. “The Russians and Iranians are doing their best at the UN to provoke a war in the Middle East. Now they’ve teamed up to destroy America’s counter-WMD team. Is it possible that the Middle East crisis is just a distraction?”
“Olivia.” Garin shrugged, palms up. “You’re the geopolitical expert. What do you think?”
“No, it’s not just a distraction. It’s too big for that. But I’m beginning to be persuaded that may not be the only, or ultimate, target.”
Garin strode the length of the room again, immersed in thought.
“I don’t know what to make of the EMP guy,” Garin said. “The Iranians don’t have deliverable nukes yet. Their missiles can’t hit us. They don’t have the ability to hit us with an EMP. So why the interest in EMPs?”
“The Russians, on the other hand, have nukes. Their missiles can hit us. They can hit us with an EMP. But . . .”
“They’d never hit us with any of those in a million years,” finished Garin, still pacing slowly.
“Not in a billion years. The Russians can do it, but won’t. Deterred by the prospect of mutual assured destruction. The Iranians, on the other hand, wouldn’t mind doing it, but can’t.”
“I’m pretty certain of one thing,” Garin said, stopping in front of Olivia. “The Iranians—guided by Bor—killed my team because of what was on that laptop in the tunnel. They don’t want the contents of that laptop revealed under any circumstances.”
“But how would the Russians and Iranians even know you’d seen the laptop? And even if you had seen it, that you could read Farsi?”
“They wouldn’t. But that itself is significant, isn’t it? It means that the contents of that file were so sensitive that they couldn’t afford to take even the slightest risk that anyone had seen any portion of it. So they needed to eliminate all of us—and anyone we may have possibly talked to about it.”
“That’s why they tried to kill Clint Laws. They thought you might have spoken to him.”
“Right,” Garin confirmed. “Clint isn’t exactly unknown in these circles. Given his past and our relationship, they probably thought there was a chance that I might talk to him about it—even if he’s not cleared for it.”
“And that’s also why they were poking around at Dan Dwyer’s. They can’t take the chance—given his position and relationship to you—that you told him about the laptop.” Olivia’s eyes narrowed in thought. Garin knew what she was thinking and what her next question would be. “But then why haven’t they come after me yet? If they were watching Dwyer, they’d surely have seen me with him. They’d have to surmise that you told him about the laptop, and then he told me.”
“Killing you would be too high profile, Olivia. They wouldn’t do it unless they absolutely had to, unless they were absolutely sure you had been told.”
“Me?” Olivia scoffed. “High profile? I’m just an aide to the national security advisor. I’m not even a deputy.”
“You,” Garin said, pointing his finger f
or emphasis, “are the right hand of James Brandt. You’re more important than a deputy. They shoot you, especially in the context of everything else that’s going on, and every agency but the National Park Service will have people looking for them.”
“But, Michael, you just said that they wouldn’t kill me unless they were absolutely sure I had been told about the laptop. The fact that no attempt has been made on my life would indicate that they believe I haven’t been told. How would they know for sure I haven’t been told?”
“They wouldn’t. Not unless they have someone in place inside. Someone who would know, for example, that you’ve told James Brandt that a laptop with incriminating information was discovered during a raid on a nuclear facility.”
Garin and Olivia stared at each other in silence for several seconds. Whatever the Russians and Iranians were planning, all signs pointed to it being something of significant magnitude.
Olivia broke the silence. “Do you think they’ve been watching me?” she asked softly.
“Up until a short time ago I thought it was possible but unlikely. The more we talk this through, the more I think the answer is, clearly, yes.”
“Then they know I’m here . . .” Olivia’s voice trailed off.
“They do. And that means they know I’m here. So now they have to presume I’ve told you about the laptop. The risk involved in killing you is now outweighed by the risk that you know and will inform James Brandt and the president about our conversation.”
“When will they come for me?” Olivia’s voice remained calm, but Garin could see the apprehension in her eyes.
“As soon as they can.”
“Here?”
“Maybe.”
“They would kill me here?”
“They’re not going to kill you anywhere.” Garin’s voice was low but firm.
“They killed an entire squad of elite soldiers.” Olivia looked down at the desktop. “I’m just a policy person.”
Garin touched her arm. She looked up. Intensity in a relaxed body. “They couldn’t kill me. They will not kill you.”
“What do we do now?”
“First, in a minute, I’m going to take a quick look around while you call Dan Dwyer. I’ll give you the number to use. Tell him to send all the tac teams he has available. He’ll know what to do.”
“Why not the police or FBI?”
“Because Dwyer’s men can get here faster, heavier, and they don’t play by the rules. Besides”—Garin smiled—“the FBI might shoot me.”
“Then what?”
“Then you’re going to call James Brandt and tell him you’ve got to see him right away.”
“And when I see him I suppose there’s something in particular you want me to tell him?”
“There is,” Garin said, motioning toward the chair. “Have a seat and I’ll tell you a story about Russian winters and warehouses. . . .”
CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT
CASPIAN SEA, EAST OF AZERBAIJAN
JULY 17 • 9:00 A.M. AZT
Mansur had one more thing to do before he fell off the face of the earth.
The flight from Heydar Aliyev International Airport in Baku, Azerbaijan, to Vancouver would take several hours with multiple connections. Once there, he would take care of business and then disappear forever. He had planned for this for years. The arrangements were made. Provided he remained disciplined over the next few hours, Iranian intelligence would never find him.
Nonetheless, Mansur was a bit troubled. Rarely did he miss clues about a person’s intentions. It was one of the things that had kept him alive and out of prison for the last several decades. Yet he had completely misread Park. Granted, he hadn’t had much time to evaluate the North Korean, having just been introduced to him by Chernin. But he had sensed nothing amiss. Only after the crafty Chernin had expressed his suspicions when they’d smoked Puros on the balcony had Mansur given any thought to whether Park’s motives were sincere.
Chernin should’ve been a spy, Mansur thought. He knew the Russian was smart, calculating. Yet he had underestimated him.
Chernin had a contingency plan in place. That much was clear. What it was, Mansur could only speculate. A place on the water in a warm climate, somewhere the SVR would never think to look. Somewhere, as Chernin had often said, he could read and drink vodka.
Shortly after Mansur had received the warning call from Chernin, the two met a block south of Mansur’s apartment and drove Mansur’s car to a small dock on the Caspian Sea just outside Chalus, where Mansur’s cousin Jafar was waiting for them in his fishing boat.
Now Mansur and Chernin were sailing to a makeshift dock just south of Baku in relative silence, Jafar carefully avoiding the lanes policed by Iranian gunboats. For Mansur, this was the most nerve-wracking part of his journey. Once he made it to Baku, the odds that he would never be detected and apprehended by Iranian intelligence improved to nearly a hundred percent.
Whatever Chernin’s plans were to disappear, Mansur believed his were at least as good. He was traveling under a false passport and had left behind no clues as to his destination. He had accumulated enough money to live the remainder of his days in what most outside the West would consider luxury. Before leaving Baku for his own destination, Chernin would make arrangements to transfer one hundred thousand US dollars to one of Mansur’s accounts, an added cushion.
Although Mansur hated the Iranian regime, he loved his country and would miss it. The familiar sights, sounds, and smells were now irretrievably in the past. The few friends he had he would never see again. He had known of this eventuality for years and had reconciled himself to it. But adjusting to life as an exile wouldn’t be easy. The reward, however, was freedom. And his life.
CHAPTER FORTY-NINE
WASHINGTON, D.C.
JULY 17 • 2:32 A.M. EDT
Garin took the interior elevator to the Mayflower’s ground level. The hotel was still quiet. Olivia was secure in Room 546. She was not to open the door for anyone but Dwyer’s men.
Garin walked to the lobby and up the staircase near the front entrance to the mezzanine level, where a bank of curtained windows provided a view of the area in front of the hotel. He pulled aside one of the curtains and scanned the sidewalks, street, and buildings. The only signs of life were the cab drivers seated in the taxis along the curb. The area was clear otherwise. Garin knew that someone could be lurking in an alley, possibly on an adjacent rooftop, but was fairly confident the surveillance-detection route he’d used made that unlikely.
Garin turned to descend the stairs back to the lobby. He needed to get back to the safe house for a couple of hours of sleep before his next step.
—
Congo Knox was comfortable but alert. The entrance to the Mayflower had seen no traffic in nearly two hours. Nor had there been any motion within the lobby that he could see. He could acquire any target emerging from the hotel doors with ease.
A barely perceptible movement of a curtain in the mezzanine level above the entrance caught Knox’s attention. He estimated that it had moved less than an inch, remained in that position for three to five seconds, and then slowly moved to its original position.
He could see no one behind the curtain. There wasn’t even a shadow. But Knox knew that Garin would be emerging from the entrance within seconds. No one else had reason to peek from behind a mezzanine-level curtain at an empty Connecticut Avenue at two thirty in the morning. Only a person who had reason to think someone was looking for him.
Knox exhaled slowly and relaxed his muscles. The muzzle of his M110 was trained on the center of the entrance. Although he was positioned at a forty-five-degree angle to the Mayflower’s door, he had a full view of the entire entry. He would acquire Garin within a fraction of a second. A fraction later Garin would be dead.
Knox could see shadows of movement within the lobby. The shadows of a dead man. It wa
s a matter of moments now. One shot. Another kill. Then off to breakfast.
As Knox’s earpiece crackled, he could hear the screeching tires of fast-moving vehicles pierce the quiet of the night. His scope remained focused on the entrance, where the glass door to the left was beginning to open outward. Knox listened to the low voice in his earpiece as he caught the unmistakable profile of Michael Garin appear in the portal, oblivious to Knox’s presence atop Washington Square.
Seconds later Knox’s earpiece fell silent. Knox pressed his throat mike with his left hand and gently uttered two words: “Roger that.”
As Garin walked south on Connecticut, the vague sensation of being in a sniper’s sights haunting him once again, three black Ford Explorers sped past him and braked to an abrupt halt in front of the Mayflower’s entrance. Four men sprang from each of the SUVs. Six walked rapidly into the hotel while the remainder fanned out around the perimeter of the building. To Knox, they appeared to be former military. He paid them no further attention.
Garin turned left toward the Farragut North Metro station. At the same time, Knox rose to one knee and smoothly and silently gathered his things to leave.
Michael Garin would not die by Congo Knox’s hand this day.
CHAPTER FIFTY
MOUNT VERNON, VIRGINIA
JULY 17 • 7:00 A.M. EDT
The identity of the amphibian who had accompanied Julian Day to dinner at the Mayflower had nagged at Dwyer most of the night. Dwyer couldn’t match a name to the face, nor could he recall where he had seen the face before. But there was something about the man, some vague recollection rattling about in Dwyer’s mind, that told him that particular face shouldn’t be accompanying Day anytime, anyplace.
Now Dwyer had another puzzle on his hands. Earlier, he had dispatched a tactical team to pick up Olivia Perry at the Mayflower. The operation had gone smoothly, although several of the hotel’s night staff were frightened by the sudden appearance in the dead of night of half a dozen large, swiftly moving men.
Target Omega Page 26
