Bio-Strike (2000)

by Clancy, Tom - Power Plays 04

  It was not by chance that they had waited until after their meal to bring up the previous spring’s sabotage of a NASA space shuttle carrying UpLink orbital technology, and Sword’s presumably connected encounters with paid terrorists in southern Brazil and Kazakhstan—the “nasty affair” to which Scull had alluded. A number of solved, and Gordian had wanted everything else on the agenda out of the way so they could devote the latter half of the meeting to them without digression.

  The empty dishes carried off, he’d turned his penetrating blue eyes toward Rollie Thibodeau.

  “Okay,” he said. “Any progress to report?”

  Thibodeau pursed his lips.

  “Some,” he said. “Got to do with Le Chaut Sauvage.”

  Nimec would later recall seeing Ricci tense with something between edginess and anger at Thibodeau’s mention of the tag he’d given the terrorists’ otherwise nameless field commander, Cajun French for “The Wildcat.” A man who had twice eluded their efforts to capture him, the second time after tearing away from Ricci during a fierce hand-to-hand struggle at the Baikonur Cosmodrome.

  “Up till a few days ago, we didn’t have anythin’ would give us a firm lead on him,” Thibodeau had continued. “Was plenty for guesswork, though, startin’ with what we knew about that American botanist in Peru got kidnapped and ransomed for seven million back in ‘97. He say the guy callin’ the shots with the narco-guerrillas who did the snatch was tall, blond, an’ light-skinned, body like a weight lifter. Ordered him returned to his family minus both eyes.”

  Gordian shook his head in horror. “Making a positive ID by the victim close to impossible, if any of his abductors were ever captured,” he said. “The cold-blooded logic certainly fits our man.”

  Thibodeau nodded. “Ain’t the worst of it, either. Word out of the Sudan was that someone with the same looks headed up mercenary extermination squads in the south, part of the country they call the triangle of death. This’d be two years ago, when the civil war heated up. Wiped out entire villages hostile to the radicals in Khartoum. Men, women, children, the old an’ sick, wasn’t no difference to him.” He scowled. “Son of a bitch ain’t just cold-blooded. Be a monster.”

  “And he gets around,” Nimec said. “Remember the Air Paris flight that was hijacked in Morocco last year? Another hostage situation, another large payoff. The Algerians who took responsibility threatened to start killing the children first and convinced the authorities it wasn’t a bluff. They were provided with a private jet as a condition of the hostage release, flew off to an unknown location, and got away clean with twenty million francs. Or mostly clean.” He leaned forward. “This one has a silver lining, Gord.”

  Gordian had waited.

  “The hijacker giving the orders never removed his stocking mask on the tarmac outside the plane. But inside with the air-conditioning down, no ventilation, it was another story,” Nimec said. “Take one guess how he was described by the passengers who saw his face when the mask came off.”

  Gordian looked at him. “Blond, light-complected.”

  “And a heavy lifter,” Nimec said, nodding. “Definitely wasn’t Algerian, spoke with an accent that might’ve been either Swiss or German.” He paused. “I prepared a brief on the incident when it happened, but because we didn’t have any involvement, it had kind of escaped my mind. Then I came across my thumbnail on the computer while reviewing data for our own investigation, and got to thinking the blond guy responsible might be the same guy we’re after. So I went back into the files and out popped the most crucial detail as far as we’re concerned. Namely, a French ambassador being held on board managed to get a photo of him when he wasn’t paying attention. He was so traumatized, it was months before he remembered the film and had it developed.”

  Gordian had raised his eyebrows.

  “Did you actually see a copy of the photo?”

  “Not then, I didn’t,” Nimec said. “But thanks to Rollie, I have.”

  Thibodeau minimized this accomplishment with a wave of his hand.

  “Couldn’t beat Pete’s source for the info, a unit commander in the Gendarmerie National crisis intervention team at the airport,” he said. “Only trouble was that he gave it off the record and uncorroborated. No GIGN official would admit there was a snapshot for a couple reasons. One, they’re supposed to be the best, and it embarrassed ‘em that the hijackers escaped. They wanted to save face, make it harder for competin’ agencies to run ’em down before they did. Two, the ambassador got scared, pulled strings to make the picture disappear. Figured the terrorists might take revenge on him or his family if it was ever used as evidence in court and they found out who took it. I was in his spot, maybe I’d feel that way, too.”

  “Tell me how you got hold of it,” Gordian said.

  Thibodeau shrugged. “The ambassador ain’t the only one has contacts. I called in an IOU with somebody in Europol, who did the same with somebody else. Like that, soit. Took a while for anything to shake. Then one morning last week, I turn on my computer, and there’s the photo attached to an encrypted E-mail. Right away I recognize our man from that airstrip in the Pantanal, but I punch up the satellite image the Hawkeye-I got of him just to be a hundred percent sure. Forwarded the pair of ‘em to Ricci, since he actually seen him up close.”

  Gordian glanced across the table at Ricci.

  “And?”

  “It’s him,” Ricci said. “No question.”

  Gordian looked thoughtful.

  “Got another thing in the works,” Thibodeau said into the momentary silence. “Might turn out to be important, gonna have to see.”

  Gordian gave him his attention. “Let’s hear it,” he said.

  “Wasn’t no small favor I used up with that friend of mine, but my whole nest egg,” Thibodeau said. “Besides wantin’ the picture, I asked to tap into Europol’s database of known terrorists. Took longer for him to swing that, but he say it could happen any day. I’m gonna run every at-large be a general match for Le Chaut Sauvage through that new Profiler system the techies been workin’ on, see if we get any hits.”

  “The software’s designed to recognize suspects hiding behind full-face masks or disguises, even ones who’ve had plastic surgery, by comparing digital file images with each other and a checklist of hard-to-alter physical characteristics,” Nimec said. “When it started to look like the Europeans might open up for Rollie, Megan and I became mildly optimistic about getting some cooperation from domestic security agencies. We’ve been trying to convince them to let us input their intelligence tech.”

  “Any luck?”

  “CIA’s my albatross,” Nimec said. “I’m still being routed through channels.”

  Gordian glanced at Megan. “What about the FBI? Have you gotten in touch with Bob Lang in D.C.?”

  She nodded. “He’s sympathetic to my request, and I seem to be making headway.” A shrug. “We’ve arranged a face-to-face meeting for early next week.”

  “Try to goose him along,” Gordian said. He jotted a notation on the yellow pad in front of him. “Meanwhile, I’ll place a call to Langley. We should stick to our game plan, at least as far as this aspect of the probe’s concerned—”

  “That isn’t close to good enough.”

  In retrospect, Nimec guessed Ricci’s interruption had surprised him less than the fact that he hadn’t spoken up much sooner. He’d been at constant odds with his colleagues over how the probe was being handled and had expressed his unhappiness to Nimec on a multitude of occasions.

  Gordian turned toward Ricci, as had Nimec and everyone else in the room.

  “What bothers you about it?” he asked in a level voice.

  “I was asked to join this team because you wanted somebody to help retool it, make it more proactive, not tinker with the status quo,” Ricci said. “That was what I heard when I got the hiring pitch, anyway. And here we are talking about putting in phone calls to the Euros and feebs.”

  Gordian regarded him steadily a moment.
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  “You believe we should be doing something different,” he said.

  “A whole lot of somethings,” Ricci answered. “I think we need a special task force on the job twenty-four/ seven. I think it should have a separate command center with the capability to send rapid deployment teams after the people that hit us in Cuiabá and the Russian launch site. I think we have to be willing to dig them out from under rocks, pull them out of the trees, whatever it takes, wherever they’re laying low or being protected. They killed our people without provocation, and we’ve lost months that should have been spent running them down. We have to go on the offensive.”

  Silence.

  Gordian kept his eyes on him. He opened his mouth to speak, closed it. Rubbed his cheek.

  “Well,” he said. “You certainly aren’t on the bubble about this.” He rubbed his cheek again. “I just wish you’d come to me with your feelings sooner.”

  Ricci merely shrugged, but it was obvious to Nimec why he hadn’t. Whatever their disagreements, he and Ricci had been friends for many years. For Ricci to approach Gordian directly would have meant going over his head, and Ricci’s sense of personal loyalty would never permit that.

  After a brief pause, Gordian looked around the table.

  “Anybody like to comment?”

  Thibodeau was quick to gesture that he did. Maybe too quick, Nimec would think in hindsight.

  “We gotta be realistic,” he said, frowning. “Never mind the drain that kind of manhunt would put on our resources. Be hard enough gettin’ approval to patrol our ground facilities in foreign countries. By whose sanction we gonna have armed search teams operate across borders?”

  “Our own,” Ricci said at once.

  Thibodeau’s frown deepened.

  “That might’ve washed when you was a city cop lookin’ to haul some gangbangers off the street, but not when you got to abide by international rules of law,” he said. “We can’t be goin’ anywhere we want, doin’ anythin’ we please.”

  Ricci had fixed him with a sharp look.

  “Like when you got yourself shot to bits playing Wyatt Earp in Brazil, that right?” he said.

  The sudden tension in the room was palpable. Thibodeau stiffened in his chair, glaring at Ricci with open resentment and hostility.

  “Knew plenty of tough guys in ‘Nam,” he said. His voice was trembling. “They either gave up their attitudes or choked on ’em.”

  Ricci said nothing in response. He sat absolutely still, his face impassive, his eyes locked on Thibodeau’s.

  Nimec hadn’t been sure what was going on between them but had felt deep down that it had little to do with their differences over the investigation. There had been scarcely a moment to think about that, however. He’d been afraid Thibodeau would lunge at Ricci and was watching him closely, preparing to haul them apart if that happened.

  Fortunately, it never did, thanks to Gordian’s intervention. He had made a loud business of clearing his throat, breaking into the strained silence.

  “I believe we should call it an afternoon, spend some time enjoying the fresh air,” he’d said in a deliberate tone.

  Thibodeau had started to reply, but Gordian cut him short.

  “Meeting adjourned,” he said, abruptly rising from his seat. “Let’s try to relax.”

  And that had about finished it, or at least discouraged the hostilities from boiling over on the spot. And here Nimec stood topside two hours later, Ricci beside him at the rail, both men staring contemplatively into the blue distance.

  What was Thibodeau’s problem, exactly? he thought. Why had Ricci provoked such blistering rancor from him, the Fish That Got Away notwithstanding? Pete had always known Thibodeau to be a grounded, fundamentally reasonable man, and it was hard to reconcile that with his mercurial outbursts. His mind once again insisted that the root cause of his behavior was as yet unspoken and unknown ... which got him where insofar as being able to keep the show he and Megan had scripted from folding?

  Nimec wasn’t quite certain—more or less standard for him lately, he supposed—but it had struck him that maybe part of the answer could be found in his recollection of another meeting, one that took place at UpLink’s corporate headquarters just over a half year earlier and ended on a note very unlike the crashing discord of today’s grand finale. It had been three, four days after Ricci had returned from his mission in Kazakhstan, something like that, and he’d joined Nimec, Megan, and Gordian to confer about the troublesome loose ends they’d been left to grapple with. At that point, their spirits had been anything but high, and it had been Ricci’s thoughts on the affair that had helped to bring them around.

  Nimec glanced over at him now, remembering.

  “Small steps, that’s how you count your gains,” he said quietly. “Those words sound familiar?”

  Ricci didn’t move for several seconds. Then he turned toward him, the faintest hint of a smile on his face.

  “Yeah,” he said. “Familiar.”

  “It’s solid advice,” Nimec said. “I can’t think of a better way of saying you ought to give things a chance to work out.”

  Ricci grunted and studied the water again.

  “Assuming for a minute that I would,” he said. “If Thibodeau shoves, from now on, I’m shoving back harder. That bother you?”

  Nimec shrugged.

  “Whether or not it does, I’d be willing to carry it,” he said.

  Ricci gave no comment, just leaned forward with his elbows on the rail.

  “The bay’s pretty this late in the afternoon,” he said after a long while.

  “Yeah,” Nimec said. “It’s how the sun hits the swells when it dips toward the horizon.”

  “Just sort of glances off their tops, makes it look like they’re sprinkled with a few zillion gold flakes.”

  “Yeah.”

  Ricci looked over at him.

  “I’ll stick around, Pete,” he said. “For now.”

  Nimec nodded, and this time it was his turn to smile a little.

  “That’s about all I can ask,” he said.

  A distancing from consequence salves the betrayer’s guilt. Do not look toward crime and politics for examples; that facile sense of remove is bait for the waiting trap, and we’ve all heard the excuses in our ordinary lives. The woman next door that leaves the cat behind on moving day—van’s here, have to go, who’d have thought the dumb thing would wander off for so long after she let it out? The family man enjoying a peccadillo with his secretary after office hours—his wife’s happily provided for, bought her an expensive gold bracelet last week, and he’s sure his kids prefer their computer games to hanging around with dull old Pop.

  Remove any act from a broader context, and one can become convinced it means nothing. You see how easily this happens? Just close the eyes to cause, look away from effect, and walk on down the road.

  Alone in Roger Gordian’s office at UpLink in San Jose, Don Palardy told himself it was only a few hairs he was taking.

  Only a few hairs, what was the terrible crime?

  White cotton gloves on his hands, he stood behind Gordian’s open desk drawer and used a tweezer to pull a strand from the comb in one of its neat compartments. He carefully dropped it into his Zippit evidence collection bag and then plucked two more from the teeth of the comb, dropping them into the plastic bag as well.

  As head of the sweep team that performed weekly electronic countersurveillance checks in the building’s executive offices and conference rooms, Palardy had no concerns about being discovered in an awkward or compromising position.

  He knew that Gordian was at the yearly blue-water conference and would not be walking in on him today. He knew that he wasn’t being observed through hidden spy cameras first and foremost because it would have been he, Palardy, or one of his subordinates who performed their installation, had Gordian ever requested it— and he had not. Moreover, Palardy had carried into the room with him the broad-spectrum bug detector known in his section as the
Big Sniffer—a twenty-thousand-dollar device that looked like a somewhat larger-than-standard briefcase when closed, and that was now opened and unfolded on the floor to reveal a microcomputer-controlled system of radio, audio, infrared, and acoustic correlation scanners, the output of which was displayed on LED bar graphs or optional hard-copy printouts. Among the Big Sniffer’s package of advanced tools was a Very Low Frequency receiver sensitive to the 15.75 kilohertz frequency emitted by the horizontal oscillators of video cameras. And the VLF detector was neither beeping nor flickering, which indicated none had been located.

  Alone and trusted here in the office—safe from “surreptitious intercept,” as it was known in the trade—Pa—lardy slid the evidence bag between his thumb and forefinger to seal it, dropped the bag into a patch pocket of his coveralls, and pushed the kneehole drawer shut.

  The deed done, he plugged the cable of his boom detector into its socket in the rear of the Big Sniffer and went about his routine sweep with due diligence. Taking care to avoid the antique Swiss bracket clock he so admired, moving the mop-shaped antenna across the walls of the office, Palardy probed for the harmonic signals of tape recorders, microphones, and other passive and active bugs. Had he found anything amiss, he would have been quick to disable it and report his findings to his higher-ups in Sword security.

  Don Palardy considered himself a decent and caring man, though not without human frailty. Had he found an expensive piece of jewelry on the carpet here, a missing cuff link or tie clip studded with diamonds, he would have returned it to his employer, regardless of how much taking it with him would have helped with his debts.

  All he had taken were a couple, three hairs.

  Since Brazil, he’d gotten very good at rationalizing away his transgressions.

  FOUR

  BAJA PENINSULA, MEXICO OCTOBER 31, 2001