by Jim DeFelice
Liu’s borrowed command center had been a recreation room twenty-four hours before; the general and Howe stood over a large Ping-Pong table as they reviewed the tasking order and other data relating to the mission. Other officers gradually filtered in, and what had started as an informal brief took on a more comprehensive tone, complete with a weather report from one of the general’s staffers. Liu, shorter than Howe and a bit pudgy, was a roll-up-the-sleeves kind of guy, and gave the impression he could run out on the tarmac and drive the fuel truck himself if the ground crew turned up a man short.
Captain Atta Habib, the commander of Cyclops Two, arrived just as the briefing was breaking up. He’d left some hours ahead of Howe, but his slower aircraft naturally had taken longer to arrive.
Habib looked as if he’d run the entire way. His eyes drooped and he seemed to be tottering on his legs. Howe didn’t even bother recapping the latest intelligence reports; he told Atta to go and hit the sack.
“That sounds like a good idea,” Liu added over Howe’s shoulder. “As a matter of fact, I think it should be an order for all flight personnel.”
“I wanted to check on the weapons for the Velociraptors,” said Howe.
“Taken care of, Colonel. Go get some rest. Now. We have just under twenty-four hours before this thing goes off.”
Chapter 2
At some point in every investigation, it became necessary to journey to the heart of enemy territory, to brave destruction in the quest for the truth. You could gird your loins with body armor, arm yourself with all manner of weapons, but in the end, it came down to two things: luck, and timing. Luck could not be controlled. Timing, however, could be managed. Fisher, relying both on precedent and clandestine reconnaissance, adjusted his plan accordingly and plunged into the abyss, also known as FBIHQ.
Thanks to his careful preparation — and luck — he made it over to his destination in the great bowels of the enemy camp without incident. In the deepest, dankest basement corridor, in an area once reserved for industrial waste — or worse — he found his quest: Betty McDonald, a true believer, pure of soul and smoky of lungs.
“Cut the bullshit, Andy,” said Betty, who headed a forensic accounting team that worked on national security projects but was actually assigned to the government crimes section of the Criminal Investigation Division, probably because someone had hit the Tab button incorrectly when preparing the last organizational chart. Betty had helped Fisher several times in the past and apparently didn’t have the pull to be permanently unassigned from such duty.
That or she’d lost the paperwork in the pile that flowed from various portions of her desk.
“Just tell me what you want,” she said as he closed the door to her office, battling a bag filled with shredded paper. The remains inside the clear bag looked suspiciously like candy wrappers.
“I’ll take a cigarette for starters,” said Fisher.
“You can’t buy your own cigarettes?”
“On what they pay me?”
Betty’s laugh sounded something like the snort of a hippopotamus.
In a good way.
She rose from her desk and went to the lateral filing cabinets, where a large air-filtration machine sat. She poked the side and the smoke-eater began to whirl.
“You don’t really think that does any good, do you?” asked Fisher, taking a cigarette from her.
“Keeps the boss happy,” she said, sitting back at the desk. She opened the top drawer after she lit up, taking out a bag of Tootsie Rolls, which she habitually chewed while smoking. The combination kept her teeth a healthy black.
“Did you get those financial profiles?” Fisher asked.
“No.”
“Didn’t DOD send over those authorizations?”
“I got the data you asked about, Andy. They’re not financial profiles. They’re barely disclosure statements. Do you have any idea of what we do down here?”
“Besides the orgies?”
Another hippo snort. “If you’re looking for bribes, you want to go over to U-Rent and get a metal detector,” she told him. “You’ll have better luck digging up coffee cans in their backyards.”
“You’re getting funnier, Betty. You really are.”
“It’s the nicotine talking.” She reached down into the nether regions of her desk, digging out a file she had had prepared for him. NADT mandated annual security checks for all its personnel, and the checks routinely included credit reports as well as asset listings. A member of Betty’s team had gone over the data.
“If they know their accounts are being checked, they’re unlikely to hide any money there,” said Betty, handing over the information. “We did comparison sheets where the records were deep enough. Three years.”
“Boring as hell, huh?”
“Your missing pilot’s rich. I’d like to be in her will.”
“So I hear. These are the same forms they had out at North Lake?”
“You’ve seen them already?” Betty’s tongue nearly got tangled in her candy. “God damn it, Andy, you know how short-staffed I am?”
“So, how rich is York, anyway?”
Betty began rattling numbers through the smoke rings, calming somewhat. The family was among the top thousand in the country, depending on how their holdings were valued. On the one hand, she had no close relatives — her parents were dead and she had no sisters — but on the other hand her “real” money was parked in trusts.
“You can’t even tell how rich these people are from the statements,” said Betty. “That’s my point. They’re basically the same bullshit forms Congress uses, and you know how revealing they are.”
“Like your shirt.”
While Betty inspected her clothes, Fisher looked at the sheets, which — contrary to what he had insinuated — were somewhat more detailed than the data available at North Lake. York’s included a long list of trusts that she had an interest in.
“Can you find out what these trusts hold?” he asked.
“After you get the subpoenas and double my personnel line, sure.” Betty popped another Tootsie Roll. “Overtime pay would be nice too.”
Fisher leaned forward. There was a cup of coffee at the edge. Something appeared to be growing in it; otherwise, he might have taken a sip.
“I have this other idea,” he said. “But it’s a long shot.”
“What idea of yours isn’t?”
Fisher reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a three-page list of names. “These are the companies that are involved in Cyclops,” he told her. “Just the weapons part. I was wondering if we could get an idea of any relationships they have.”
“What are you, a marriage counselor?”
“Watching Jay Leno is really paying off for you, Betty.”
She took the list and immediately started to frown. “Are these all private companies?”
“I don’t know. What’s the difference?”
“Well, for starters, it’s as hard getting information on private companies as it is for individuals.”
“So, it’ll be a snap, huh?” Fisher took a long draw on the cigarette. Betty smoked no-name cigarettes, and this particular one reminded him of horse dung. But insulting her would not be particularly productive. “There may be paperwork over at DOD that lets us look at their financial records.”
“Did you ask?”
“Not directly.”
“Have you talked to GSA to see if there have been any audits?”
“See, that’s why you’re the expert. I didn’t even think of that.”
“Do we have grounds to look at their books?”
Fisher shrugged.
“That means no. This is a lot of work, Andy. Even without going in and looking at their books.”
“I’d also be interested in whatever else they’re doing, what other project they’re tied into. Also, I’m looking for real estate records. I’ve hit a dead end on that side.”
She tried to hand the paper back to him. “This isn’t r
eally accounting, Fisher. This is something you should be doing yourself.”
“You know me and numbers,” said Fisher.
Betty turned aside to one of the three computers lined up on the side of her desk — she had a laptop and a PDA on the desk itself — and pressed a few buttons.
“Hmmmm,” she said.
“See. I knew you could do it.”
“It’s going to take longer than I thought. No way.”
“Great,” said Fisher, jumping up. “Call me, okay?”
“Andy. Andy!”
In retrospect, Fisher realized that he had made a tactical mistake in managing his exit, for undoubtedly Betty’s rather sonorous voice had set off some sort of deep vibration within the Bureau’s clandestine internal security system. Nonetheless, he almost succeeded in escaping completely from the complex — but then,almost only counts in horseshoes and grenades.
Actually, the latter would have been an appropriate metaphor.
“Andrew Fisher!”
When faced with a difficult situation, Fisher knew, there were only two possible ways of dealing with it. The first was to face it bravely. The second — infinitely preferable — was to run away as fast as you could.
Given that his way down the hall was barred by several security types, Fisher chose the former.
“Hey, boss,” he said, swirling around. “What’s happening?”
Jack Hunter’s red face glowed in the corridor, his mouth open while his brain worked to string together a sentence of passable coherence. Hunter was executive assistant director for National Security — Special Projects, a kingdom that had been carved out of Counterintelligence when no one was looking. It was often said that Hunter was old-school Bureau, though no one could figure exactly what school that might have been. In any event, he was among the most deliberate speakers in Washington; several field agents believed that talking to Hunter was the best way to prepare for a lifetime as a Zen Buddhist monk.
Fisher, for one, had never put much store in Eastern religion and believed that patience was overrated. Still, with no avenue of escape open, he waited for his boss to get to the point.
“A camel, Fisher? A camel?” said Hunter finally.
“Yeah, bit me,” said Fisher. “Ain’t that a bitch?”
“It should have bitten your head off. And what was this about water?”
“Hey, Egypt’s in the middle of a desert. Had to buy water.”
“Five trainloads of water?”
“I think it was only four. You better send somebody over to check that one out.”
Hunter’s face shaded even redder. “Why does Colonel Gorman want to talk to me?”
“Sounds like a personal matter,” said Fisher. The way was now clear, and so he hustled toward it.
“Fisher! Stop this instant.”
Fisher obeyed, but only because he could no longer afford to waste time discussing Bureau finances. He pulled his cigarettes out.
“You can’t smoke in here. It’s a federal building!”
“Right, chief,” he said, turning and heading toward the doors.
“Fisher!”
“I’m going, I’m going.”
Chapter 3
The transmission clearly belonged to a Russian aircraft. Even Luksha, no expert, could see from the graph how the query to the Russian satellite for its position matched the pattern of a dozen other aircraft, including his own. Luksha could also see that the geopositioning gear that made the query had once been in a Tu-160; this match was also perfect.
But according to the three intelligence people fidgeting before him, no Tu-160 had been flying to make the query. The few currently operating with Voyenno-Vozdushnyye Sily’s Long-Range or Frontal Aviation units — officially there were six of the aircraft the Americans dubbed the Blackjack, but in reality only two had actually flown in the past six months — had both been grounded when the query was made.
“So is this a Tu-160, or just the GPS system?” asked the general.
“It is impossible to know for certain, of course.” Chapeav nestled his hands on his potbelly. “Several Tu-160s from the Ukraine were sold for parts some years ago. It is likely that this came from that lot. Some airframes were sold in those transactions, but given the location over the Pacific, we rule this out as an actual Tu-160. It’s simply a GPS unit, and perhaps related avionics, that’s been placed in another aircraft.”
“We rule it out because it’s not the answer we’re seeking,” said Luksha, as usual becoming impatient with Chapeav’s know-it-all manner.
It was possible that one of the Russian military’s development commands or even an aircraft factory was operating a Tu-160 for test purposes or covert missions that his people were not privy to. The bomber, though oldish, was a large, relatively stable platform that was quite usable if kept in good repair. But Chapeav dismissed this with a wave of his hand, claiming that his impeccable sources would have made it clear already if this were the case.
“It is possible that one of the Middle Eastern governments — Iran, I would think — has refurbished an aircraft or two and is conducting long-range testing over the Pacific,” conceded Chapeav, almost as an afterthought. “But our inquiries have not lent support to that theory. That is why we believe the GPS unit itself is all that is involved.”
“Why would the Americans use our satellites?” asked Luksha.
“Assuming it is the Americans, it would make it harder to detect or defeat.”
“By them, not us.”
Chapeav smiled faintly, then turned to the short bearded man on the right, a specialist who had worked for the PVO. The man reached into a folder and laid out a set of satellite images showing a bare island near the water.
“Among the islands included in the agreement with Japan for oil exploitation in the Kuril’skije Ostrova was one once intended as a relief base,” said Chapeav. His right hand began to shake; it occurred to Luksha that were it not for this physical disability, the intelligence expert would be intolerable. But the disease softened his hard opinion of him.
“This is a photo of the island,” added Chapeav, pushing the picture at the far right of the series in front of the general, “taken within the past week. And this one is from an aircraft before the leases to the private companies, some years ago.”
As Luksha compared the two photos, Chapeav spoke of the island. It had been used during the 1950’s and sixties as a base for spy flights over Japan and the Pacific, gradually falling out of use during the 1970’s. A brief round of activity in the 1980’s brought improvements to the base under a plan to operate long-range bombers with cruise missiles in answer to the American deployment of the B-1B. The bunkered hangar, cut into the rock, could hold six aircraft, and the access was angled in such a way as to avoid exposure to American satellites then in use — an advantage, Chapeav noted, that continued to this day.
There were obvious differences in the photos Luksha was examining. The older one was black-and-white, and taken at a slightly different angle. A rectangular patch of metal and machinery, which appeared to be an oil rig, sat at the right side of the island in the new photo. But Luksha could not see anything else of significance. He put them down and held out his hands. “The oil derrick?”
“They have reactivated the hangar,” said the intelligence expert triumphantly.
“How can you see that?”
The photo interpreter proceeded to explain, pointing to a thin line at the lower right of both photos. The field itself was camouflaged by shadows that appeared to be rock outcroppings. The line, a reflection of the closed hangar blast door, was not present in the middle series of photos.
“It is not part of the oil-drilling process, which, as you can see, was abandoned,” added Chapeav. “I would believe they timed the work according to the satellite coverage, possibly using the oil derrick as a cover. The small boats that came in and out at that time — they would all have appeared to be part of the oil project, which stopped six months ago.”
“We believe so.”
“By the Japanese?”
“There are no indications that the Japanese Self-Defense Force is involved, but they cannot be ruled out.”
“You’re telling me that whatever used the Tu-160 GPS flew from this island,” said Luksha, “and that it was the 767 aircraft that housed the laser weapon.”
“No,” said Chapeav. “We have not made that connection…but it is an interesting guess.”
His tone was triumphant, as if they were playing some parlor game. Clearly the intelligence expert had made that guess himself: The GPS reads began only twenty-four hours after the laser plane had disappeared.
An interesting coincidence, but no more.
“Can that airfield be used by an airplane as big as the 767?” asked Luksha.
“Yes, though it is not as easy as it seems,” said the third expert, who until now had not spoken. His area was aeronautics; he proceeded to explain how difficult it would be for a plane to take off and land on the strip. The bomber, though heavy, had the advantage of variable-geometry wings. But he ended the discussion of impossibilities by saying it could be done.
“Who owns the lease?” said Luksha.
“We are examining that,” said Chapeav. “It is under Japanese authority by treaty, which makes the information slower to obtain. According to their official records, it is abandoned.”
Luksha leaned back in his seat, considering all that he had been told. In order to do anything further, he would have to travel to Moscow personally to ask permission and gather additional resources.
“It would be useful to visit the island,” he said finally, knowing it would elicit another parlor-game smile from Chapeav. “I will begin preparing the arrangements.
Chapter 4
Blitz sat down at the small metal table across from the large stove in the White House kitchen. It was nighttime, and he could see both his reflection and the President’s in the window next to the refrigerator as D’Amici fixed himself a cup of herbal tea. He could, of course, have gotten an aide to do it; Blitz imagined most presidents would have. D’Amici not only liked to do things himself, he liked places like the kitchen — places normally out of bounds for the chief executive. They reminded him, he said, of the real people he was working for.
