Tom Clancy's Op-center Novels 7-12 (9781101644591)

by Clancy, Tom

  Instead, Baroni checked the file of government-issued license plates. This listing was maintained in the event of a diplomatic kidnapping. The NSA chief always rode in the same town car when he came to New York. Baroni got the license number and asked her friend, Detective Steve Mitchell at Midtown South, to try to find the car on the street. Then she got the number of the car’s windshield-mounted electronic security pass. The ESP enabled vehicles to enter embassy and government parking garages with a minimum of delay, giving potential assassins less time to stage ambushes.

  The ESP didn’t show up on any of the United States checkpoints, which were transmitted immediately to State Department security files. That meant that Fenwick was visiting foreign embassies. Over one hundred nations also transmitted that data to the DOS within minutes. Most of those were close U.S. allies, such as Great Britain, Japan, and Israel. Fenwick had not yet gone to visit any of them. She used secure e-mail to forward to Rodgers the information where Fenwick hadn’t been.

  Then, just after four P.M., Baroni got a call from Detective Mitchell. One of his squad cars spotted the chief of staff’s car leaving a building at 622 Third Avenue. That was just below Forty-second Street. Baroni looked up the address in her guide to permanent missions.

  The occupant surprised her.

  FIFTEEN

  Washington, D.C. Monday, 4:03 P.M.

  Paul Hood arrived at the west wing of the White House at four o’clock. Even before he had finished passing through the security checkpoint, a presidential intern had arrived to show him to the Oval Office. Hood could tell he had been here at least several months. Like most seasoned interns, the freshly scrubbed young man had a slightly cocky air. Here he was, a kid in his early twenties, working at the White House. The ID badge around his neck was his trump card with women at bars, with chatty neighbors on airplanes, with brothers and cousins when he went home for the holidays. Whatever anyone else said or did, he was interacting with the president, the vice president, cabinet, and congressional leaders on a daily basis. He was exposed to real power, he was plugged into the world, and he was moving past the eyes and ears of all media where the expressions and casual utterances of even people like him could cause events that would ripple through history. Hood remembered feeling a lot of that when he was a kid working in the Los Angeles office of the governor of California. He could only imagine how much more extreme it was for this kid, the sense of being at the center of the universe.

  The Oval Office is located at the far southeast corner of the West Wing. Hood followed the young man in silence as they made their way through the busy corridors, passed by people who did not seem at all self-important. They had the look and carriage of people who were very late for a plane. Hood walked past the office of the national security adviser and the vice president, then turned east at the vice president’s office and walked past the office of the press secretary. Then they turned south past the cabinet room. They walked in silence all the while. Hood wondered if the young man wasn’t speaking to him because the kid had a sense of propriety or because Hood wasn’t enough of a celebrity to merit talking to. Hood decided to give him the benefit of the doubt.

  The office past the cabinet room belonged to Mrs. Leigh. She was seated behind her desk. Behind it was the only door that led to the Oval Office. The intern excused himself. Hood and the president’s tall, white-haired secretary greeted each other with smiles. Mrs. Leigh was from Texas, with the steel, poise, patience, and dry, self-effacing humor required for the guardian of the gate. Her husband was the late Senator Titus Leigh, a legendary cattleman.

  “The president’s running a few minutes late,” Mrs. Leigh said. “But that’s all right. You can tell me how you are.”

  “Coping,” Hood said. “And you?”

  “Fine,” she replied flatly. “My strength is the strength of ten because my heart is pure.”

  “I’ve heard that somewhere,” Hood said as he continued toward the secretary’s desk.

  “It’s Lord Tennyson,” she replied. “How is your daughter?”

  “She’s strong, too,” Hood said. “And she has an awful lot of people pulling for her.”

  “I don’t doubt that,” Mrs. Leigh said, still smiling. “Let me know if there’s anything I can do.”

  “I absolutely will,” Hood said. He looked into her gray eyes. “There is something you can do for me, though.”

  “And that is?”

  “Off the record?”

  “Of course,” she assured him.

  “Mrs. Leigh, has the president seemed all right to you?” Hood asked.

  The woman’s smile wavered. She looked down. “Is that what this meeting is about?”

  “No,” Hood said.

  “What makes you ask a question like that?”

  “People close to him are worried,” Hood said.

  “And you’re the one who’s been asked to bell the cat?” she asked.

  “Nothing that calculated,” Hood said as his cell phone beeped. He reached into his jacket pocket and answered the phone.

  “This is Paul.”

  “Paul, it’s Mike.”

  “Mike, what’s up?” If Rodgers was calling him here, now, it had to be important.

  “The target was seen leaving the Iranian mission to the UN about three minutes ago.”

  “Any idea where he was the rest of the time?” Hood asked.

  “Negative,” said Rodgers. “We’re working on that. But apparently, the car didn’t show up at the embassies of any of our top allies.”

  “Thanks,” Hood said. “Let me know if you find out anything else.”

  Hood hung up. He put the phone back in his pocket. That was strange. The president had announced an intelligence initiative involving the United Nations, and one of the first missions the national security adviser visits belongs to Iran. As a sponsor of the kind of terrorism the United Nations opposed, that did not make sense.

  The door to the Oval Office opened.

  “Mrs. Leigh, would you do me a favor?” Hood said.

  “Yes.”

  “Would you get me Jack Fenwick’s itinerary in New York?”

  “Fenwick? Why?”

  “He’s one of the reasons I asked you the question I did,” Hood replied.

  Mrs. Leigh looked at Hood. “All right. Do you want it while you’re with the president?”

  “As soon as possible,” Hood said. “And when you get the file number, let me know what else is in the file. I don’t need specific documents, just dates when they were filed.”

  “All right,” she said. “And Paul—what you asked before ? I have noticed a change.”

  He smiled at her. “Thanks. If there’s a problem, we’re going to try and fix it quickly and quietly, whatever it is.”

  She nodded and sat at her computer as the vice president emerged from the Oval Office. Charles Cotten was a tall, stout man with a thin face and thinning gray hair. He greeted Paul Hood with a warm handshake and a smile but didn’t stop to talk. Mrs. Leigh punched the phone intercom. The president answered. She told him that Paul Hood was here, and the president asked her to send him in. Hood went around the desk and walked into the Oval Office.

  SIXTEEN

  Baku, Azerbaijan Tuesday, 12:07 A.M.

  David Battat lay on the flimsy cot and stared at the dark ceiling of the damp basement storehouse. Pat Thomas slept on his back in a cot on the other side of the small room, breathing softly, regularly. But Battat couldn’t sleep.

  His neck still ached, and he was angry at himself for having gotten cold-cocked, but that wasn’t what was keeping him awake. Before going to sleep, Battat had reviewed the original data the CIA had received about the Harpooner. He could not put it out of his mind. All signs, including a reliable eyewitness, pointed to it having been the terrorist that was being met by the Rachel. And if that were so, if the Harpooner had passed through Baku on his way to somewhere else, Battat was deeply troubled by one question: Why am I still alive?

  Why
would a terrorist with a reputation for scorched-earth attacks and homicidal behavior leave an enemy alive? To mislead them? To make them think it wasn’t the Harpooner who was there? That had been his initial reaction. But maybe the terrorist had left him alive for another reason. And Battat lay there, trying to figure out what that reason could be.

  The only reason he could think of would be to carry misinformation back to his superiors. But he had not carried any information back, other than what was already known: that the Rachel was where it was supposed to be. And without knowing who got on or where it went, that information did them no good.

  Battat’s clothes had been gone over carefully for an electronic bug or a radioactive tracer of some kind. Nothing had been found, and the clothes were subsequently destroyed. If one had been located, it would have been used to spread disinformation or to misdirect the enemy. Moore had gone through Battat’s hair, checked under his fingernails, looked in his mouth and elsewhere for a microtransmitter that could be used to locate Battat or eavesdrop on any conversations he might have. Nothing had been found.

  There wasn’t a damn thing, he thought. And it gnawed at him because he didn’t think this was a screw-up. He was alive for a reason.

  He shut his eyes and turned on his side. Thinking about this while he was dead tired would get him nowhere. He had to sleep. He forced himself to think about something pleasant: what he would do when he found the Harpooner.

  The thought relaxed him. As he lay there, Battat began to feel warm. He attributed that to the poor ventilation in the room and the distress he was feeling over everything that had happened.

  A few minutes later, he was asleep.

  A few minutes after that, he began to perspire.

  A few minutes after that, he was awake and gasping for breath.

  SEVENTEEN

  Washington, D. C. Monday, 4:13 P.M.

  The president was writing on a white legal pad when Hood entered. The president told Hood to have a seat; he needed to make a few notes before they talked. Hood quietly shut the door behind him and walked toward a brown leather armchair in front of the desk. He turned off his cell phone and sat down.

  The president was dressed in a black suit and silver and black striped tie. A rich yellow light gleamed off the panes of bulletproof glass behind the president. Beyond it, the Rose Garden looked rich and alive. Everything seemed so right here, so healthy and normal, that for a moment Hood doubted himself.

  But only for a moment. Hood’s instincts got him where he was; there was no reason to start doubting them now. Besides, the battle was always somewhere else, never in the command tent.

  The president finished writing, put down his pen, and looked at Hood. His face was drawn and wan, but his eyes had their usual gleam.

  “Talk to me, Paul,” the president said.

  Hood grew warm behind the ears. This wasn’t going to be easy. Even if he were correct, it wasn’t going to be easy convincing the president that members of his staff might be running an operation of their own. Hood did not have a lot to go on, and part of him wished that he had gone to the First Lady before coming here. It would have been better to let her talk to him in private. But if the intelligence Herbert had received was right, there might not be time for that. Ironically, Hood would have to keep Megan Lawrence out of this. He did not want the president to know that his wife had been talking about him behind his back.

  Hood leaned forward. “Mr. President, I have some concerns about the United Nations intelligence operation.”

  “Jack Fenwick is setting it all up,” the president said. “There’ll be a comprehensive briefing when he returns from New York.”

  “Will the NSA be running the project?”

  “Yes,” the president informed him. “Jack will be reporting directly to me. Paul, I hope this visit isn’t about some kind of territorial pissing contest between Op-Center and the NSA—”

  “No, sir,” Hood assured him.

  The intercom beeped. The president answered. It was Mrs. Leigh. She said she had something for Paul Hood. The president frowned and asked her to bring it in. He looked at Hood.

  “Paul, what’s going on?”

  “Hopefully, nothing,” Hood said.

  Mrs. Leigh walked in and handed Hood a single sheet of paper.

  “Is this all?” Hood asked.

  She nodded.

  “What about the file itself?”

  “Empty,” she said.

  Hood thanked Mrs. Leigh, and she left.

  “What file is empty?” the president asked irritably. “Paul, what the hell is going on?”

  “I’ll tell you in a moment, Mr. President,” Hood said. He looked down at the paper. “From eleven A.M. this morning until four P.M., Jack Fenwick was scheduled to meet with representatives of the government of Iran at their permanent mission in New York.”

  “Impossible,” said the president.

  “Sir, Mrs. Leigh obtained this from the NSA office,” Hood said. He handed the president the paper. “It has their file number on top. And according to intel we received, Fenwick did spend a good part of the afternoon at the Iranian mission.”

  The president looked at the paper and was still for a long moment. Then he shook his head slowly. “Fenwick was supposed to be meeting with the Syrians, the Vietnamese, a half-dozen others,” he said. “That’s what he told me last night. Hell, we aren’t even close to reaching an intelligence agreement with Iran.”

  “I know,” Hood said. “But Fenwick was there. And except for this document, the file is empty. As far as the NSA is concerned, there is no such thing as the UN initiative.”

  “This has to be bullshit,” the president said dismissively. “More bullshit.” The president jabbed the intercom button on his phone. “Mrs. Leigh, get me Jack Fenwick—”

  “Sir, I don’t think you should talk to anyone at the NSA,” Hood said.

  “Excuse me?”

  “Not yet, at least,” Hood said.

  “Hold on, Mrs. Leigh,” the president said. “Paul, you just told me my national security adviser is way off the playbook. Now you’re telling me not to bother finding out if that’s true?”

  “Before you do that, we need to talk,” Hood said.

  “About what?”

  “I don’t believe this situation with Fenwick is a miscommunication,” Hood said.

  “Neither do I,” the president said. “My conversations with him were very explicit. That’s why he and I need to talk.”

  “But what if something is very wrong?” Hood asked.

  “Explain.”

  “What if this is a rogue operation of some kind?” Hood asked.

  “You’re out of your mind,” the president said. He appeared stunned. “Christ, Paul, I’ve known most of these people for fifteen, twenty years—they’re good friends!”

  Hood understood. And all he could think to say was, “‘Et tu, Brute?’ ”

  The president looked at him. “Paul, what are you talking about?”

  “When Julius Caesar was killed by republicans in the senate, it was his closest and oldest friend who organized the assassination,” Hood said.

  The president looked at him. A moment later, he told Mrs. Leigh to forget the call. Then he shook his head slowly. “I’m listening,” the president said. “But this better be good.”

  Hood knew that. What he didn’t know was where to begin. There was a possible conspiracy and possible mental illness. Perhaps both. He decided to start at the beginning and work his way through.

  “Mr. President, why did Fenwick call you last night?” he asked.

  “He had finished a day of meetings with ambassadors at the Hay-Adams,” the president said. “There was strong opposition to the intelligence initiative from several key governments. He was supposed to let me know if and when he finally pulled it all together.”

  “Mr. President,” Hood said, “we don’t believe that Jack Fenwick was at the Hay-Adams Hotel last night. The call he made to you was apparent
ly routed to the hotel from somewhere else.”

  “From where?” the president asked.

  “I don’t know,” Hood admitted. “Perhaps he was already in New York. Was Fenwick also liaising with the CIOC?”

  “No,” the president said. “Getting approvals from the Oversight Committee was the responsibility of Fenwick’s deputy, Don Roedner, and Red Gable on this end.”

  Hood didn’t know Roedner any better than he knew Gable. He didn’t even know Gable had a nickname.

  “Sir,” Hood continued, “last night, when you thanked Senator Fox for budgeting Mr. Fenwick’s initiative, that was the first she’d heard about it.”

  President Lawrence froze, but only for a moment. His expression changed slowly. He looked very strange for a moment, both twenty years older and like a lost boy. He sat back.

  “Gable wouldn’t go behind my back on something,” the president said faintly. “He wouldn’t. And if he did, I’d read it in his face.”

  “When was the last time you saw him?” Hood asked.

  The president thought. “Friday, at the cabinet meeting.”

  “There were a lot of people there, a lot of issues on the table,” Hood said. “You might have missed it. Or maybe he was snookered by the NSA.”

  “I can’t believe that, either,” the president said.

  “I see,” Hood said. “Well, if Fenwick and Gable aren’t rogue, there’s only one other option I can think of.”

  “Which is?”

  Hood had to be careful how he said this. He was no longer floating ideas about the president’s staff but about the president himself.

  “Maybe none of this happened,” Hood said. “The UN initiative, the meetings with foreign governments—none of it.”

  “You mean I imagined it all,” the president said. Hood didn’t answer.

  “Do you believe that?” the president asked.

  “I do not,” Hood replied truthfully. If nothing else, there was the rerouted phone call from the Hay-Adams, and the president didn’t imagine that. “But I won’t lie to you, Mr. President,” Hood went on. “You do seem tense, guarded, distracted. Definitely not yourself.”