by Clancy, Tom
Though the time the Strikers spent on the ground was rewarding, Honda had learned that their time in the air was anything but. They rarely took short trips and the long journeys could be extremely dull. That was why he had come up with constructive ways of filling his time.
Wherever they were going, Honda arranged to patch his personal computer into the data files of both Stephen Viens at the National Reconnaissance Office and those of Op-Center’s computer chief, Matt Stoll. The NRO was the group that managed most of America’s spy satellites. Because Viens was an old college chum of Stoll’s, he had been extremely helpful in getting information for Op-Center when more established groups like military intelligence, the CIA, and the NSA were fighting for satellite time. Viens was later accused of forward-funding two billion dollars of NRO money into a variety of black ops projects. He was vindicated with Op-Center’s help and recently returned to duty.
Before Striker headed to any territory, Viens set aside satellite time to do all the photographic recon that Colonel August needed. That imaging was considered of primary importance and was sent on the mission in Colonel August’s files. Meanwhile, Stoll spent as much time as possible collecting electronic intelligence from the region. Police departments and the military did not share everything they knew, even with allies. In many foreign countries, especially Russia, China, and Israel, American operatives were often watched without their knowledge by foreign operatives. It was up to Op-Center to pick up whatever information they could and protect themselves accordingly. They did this by diverging from the agreed-upon routes and time schedules, using “dispensable” team members to mislead tails, or occasionally subduing whoever was following them. A host nation could not complain if the person they had sent to spy on an ally was later found bound and gagged in a hotel closet.
The ELINT Stoll had gathered was composed of everything from fax messages and e-mail to phone numbers and radio frequencies. Everything that came to or went from official sources or known resistance and opposition forces. These numbers, frequencies, and encryption codes were then run through programs. They were compared with those of known terrorists or foreign agents. If there were any possible “watchdogs or impediments” in the region, as mission planners referred to them, these scans helped to find and identify them. The last thing American intelligence chiefs wanted was to have undercover operatives photographed or their methods observed by foreign governments. Not only could that information be sold to a third party, but the United States never knew which friendly governments might one day be intelligence targets.
“Think Iran,” Colonel August reminded them whenever they went on a joint mission with allies.
Honda had brought along a Striker laptop. The computer was equipped with a wireless, high-speed modem to download data Stoll was still collecting. Honda would memorize any relevant data. When Striker reached India, the computer would be left on the transport and returned to the base. Colonel August would keep his laptop to download data. Where they were going, the less Corporal Honda had to carry the happier he would be.
As the new intelligence was dumped into Honda’s computer, an audio prompt pinged. It was alerting him to an anomaly that Stoll’s program had picked up at Op-Center. Honda accessed the flagged data.
The Bellhop program on the air force’s “Sanctity” satellite continually scanned the cell phones and radios that used police bands. Op-Center and the other U.S. intelligence agencies had these numbers for their own communications with foreign offices. It was a simple matter to hack the computers and look for other incoming calls.
The Bellhop had picked up a series of point-to-point calls made on a police-registered cell phone. It was coded “field phone” in the Bellhop lexicon. Most of the calls were placed over a five-month period from Kargil to the district police headquarters in Jammu, coded “home phone.” During that time there was only one call to that field phone from the home phone. Stoll’s program, which integrated Op-Center intel with NRO data, indicated that the call was placed less than one second before the Kashmir-focused ClusterStar3 satellite recorded an explosion in a bazaar in Srinagar.
“Damn,” Honda muttered.
Honda wondered if Colonel August or General Rodgers had been informed about a possible terrorist attack. The fact that a police cell phone made a call to the site an instant before the explosion could be a coincidence. Perhaps someone was phoning a security guard. On the other hand there might be a connection between the two. Honda unbuckled himself from the uncomfortable seat and went forward to inform his commanding officers. He had to walk slowly, carefully, to keep from being bucked against his teammates by the aircraft’s movements in the turbulent air.
August and Rodgers were huddled together over the general’s laptop when he arrived.
“Excuse me, sirs,” Honda said. He had to shout to be heard over the screaming engines.
August looked up. “What have you got, Corporal?”
Honda told the two officers about the explosion. August informed Honda that they were just reading an e-mail from Bob Herbert about the blast. It provided what few details anyone had about the attack. Then Honda informed his superiors about the phone calls. That seemed to grab General Rodgers’s interest.
“There were two calls a day for five months, always at the same time,” Honda said.
“Like a routine check-in,” Rodgers said.
“Exactly, sir,” Honda replied. “Except for today. There was just one call and it was made to the field phone. It was placed a moment before the explosion that took out the temple.”
Rodgers sat back. “Corporal, would you go through the data file and see if this calling pattern is repeated, probably from field phones with different code numbers? Outgoing calls to one home phone and one or none coming back?”
“Yes, sir,” Honda replied.
Honda crouched on the cold, rumbling floor and raised one knee. He put the laptop upon it. He was not sure what the officers were looking for exactly and it was not his place to ask. He input the code number of the home phone and asked for a Bellhop search. Colonel August’s hunch was correct. He told them that in addition to this series there were seven weeks of calls from another field phone in Kargil. They were made twice a day at the same times. Before that there were six weeks of calls from another field phone, also two times daily. Thirteen weeks was as far back as these Bellhop records went.
“New Delhi must have had civilian agents tracking a terrorist cell,” Rodgers said.
“How do you know that?” August asked. “The calls may just have been field ops reporting in.”
“I don’t think so,” Rodgers told him. “First of all, only one of the calls on Corporal Honda’s list was made from the home phone to the field phone.”
“That was the one made at the time of the explosion,” August said.
“Correct,” Rodgers replied. “That would suggest the officers in charge of the recon did not want field phones ringing at inopportune moments.”
“I’ll buy that,” August said.
“There’s more than that, though,” Rodgers said. “When Pakistan was knocked out of Kargil in 1999, the Indian Special Frontier Force knew that enemy cells would be left behind. They couldn’t hunt them down with soldiers. The locals would have known if strangers were moving through a village. And if the locals knew it members of the cell would have known it. So the SFF recruited a shitload of locals to serve in their Civilian Network Operatives unit.” The general tapped his laptop. “It’s all here in the intelligence overview. But they couldn’t give the recruits normal militia radios because, that close to Pakistan, those channels are routinely monitored by ELINT personnel. So the SFF gave their recruits cell phones. The agents call the regional office and complain about break-ins, missing children, stolen livestock, that sort of thing. What they’re really doing is using coded messages to keep the SFF informed about suspected terrorist movements and activities.”
“All right,” August said. “But what makes you think the cal
ls on this list aren’t just routine field reports?”
“Because CNO personnel don’t make routine field reports,” Rodgers said. “They only report when they have something to say. There’s less chance of them being overheard that way. I’m willing to bet that there are terrorist strikes to coincide with the termination of each of those series of calls. A target was hit, the cell moved on, the calls stopped being placed.”
“Perhaps,” August said. “But that doesn’t explain the call to the temple right before the blast.”
“Actually, it might,” Rodgers told him.
“I don’t follow,” August said.
Rodgers looked up at Honda. “Corporal, would you please get the TAC-SAT?”
“Yes, sir.”
Rodgers turned back to August. “I’m going to ask Bob Herbert to check on the dates of terrorist strikes in the region,” he said. “I want to see if reports from field phones stopped coming in after terrorist strikes. I also want Bob to look into something else.”
“What’s that?” August asked.
Honda closed his laptop and stood. He lingered long enough to hear Rodgers’s reply.
“I want to know what kind of detonator caps the SFF uses for counterterrorist strikes,” the general replied.
“Why?” August asked.
“Because the Mossad, the Iraqi Al Amn al-Khas, Abu Nidal’s group, and the Spanish Grapo have all used PDEs on occasion,” Rodgers said. “Phone-detonated explosives.”
THIRTEEN
Srinagar, Kashmir Wednesday, 6:59 P.M.
It was nearly dark when Ron Friday returned to the bazaar. Though he was curious to see how the authorities here were handling the investigation he was more interested in what he might be able to find out about the attack. His life might depend on that information.
The rain had stopped and there was a cold wind rolling off the mountains. Friday was glad he had worn a baseball cap and a windbreaker, though the drop in temperature was not the reason he had put them on. Even from his room he could hear helicopters circling the area. When Friday arrived he found that the two police choppers were hovering low, less than two hundred feet up. In addition to looking for survivors, the noise echoing loudly through the square helped to keep onlookers from staying too long. But that was not the only reason the choppers were there. Friday guessed that they were also maintaining a low altitude to photograph the crowd in case the terrorist was still in the area. The cockpits were probably equipped with GRRs—geometric reconstructive recorders. These were digital cameras that could take photographs shot at an angle and reconfigure the geometry so they became accurate frontal images. Interpol and most national security agencies had a “face-print” file consisting of mug shots and police sketches of known and suspected terrorists. Like fingerprints, face-print photographs could be run through a computer and compared to images on file. The computer superimposed the likenesses. If the features were at least a 70 percent match, that was considered sufficient to go after the individual for interrogation.
Friday had worn the baseball cap because he did not want to be face-printed by the chopper. He did not know which governments might have his likeness on file or for what reason. He certainly did not want to give them a picture with which to start a file.
The blast sights had been roped off with red tape. Spotlights on ten-foot-tall tripods had been erected around the perimeters. Physically, the main market area reminded Friday of a gymnasium after a dance. The event was over, the place eerily lifeless, and the residue of activity was everywhere. Only here, instead of punch there were bloodstains. Instead of crepe there were shredded awnings. And instead of empty seats there were abandoned carts. Some of the vendors had taken their carts away, leaving dust-free spots on the ground in the shape of the stall. In the sharp light they resembled the black shadows of trees and people that had been burned on the walls of Hiroshima and Nagasaki by nuclear fire. Other carts had been simply abandoned. Perhaps the owners had not been there when the blast occurred and the hired help did not want to stick around. Maybe some of the sellers had been injured or killed.
Militiamen from the regular army were stationed around the perimeters. They were carrying MP5K submachine guns, very visible in the bright lights. Police were patrolling the square carrying their distinctive .455 Webley revolvers. Apart from discouraging looters—which did not really require exposed firearms—there was only one reason to haul out artillery after a strike. It was a means of restoring wounded pride and reassuring the public that the people in charge were still a potent force. It was all so sadly predictable.
Reporters were allowed to make their news broadcasts or take their pictures and then were asked to leave. An officer explained to a crew from CNN that it would be more difficult to watch for looters if a crowd gathered.
Or maybe they just did not want cameras recording their own thefts, Friday thought. He was willing to bet that many of the goods that had been left behind would be gone by morning.
A few people had come to the marketplace just to stare. Whatever they expected to see—broken bodies, the spectacle of destruction, news being made—it did not appear to fulfill them. Most left looking deflated. Bomb sites, combat zones, and car wrecks often did that to people. They were drawn to it and then repulsed. Maybe they were disappointed by a sudden awareness of their own bloodthirstiness. Some people came with flowers, which they laid on the ground beneath the tape. Others just left behind prayers for dead friends, relatives, or strangers.
At the destroyed police station and temple, building inspectors were moving through surrounding structures to determine whether they had been weakened or damaged in the blasts. Friday recognized them by their white hard hats and palm-sized echometers. These devices emitted either singleor multidirectional sound waves that could be adjusted to the composition of an object, from stone to concrete to wood. If the sound waves encountered anything that was inconsistent with the makeup of the material—which typically meant a breach—an alarm would sound and the officials would examine the site further.
Apart from the engineers there were the usual police recovery units and medical personnel working at all three sites. But Friday was surprised by one thing. Typically, terrorist attacks in India were investigated by the district police and the National Security Guard. The NSG was established in 1986 to act as a counterterrorist force. The so-called Black Cat Commandos handled situations ranging from in-progress hijackings and kidnappings to forensic activities at bomb sites. However, there was not a single black-uniformed NSG operative here. These sites were under the control of the brown-uniformed Special Frontier Force. Friday had never been to any bomb sites in Srinagar. Maybe this was the way responsibility for antiterrorist investigations had been parceled out, with the SFF getting the region nearest the line of control.
Friday was motioned along by one of the police officers. He would not be able to get into the rubble himself. But he could still come up with some sound ideas about how the attack was made. As he walked toward the place where the bus had exploded, Friday used his cell phone to call Samantha Mandor at the NSA’s photo archives. He asked her to search the AP, UPI, Reuters, and other digital photograph files for pictures of sites struck by terrorists in Kashmir. He also wanted her to pull together any analysis files that were attached to the photographs. He probably had some of those in his own computer files back in his room. But he wanted information that was incident-specific. Friday told her to phone back the minute she had the photo and text archives.
The American operative neared the roped-off bus site. Unlike the two buildings, where the walls had kept people and objects from the street, the bus debris had been strewn everywhere by the powerful explosion. The bodies had been cleared away but the street was covered with metal, leather, and glass from the bus itself. There were books and cameras that the passengers had been carrying and travel accessories, clothing, and religious icons that had been packed in luggage. Unlike the buildings, this scene was a snapshot of the moment of impact
.
Friday’s cell phone beeped as he neared the red tape. He stopped walking and took the call.
“Yes?” he said.
“Mr. Friday? It’s Samantha Mandor. I have the photographs and information you asked for. Do you want me to send the images somewhere? There are about four dozen color pictures.”
“No,” Friday said. “When was the last attack in Srinagar?”
“Five months ago,” Samantha told him. “It was against a shipment of artillery shells that were en route to the line of control. The attack caused one hell of an explosion.”
“Was it a suicide bombing?” he asked.
“No,” Samantha said. “There’s a microscopic image of liquid crystal display fragments that were found near ground zero. The lab analysis says it was part of a timer. They also said a remote sensor was found in the debris but that it was apparently not detonated.”
That was probably part of a backup plan, Friday thought. Professionals often included a line-of-sight device to trigger the explosives in case the timer did not work or if the device were discovered before the timer could activate them. The presence of an LOS receiver meant that at least one of the terrorists was almost certainly in the area when the device exploded.
“What about the personnel at the bomb site?” Friday asked. “What kind of uniforms were they wearing?”
“There were National Security Guard officers as well as local police on the scene,” the woman informed him.
“Any members of the Special Frontier Force?” Friday asked.
“None,” she said. “There were additional assaults against military targets in Srinagar. They occurred six and seven weeks prior to that attack. National Security Guard officers were present there as well.”
“Did anyone claim responsibility for those attacks?” Friday asked.
“According to the data file those two and this one were claimed by the same group,” Samantha told him. “The Free Kashmir Militia.”
“Thank you,” Friday said. He had heard of them. Reportedly, they had the backing of the Pakistan government.
