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

by Clancy, Tom

  Though he was warm and perspiring again, Father Bradbury began to tremble.

  The idea of having his body broken was frightening. But the idea that he would be tortured for the wrong ideal was even more terrifying. He did not have the certainty of a martyr.

  “Bring him closer,” someone said from in front of him. It was the man who had spoken to him the night before. The man with the gentle voice. It sounded even calmer now. The priest wondered if it were the voice of a man who had just finished morning prayer.

  Father Bradbury was urged forward. He tried hard to keep his legs under him. At the very least, he wanted to be standing on his own when he faced his own inquisitor. He failed. Sweat was collecting in the bottom of the hood. It was pooling faster than the fabric could absorb it. The priest wished they would at least take the hood off.

  “Have you changed your mind?” the voice asked.

  Father Bradbury stopped thinking. He answered from the gut. “No,” the priest replied. His voice was a rough whisper.

  There were sounds from ahead. Someone was coming toward him. Father Bradbury did not know whether to expect words or blows. Once again, he prayed silently for strength.

  “You may relax,” the speaker said. “I am not going to let anyone strike you. Not today. There must be a balance. Wrath and mercy. Otherwise, neither has any meaning.”

  “Thank you,” the priest said.

  “Besides, some men refuse anything they are forced to do,” the voice said. “Even when these are things they would do willingly at another time.”

  The speaker was very close to him now. Even more than the previous night, his voice had a soothing, oddly comforting quality. It also sounded young. For the first time, he heard a hint of innocence.

  “I would never recall missionaries who are doing God’s work,” Father Bradbury rasped.

  “Never?” the voice asked.

  Father Bradbury was too tired, too distracted to think back. Had he ever done that? He did not think so. Would he ever do it? He did not know. He could not answer the question.

  “I am certain you would warn your people of an impending flood or hurricane,” said the voice.

  “Yes,” Father Bradbury agreed. “But so they could help others, not save themselves.”

  “But you would not want them to stay and perish,” said the man.

  “No.”

  “You would tell the missionaries to leave because life is dear,” said the speaker. “Well, your people are in danger. The gods want this land restored to them and their people returned to the olden temples. I am going to give the gods what they want.”

  “What about the wishes of the people?” Bradbury asked.

  “You hear their confessions,” said the speaker. “You know what many wish. They wish to sin. They wish to have an easy life. It is for the heralds of the gods to teach them a better way.”

  “Not everyone wants those things,” the priest wheezed.

  “You are in no position to say that,” the speaker said.

  “I know my parish—”

  “You do not know my parish,” the man shot back. “It is also for you to decide only whether you and your missionaries will be alive to preach elsewhere. Do not act from pride but with wisdom. But act quickly.”

  Father Bradbury could not help but think of Proverbs 16: 18. “Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall.”

  Perhaps it was the speaker’s intention to remind Father Bradbury of that passage from the Bible. To make him doubt himself. Since the priest had been abducted, everything seemed designed to disorient him. But knowing that did not make it any less effective. Nor did it change the truth of what the man was saying. Father Bradbury did not have the right to keep anyone in danger’s way. And what of his own soul, let alone his life? The priest asked himself the same question he had asked the night before. What would God think of a man who knew that others were at risk and did nothing to save them? The answer seemed clearer now. Or maybe his resistance had diminished. But he was not being asked to disavow his faith. He was being asked to help save lives.

  A sudden sense of outrage flooded the priest. Who were these people to insist that he and the other clergymen leave their adopted home? Who were they to demand that the word of God Almighty be silenced? But the indignation faded quickly as the priest asked himself whether he had the right to make these decisions for the missionaries or for God.

  He needed time that he did not have. Father Bradbury wished he could remove the hood and have a drink. Taste clean air. He yearned to sit down, to lie down, to sleep. He wanted the time to think this through. He wondered if he should ask for these things.

  “I can’t think,” he muttered.

  “You’re not being asked to think,” the speaker replied coldly. “Make the telephone calls, and then you will be fed and permitted to rest. When you are refreshed, you will understand that you acted wisely. You will save lives.”

  “My job is to save souls,” the priest replied.

  “Then live, and save them—somewhere else,” the man replied.

  Even if Father Bradbury had the will to fight, he was not sure exactly what he was fighting for. Or against. Or if he was even fighting for the right cause. It was all too confusing. The man was right about one thing. He needed a clearer head. He needed time. And there was only one way to get that.

  “All right,” Father Bradbury said. “I will do as you ask. I will make your calls.”

  The priest felt hands working around his neck. He eagerly anticipated the removal of the hood. It only came up partway. The men tugged the front only as high as the top of his mouth. They lifted the right side above his ear. The cool air felt like a breath from Heaven. He was walked forward and gently lowered to his knees. It was a little kindness that he appreciated. He was given a short sip of warm water from a canteen. That, too, was a gift from God.

  “The first call is to Deacon Jones,” another man told him. Father Bradbury recognized the voice. It was the gruff-throated man who had brought him to this room the previous night.

  Strong hands continued to hold his shoulders as numbers were punched. The clergyman remembered someone saying the night before that there was a speakerphone.

  The priest was told to say that he was being well cared for. Then he was to give the deacon missionaries their instructions. He was to tell each missionary that he would join them soon at the diocese in Cape Town. He was to reveal absolutely nothing more.

  Deacon Jones answered the phone. The young man was excited and relieved to hear from the priest. In as clear and firm a voice as he could generate, Father Bradbury instructed the missionary to return immediately to the compound, pack, and go to Cape Town.

  “What is it?” Deacon Jones asked. “What is happening?”

  “I will explain when I see you,” the priest replied. He felt a reassuring squeeze on his shoulders.

  “As you wish,” Jones replied.

  The deacon had never disputed the priest’s judgment. Nor did Deacon March. Nor did any of the other deacon missionaries.

  When Father Bradbury was finished making the calls, he was taken to a wicker chair. His legs were stiff, and his lower back was tight. It was difficult to sit. He jumped as the edge of the seat scraped behind his knees. That was where he had been struck the day before. The priest waited for the mask to be removed and his hands to be untied. Instead, he heard another chair moved beside him.

  “You will be given water and food now,” said the man who had done most of the talking. “Then you will be allowed to sleep.”

  “Wait!” said the priest. “You told me I would be released—”

  “You will be set free when your work is finished,” the man assured Father Bradbury.

  “But I did as you asked!” the priest protested.

  “For now,” the man said. “You will be asked to do more.”

  Father Bradbury heard a door shut. He wanted to scream, but he did not have the energy or the voice. He felt betra
yed, foolish.

  A canteen was once again pressed to the priest’s lips.

  “Drink it or else I will,” the gruff-voiced man said from beside him. “I have things to do.”

  Father Bradbury put his mouth around the warm metal. He drank as slowly as a thirsty man could. Then he sat while the man fed him pieces of banana, papaya, and melon. He sat and he thought.

  Reason returned along with some of his strength. As Father Bradbury began to think back through the events of this morning, he began to feel extremely uneasy. He realized that he may have made the greatest mistake of his life.

  He may have just been used to start the flood that was going to wash over Botswana.

  FOURTEEN

  Washington, D.C. Wednesday, 6:00 A.M.

  Paul Hood was shaving when Bob Herbert called. The intelligence chief was already at Op-Center. They had spoken about Edgar Kline just a few hours before. Hood told Herbert that they should give the Vatican representative any support he required.

  “What did I interrupt?” Herbert asked.

  “Just scraping my face,” Hood replied as he finished up. “What’s up?”

  Op-Center’s director pulled the hand towel from his bare shoulder. He wiped his cheeks and chin. He felt a sad pang as he thought back to when his young son Alexander used to watch him do this. He would not be there the day Alexander started shaving. How the hell did that happen?

  Herbert’s soft, Southern accent brought Hood back to the moment.

  “I just got a call from Ed Kline,” Herbert said. “Powys Bradbury has been working the phones.”

  “The priest?” Hood said.

  “Father Bradbury, yes,” Herbert replied.

  “Is he all right?”

  “They don’t know,” Herbert told him. “He telephoned each of his deacon missionaries, the guys in the field, and told them to pack up and go back to the diocese in Cape Town.”

  “Are they sure it was him?” Hood asked.

  “Yeah,” Herbert said. “One of the deacons asked him something about a conversation they had a few weeks ago. The caller knew what the two of them had spoken about.”

  “Did Father Bradbury give a reason for recalling the missionaries?” Hood asked.

  “None,” Herbert said. “Apart from saying he was okay and would catch up with them in Cape Town, the preacher didn’t tell them anything else. Nothing about where he was, where he would be, or what comes next. Kline got the records of calls that were placed to the missionaries’ cell phones.”

  “And?”

  “Nada,” Herbert said. “The number was blocked. Stoll says someone probably hacked the local computers to erase the number as soon as it appeared. Or maybe it was blocked on the caller’s end. Our own TAC-SATs do that.”

  “Which means these people have some technological talent either in the group or available to them,” Hood said.

  “Right,” Herbert said. “We’ll have to wait for this Dhamballa guy to surface again before proceeding. In the meantime, I want to do two things. First, we should get people into Botswana. We will need intelligence resources on the ground. Second, assuming Beaudin is part of this, I want to try to get a look at his possible end game.”

  “How?” Hood asked.

  “Revolutions need two things,” Herbert said.

  “Guns and money,” Hood said.

  “Exactly,” Herbert went on. “We need to try to find out if any of Beaudin’s companies are funneling money to Botswana.”

  “Absolutely,” Hood said. He thought for a moment.

  “There’s someone I used to work with on Wall Street who might be able to help with that,” he said. “Let me give her a call.”

  “I knew those years you spent in the exciting world of finance would come in handy,” Herbert teased.

  “It hasn’t helped my stock portfolio,” Hood said as he walked into the bedroom. He looked at the clock. When Emmy Feroche worked with Hood at Silber Sacks, she used to be in the office at four A.M. to check the Tokyo and Hong Kong exchanges. Now she worked for the FBI’s Finance Division investigating white-collar crime. Hood had not spoken to Emmy in over a year, but he bet that she was still an early riser.

  “Do me a favor?” Hood said.

  “Sure,” Herbert said.

  “Give Darrell a call,” Hood said. “Tell him I’m contacting a friend at the Bureau. I don’t want him upset because I’m playing in his sandbox.”

  “You’ve got to stop doing that,” Herbert joked.

  “Yeah,” Hood replied.

  Hood said he would call back as soon as he had spoken to Emmy. However, before he hung up, Herbert had one thing to add.

  “When I came in this morning, there was a voice mail message from Shigeo Fujima.”

  “I know that name,” Hood said.

  “He’s the head of the Intelligence and Analysis Bureau of Gaimusho, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs,” Herbert said. “Fujima did the Japanese security follow-up on our North Korea operation.”

  “That’s right,” Hood said.

  “Fujima wanted to know if we had any information on a guy named Henry Genet,” Herbert said.

  “Who is?”

  “A member of the board of directors of Beaudin International Industries,” Herbert said. “But that’s not all he does. Genet spends a lot of time in Africa pursuing his main business.”

  “Which is?” Hood asked.

  Herbert replied, “Diamonds.”

  FIFTEEN

  Washington, D.C. Thursday, 8:00 A.M.

  DiMaggio’s Joe was not the kind of place where spies did business. It was public, brightly lit, watched by security cameras, heavily trafficked, and generally loud.

  That was precisely why Mike Rodgers asked Aideen Marley, David Battat, and Darrell McCaskey to meet him there. Any young job seekers or political junkies would be watching and listening for members of Congress, the State Department, or something high profile. Spies looking for intelligence typically went to bars. Not only was it dark, but people drank. Caution fell away. Information was often revealed, especially if free drinks or sex was used as bait. No one sold out their government for a mochachino.

  Battat was the only out of towner who said he could come down immediately. The former CIA officer promised to take the first shuttle down from La Guardia and cab right over Thursday morning.

  Rodgers was the first to arrive. He ordered coffee and a Danish and grabbed a corner table. He sat facing the front door. Darrell got there a few minutes later. The short, wiry, prematurely gray ex-FBI man looked tired. His leathery face was pale, and his blue eyes were bloodshot.

  “You look like you haven’t slept,” Rodgers said.

  McCaskey sat down with two double espressos and two raisin biscottis. “Not much,” he admitted. “I was up most of the night seeing what I could find out about the disappearance of your friend.”

  “Ballon?” Rodgers said quietly.

  McCaskey nodded. He leaned closer. “I called my contacts in France and at Interpol,” he said. “They swear that the colonel is not undercover. A couple of months ago, he went out to return a library book and never came back.”

  “You believe that?” Rodgers asked.

  “These guys have never lied to me before,” McCaskey said.

  Rodgers nodded. He felt very sad about that. A man like Ballon made a lot of enemies during the course of his work. A man like Beaudin had the clout to mount a counterattack like this.

  “So that’s the story about Colonel Ballon,” McCaskey said. “I had Interpol look for bank transactions, credit card purchases, phone calls to relatives and friends—nothing.”

  “Shit,” Rodgers said.

  “Yeah,” McCaskey agreed.

  “Well, thanks, Darrell,” Rodgers said.

  McCaskey took a sip of his first double espresso. “Then there’s stuff with Maria,” he said.

  “What kind of stuff?” Rodgers asked.

  “She’s worried,” McCaskey said.

  “About bein
g married, or coming to the U.S.?” Rodgers asked.

  “I don’t know. Everything, I guess,” McCaskey grumbled.

  “I wouldn’t worry about it,” Rodgers said. “Newlyweds always have a bout of PHSD.”

  “PHSD?” McCaskey asked.

  “Post-honeymoon stress disorder,” Rodgers replied.

  “You’re pulling my leg,” McCaskey said.

  “Partly,” Rodgers said. “It’s not a real syndrome. But I swear, Darrell, I’ve seen this in family members, friends, servicemen. It’s when you get back from the Bahamas or Tahiti or wherever and realize, ‘Holy shit. My dating days are over. I’ve enlisted for the duration.’ ”

  “I see.” McCaskey bit one of the biscottis, then took another short swig of double espresso. “Well, there’s probably some of that. But I think it’s more,” he said. “Maria’s afraid that when she’s finished psychologically disengaging from Interpol, she’ll have a really tough time getting adjusted to suburban D.C. and then finding something interesting to do.”

  “I thought she was ready for a break,” Rodgers said.

  “So did she,” McCaskey replied.

  “Did something change her mind?” Rodgers asked.

  “Yeah. Bob called her early this morning,” McCaskey told him.

  “Bob called Maria?” Rodgers asked.

  McCaskey nodded.

  Rodgers was not happy. Maria Corneja was on his own short list of operatives to call on, and Herbert knew that. But Bob Herbert was a team player. Something must have happened over there, or he would not have contacted her. Because Rodgers’s cell phone was not secure, he would have to wait until he got to Op-Center to find out what it was.

  “What did he want?” Rodgers asked.

  “He needed Maria to check on something at the Ministry of Defense,” McCaskey said.

  “Do you have any idea what it was?”

  “Haven’t a clue. But it didn’t matter to Maria,” McCaskey went on. “She got all juiced up having something to do, something that was important. She called me from her old office. She was psyched because she knew which people to talk to at the Ministry, she knew the area, and she knew exactly where to look. She felt plugged in.”