by Clancy, Tom
Azwe was standing on the ramp that circled three-quarters of concrete bay three. It was located beside the centermost of the six silos in this section. As the truck backed in, Azwe held up his big hands so the driver could see. He was not supposed to allow anything to be off-loaded without first checking the bill of lading. The young man jogged over to the driver and jumped from the ramp to the driveway. He did not put his hand on the ramp lest the oil in his skin pick up sugar. The glaze was like glue, extremely difficult to wash away.
Azwe was a tall man. He put a hand on the side view mirror and dipped his head into the open window.
“May I see your documents?” he said. His voice had a clucking quality that was native to the region centuries before the arrival of the Europeans.
The driver, a young man who looked Madagascan, turned to another man who was sitting in the passenger’s seat. The second man handed the driver a clipboard. He gave it to Azwe.
“Thank you,” Azwe said as he looked at the document. He frowned deeply as he flipped through sheet after sheet. They were pages torn from the South African edition of Time magazine. “What is this?” Azwe demanded as he looked back into the cab of the truck.
The young Durban did not have time to react before a silenced Beretta that had been concealed beneath the clipboard put a raw, red hole in his forehead. He gasped softly as he dropped to the ground between the front wheel of the truck and the side of the bay. He was twitching at the wrists and hips as blood spat from the wound in the front of his skull. Azwe’s eyes were open, blinking incongruously as red drops fell on them. After a few moments, they shut.
The man in the driver’s seat jumped out. He stepped over the oddly angled body of the bay foreman and hurried to the back of the truck. The passenger also got out. He went to the elevator control box, which hung from a thick cable at the rear of the bay. As he pressed the blue button that opened the elevator door, the driver went to the back of the dump truck. He reached under the flap and removed a cooler. He popped the lid. The plastic container was packed with C-4. He pulled a detonator from his jacket pocket, set it for four minutes, and jabbed it into one of the explosive bricks. Then he took the open cooler and put it on the elevator as it rose from the floor.
He and the other man quickly removed four other coolers from the back and opened them. They contained a half-dozen bricks of C-4 each. He set the timers to blow five seconds after the initial blast.
When the explosives had been off-loaded, the elevator was sent back into the silo. It would travel under the ramp, then up an external chute before being dumped into the top of the silo.
The two men hurried back to the truck. They had watched the silos for several days from a motorboat and from the nearby Victoria Street Indian Market. The entire process would take three minutes. That would give them enough time to get away. When the blast occurred, it would not just impact the silos, it would destroy the security cameras and the shack where the videotapes were recorded. Nothing would be left to attach them to this action. All investigators would find was the abandoned truck, the Beretta with its serial numbers filed off, and a torn copy of Time magazine.
One hundred seconds after the truck drove from the bay, the men were outside the chain-link fence that surrounded the silos. Moments after that, the C-4 exploded. The blast blew out the top of the silo as if it were a party favor. Steel and ceramic tile were flung outward, along with huge pieces of fused sugar. The jagged sheets caught the late afternoon sunlight and flung it in all directions—up, down, and around. The explosion sent the other coolers tumbling along the covered bridges on either side. They detonated as they reached the other silos, blasting out the sides and driving chunks of debris into the silos that were facing them along the northern side. Multiple booms echoed through the harbor. They were joined by sharp cracks as massive pieces of shrapnel ripped into the second row of towers, ripping off the tops and sending them into the water as powdery rain. Cracks appeared in the sides of all six silos, some hairline, some like vast geologic fissures. The three most heavily damaged silos on the south surrendered first, dumping sugar and pieces of themselves onto the ground and against the adjoining structures. The impact caused the smaller fractures in the northern towers to expand, bringing them down within seconds.
In less than a minute, the familiar Maydon Wharf landmarks were six distinct mounds of rubble beneath a cloud of smoke that smelled like roasting marshmallows. Though there were only a few small fires in the wreckage, firefighters rushed to the site to search for survivors. The KwaZulu-Natal Metro Police also arrived to search for clues. The silos were not heavily protected locations, because no one benefited from their destruction.
Until now.
SEVEN
Washington, D.C. Monday, 9:11 A.M.
Nothing ticked off a career intelligence officer more than not having intelligence. And right now, Op-Center’s intelligence director was extremely ticked off.
The people who glided past Bob Herbert’s open office door would not have known anything was wrong with the forty-eight-year-old officer. Their quick, questioning glances and hushed conversation suggested they knew there was something amiss at Op-Center, though no one knew exactly what that was. They may have heard rumors from Bugs Benet or seen the new arrival when she strode through the hall. But no one knew what it meant.
Including Herbert.
The intelligence chief sat quietly behind his desk in his new, state-of-the-art wheelchair. His expression was neutral. He appeared to be a man very much in control. But physical peace was a hair-trigger condition that rested, like crustal plates, on a molten sea of emotion. And Herbert’s emotions were bubbling.
Herbert had come to work a half hour before, after spending a long night overseeing the software setup of Op-Center’s lean but crackerjack intelligence division. He had arrived expecting to experience an exciting start-up with his colleagues, the culmination of six months of team effort, Sunrise at Campobello. Instead, Herbert found something much different.
A few minutes after Herbert had passed the upstairs guard—who logged him as present, information that went to the computers of all the division directors—Bugs Benet called to inform him that there was someone in Paul Hood’s office, a three-star general. A woman. She obviously had the creds to get downstairs, she had an ID card that gave her access to Hood’s office when she swiped it through the lock, and she told Benet to call a meeting of the senior staff for ten A.M. in the Tank, the conference room at Op-Center. Then she shut the office door.
“That was the last I saw or heard of her,” Benet told Herbert. “I’m calling you first.”
“Where is Paul?” Herbert asked.
“At the White House,” Benet said.
“Oh?” That did not sound good. Washington had a singular way of removing an individual from power and assuring a continuity of command. This was it. “Did you try calling him?”
“No. That will go on the phone log.” Benet lowered his voice. “If Paul has been dismissed, his security status may have changed. I don’t want to be accused of passing operational data to an outsider.”
It was a valid point. Paranoid, but valid. Herbert asked to be put through to the general.
The woman took the call. She introduced herself as General Morgan Carrie, the new director of Op-Center, and said she would brief Herbert and his colleagues at the staff meeting. When Herbert asked what that meant for Paul Hood, she told him she did not have that information and would see him in forty-five minutes.
And hung up.
Herbert tried to call Hood, but he did not answer his cell phone. Ticked off quickly became pissed off as frustration and consternation grew. Darrell McCaskey called, and Herbert told him what he knew. Liz Gordon suggested that they track him down using the GPS and intercept him somewhere.
“If he’s been dismissed, we don’t know what he might do,” the staff psychologist said.
“I don’t think Paul is the kind of guy who would off himself,” Herbert said.
“Actually, those are exactly the people you have to worry about, the über-steady souls who guide you through a crisis, then don’t have a place to put their key,” Gordon countered. “Like soldiers who come back from war. The job is finished, the purpose is removed from life, it’s time to check out. Though that’s not what concerns me about Paul.”
“What does?” Herbert asked. The intelligence chief was half-convinced that this was displacement, that Liz Gordon was upset and disoriented and looking for a place to put her key.
“He might turn his anger outward, at the thing he perceived has hurt him,” Gordon said.
“The president?”
“Op-Center,” she replied. “He could go to the press and complain, visit an old friend and divulge secrets without thinking, just get himself into a lot of trouble.”
“I think Paul is a little steadier than that,” Herbert replied.
“Do you.” It was a statement, not a question. “Remember what a chance meeting with an old girlfriend did to him?”
“Liz, that was the love of his life.”
“And what is Op-Center? This place is his life.”
Liz had a point there. Herbert still thought the soul of her concern was psychobabble, and he was not ready to hunt Paul Hood down and put a tail on him. Still, Herbert agreed that they should revisit this question after the staff meeting. Hopefully, by that time, General Carrie would have more information about her predecessor or Hood himself would have gotten in touch by then.
Hood had to know they would be concerned.
The emotionally impervious Matt Stoll called to ask if the rumors of a new director were true and how Herbert thought this would impact his own staff and operations. Herbert said he did not know, but he was perversely relieved that someone, at least, was concerned about Op-Center and not about its people. It reminded him that, like it or not, they had a job to perform, a nation to serve.
And then it was two minutes to ten o’clock. Time to get intelligence.
Assuming, of course, that any of them still had jobs.
EIGHT
Washington, D.C. Monday, 10:40 A.M.
At first blush the Tank struck General Carrie as a relatively spartan and unwelcoming chamber. The wood paneling was dark, the drop-down fluorescent lights were cold, and the rectangular table that dominated the room was heavy and plain.
The Tank got its name from the protection it afforded all electronic activity that was conducted within its walls. The room was completely surrounded by a barrier of electromagnetic waves that generated static to anyone trying to listen in with bugs or external dishes. The phone and computer lines were similarly protected. It was the only section of Op-Center that had survived the EMP blast, and it served as the field headquarters for its reconstruction.
General Carrie had selected this room for the meeting because it was impersonal. Though the director’s office was large enough to accommodate everyone, there were photographs of Paul Hood’s children on his desk and pictures of Hood and various individuals on the wall. That would have been a distraction. She was having Benet box those and messenger them to Hood.
Anyway, she told herself, people make a room. If these people were as sharp and stimulating as their dossiers suggested, the austerity of the place would not matter. She set her folder and notepad on the table. Although there were computers in the highly secure conference room, she would not be needing one.
The general had arrived precisely on time and nodded once at the guarded, unfamiliar faces. She had chaired hearings and run briefings countless times. Frequently, there was a percentage of officers or politicians in attendance who felt uneasy or amused to have a woman in charge, the sense that what she had to do or say was somehow less important than if she had been a man. And a white man at that. Carrie had no doubt that African-American and Latino officers experienced unspoken reserve similar to what she had always felt.
All General Carrie saw right now was concern in the faces of the five men and one other woman sitting around the oblong table. Some of that was probably about their own futures, and some of it was certainly worry about Paul Hood.
The general recognized the key tactical department heads from their photographs. Technical Director Matt Stoll was to her left, Op-Center attorney Lowell Coffey III was beside him, and Darrell McCaskey was next to him. Bob Herbert sat at the foot of the table with Deputy Director Ron Plummer to his left and Liz Gordon beside him.
There was a pitcher of water beside her computer. The general poured some into a glass. She asked anyone else if they wanted any. Only a few people answered to say no thank you. As usual, Carrie did not sit. She preferred to stand, not because it made her taller than everyone else but because it allowed her voice to carry. She did not have a classic baritone bark, as they called it at the Army General Staff. She put her hands together in the small of her back and looked out at the room.
“I am General Morgan Carrie,” she said to the group. “At the request of the president I assumed the directorship of Op-Center commencing at eight-thirty this morning. Unfortunately, I have no information regarding the disposition of former-director Hood. Perhaps one of you has spoken with him?”
Most eyes looked down. A few heads shook slowly.
“I will be pleased to share whatever information I am provided about Mr. Hood,” Carrie said.
“We had our differences, General, but he is our friend,” Bob Herbert said.
Carrie looked at him. “I am happy to hear that, Mr. Herbert. It gives me something to shoot for.”
“That isn’t why I mentioned it,” Herbert replied. “When General Mike Rodgers was dismissed six months ago, Paul Hood was up front about it. He was unhappy. He was apologetic. And he was sensitive to the fact that none of us was going to like it. This team has never relied on information that was ‘provided’ to us. We dig it up. I want to make sure we know what happened to Paul, why, and how.”
“Or else?” General Carrie asked. There seemed to be a threat in Herbert’s tone. She did not like being challenged any more than she liked being patronized.
“Think of it as the intelligence equivalent of leaving one of your troops behind in battle,” Herbert told her. “Leave unanswered questions lying around, and you will have a command, but you won’t have trust or respect.”
“That would be my problem,” she replied sharply. “Your responsibility will be to do your job, not mine.”
“My job description includes advising the director,” Herbert said, unfazed. “I believe I have just done that, General Carrie.”
Carrie unfolded her hands and leaned on the table. The annual evaluation Hood had written of Bob Herbert included a notation that the intelligence chief tended to challenge everyone. Hood saw it as an “often productive if frequently exasperating exercise.” Hood had not understated the case.
“Do you have any other advice for me, Mr. Herbert?” she asked.
“None at present, General.”
“Good. Then I have some for you. There is a line between advice and criticism, and you just crossed it. Sometimes it’s a word or a phrase; sometimes it’s a tone. But cross it again in my presence, Mr. Herbert, and I will be able to tell this team exactly what happened to the former intelligence director of Op-Center.”
The general took a moment to study their reactions. She felt like the new Medusa: they were six faces cut in stone. Even Herbert. The irony was that she did not disagree with what Herbert had said. In the military, information was passed down through channels, not dug up. Op-Center was a civilian agency, more aggressive, more contraceptive than reactionary. She would have to get used to their way of doing things. But on her timetable, not his.
“I will be meeting with you all individually as time and responsibilities permit, starting with Bob.” She looked at him. “Perhaps we can scroll things back and start fresh.”
Herbert’s cheek twitched, and he dipped his forehead quickly as though he were a base coach giving signals. She took that for a “
Go.” Lowell Coffey and Liz Gordon both smiled slightly. The general’s attempt to reach out to Herbert apparently had scored points with them. Either that or they knew she was wasting her time.
She would find out soon enough.
“In the meantime, I need your help,” General Carrie went on. She made that sound as conciliatory as possible without sounding weak. She opened her folder and looked at a printout. “There was an alert on my computer from Hot Button Operations upstairs. They looked into a pair of explosions that occurred this morning, one in Charleston, South Carolina, at five A.M. and the other in Durban, South Africa, at around five P.M. local time. The HoBOs suggest the attacks may have something in common. According to the Charleston Police Department, the ship that was blown up in their harbor was carrying illegal Chinese workers. The attack overseas three hours later destroyed sugarcane silos owned by a Chinese firm. The HoBOs suggest the second explosion was too swift to be retaliation, but both may be first shots in a broad war of some kind.” She looked across the table. “Suggestions?”
“We had evidence that the Chinese were becoming increasingly involved in African affairs nearly a year ago,” Ron Plummer said. “They were involved in diamond operations in Botswana.”
“That was part of the attack on the Catholic church there?” Carrie asked.
“Yes. We believed at the time that some faction of the Chinese government would have benefited from destabilization in the region,” Plummer said.
“We filed a formal white paper through our embassy in Beijing,” Coffey told her. “Our ambassador received a response from the director of the International Security Committee of the National People’s Congress. She strongly denied that Beijing was engaged in official activities on the African continent outside their embassies, and also disavowed any private misdeeds that might be going on.”
