Payback db-4

by Stephen Coonts

  “Yes, sir.”

  Marcke lowered his gaze back to the wire. “My gut tells me that we should tell the president of Peru that we think the election computers are compromised and let the Peruvians figure it out. After all, it’s their country.”

  He tossed the paper clip onto the desk and stood up. “The truth is that it doesn’t make a hill of beans’ difference who gets elected down there.” He went to the window and stood looking out. He stretched and scratched his head.

  Rubens sat silently.

  “It’s been a bad year for Latin American democracies,” the president mused. “Not that they’ve had many good ones. Still, until the folks in Latin America learn to have honest elections and live with the results, the place is always going to be a breeding ground for tyrants.”

  When the silence that followed that remark had dragged on too long, Rubens said, “I believe it was Abe Lincoln who pointed out that it’s difficult to drain the swamp when you’re up to your ass in alligators. Lincoln or Confucius.”

  Marcke turned to look at Rubens, Hashed a smile, and headed for the door. “Switch the cards,” he said in passing, “and don’t get caught.”

  15

  Lia checked her room for bugs as soon as she got there. She found three, all of which appeared to belong to the Peruvian intelligence service. She left them where they were and made a phone call to her “mother”—actually an NSA operator briefed to play the role — and told her how beautiful the country was. Then Lia turned on the TV and flopped down on the bed. Finding her eyes starting to close, she called down to the desk to ask for a wakeup call in three hours. Lia put the phone down and within moments was sleeping. The next thing she knew, the phone was ringing to wake her.

  A quick shower restored some of her energy. Dressing in a long, loose skirt and a flowing knit top, Lia went downstairs in full tourist mode.

  She knew she’d be shadowed, but she didn’t spot the two Peruvian agents who’d been assigned to track her until she got out of the taxi at Manos Morenas, a popular tourist spot. The restaurant pulsed with Peruvian music so loud the pavement under her feet shook, and by the time Lia reached the iron gate at the entrance, she was bouncing with the beat. She walked through the porch and went inside, sliding through a knot of guests as if she were meeting someone inside. After continuing toward the ladies’ room, she spun around in the hall and doubled back ito the main dining room, looking to see whether her tails had come into the restaurant or were going to stay outside. They were both in the car, which made them easy to duck; she walked back and went right through the kitchen, striding purposefully out the door and then down the alley to the side street.

  A few blocks later, Lia went into a small penās or bar; the nightly show of homegrown music wouldn’t start until midnight, and the place was nearly empty. But it suited her purpose well-she planted a video bug at the front and then headed to the ladies’ room, where she used her handheld computer to make sure she wasn’t being followed.

  Sure she was clear, she went out the back door. A block away, Lia found a taxi and asked the driver to take her to La Posada del Mirador, another bar popular with tourists, not far from the waterfront. Here she went up to the balcony, gazing out toward the sea. A band downstairs began playing música criolla, a catchy jazz tune that lifted her mood.

  She ordered a bottle of water. When the waiter left, Lia took her handheld computer out and scanned for listening devices. Finding none nearby, she got up and went to the railing, posting a video bug there. She scanned again, then went back to her table. The balcony was about three-quarters full, and the buzz of the music was loud enough to mask her conversation if anyone tried to listen in with a parabolic mike.

  “Are you with us, Lia?” asked Rockman as she got back to the table.

  “Just waiting to dance.”

  “Dean and Karr are in a bar a block away from you. Give them a minute; they’re ordering food.”

  Lia wished they were with her, Charlie especially. She knew that would be a security risk, but she still wished he were here, that she could put her hand on his.

  “Are we go or no-go?” she asked.

  “The cards were definitely hacked,” replied Rockman. “We’re in the process of figuring out where the envelopes are going. I’m expecting the data any second.”

  “Hey,” said Karr, his voice very distant. “Lia, how’s the beer over there?”

  “I wouldn’t know.”

  Rockman repeated what he had said for the benefit of Dean and Karr. The cards in the vault were to be distributed the day after next, sent to different voting sites around the country.

  “I say we go with the break-in plan tomorrow night then,” said Karr. “Hit the safe. Get them all in one place without anybody looking over Lia’s shoulder.”

  “That’s what we’re thinking,” said Marie Telach, joining the conversation. “If you’re all up for it.”

  The electronic guardians and physical barriers in the bank and vault were easy to defeat. While the area was patrolled at night, a window on the second floor of the building could not be seen by the guards outside and could be easily reached by climbing up on the roof of the neighboring building and crossing over. The video surveillance system had already been compromised; the Art Room could take it over at any point, supplying “reruns” showing all was well.

  The safe itself had a mechanical lock. State-of-the-art in the late 1800s, it could be opened easily with the aid of a small unit the ops called a cracker that in effect listened to the tumblers as they turned. It might not be necessary to use it, however — the Art Room had researched old archives and discovered what they believed was the original combination, which they would try first.

  A set of voter cards matching the “good” ones in the envelopes would be delivered by a special courier in the morning. They already had replacement envelopes and the tamper-evident seals; they would use them to prepare the envelopes beforehand and simply swap them once they were inside the vault.

  The only real difficulty was the two guards who worked in the lobby at night. The plan was to knock them out by intercepting a tray that was delivered to them every night around 10:00 p.m. The tray always included two sealed bottles of water; they’d substitute a pair with a strong synthetic opium to make the guards fall asleep.

  “What if they don’t drink?” asked Lia.

  “They will,” said Karr. “They did last night and the night before. And if they don’t, Charlie nails them with the blowpipe. Right, Charlie?”

  The blowpipe was a small air gun that shot a tiny dart with a muscle relaxant and barbiturate cocktail; within ten seconds of being hit by the needlelike bullet, the victim fell asleep. The sharp needle could penetrate clothes, and the drug could be calibrated to put just about anyone to sleep. But there was a downside: the needles stung when they hit.

  “I can get them,” said Dean. “But they’ll realize they were hit by something before they go down.”

  “We grab the needles on the way out. They’ll think they were stung by bees,” said Karr. “And if not, heck, the computer surveillance cams will show nothing happened. Nobody will believe them.”

  “What do you think, Lia?” asked Telach.

  “I think the regional centers will be easier. The security arrangements look like they’re nonexistent.”

  “Normally, I would agree with you,” said Telach. “But according to the list we’ve decrypted on where the cards are going, we’d have to hit seven different regional centers. The security at the sites won’t be very strong, certainly nothing compared to what’s here in Lima. But the distance is considerable. One’s near the border in Chile; another is in a small city in the Amazon region near Iquitos. That’s a lot of traveling to do in only two days.”

  “I’ll take three cities,” said Lia. “Tommy and Charlie can split the others.”

  “Our strong preference would be to keep you together. But if you think this is too difficult—”

  “Hey, come on. We
can do this,” said Karr. “Lia, this is like twenty times easier than the Georgian embassy last year, right? It’s just breaking into a safe.”

  “Lia, what do you think?” asked Dean.

  “It’s all right with me. You and Tommy have the hard part.”

  16

  The directions Ambassador Hemes Jackson gave Rubens led to a condominium complex a few miles south of Washington, D.C. This was not one of the ultrachic enclaves with gates at the entry road and Mercedes S’s in the guest spots. The units were small one- and two-bedroom town houses jammed four by four into postage stamp lots.

  Rubens wondered if he’d made a mistake. But the number on the unit was correct, and when he rang the bell Jackson pulled open the door.

  “Mr. Ambassador,” said Rubens, sticking out his hand.

  “How are you, Dr. Rubens?” said Jackson. He was a short man, whose gray head barely came to Rubens’ chest.

  “Very well, sir. A little hungry, perhaps.”

  “Is it warm out?”

  “Yes. My car’s right here.”

  The outside door opened into the living room. A plaid couch at least twenty years old dominated the sparse furnishings.

  “I neglected to ask about your wife,” said Rubens. “If she’d care to join us.”

  “My wife, unfortunately, passed on a year ago.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry.”

  “Is it going to rain?”

  “I think it will hold off.”

  Rubens took Jackson to a restaurant he knew a few miles away. The food was dependable and, more important, he knew he could get a table in a private comer. The wine list was also excellent, but when his guest said he didn’t drink wine, Rubens stuck with sparkling water.

  “Does retirement suit you?”

  “Not particularly,” said Jackson. “You needn’t beat around the bush, Dr. Rubens. I’m not much for chitchat, really.”

  Rubens felt instantly relieved-he wasn’t much for chitchat himself.

  “I’m interested in Peru.”

  “Peru? In all honesty it was never a focus of mine.”

  “It was in your purview.”

  “For a time,” said Jackson. “Before I was ambassador.”

  Rubens nodded, waiting for him to continue.

  “A beautiful country, with a rich history, good ore deposits, but in terms of its strategic or economic value, well, it pales beside Argentina and Brazil.”

  “What did you think of Vladimiro Montesinos?”

  “The head of the intelligence service? A thief and swindler. You’re aware of the Jordanian business?”

  “Only vaguely.”

  Jackson reviewed the highlights. Among other things, the head of Peru’s intelligence service, Vladimiro Montesinos, had arranged to buy shoulder-launched antiaircraft missiles from Jordan. The CIA had signed off on the deal — only to realize much later that the missiles had been sold to Colombian narco-guerrillas.

  “Was there ever any talk that one of our people may have been involved?” Rubens asked.

  “No one had an opportunity, I would think.”

  Rubens nodded.

  “The undersecretary of state was quite livid when he found out what had happened. Rightly so. Everyone was. Is that what you’re interested in?”

  “I’m not sure,” said Rubens honestly. “Did the CIA run an operation to recover the antiaircraft missiles?”

  “I didn’t hear of one,” said Jackson. “I’m not entirely positive I would have.”

  Neither had Rubens, a strong argument that they hadn’tor rather, that they hadn’t gotten the weapons back if they had.

  “Peru is not like Bolivia or, God save us, Colombia,” continued Jackson. “Their border wars with Ecuador in the 1990s piqued some interest, but otherwise they’re part of a blur to most people. Outside as well as inside the Beltway, I’d suppose.”

  “There is a good deal of drug production there,” said Rubens.

  “Yes, absolutely. During my time, the estimates were as high as two hundred thousand people involved, mostly in the Amazonian regions and nearby. This was where the mess with Air Bridge came in.”

  “Regrettable,” said Rubens. Air Bridge was a CIA program intended to cut down on the use of airplanes by drug smugglers in the region. Two civilians had died in a case of mistaken identity in 2001 when they were shot down by an Air Bridge aircraft. The program was subsequently suspended.

  “The CIA does have a habit of tripping over itself in South and Central America,” observed Jackson.

  The waiter came over, and Jackson turned his attention to the menu. After they had ordered, the ambassador spoke about the Incas and their remarkable civilization. He had taken several trips to Inca ruins, including Machu Picchu, a royal estate in almost impossible to reach (but breathtaking) terrain. He described some of what he had seen, his details of the stone and chiseled figures as precise as if he were looking at a photo.

  “You realize why the guerrillas, the Shining Path, ended in failure?” said the ambassador, abruptly shifting from the travelogue to politics.

  “It was foreign to the people,” said Rubens. “Maoism doesn’t particularly fit in South America.”

  “Absolutely.” Jackson smiled, and Rubens had the distinct impression that the ambassador had posed the question as a sort of test.

  “It was also rather psychotic,” said Rubens.

  “Sanity has never been a requirement for running a country,” Jackson remarked.

  “No, I guess it hasn’t.”

  Dinner arrived. The ambassador spoke of the sights in Peru and then Brazil and Argentina, peppering his descriptions with observations about the people. Rubens let him go on, waiting until they ordered coffee to return to serious matters.

  “I find myself in need of someone who could deliver a good perspective on the region,” said Rubens, using a formula that would let the ambassador bow out gracefully if he wasn’t interested. “My people are often in need of background on different situations.”

  “I didn’t realize there was a need for that at Fort Meade.”

  “There is, from time to time. Someone who could look at recent cables, briefings, findings, reports, put them all into perspective for us. Someone who was independent, who had a great deal of mature knowledge, that person might fit in very well.”

  “Someone who came with the proper clearances?”

  “Those would be a start.”

  Depending on what he gave the ambassador access to, the security checks could be quite extensive and include invasive lie detector tests. But Rubens decided not to go into the details until he was sure that Jackson was willing.

  “And if I say no?”

  “Of course you can say no, Ambassador. This is entirely optional. It’s rather routine. Probably boring for a man of your talents.”

  “I don’t know that it would be that boring,” said Jackson. “But I must ask, isn’t this usually the sort of thing that a CIA analyst does? Or someone from the State Department? Surely they would give you a full rundown on the region if you ask.”

  “We have asked. And we have had briefings,” said Rubens. “I have questions about whether I’ve received the entire story. That’s why I emphasize independence.”

  Jackson put his thumb and forefinger to his closed lips, massaging them gently. His brow furled, and his eyes narrowed, as if he were reading something inside his skull.

  “Oh. You’re not sure what has been left out. And that’s your problem.”

  “Very possibly, nothing has been left out.”

  “Oh, something is always left out,” said Jackson.

  “That would be my fear.”

  The spider’s nest of lines at the sides of Jackson’s face grew deeper. When Rubens had picked him up, he thought Jackson appeared at least five years younger than the age in his bio, which was seventy-two. Now he looked ten years older than that.

  He’s going to turn me down, Rubens thought. He’s worried about offending someone he used to know
. Or maybe he just doesn’t want the trouble.

  “When do you want me to begin?” asked Jackson.

  “Tomorrow morning would be good,” said Rubens.

  * * *

  After he dropped the ambassador off at his house, Rubens checked in with the Art Room. Telach had gone home for some rest; her relief, Chris Farlekas, filled him in on the situation in Peru. They had hacked their way into the computers where the list for the voting machine distribution was kept, decrypted the list, and determined that the cards would be shipped to too many places to make intercepting them convenient. Therefore, they were going to have to break into the bank the next night.

  “We have a good plan,” said Farlekas. “Tommy Karr’s chomping at the bit.”

  “Mr. Karr would be eager to tap-dance into Hades. What does Mr. Dean think?”

  “Charlie says fine. Lia agrees.”

  “Very well. Move forward with the plan. I will be in first thing in the morning.”

  Rubens snapped off the phone.

  The CIA people had analyzed past elections and predicted that the cards would be sent en masse to a single city or at most two, most likely in the south where Ortez was weak.

  Wrong.

  Surely not a deliberate mistake, thought Rubens, just a simple mistake. And yet he couldn’t quite convince himself.

  17

  The day began for Calvina Agnese like most days of her life for the past five years: walking in the dark for an hour and a half from her apartment on the outskirts of Lima to a restaurant in the city’s tourist area. Calvina’s steady pace was somewhat faster on Wednesdays than other days, for two things happened on Wednesday that she looked forward to: her boss Senor DeCura always arrived at 6:00 a.m. for coffee in the kitchen, and she was paid.

  The latter was far more important to her than the first, for her meager wages supported not only Calvina but also her mother and father, along with her sisters and brothers. But she liked also to listen to Senor DeCura, who would spend an hour describing the wonders he had seen in his life, in America especially.