Tom Clancy - Op-Center 06 - Divide and Conquer

by Eikeltje

  "But there's another component to this," Hood told him.

  "There's the cumulative psychological impact of disinformation. What if

  plausible deniability and bureaucratic confusion aren't the reasons the

  president was misled? What if there's another reason?"

  "Such as?" Herbert asked.

  "What if disinformation isn't the end but the means?" Hood said.

  "What if someone is trying to convince Lawrence that he's losing his

  grip?"

  "You mean, what if someone is trying to gaslight the president of the

  United States?" Herbert declared.

  "Yes," Hood replied.

  "Well, it's going to take a lot of convincing before I buy that,"

  Herbert said.

  "For one thing, anyone who tried that would never get away with it.

  There are too many people around the president--"

  "Bob, we already decided that this is something Jack Fenwick would not,

  probably could not, do on his own," Hood said.

  "Yes, but to make it work, he'd need a small army of people who were

  very close to the president," Herbert said.

  "Who?" Hood asked.

  "The chief of staff?"

  "For one," Herbert said.

  "He's privy to most of the same briefings the president receives."

  "Okay," Hood said.

  "Gable's already on my list of unreliables. Who else? Who would be

  absolutely necessary for a plan like this to work?" Before Herbert could

  answer, his phone beeped. He answered the call and was back in less

  than a minute.

  "Don't tell me, "I told you so,"

  "Herbert said.

  "Why?" Hood asked.

  "A high-level official at the CIA in Washington got the intel about the

  Harpooner from the NSA," Herbert told them.

  "The NSA didn't have anyone in Baku, so they notified the CIA. The CIA

  sent David Battat."

  "Whom the Harpooner knew just where to find," Rodgers said.

  "Instead of killing him, the Harpooner poisoned him somehow. And then

  Battat was used to bring out Moore and Thomas at the hospital."

  "Apparently," Herbert said.

  "Paul, you asked a question a moment ago," Rodgers said.

  "You wanted to know who else would be necessary for a psyops maneuver to

  work against the president. That's a good question, but it's not the

  first one we need to answer."

  "No?" Hood said.

  "What is?"

  "Who would benefit the most from the mental incapacitation of the

  president?" Rodgers asked.

  "And at the same time, who would be in a perfect position to help make

  some of the disinformation happen?" Hood's stomach was growling now. The

  answer was obvious. The vice president of the United States.

  Washington, D.C. Monday, 11:24 p.m.

  Vice President Charles Gotten was in the ground-floor sitting room of

  the vice presidential residence. The mansion was located on the

  sprawling Massachusetts Avenue ; grounds of the United States Naval

  Observatory. It was a twenty-minute drive from here to the vice

  president's two offices: one in the White House and the other in the

  neighboring Old Executive Office Building. It was just ' a short walk

  from the mansion to the National Cathedral.

  Gotten had been spending more time than usual at the

  cathedral. Praying. An aide knocked and entered. The woman told the

  vice president that his car was ready. The vice president thanked her

  and rose from the leather armchair. He entered the dark, wood-paneled

  hallway and headed toward the front door. Upstairs, Cotten's wife and

  children were asleep.. My wife and children. They were words Gotten

  never thought would be part of his life. When he was a senator from New

  York, Cotten had been the ultimate lady's man. A new, gorgeous date to

  every function. The press referred to these younger women as "Cotten

  candy." There were regular jokes about what went on below the Gotten

  belt. Then he met Marsha Arnell at a Museum of Modern Art fund-raiser in

  Manhattan, and everything changed. Marsha was twenty-seven, eleven

  years his junior. She was a painter and an art historian. She was

  telling a group of guests about late-twentieth-century art and how the

  work of commercial artists like Frank Frazetta, James Bama, and Rich

  Corben defined a new American vision: the power of the human form and

  face blended with landscapes from dream and fantasy. Gotten was

  hypnotized by the young woman's voice, her ideas, and her vital and

  optimistic view of America. They were married four months later. For

  nearly ten years; Marsha and their twin girls had been the foundation of

  Charles Cotten's life. They were his focus, his heart, and their future

  was never far from his thoughts. They were the reason the vice president

  had conceived of this plan. To preserve America for his family. The

  fact was, the United States was at risk. Not just from terrorist

  attacks, though more and more those were becoming a very real threat.

  The danger facing the United States was that it was on the verge of

  becoming irrelevant. Our military could destroy the world many times

  over. But other nations knew that we would never do that, so they did

  not fear us. Our economy was relatively strong. But so were the

  economies of many other nations and alliances. The Eurodollar was

  strong, and the new South American League and their SAL currency was

  growing in power and influence. Central America and Mexico were talking

  about a new confederacy. Canada was being tempted to join the European

  economy. Those unions, those nations, did not face the kind of suspicion

  and resentment that greeted America the world over. The reason? America

  was a giant everyone wanted to see brought down. Not destroyed; they

  needed us too much for international policing. They simply wanted us

  humbled and humiliated. We were a meddling thug to our enemies and an

  overbearing big brother to our supposed allies. These were not concerns

  that bothered other nations during times of international depression or

  world war. It was all right to invade France to free the French of

  Hitler. But it was not okay to fly over France to bomb Libya, the home

  of a different despot. It was all right to maintain a military presence

  in Saudi Arabia to protect the nation from Saddam Hussein. But it was

  not all right to fly jets from Riyadh to protect American troops in the

  region. We were not respected, and we were not feared. That had to

  change. And it had to change long before Michael Lawrence was scheduled

  to leave the White House in three years. That would be too late to act.

  The problem had not been caused by Michael Lawrence. He was simply the

  latest bearer of the torch of arrogant isolationism. When he was in the

  Senate, Cotten had felt that there needed to be a United States that was

  better integrated with the world. The one that Teddy Roosevelt had

  described. The one that carried a big stick and was not afraid to use

  it. But also one that knew how to speak softly. An America that knew

  how to use and exert diplomacy and economic pressure. One that had the

  resolve to use quiet assassination and blackmail instead of mounting

  very public and unpopular mini wars W
hen the senator was tapped to share

  a ticket with presidential candidate Michael Lawrence, Cotten accepted.

  The public liked Lawrence's "I'm for the people" slogan and style, his

  perception as a man who had come back from the political wilderness to

  serve them. But he had wanted to balance his relatively up-front and

  independent manner with someone who knew how to work the back rooms of

  Congress and the corridors of power abroad. Cotten left the mansion and

  slid into the car. The driver shut the door for him. They rolled into

  the dark, still night. Cotten's soul was on fire. He was not going to

  enjoy what he and his allies were about to do. He remembered when he

  had first approached them and others individually. Seemingly casual

  remarks were dropped. If they were ignored, he let the subject drop. If

  not, he pursued it with more pointed remarks. Cotten realized that was

  what it must be like for a married man to ask a woman to have an affair.

  Go too far with the wrong individual, and everything could be lost. Each

  man had become involved for the same reason:

  patriotism. The creation of an America that led the world community

  rather than reacted to it. An America that rewarded peace with

  prosperity and punished warmongers not with a public pummeling and

  credibility but with quiet, lonely death. Lawrence was not willing to

  cross the line from legal war to illegal murder, even though lives would

  be saved. But the dawn of the twenty-first century was not a time for

  warfare. It bred short-term misery and long-term hatred. The world was

  becoming too small, too crowded for bombs. As distasteful as this was,

  a change had to come. For the nation and for the sake of its children.

  For the sake of his children. The car moved swiftly through the empty

  streets. Washington was always so deserted at night. Only the spies and

  plotters were afoot. It seemed strange to think of himself in that

  capacity. He had always been a straight shooter. If you felt

  passionately about something, you spoke your mind. If you didn't feel

  passionately, then it probably was not worth doing. But this was

  different. This operation had to be kept very quiet. Kept only among

  those who were actively involved in its planning and execution. Now this

  was it. Gotten thought. The last leg of the operation. According to

  the president's staff, announcing a UN intelligence initiative that did

  not exist had seriously rattled Lawrence. It had shaken him more than

  the other canards Fenwick and Gable hail led him and subsequently

  denied--usually during a cabinet session or meeting in the Oval Office.

  "No, Mr. President," Gotten would say softly, seemingly embarrassed for

  the confusion of the president, "there was never a Pentagon report that

  Russia and China exchanged artillery fire over the Amur River. Sir, we

  had not heard that the FBI director had threatened to resign. When did

  this happen? Mr. President, don't you recall? We had agreed that Mr.

  Fenwick would share this new intelligence with Iran." The question of

  sharing intelligence with Iran had been important to the final stage of

  the operation. Jack Fenwick had told the Iranian ambassador that

  according to United States intelligence sources, an attack would come

  from Azerbaijan. They weren't sure what the target would be, but it

  would probably be a terrorist attack in the heart of Teheran. Fenwick

  had assured Iran that if they retaliated, the United States would stay

  out of it. This nation wanted to nurture closer ties with the Islamic

  Republic of Iran, not stand in the way of its self-defense. Lawrence, of

  course, would be pushed to behave in a less accommodating manner. And

  when he realized where his confused perceptions had taken the nation, he

  would be forced to resign. The fact that Lawrence had known nothing

  about the meeting was irrelevant. At tonight's meeting with the

  so-called "Eyes Only Group"--Gable, Fenwick, and the vice president--the

  men would convince the president that he had been kept informed. They

  would show him memos that he had seen and signed. They would show him

  the calendar his secretary kept on the computer. The appointment had

  been added after she left for the day. Then they would jump right into

  the current crisis. They would trust and the president would lead. By

  morning, Michael Lawrence would be publicly committed to a path of

  confrontation with two of the most volatile nations on earth. The

  following morning, with the help of unnamed NSA sources, the Washington

  Post would run a frontpage, above-the-fold article about the president's

  mental health. Though the newspaper piece would be hooked to the UN

  fiasco, it would also contain exclusive details about some of the

  president's increasingly dramatic and fully documented lapses. The

  nation would not tolerate instability from the commander-in-chief.

  Especially as he was about to send the nation to war. Things would

  happen very quickly after that. There was no constitutional provision

  for the president to take a leave of absence. And there was no

  short-term cure for mental illness. Lawrence would be forced to resign,

  if not by public pressure then by act of congress. Gotten would become

  president. The United States military would immediately back down in

  the Caspian Sea to avoid a confrontation with Iran and Russia. Instead,

  through intelligence operations, they would prove that Iran had

  masterminded the entire operation in the first place. Teheran would

  protest, but the government's credibility would be seriously

  compromised. Then, through diplomacy, the United States would find ways

  to encourage moderates in Iran to seize more power. Meanwhile, spared a

  pounding from Iran and Russia, Azerbaijan would be in America's debt.

  After the clouds of war drifted away. President Cotten would make

  certain of something else. That Azerbaijan and America shared in the

  oil reserves of the Caspian Sea. The Middle East would never again hold

  the United States hostage. Not in their embassies nor at the gas pump.

  With order restored and American influence and credibility at its peak.

  President Charles Gotten would reach out to the nations of the world.

  They would be invited to join us in a permanent peace and prosperity.

  When their people experienced freedom and economic reward for the first

  time, they would cast those governments out. Eventually, even China

  would follow suit. They had to. People were greedy, and the old-line

  Communists would not live forever. If the United States stopped

  provoking them, providing the government with a public enemy, Beijing

  would weaken and evolve. This was the world that Charles Gotten wanted

  for America. It was the world he wanted for his own children. He had

  thought about it for years. He had worked to achieve it. He had prayed

  for it. And very soon, he would have it.

  Baku, Azerbaijan Tuesday 8:09 a.m.

  David Battat was lying on a hard twin bed in the small, sparsely

  furnished studio apartment. There was a window to his left. Though the

  blinds were drawn, the room brightened as light leaked through the

  slats. Ba
ttat was shivering but alert. His abductor, hostess, or

  savior--he had not yet decided which--was in the kitchenette off to the

  right. She had been making eggs, sausage, and tea when the phone rang.

  Battat hoped the call was brief. The food smelled good, but the thought

  of tea was even better. He needed to warm himself inside. Do something

  to stop the trembling. He felt as though he had the flu. He was weak

  and everything he saw or heard seemed dreamlike. But his head and chest

  were also very tight. More than from any sickness he could remember.

  Hopefully, once he had tea and something to eat, he would be able to

  focus a little better, try to understand what had happened back at the

  hospital. The woman walked over to the bed. She was carrying the phone.

  She stood about five-foot-nine and had a lean, dark face framed by

  thick, black, shoulder-length hair. Her cheekbones were pronounced, and

  her eyes were blue. Battat was willing to bet there was Lithuanian

  blood in her. She handed the receiver to Battat.

  "There is someone who wishes to speak with you," she said in thickly

  accented English.

  "Thank you," said Battat. His own voice was a weak croak. He accepted

  the cordless phone. He did not bother to ask her who it was. He would

  find out soon enough.

  "Hello?"

  "David Battat?" said the caller.

  "Yes--"

  "David, this is Paul Hood, the director of Op-Center."

  "Paul Hood?" Battat was confused. Op-Center found him here and was

  calling him now to ask about--that?

  "Sir, I'm sorry about what happened," Battat said, "but I didn't know

  that Annabelle Hampton was working with--"

  "This isn't about the United Nations siege," Hood interrupted.

  "David, listen to me. We have reason to believe that the NSA set you