by Eikeltje
a.m." the salvage experts found something more. The body of Russian
terrorist Sergei Cherkassov. The report galvanized the often fractious
officers of the SCCAF as well as the minister of the Islamic Revolutions
Guards Corps, the minster of foreign affairs, the minister of the
interior, and the minister of intelligence. The moderates had joined the
extremists, and by ten a.m." the order had been given: the IRI military
was ordered to defend Iranian interests in the Caspian at any and all
cost. * On the sea, the initial thrust was to be an antisubmarine
defense. That was spearheaded by antisubmarine aircraft and
helicopters. Marine battalions in the region were also mobilized. The
second wave would consist of destroyers and frigates, which were to be
stationed around the remaining rigs. Chinese-made Silkworm missiles were
rushed to the forces defending the Caspian. In the air, Chinese-made
Shenyang F-6s began regular patrols from both the Doshan Tapeh Air Base
and the Mehrabad Air Base. Three surface-to-air missile battalions in
the region were also put on high alert. At the same time, Iranian
embassies in Moscow and Baku were ordered to notify the Russian and
Azerbaijani governments that while the attack was under investigation,
any further moves against Iranian interests would be regarded as a
declaration of war by those governments. Iranian diplomats were informed
by both governments that they had had no hand in the attack on the
Iranian oil facility. Representatives of Moscow and Baku added that
Iran's increased military presence was unwelcome. Both nations indicated
that their own navies and air forces would be placed on alert and would
increase patrols in the region. By late morning, waters that had given
lives to fishermen and oilmen the night before were rich with something
else. The promise of death.
Washington, D.C. Tuesday, 1:33 a.m.
Mike Rodgers was in his office when General Orlov called. After hearing
what the Russian had to say, Rodgers immediately called Paul Hood in his
car and gave him the new information about the Harpooner.
"How certain is General Orlov about the NSA Harpooner connection?" Hood
asked.
"I asked him that," Rodgers told Hood.
"Orlov answered that he is very certain. Though I'm not sure the
president is going to put a lot of credence in what a Russian general
thinks."
"Especially if several of the president's top advisers refute that
information," Hood said.
"Paul, if Orlov is correct, we're going to have to do more than tell the
president," Rodgers said.
"There's going to have to be a massive housecleaning in the NSA. We
can't have American intelligence agencies hiring terrorists who have
attacked American interests, taken American lives."
"Didn't we do that with the German rocket scientists after World War
Two?" Hood asked.
"The operative phrase is, 'after World War Two,"
"Rodgers said.
"We didn't hire German scientists to work for us while they were still
building missiles to attack Great Britain."
"Good point," Hood said.
"Paul, this is the guy that helped kill Bob Herbert's wife," Rodgers
said.
"If Oriov's intel is true, the NSA has to be held accountable for this."
"I hear you," Hood said.
"Look, I'll be at the White House soon. Work on trying to get me any
kind of backup you can. See if Bob can dig up signal intelligence that
backs up Oriov's claims."
"He's working on that now," Rodgers said. Hood hung up, and Rodgers got
up. He poured coffee from the pot that sat on a cart in the back of his
room. It was an aluminum cart from the 1950s. He'd picked it up at a
Pentagon garage sale ten years before. He wondered if the sounds of
crisis still resonated somewhere deep in its molecular structure.
Arguments and decisions about Korea, the Cold War, Vietnam. Or were they
arguments about whose turn it was to treat for coffee and Danish?
Rodgers wondered. That was part of war, too, of course. The moments of
downtime that let decision makers catch their breath. Do something real
instead of theoretical. Remind themselves that they were talking about
people's lives and not just statistics. When he sat back down, Rodgers
started going through the files of the NSA's top officials. He was
looking for people who had previous ties with Jack Fenwick or had ever
investigated Middle Eastern terrorist groups. The NSA could not have
contacted the Harpooner unless someone in one of those groups had
helped. If it turned out that Orlov was right, Rodgers wanted to be
ready to help with the purge. A purge of Americans who had collaborated
with a man who had murdered American men and women, soldiers, and
civilians. He wanted to be ready with a vengeance.
Washington, D.C Tuesday, 1:34 a.m.
The White House is an aging monument in constant need of repair. There
is peeling paint on the southern columns and splitting wood on the
third-floor terraces. But in the West Wing, especially in the Oval
Office, there is a sense of constant renewal. To outsiders, power is a
large part of the appeal of the Oval Office. To insiders, it is the
idea that an intense new drama presents itself every hour of every day.
Whether it's small, cautious maneuvering against a political rival or
the mobilization of the military for a massive offensive and possible
casualties, each situation starts, builds, and ends. For someone who
thrives on out thinking an adversary or on extrapolating short- and
long-term results from quiet decisions, the Oval Office is the ultimate
challenge. It clears the game board every few minutes and offers new
contests with new rules. Some presidents are aged and drained by the
process. Other presidents thrive on it. There was a time until very
recently when Michael Lawrence was invigorated by the problems that
crossed his desk. He was undaunted by crises, even those that required
quick military action and possible casualties. That was part of the job
description. A president's task was to minimize the damage caused by
inevitable aggression. But something had changed over the past few days.
Lawrence had always felt that however stressful situations got, he was
at least in control of the process. He could chair meetings with
confidence. Lately, that was no longer the case. It was difficult for
him even to focus. Lawrence had worked with Jack Fenwick and Red Gable
for many years. They were old friends of the vice president, and
Lawrence trusted Jack Cotten. He trusted his judgment. Lawrence would
not have selected him as a running mate otherwise. As vice president,
Cotten had been more closely involved in the activities of the NSA than
any previous vice president. Lawrence had wanted it that way. For
years, the CIA, the FBI, and military intelligence had had their own
agendas. The Executive Branch needed its own eyes and ears abroad.
Lawrence and Cotten had more or less appropriated the NSA for that task.
The military could still utilize the NSA's chartered assets, which we
re
the centralized coordination and direction of U.S. government
intelligence technical functions and communications. Under Cotten, its
role had quietly been expanded to increase the breadth and detail of
intelligence that was coming directly to the president. Or, rather, to
Fenwick and the vice president and then to the president. The president
stared at the open laptop on his desk. Jack Fenwick was talking about
Iran. Data was downloading quickly from the NSA. Fenwick had some
facts and a good deal of supposition. He also had an edge. He appeared
to be going somewhere, though he had not yet indicated where. Meanwhile,
Lawrence's eyes stung, and his vision was foggy. It was difficult to
concentrate. He was tired, but he was also distracted. He did not know
who to believe or even what to believe. Was the data from the NSA real
or falsified? Was Fenwick's intelligence accurate or fabricated? Paul
Hood suspected Fenwick of deception. Hood appeared to have the evidence
for it. But what if it were Hood's evidence that wasn't trustworthy?
Hood was going through an extremely stressful time. He had resigned his
post at Op-Center, then returned. He had been at ground zero of the
explosive UN hostage crisis. His daughter was suffering from an extreme
case of posttraumatic stress disorder. Hood was in the process of
getting a divorce. What if it were Hood who had the agenda, not Fenwick,
the president wondered. When Fenwick had arrived at the White House
before, he admitted that he had been to the Iranian mission. He
admitted it openly. But he insisted that the president had been
informed. The vice president corroborated that fact. So did the
calendar on the president's computer. As for the call regarding the
United Nations initiative, Fenwick insisted that was not placed by him.
He said the NSA would investigate. Could it have been placed by Hood?
"Mr. President?" Fenwick said. The president looked at Fenwick. The
national security adviser was seated in an armchair to the left of the
desk. Gable was to the right, and the vice president was in the center.
"Yes, Jack?" the president replied.
"Are you all right, sir?" Fenwick asked.
"Yes," Lawrence replied.
"Go on." Fenwick smiled and nodded and continued. The president sat up
taller. He had to focus on the issue at hand. When he got through this
crisis, he would schedule a short vacation. Very soon. And he would
invite his childhood friend and golfing buddy. Dr. Edmond Leidesdorf,
and his wife. Leidesdorf was a psychiatrist attached to Walter Reed.
The president had not wanted to see him officially with this problem
because the press would find out about it. Once that happened, his
political career would be over. But they had played golf and gone
sailing before. They could talk on a golf course or boat without
raising suspicion.
"The latest intelligence puts the Russian terrorist Sergei Cherkassov at
the scene of the explosion," Fenwick continued.
"He had escaped from prison three days before the attack on the rig. His
body was found at sea. There were burn marks consistent with flash
explosives. There was also very little bloating. Cherkassov had not
been in the water for very long."
"Do the Azerbaijanis have that information?" the president asked.
"We suspect they do," Fenwick replied.
"The Iranian naval patrol that found Cherkassov radioed shore on an open
channel. Those channels are routinely monitored by the Azerbaijanis."
"Maybe Teheran wanted the rest of the world to have the information,"
the president suggested.
"It might turn them against Russia."
"That's possible," Fenwick agreed.
"It's also possible that Cherkassov was working for Azerbaijan."
"He was being held in an Azerbaijani prison," the vice president said.
"They might have allowed him to escape so that he could be blamed for
the attack."
"How likely is that?" the president asked.
"We're checking with sources at the prison now," Fenwick said.
"But it's looking very likely."
"Which means that instead of the attack turning Iran against Russia,
Azerbaijan may have succeeded in uniting both nations against them," the
vice president said. Fenwick leaned forward.
"Mr. President, there's one thing more. We suspect that creating a
union between Russia and Iran may actually have been the ultimate goal
of the Azerbaijani government."
"Why in hell would they do that?" the president asked.
"Because they are practically at war with Iran in the Nagorno-Karabakh
region," Fenwick said.
"And both Russia and Iran have been pressing claims on some of their oil
fields in the Caspian."
"Azerbaijan wouldn't stand a chance against either nation individually,"
the president pointed out.
"Why unite them?" Even as he said it, the president knew why. To win
allies.
"How much of our oil do we get from that region?"
the president asked.
"We're up to seventeen percent this year with a projection of twenty
percent next year," Gable informed him.
"We're getting much better prices from Baku than we are from the Middle
East. That was guaranteed by the trade agreement we signed with Baku in
March 1993. And they've been very good about upholding their end of the
agreement."
"Shit," the president said.
"What about the other members of the Commonwealth of Independent
States?" he asked.
"Where will they stand if two of their members go to war?"
"I took the liberty of having my staff put in calls to all of our
ambassadors before I came over here," the vice president said.
"We're in the process of ascertaining exactly where everyone stands. But
a preliminary guess is that it will pretty much be split. Five or six
of the poorer, smaller republics will side with Azerbaijan in the hopes
of forming a new union with a share of the oil money. The other half
will go with Russia for pretty much the same reason."
"So we risk a wider war as well," the president said.
"But this is more than just the possibility of us losing oil and
watching a war erupt," Fenwick pointed out.
"It's Iran and the Russian black market getting their hands on
petrodollars that scares me." The president shook his head.
"I'm going to have to bring the joint chiefs in on this." The vice
president nodded.
"We're going to have to move quickly. It's midmorning in the region.
Things are going to happen very quickly. If they get ahead of us--"
"I know," the president said. He was suddenly energized, ready to deal
with the situation. He looked at his watch and then at Gable.
"Red, would you notify the joint chiefs to be here at three? Also, get
the press secretary out of bed. I want him here as well." He looked at
the vice president.
"We'll need to alert the thirty-ninth Wing at Incirlik and the naval
resources in the region."
"That would be the Constellation in the North Arabian Sea and the Ronald
Reagan in the Persian Gulf, sir," Fenwick sai
d.
"I'll put them on alert," the vice president said. He excused himself
and went to the president's private study. It was a small room that
adjoined the Oval Office on the western side. That was also where the
president's private lavatory and dining parlor were located.
"We'll also have to brief NATO command," the president told Gable.
"I don't want them holding us up if we decide to act. And we're going
to need a complete chemical and biological workup of the Azerbaijani
military. See how far they'll go if we don't join in."
"I already have that, sir," Fenwick said.
"They've got deep reserves of anthrax as well as methyl cyanide and
acetonitrile on the chemical side. All have surface-to surface missile
delivery systems. Most of the reserves are stored in or near the NK.
We're watching to see if any of them are moved." The president nodded as
his intercom beeped. It was his deputy executive secretary Charlotte
Parker.
"Mr. President," said Parker, "Paul Hood would like to see you. He
says it's very important." Fenwick did not appear to react. He turned
to Gable and began talking softly as he pointed to data on his notepad.
Are they talking about the Caspian or about Hood?
the president wondered. Lawrence thought for a moment. If Hood were
the one who had lost his way-either intentionally or because of external
pressures-this would be the time and the place to find out.
