“It was a diesel boat? You sure?”
“What’s your name?”
“George Lane. Look, we don’t have much time. Are you sure it was a diesel boat?”
“I believe so.”
“You said you knew Russian submarines. Was it—”
“I said the submarines that we studied were mostly Russian submarines.”
“You used to be able to recognize Russian submarines. Right?”
“Mostly nukes.”
Lane riffled through a large stack of photographs and handed Luke one. “What is this?”
Luke studied the photograph. He didn’t want to get it wrong. “I’m not sure,” Luke said. “Maybe a Kilo.”
“Exactly,” Lane said. “Is that it?”
Luke recalled the image of the submarine again, as he looked down on it from his MiG over the Pacific Ocean. “It might have been. It was just sort of . . . nondescript. Black, the usual diesel look . . .”
Lane put another photograph in front of him. “What about this?”
“Whiskey class? Aren’t those things about fifty years old?”
Lane glanced at Helen. “Yes. They are old. But some of them have fallen into hands outside of the control of governments. One of these could be owned by people who don’t like the United States.”
“Definitely not.”
Lane thought for a minute. “What about this?” he said, putting another photograph in front of Luke, a large black-and-white glossy of a submarine on the surface. Luke stared at the photograph. “I don’t know. What is this?”
“French. Daphne class.”
“Let me see that.” Luke held up the photograph and examined it carefully. His eyes raced from one side to the other, the top to bottom. He drank in the entire shape, tried to envision the shape in the ocean behind a swimming Riaz Khan. “I just can’t tell. This doesn’t look quite right, but I can’t say for sure it isn’t either. Whose is it?”
“This particular one is French. But the Pakistanis have four of them.”
Luke looked at the picture again, harder, longer. He still didn’t know. “I’m just not sure.”
Lane frowned and gave Luke another photo. “How about this one?”
Luke studied it and shook his head. “What is it?”
“Type 209. German-made.”
“Did you ask the Air Force guys? They saw it, too.”
“They said it’s a sub, and we should ask you ’cause you’re a former squid.”
“Nice,” Luke said, handing the photo back to him. “Sorry.”
Lane was growing frustrated. Like Helen, he was beginning to doubt. “How can you not recognize submarines?”
“We never studied French submarines.”
He put three photographs next to each other on the table in front of Luke. “What about these? Last chance,” Lane said.
Luke studied the photos. “I don’t think it’s this one . . . What’s that?”
“That’s the Hashmat, a Pakistani Agosta-class sub.”
“Definitely not that one.”
“What about the other one?”
“The Khalid. New Agosta 90Bclass Pakistani sub. If you can’t tell us what it is, nobody will know what to be looking for. Even if we find a diesel boat in the Pacific now, we have no grounds to stop it. Without a positive ID from you, they have every right to be there and not respond to our request to surface, let alone allow us to search them. They’ll just politely say no. We’re at a dead end here, Mr. Henry. If you could give us some distinguishing features of this submarine, we might be able to make some progress.”
“I just can’t tell you anything else. I’m sorry.”
Lane put away his file. He looked at Helen, who nodded. He hurried out of the room, clearly to try other sources of information to track down the submarine.
Helen brushed the hair away from her face. “What about these Pakistani pilots?”
Luke sighed. “I know their names. I know they were approved and cleared by the DOD, and their entry visas were authorized by State. I know they were flying California Air National Guard F-16s and that they were flying F-16Cs back in Pakistan. I know the leader—”
“Riaz Khan.”
“I never trusted him. But never so much that I could tell him to leave.”
“You didn’t do any background investigation on them before accepting them to your school?”
Luke tried not to yell. “I’ve told you! They were authorized by Undersecretary of Defense Merewether. He said he’d take care of all clearances and ensure that their backgrounds were properly investigated. I relied on him to do it.”
“Did he ever put that in writing to you?”
“They sent us the clearances. You can look at those.”
“I already have. They’re not standard.”
“That’s my problem?”
Helen looked at him. She backed away from the chair and turned toward the small window, which was dirty on the inside, under the chain screen covering where it was impossible to clean. “We need a picture of this Khan.”
“There aren’t any.”
“No class photos? No welcome-aboard photos? Nothing?”
“Nothing. He avoided photos. He forbade his pilots from being photographed.”
“Didn’t that strike you as odd?”
“Yeah, a lot. But what are you going to do?”
“What’s your opinion on why this happened?”
That was the question Luke had been pondering since he got back on the ground. “It was why they came. The whole reason they were here. But just because he was mad at the U.S.? I guess that could be the whole reason, but my bet is there’s more to it. And frankly, I don’t know what else there could be.”
She glanced at the other two FBI agents, who watched silently. “And for whom do you think he was working?”
He hesitated, studying her face, wondering if he was missing something. “Well . . . Pakistan,” he said slowly. “Right? I mean, he was a Pakistani pilot. How could he be working for somebody else?”
“I don’t assume anything.” Li was thinking about other things. She looked into the distance.
Luke remained silent.
“Did you see any preparation on their part? Anything they did that pointed to this?”
“They asked us to help them plan a strike, but we do strike planning all the time. Nothing really unusual about that. They were focused on air-to-ground stuff, but again, for F-16s that’s not so unusual. That’s their primary role.”
Helen prepared to leave. “I’m having them release you.”
“What?” Katherine said, taken completely by surprise.
“The agents who arrested you were overzealous. The irresistible urge to arrest someone for something bad that has happened. It allows you to feel better about yourself.” She slipped her purse over her shoulder. “I suggest you go back to Tonopah and think of whatever you can that will help us catch him. Anything at all. Ask all your instructors.” She handed him a business card. “If you think of anything, call me. We must work fast. It’s my belief that he’s not finished.”
Luke glanced at Katherine, confused. “What do you mean?”
“He intended to hurt us. But I agree with you. I don’t think that was his final objective. I think that was one step in a larger plan.”
“What makes you say that?”
“My friends from the Agency believe that very strongly. They’re trying to figure out what his end game is, as they call it.”
“What could it be?”
“That’s the question, isn’t it?” she said over her shoulder as she walked out. Then she stopped. “I’ve told them to reopen your base. We’ve seen what we need to see there.”
22
Renee had collected a lot of intelligence throughout the country of Pakistan for over three years. Thanks to having grown up with a mother who was half Pakistani she had the ability to appear as a very ordinary Pakistani woman, which made intelligence collection almost easy. But sh
e’d never been on a Pakistani Air Force base. They took security very seriously. If she were caught, she would be charged with espionage. At this point she didn’t care. She was in a country that had chosen to target her homeland for a brutal attack, killing many workers in the nuclear power plant itself and whoever else they might be able to kill, depending on winds and whatever else might affect the spread of the poison they’d unleashed. It was a malicious, horrifying attack. She was prepared to take extraordinary risks to get intelligence on who had done it.
She shuffled into the back entrance of the officers’ mess with the other women who wore burkhas. Renee wore hers in the traditional way, with her face completely covered. Her contact lenses bothered her, as they always did. She didn’t wear them frequently enough to become accustomed to them, only to change her eye color.
The women worked quietly in the morning darkness, some washing the few dishes that had been left over from the night before. Others prepared the breakfast Air Force pilots would eat before their early flights, mostly breads and coffee with an occasional fried vegetable or tomato.
As the sun lifted over the horizon, Renee stood behind the serving trays. Her eyes expertly examined every officer who came through. The number of men who came to breakfast was much smaller than she’d expected. Not more than fifty. She would glance at each officer when he first came in, then look away. She would take quick glimpses from different angles. Although it was extremely difficult to identify someone she’d never seen, she was confident she would recognize Khan if he was here. It was the neck. Everyone mentioned the neck. She had the descriptions the FBI had taken from every person in the school in Nevada and the sketch that everyone in Nevada had agreed was a nearly perfect representation of him.
Searching the face of every officer who entered the room was difficult. Pakistani women were not to look directly into the faces of men. Only prostitutes did that. Renee tried to be subtle. She had to look, though, to have any hope of identifying Khan.
Several of the men simply took food and left, while others sat at the table and talked. The tables held eight or ten, and were arranged in long rows on the hard cement floor. As Renee walked among the tables with dirty dishes she had taken from pilots who had finished, she tried to overhear conversations but heard nothing of interest. Several were talking about the attack, but most seemed genuinely amazed at how this Riaz Khan could have done it and how it couldn’t possibly have been sanctioned by the government.
The general feel she got from them was outrage. They’d all known that four pilots had been fortunate enough to get spots in this new American TOPGUN school, and they all hoped one day to be able to go to the school themselves. How their fellow pilots could be lucky enough to go to America and then carry out such a brutal attack left them without explanation. They didn’t speak of it to senior officers for fear of being implicated in a larger conspiracy. There were whispers of the ISI or of other secret government agendas about which they were ignorant, but Renee heard nothing indicating that anyone seriously believed that Pakistan—as a country, as a government—was involved.
There was much talk of this Riaz Khan, this mysterious pilot none of them could remember meeting. They’d all heard of him, but none had met him. They found this puzzling, because the Pakistani F-16 community was not that large. There were always one or two pilots they didn’t know, but for someone of his rank, stature, and reputation, that was simply not possible. They were mystified.
She kept her head down as she moved the plates and cups back to the kitchen for washing, and then she waited for lunch. She stood in the corner of the dining area with a broom sweeping up some dirt, and she waited.
At two in the afternoon the pilots began filtering in from the hot, dusty day, into the cool, dimly lit officers’ dining room. This time nearly all the fliers came. Renee’s eyes darted back and forth; she looked for anyone who might resemble Khan.
Several pilots saw her looking at them and took it as a sign of encouragement. They smiled at her and tried to catch her eye a second or third time, but she was able to dismiss them. Finally one officer handed her his plate and asked for her to serve him. She noticed that his fingers were strong and thick, and she glanced at his barrel chest. She handed him the plate, knowing he would have to look at it to take it. She used that moment to look into his face. She detected a faint difference in the skin color between his upper lip and the rest of his face. She also noticed that he had a close-cropped haircut, which, based on tan lines, was very recent. As her eyes returned to their normal downcast angle, she took in the bull-like neck, larger than any man’s she’d seen while in Pakistan. It had to be him.
She walked over to another of the servingwomen after the rush had died down. She pointed to him, a knowing smile on her face that she knew showed in her eyes, a look implying barely contained lust. “Who is that?” she asked. “That is a true man.”
The woman lifted her head, annoyed. “Forget it. You would have no chance with him. He is one of the best pilots in the area and sought by every woman who has seen him.”
“What is his name?”
“Don’t worry about it. He’s trouble.”
“I just want to know his name.”
“Forget it.”
“Is he married?”
“He’s married to every woman he sees. They all think he’s going to marry them, but he never does. He is a wanderer. He is married to his airplane.”
Renee waited for the officers at his table to finish. They knew she would clear their dishes, but they were not quite done. She stood back a ways, but near enough the table to try to hear the conversation while looking uninterested and distracted. The man glanced over his shoulder at her with some annoyance. He continued eating. Another officer sitting across the table from him was asking him several questions, to which he was responding.
“When?”
“As soon as . . .” Their conversation was lost in the surrounding din.
She stepped a little closer.
“Three days? Do you have . . . ready?”
“Yes . . .”
“. . . airplanes?”
“. . . division . . . laser . . .”
“What are you doing?” the head of the cleaning group barked at Renee from behind.
The voice was so close and unexpected that it nearly sent Renee out of her skin. She tried to control her racing heart. “I’m sorry. Forgive me. I was waiting for them to finish so I could clear their table . . .” Renee quickly moved away.
She continued to finish her other work nearby. As soon as they got up, she hurried to their table without looking anxious. She cleared their places and carried their dishes to the kitchen.
Then she went to the head of the cleaning group. “Will I be able to work again soon?”
“Who knows? If we need you, we will call you.”
“I would appreciate that. I have enjoyed working here.”
The woman was not impressed. “I would say you have. You have been making eyes at every man who has come in to eat. If you came back, you would have to change your ways. This is not a whorehouse, nor is it the place to find a husband,” she scolded.
“I’m sorry,” Renee said, lowering her eyes. “I just found it all interesting.”
The head of the cleaning crew grunted and turned away. Renee closed her hand around the fork in her apron and slipped it into the slit pocket cut into her dress underneath.
* * *
“Vladimir, Vladimir,” Gorgov said in his low voice. He had waited until the middle of the night in Nevada, to get Vlad when he was fatigued and back in his room at Tonopah.
“What?” Vlad replied, his blood racing through his veins. He rested on his side, on his elbow, and reached for the lamp next to his bed.
“It is not possible that you misunderstood me,” Gorgov said, declaring the obvious. “You made me look foolish in front of my good friends who gave us a large sum of money.” Gorgov stopped and let Vlad listen to the line hiss for a few seconds. �
��But, fortunately for you, they succeeded anyway. Even more fortunately for you, my good friend, is that there may be another chance for you to make a difference. Because we both know that if you don’t . . . things could get very bad, very uncomfortable for you.”
Vlad sat up and put his feet on the floor, trying to think his way out of his deepening hole. “Leave me alone!” he yelled.
“And for those you left behind in Russia,” Gorgov went on. “Your sister, for example, who is now in Smolensk with her two beautiful young children.”
“What do you want from me?” Vlad growled.
“You see,” Gorgov said, “this fight is not only not over, it is just starting. There are many things left to do, and one piece of it . . . remains undone. You may be able to make sure it happens.”
“What is it?”
“Your friend suffers, I think, from the typical American hero complex. I believe it is often associated with another of the actors that Americans worship, a John Wayne. Yes? You have heard this term?”
“Yes.”
“Ah. Your friend must be led to believe he is going to save the world. And you will have the chance—the obligation—to make sure he does not succeed. Do you understand?”
Vlad closed his eyes. His back felt as if it were broken. The ejection had been much harder on his body than he’d expected. The ejection seat rocket motor had fired so fast and so hard to get him out of his dying airplane that it had compressed his spine in his lower back. He had pain radiating down to his heels. His crotch felt bruised and sore from where the harness he was wearing had held him in the parachute. All he wanted to do was sleep. But he’d not done what Gorgov had expected him to do. He’d knew he would be called to account. He wanted to tell himself he didn’t care. That Gorgov couldn’t touch him in America. But he knew that wasn’t true. He took a deep breath. “I understand.”
“Well, yes.” Gorgov laughed. “There is understanding, and there is understanding. I know you understood the words I have said. You are a smart man. You did not become a Sniper Pilot in the Russian Air Force by being stupid or cowardly. I want you to tell me, Vladimir Petkov, whether you understand that when the time is before you, when you have a choice to intervene to assure the success of the goal that will then be obvious to you, whether you will do what I have asked.”
Fallout Page 27
