by Brad Thor
“So that’s it then,” said Jackson. “Al-Qaeda is now actively in the biowarfare game.”
Currutt brought up an organizational chart for al-Qaeda. Those who had been killed or captured either had either a slash or a red X through their photo. “Unfortunately, it would seem so. We’ve inflicted such significant damage on them that they’re growing desperate. In a sense, we’ve forced them to branch out in drastic new directions, one of which happens to be in the realm of chemical and biological weapons. They’re using Iraq and Afghanistan as justification for employing whatever weapons they can get their hands on to drive us from all Muslim lands.”
“Jesus,” responded Driehaus. “Talk about blowback. Every single move we make, whether successful or not, seems to come back to bite us in the ass twice as hard.”
It was exactly what everyone around the table was thinking.
“The good we’re doing over there far outweighs the bad,” said the secretary of state.
“I hope so,” responded Driehaus, “but I have to be honest. I’m worried our losses may soon overshadow whatever gains we might make.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means that for better or worse, I’m more concerned with the welfare of the American people than I am with the Iraqis or anyone else over in that part of the world.”
“So what? We’re supposed to just bury our heads in the sand and hope that the terrorism problem will just go away? Because we all know that’s not going to happen.”
“All right,” interjected the president. “I respect that we’ve got a wide range of opinions in the room, but let’s all try to settle down and focus on the matter at hand.”
After several moments of awkward silence, the surgeon general said, “I suppose that if we don’t know what we’re dealing with, it’s pointless to ask if there’s a cure.”
“Pretty much,” said Colonel Tranberg, relieved to get back on track.
“How about the fatality rate? What can you tell us about that?”
“Well, that all depends upon on how you interpret the data. If you look at the village of Asalaam, one out of every two people died, which gives us a fifty percent fatality rate, which is extremely serious.”
“If the village is our only benchmark,” asked Plaisier, “then how else could you be looking at this?”
“We’re looking at the village, of course, but more importantly, we’re looking at the one out of every two villagers who died. You see, the area around Mosul is one of the largest Christian enclaves in the entire country. It isn’t unusual for Christians and Muslims to live side by side there. Asalaam was a perfect example of this. So perfect, in fact, that it was about fifty-two percent Muslim and forty-eight percent Christian.”
“And when you look at the deaths by religious affiliations?” asked the surgeon general.
Tranberg shook his head slowly. “Only the Muslims survived. If you weren’t Muslim, the illness was one hundred percent lethal.”
NINE
A LBAN T OWERS A PARTMENTS
G EORGETOWN
H elen Carmichael didn’t have to sleep with the young CIA analyst—the promise of a position in her cabinet would have been enough in itself, but the sex was a nice bonus. It wasn’t only powerful male politicians who attracted good-looking, hard-bodied young things. Powerful female politicians did as well, although they tended to be a lot more discreet about it.
Carmichael reached for the half-empty bottle of Montrachet in the ice bucket next to the bed and filled their two glasses. As she handed the sandy-haired twenty-five-year-old his wine, she said, “Tell me about work.”
Brian Turner knew it was part of the deal, but just once he wished they could talk about something else. “I have a friend who keeps a sailboat on the eastern shore of the Chesapeake who said I could use it any time I wanted, “He said, changing the subject. “How about this weekend?”
“Brian, you know I’m not a big fan of boats,” replied the senator.
“That doesn’t matter. It’s supposed to rain anyway. We’ll just keep it in the slip and stay below deck. There’s a DVD player on board. We can rent a bunch of movies and stock up at Dean & DeLuca on the way. We’ll get those lobster rolls you like so much. I’ll bring along a case of wine. It’ll be perfect.”
For a moment, Carmichael was tempted. She couldn’t remember the last time she had dropped everything to run off on a carefree, romantic weekend. There might have been one or two in the beginning of her marriage, but that was so long ago she couldn’t really be sure if they’d happened or if she was just inventing them in her mind to make herself feel better.
She stared at Brian Turner’s tan, firm body lying on top of the crisp Frette linens and tried to figure out a way to clear her schedule, but it was impossible. There were too many important things going on. She needed to see and be seen around town, especially as she moved to get her committee’s investigation of the al-Jazeera incident off the ground. “I can’t, Brian,” she said. “I’ve got way too much on my plate right now.”
“I understand,” replied Turner, and he did. In fact, he was glad she had turned him down. He had already extended the same invitation to a much younger and more attractive congressional staff assistant, also known in DC parlance as a “staff ass,” rumored to have an insatiable appetite for wild, marathon sex. Turner was just playing Carmichael. The senator never accepted any of his “romantic” getaway overtures anyway. The thought of spending an entire weekend having to play warm and cuddly was not really his idea of a good time. Not that he found her unattractive. She was okay, but he wasn’t with her for the sex, he was with her for what she could do for his career.
Carmichael was Turner’s ticket to the big time, his ticket out of the monotonous, post-9/11 slog at the CIA. Short of spending the weekend nailing the pretty little blond staff ass from South Dakota, there was nothing Brian Turner wanted more than to go to work for Senator, and hopefully soon to be Vice President, Helen Carmichael.
He was ruminating on the perversions the staffer was said to be fond of when Carmichael began nudging him about work again. “What’s going on at Langley?” she asked. “What are you hearing about the al-Jazeera footage?”
“Seeing is more like it,” said Turner, who, somewhat relieved that the intimacy portion of the evening had come to a close, slid his feet over the side of the bed and walked to his desk.
The senator watched him walk. His body was a testimony to youthful strength and vigor. She looked down at her own body and was proud of what she saw. She worked out regularly and had the body of a woman at least fifteen years younger. She especially liked the piercing Brian had talked her into getting. They both wore matching, stainless steel studs—the senator in her navel and Brian Turner through the head of his penis in what was known as a Prince Albert. It was a reminder to Carmichael of her secret indulgences, and she liked to discreetly finger the stud while surrounded by other important DC figures—people who would never even guess at the double life she led.
In a moment of concern, Turner had asked the senator what her husband might say if he ever saw her piercing, but Carmichael had set his mind right at ease by telling him that her husband hadn’t seen her naked in years.
Turner returned to bed carrying a file folder. He tucked a pencil behind his ear and brushed the hair away from his forehead. “I asked one of the DOD liaisons at the agency to review the footage.”
“And?” asked Carmichael.
“And same as you, the first thing he noticed was that the uniform the American soldier was wearing—”
“Didn’t have any insignias other than the U.S. flag,” said Carmichael, finishing the young man’s sentence for him.
“Exactly.”
“Which means the soldier was probably operating in some semi-covert capacity, maybe on one of the Special Operations Command’s direct action teams.”
“Right again,” said Turner.
“Do you know who he is?”
Tur
ner smiled. “Nobody, it seems, wants to help hang this guy. I had to be very careful who I talked to and what information I pulled. He’s very highly thought of—kind of a hero in intelligence circles.”
“Quit dragging this out,” purred Carmichael as she grabbed the file folder away from him.
The young man watched as the senator pored over the pages, a smile curling the edges of her mouth.
“This is incredible,” she whispered as she continued to read. Toward the end of the dossier, she concluded, “This is beyond good, Brian. This guy is the president’s goddamn golden boy.”
Turner smiled again. “I thought you’d appreciate it.”
“I more than appreciate it. This is the find of the decade.”
“His résumé is pretty lengthy. For some reason, he doesn’t seem to stay in one place too long. He served on both Navy SEAL Teams Two and Six, before the Secret Service hired him to come work at the White House. While he was there, he knocked one out of the park by rescuing the president during that whole kidnapping thing in Park City, Utah. That’s the move that earned him all his cachet around town. Shortly after that, he linked up with the CIA and started doing occasional assignments with members of the Special Operations Group. One involved a hijacking and the dismantling of the Abu Nidal terrorist organization, and another involved the Russians and the suitcase nukes they were threatening to detonate here.”
“He seems to be behind a lot of the president’s successes.”
“He does,” agreed Turner, “but then all of a sudden he got dumped over at the Department of Homeland Security. He’s now working in some innocuous police and intelligence liaison unit called the Office of International Investigative Assistance.”
Carmichael closed the folder and tapped it against her chin for several moments. “Something tells me we’re going to find that the Office of International Investigative Assistance is anything but innocuous and that our new friend is up to a lot more than just liaising with police and intelligence people.”
“Where are you going?” asked Turner, as the senator slid out of bed and began getting dressed. “I thought we were going to spend the evening together.”
“I can’t. Not now. There’s much too much to be done. But I want you,” said Carmichael as she bent down and gave Brian a deep kiss, “to sleep like an angel tonight. You deserve it. I also want you well rested, because I’ll probably need you in the morning. Keep an eye on your hotmail account. If we need to talk, I’ll send you a message, and then we’ll use the Breast Cancer Forum chat room like before.”
Before Brian Turner could respond, the senator was out the apartment door and on her way down to the lobby.
The moment she stepped outside, Carmichael pulled out her cell phone and speed-dialed her assistant’s home number.
“Hello?” said an obviously tired voice on the other end of the line.
“Neal, it’s Helen. I want you in the office in twenty minutes. As soon as you get there, start pulling everything you can on an ex-Navy SEAL who used to work Secret Service at the White House and is now over at DHS named Scot Harvath. I want you to dig as deep as you can. Get my black Rolodex out of the safe and start calling in favors. We need to know everything about this guy, especially what he’s been involved with since he began working at the White House a couple years ago. Am I clear? Do you have all that?”
“Yes, Senator,” said the assistant, who was now wide awake.
“Good,” replied Carmichael. “You’ve now got eighteen minutes to get yourself into the office. Get moving. I want to make the morning news cycle.”
TEN
M ANDARIN O RIENTAL H OTEL
W ASHINGTON , DC
C hief of Staff Charles Anderson found the Swiss ambassador at a quiet table in the Mandarin’s lobby bar.
“Can I buy you a drink, Chuck?” asked Hans Friederich as a waitress set down his martini.
“I’ll have a light beer,” said Anderson. “I don’t care what kind.”
“Light beer?” said the ambassador as the waitress smiled and walked away. “Since when does Charles Anderson drink light beer?”
“Since my trousers started getting a little too snug around the waist.”
The ambassador laughed good-naturedly.
“I’m also going back to the office tonight,” added the chief of staff. “We’ve got a bit of a situation brewing.”
“I’ve been watching your situation brewing all day on TV,” said Friederich.
Anderson grimaced. “Yeah. The al-Jazeera thing. Believe it or not, that’s shaping up to be the least of my worries at this point.”
“Then I’m sorry that I might soon be adding to them.”
“Why?” asked Anderson. “Are Mitzi and the kids okay?”
“They’re fine.”
“How about you? You look like maybe you should start thinking about switching over to light beer too.”
The ambassador smiled and shook his head. “I’ll take it under advisement.”
Friederich tilted his head in the direction of the approaching waitress and fell silent. Once the young woman had poured Anderson’s beer and left the table, the ambassador continued. “I have some information for you, but before I give it to you, I want you to know that we’re only an intermediary. My government has no way of corroborating what I am about to share.”
“Understood. What do you have?”
“The sword of Allah.”
“The sword of Allah?” repeated Anderson. “I’ve never heard of it.”
“If what I hear is true, you are about to become extremely familiar with it. It’s a weapon with which Islamic fundamentalists intend to purge the world of all but the most devoted Muslims.”
“And exactly what kind of a weapon is this?”
“It’s a sickness that infects all but the most devout followers of Islam.”
Anderson almost spit his beer back in his glass. How the hell did the Swiss ambassador know about this? He took a moment to glance around the bar to make sure nobody was listening to them. “Where’d you get this information?”
“I’m here on behalf of a man who does a tremendous amount of business with my country.”
“Who?”
“He’s not a Swiss citizen, but he has been extremely—”
“Damn it, Hans. I don’t have time to fool around. Who the hell did you get this information from?” demanded Anderson.
“Ozan Kalachka.”
“Kalachka the Turk? The terrorist?”
“The terrorist characterization is malicious and unfounded,” replied Friederich.
“Unfounded, my ass. Western intelligence, in particular the CIA, knows—”
“Western intelligence knows precious little. In fact, Western intelligence, your CIA in particular, has been trying to compile a detailed dossier on him for years without any luck.”
“We know enough about him,” said Anderson.
“I don’t think so. In fact—”
“Hans, let me save you some time. If you’re here trying to promote Ozan Kalachka for U.S. citizenship in exchange for whatever dubious information he may or may not have, forget it. We don’t want anything to do with him. And frankly, I can’t understand why Switzerland bothers with him either.”
“Mr. Kalachka is a businessman. He has many legitimate international contacts that have proven very profitable for Switzerland.”
“And lots of not-so-legitimate contacts that have proven very profitable for Switzerland’s private banking industry.”
“True,” said Friederich as he took another sip of his martini. “But in all fairness, the United States had their Adnan Khashoggi to help cement its relationship with the Saudis and their mountains of money. One trillion they have in your economy now, if I recall correctly. It’s no wonder you remain so loyal to them. If they pulled their money out of America, your economy would collapse.”
“What’s your point?”
“My point is that Ozan Kalachka serves much the same functio
n for us as Khashoggi has for you—he drums up capital for our ventures in other parts of the world.”
“Capital. It sounds so clean when you put it that way.”
“Come on, Chuck. We both know how the game is played. The difference with the Swiss, though, is that we recognized the value of doing business with Kalachka straight away. I believe Khashoggi didn’t get his job with the White House until he accidentally ‘forgot’a briefcase with a million dollars in it at the home of your President Nixon. After that, as I understand it, Mr. Khashoggi became quite popular over here. Your country even thought enough of him to allow him to act as the middleman during the whole Iran-Contra affair, didn’t it?”
“Those were different administrations,” replied Anderson, exasperated. “Can we please get to the point here?”
“The point is that you shouldn’t allow your preconceptions to cause you to dismiss the information Ozan Kalachka has—”
“Allegedly has, and I’m not dismissing it. I just don’t like the taste I get in my mouth when I say the guy’s name.”
“Does that mean you’re interested?”
“I still don’t completely know what we’re talking about. You’re going to have to give me more than just this cloak and sword of Allah routine.”
“Fair enough,” said the ambassador as he removed a small digital video player from his suitcoat pocket. “Mr. Kalachka thought you might need some additional convincing.”
Anderson watched in disbelief as he was shown virtually the same footage he had seen in the situation room that morning from Asalaam. “Where did you get this?”
“I told you,” said Friederich. “I’m just the messenger. You’ll have to ask Mr. Kalachka.”
“No doubt he wants something in return.”
“Yes. Mr. Kalachka apparently needs a favor.”
Anderson was understandably wary. “What kind of favor?”
“Mr. Kalachka is prepared to tell the United States what he knows about the weapon and will even provide access to one of the scientists who worked on it—”
