THE PENTAGON
MAJOR GENERAL BRAD MIDDLETON arrived back at his office with a full head of steam, as if he were looking for a wall to smash through, and muttering many unkind things about former congressman Bobby Patterson, the president’s chief of staff. He marched directly to the E-Ring and the office of General Hank Turner, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs and the former head of the Marine Special Operations Command. Turner was waiting in the big, sunlit office along with Admiral Ted Johnson, the chief of naval operations, and General Buck Manchester, the Marine chief, who was technically Middleton’s boss. A rainbow of flags on poles was displayed behind them. Middleton saluted.
“The White House is throwing us under the bus,” the Task Force Trident commander declared after being told to be at ease and take a chair. “Bobby Patterson shredded the presidential directive that authorizes Trident and has put the CIA in charge of sorting out the Pakistan mess.”
The other generals traded glances. “Does the president know about this?” asked Admiral Johnson.
“I honestly don’t know. Patterson sets the agenda over there, and he would not answer that question.”
Turner was pacing the room. “What do you think, Admiral?”
“Sounds like Patterson is using the opportunity as another attempt to screw the military.”
“Buck? You’ve got a PhD in international relations. How do you read it?”
“It is moving much too fast for precipitate action of any sort, General,” replied the Marine chief. He had a question, too. “Brad, were there any witnesses to this exchange between the two of you?”
“Yessir. CIA Director Geneen was right there. As usual, he was quiet as a tomb.”
Hank Turner was a thoughtful man, and he walked around his office listening to his subordinates discuss the problem. He occasionally would drop a question. He stopped pacing, and the others turned. “One thing, Brad. What’s this crap about you resigning?”
“I offered to step aside rather than let Trident go down the tubes. Patterson refused. He wants to keep me in the military chain of command, and therefore silent on the situation. As if I would talk to the press.”
“Well, at least he did one thing right. I’m not going to let you resign either.”
Middleton scratched his crew-cut hair. “All right, sir.”
General Turner resumed pacing, ticking off items on his fingers as he spoke. “We know that Jim Hall was killed. FBI confirmation on that. Kyle Swanson is a prisoner. Again, an FBI confirmation. Bobby Patterson has hit the panic button. The CIA is taking control of what started off as a covert military operation, thereby cutting us out of the loop. My final question to you, Brad, is: Did Swanson spark off those explosions?”
“Absolutely not, sir.”
Admiral Johnson stroked his chin as he considered the situation. “How can you say that with any certainty?”
“Sir, we know exactly, repeat exactly, the time that Swanson pulled the trigger. He reported in just after he did it. His job after that was to escape and evade, which he would have done in utmost silence. The man moves like a shadow, Admiral. He may have set a booby trap to delay pursuit and misdirect attention, but nothing that would be guaranteed to bring the entire Pakistani army and police force down on his head. On top of that, the explosions did not begin until almost five minutes after he pulled the trigger on the tango. Our men on the scene said that dozens of uniforms were chasing Swanson by then. This is not the kind of thing he would do, particularly when it would cause so many civilian casualties.”
General Manchester also had been soaking in the unfolding situation, mulling the possibilities. “I agree. Blowing up something that big is not what any Marine sniper would do on a mission.”
“Nor a SEAL Team,” added the admiral. “Just because they can do it does not mean they would do it.”
Hank Turner made up his mind. “We are kind of stuck between a rock and a hard place for right now, until we see what the Pakistanis do with Swanson. I intend to meet personally with the president about Patterson, an unelected bureaucrat, intervening in the chain of command. Meanwhile, General Middleton, you get back to work.”
“Any instructions, sir?”
“Yeah, Brad. Support our man in the field.”
ISLAMABAD
ONCE, OVER A PITCHER of beer at the Stumps, a little tavern outside of 29 Palms, California, Jim Hall had allowed that Albert Einstein had truly been a pretty smart old duck. “Albert was trying to explain his Theory of Relativity to some dumb-ass, probably some Air Force fighter jock,” Hall said, “so he dreams up a comparison. Sit with a nice girl for two hours, and it only seems like a minute. But if your ass hits a hot stove for a minute, you’re going to think it is two hours. Albert was talking relativity, but he nailed the way a sniper has to think about time. No highs, no lows. Just smooth it all out. Slow is smooth, and smooth is fast. Remember that, young Skywalker, and you will do well.”
Kyle Swanson recalled the conversation as he pushed through a set of isometric exercises in his prison cell and tried to figure out the time. The hit on the tango happened just as the sun went down, then all of the other stuff happened, and that had soaked up more hours. He figured the entire night had passed, but with the unknown factor of how long he had slept, he could not be certain.
Another rat ventured onto his thigh, and enough was enough. Games were a good way of passing idle time. Snipers and spotters even played games while on a mission. He picked up the adventuresome rat with his bare hands, wrung the neck, and tossed the worthless carcass to its friends on the far side of the cell.
“Nothing happens eighty-five percent of the time on a mission,” he told the rats quietly. “So you have to amuse yourself to stay awake. That’s why we play games. Layin’ there, just keeping watch on the target for hour after hour, gets pretty damned boring. So I say to the other guy, ‘Let’s spot dogs,’ and then I find a dog and the spotter has to match me. Then we do the goats and the other animals. And women. Always checking out the women. But it’s more than just a game because it keeps you vigilant and tuned in, you understand?”
While he explained what was happening, Kyle tied a sleeve of his discarded uniform shirt into a tight knot at the cuff and began using it occasionally to snap the curious rodents. Sometimes he hit them, sometimes he didn’t, but they sensed the danger and hugged the far wall and the trickling water. “Everybody stake out a place,” Kyle said, “and stay there. I’m the biggest and meanest alpha rat you guys have ever seen, so keep the hell out of my way.”
He was thinking that if worse came to worst, they could be a food source. And there was the dripping water on the wall. He could last for a while in here. Smooth out the time.
WASHINGTON, D.C.
THIS WAS NOT WHAT Lauren Carson had expected when she called the secret telephone number that Kyle had slipped to her while they were spiriting the captured soldiers away in Islamabad. When a gruff voice announced that she had reached the 179th MRE Research, Development, and Tasting Brigade, she thought she had the wrong number, but when she mentioned the name of Kyle Swanson, the tone of the voice changed immediately. “Hold while I get his boss.” The crisp voice of a woman came on the telephone next, carrying the slightest hint of urgency. Lauren identified herself as being the CIA agent who was with Swanson in Pakistan.
“Do not say your name on this connection,” stated the strong voice. “Did anything change recently in your personnel file?”
“Yes,” Lauren replied. “It was confidential, and I can’t talk about it.”
“A letter of commendation for the extraction of the two captives.”
Lauren paused. Whoever this was had access to her personal CIA file. “I’m in some trouble, and Kyle said I should call this number if I ever needed help. I need help, and I cannot very well come to any office at the Pentagon. I think someone may be following me.”
“From your shop?”
“Yes. Can we meet somewhere?”
There was a pause. Then the woman said, “Drive out to Tysons Corner in McLean. I will meet you at Burgers and Burgers. Order something and grab a table. Soon as you can make it.”
“Wait! How will I recognize you?”
“You won’t. But I have your picture right in front of me, and the latest driver’s license photo. I think I can pick you out of a crowd. I will be there in about an hour.”
“What’s your name?”
“Tysons Corner. One hour.” The call terminated.
LAUREN KEPT HER EYES moving to the mirrors as she drove around Washington on busy Route 495, the Capital Beltway. She saw a lot of cars, vans, and trucks of every description but nothing that lingered as possible followers. Since the Silver Line of the Metro was still under construction and did not reach the expansive shopping complex, some sort of car would be required to keep her under surveillance. Or, she thought, a truck, a motorcycle, helicopter, airplane, or satellite. Getting paranoid, girl?
By the time she found a parking place, looked at guides to the many different stores and shops in the regional supermall, and hiked to the hamburger cookery, the hour was almost up. She went to the counter and ordered a cheeseburger, and was surprised at how all of the cooks and servers yelled at each other and even across the restaurant to call out orders. No microphones, just shouts. Combine that with the conversation of the customers, who also had to talk loudly in order to be heard over the bawling of the crew in the candy-striped shirts, and you had a place with the noise level of a small indoor football stadium. People who had put in orders and were waiting for the food stood around idly reading or just killing time. Lauren found a napkin and took a handful of peanuts from a bucket, then sat at a small table. She looked at her watch. An hour and five minutes had passed.
Her number was shouted, and she went to pick up the order. Another woman was sitting at the table, nibbling a peanut, when she returned. Jet black hair cut just below the collar, lithe, with piercing dark blue eyes. Tight black jeans and sneaks, and a dark, overlong Abercrombie & Fitch T-shirt. “We spoke. Let’s go,” the woman said. “Dump the greaseburger on the way out or your hips will pay the price.”
Lauren left with the stranger, who casually guided her to the nearest exit in silence. A midsized motor home was at the curb, with its diesel engine purring. The sandy brown and cream paint scheme was faded and unwashed, and the right rear had a big dent; altogether, it was the epitome of a worn old road warrior needing some serious restoration work and better care. The woman opened the door, and they both climbed in. The vehicle was moving before the door was shut.
“Okay now, Agent Carson. Welcome aboard,” the stranger said. “I’m Major Sybelle Summers, the Trident ops officer. That big guy at the wheel is Master Gunny Dawkins, and this little geek with the Coke-bottle glasses is Lieutenant Commander Freedman, our intel chief. What’s going on?” Both of the men wore blue jeans, with loose shirts hanging over their beltlines.
Lauren wasted no time. She took one of the comfortable swivel seats and faced Summers. “We have to help Kyle.”
“We intend to,” replied Summers, with a smile that did not reach her eyes. “What do you have in mind?”
Lauren looked around at the traffic and realized the RV was doing a slow loop of the perimeter roads around the supermall. “Do you think we’re being followed? Can anyone overhear our conversation?”
“No, you’re not being followed, Agent Carson. Commander Freedman was in the burger joint when you arrived, I was watching from the security office, and our driver was roaming the area. Nothing suspicious. And no one is listening because we have jamming devices and shielding in this old buggy. Now talk to me, Lauren. Kyle Swanson is our buddy, part of our team. Tell us what we can do to help you.” Summers had decided to go the personal route, and it worked.
To Lauren Carson, Major Summers was both very competent and believable. Once she decided to trust them, the words came out in a rush: the Islamabad experience with Jim Hall and the Taliban politician, Kyle’s stern behavior in changing the entire mission on the spot to get the soldiers out, the unexpected catastrophic explosions, and then the start of the CIA inquisition and her two weeks of mandatory leave.
“A serious discrepancy has already turned up in their internal investigation. A covert bank account was cleaned out yesterday, five million dollars, based upon codes and commands known only to myself and Jim Hall. I didn’t do it, so that means that Jim did! The problem is it happened after Jim supposedly was killed. They have to blame somebody, and pointing the finger at a corpse doesn’t work. So they are leaving me to be the scapegoat.”
“The withdrawal came after the fact,” said Freedman, just to be sure of the point.
“Yes.” Lauren opened her purse. “Here’s the zinger. That was hardly the only covert account to which my old boss Jim Hall had access. He had worked for the Agency for many years, and I know of at least twenty others because he had my name on those, too. Jim never actually returned money to the general funds, and the Agency watchdogs knew it. It was already authorized and approved through proper channels, so if a couple of million was needed for some really off-the-books operation, Jim could supply it. Untraceable, with no questions asked.”
The RV continued its journey to nowhere. The parking lot at Tysons Corner could handle 165,000 vehicles, and traffic was always coming and going. Perfect civilian cover. Sybelle looked at Freedman. This CIA agent’s story, wrapped with their own timeline about how Swanson could not have been responsible for the explosions, seemed to jell. “We also think it was a setup. Your superior, Jim Hall, is feeding both you and Kyle to the wolves.”
A stricken look came across Lauren Carson’s face. “I’m going to be friggin’ executed,” she said. “I’m a loose end. Kyle is the only one I can really trust, because he knows Jim Hall even better than I do.” She unfolded a sheet of paper that listed the series of financial institutions and account numbers that she had culled from another computer workstation before leaving Langley. “I’ve got this information, but getting into those systems for confirmation and status reports is beyond my technical ability. The Agency has people who do just that kind of thing all the time.”
“So do we,” Summers told her. “Lizard, do your thing.”
Lieutenant Commander Freedman spread his fingers, like a concert pianist warming up, and ran both hands through his thick black hair. He opened the wooden cabinets along the left side of the RV and tossed out several bags of dry cereal. With the touch of what looked like a light switch, the plywood backing and single shelf folded forward to reveal a multiscreen computer center. Green dots of light indicated the power source was on. “Let me give it a try,” he said, adjusting a rolling chair into position.
ISLAMABAD
THIS WAS AS BORING as sketching. Kyle hated drawing-going into a target zone prior to a main assault and sketching everything around in complete detail in a little notebook. The observations would be molded into the other intel gathered by other means, and the attack would proceed. Drone airplanes and their sharp cameras had taken over a chunk of that overall task, but airplanes, by definition, stay in the air. Men on the ground bring a much different perspective. A pilot twiddling a joystick hundreds of miles away to guide a drone would never have the same outlook. It just took so much time, being completely hidden and still except for drawing and measuring things with lasers before you could go kill somebody. Some of the same techniques of waiting could be applied to enduring the passing time in a prison.
He popped the shirt knot twice, but without enthusiasm, just to keep the rats on their toes and awake and alert and fearful. He spoke to them. “There was this one time, guys, talk about being bored, I crawled into an abandoned building about six hundred yards from the actual home of this dude who was the big leader of a rebel force in an African country. Can’t tell you which one. Sorry about that, but it’s classified. Stayed there forty-eight hours, clicking away pictures with my Nikonos and narrating on the radio about who came, who left, their tendencies, how much security they had, when they slept, you guys know, the usual stuff. The guy thought he was safe, but I was living in his front yard…”
There was a sound outside the door, and Swanson stopped his conversation with the rodents. He had been expecting it, sooner or later, so his heart did not go into overdrive. With a squeal of metal, the grate at the bottom of the door slid open, and a plastic plate with some food and tea was passed through. The bluish green light in that brief moment was from the fluorescent lights in the long hall, which told him nothing. The grate was left open, so he was expected to eat and return the plate, two beverage containers, and plastic fork.
None of the rats had a watch. He had asked them. Now his jailers had provided the start of a feeding pattern, allowing his internal time to click to zero. Swanson began counting seconds, adjusting his thoughts to let the silent little metronome in his brain begin twitching back and forth on such a regular basis that he could do two things at once. When he picked up the plate to determine which meal of the day it was, he gave a soft laugh. No problem; it was breakfast, of a sort. The imam had been at work again, determined that Swanson would have familiar food, and Kyle thought that might have been a mistake. Instead of a regular large Pakistani breakfast, the cook had tried to prepare an American meal. Swanson had been given runny scrambled eggs, a couple of slices of charred toast slathered with honey, and a cup of sweet black tea and milk. No matter. This was survival, and he ate it all, while at the same time using a prong of the plastic fork to punch a little hole in his shirt. Then he pushed the plastic and paper back through the hole. Someone picked it up and closed the grate.
Darkness again, only this time with a difference. He worked on his timeline, his boring, tedious, glorious timeline. More than just a count, it gave him something to do, something to think about to keep his psyche engaged. The count was already up to almost ten minutes, piling higher second by second. The strike had been at evening prayers on Tuesday, so this was Wednesday morning, breakfast time. Sixty seconds to a minute. Three thousand six hundred seconds to an hour.
Swanson’s fingers had already widened the hole he had punctured in the tunic, and when the hour mark passed, he made a small rip along one edge. The shirt was now a physical clock. He could keep time, counting down to the next feeding time. It was a routine that he could do for days if necessary.
He leaned back against the wall with a sigh, gently touching the rip. One hour. There was no such thing as an indefinite mission. Each operation had an end time, and a purpose. This didn’t.