CAMP DOHA
KUWAIT
AFTER THE DEBRIEF, KYLE Swanson dropped by the hospital to check on Double-Oh, who was still in surgery, then went over to the private quarters maintained for special operations, checked in, and took a shower. The television set in the small room was reporting on the London attack, and he punched up some pillows and lay back on the bunk to watch for a while, then catch some sleep. A pounding on the door ended the brief period of relaxation.
Captain Rick Newman and Sergeant Travis Hughes were there, still dressed in their cammies and covered with dirt from the mission. As they described the odd interrogation of Dalara Tabrizi, Kyle realized that by sharing her idea for another cross-border operation with the intelligence officers, she had unintentionally kicked down the first of a long row of dominoes.
The intel pukes would report up their chain of command, then planners would be brought in to examine the possibilities and would kick it to Washington for debate and approval, and then somebody would have to make a decision to send a U.S. patrol deep into Iran because some woman wanted to find her brother. Since the first raid had turned up so little in the way of hard evidence that a chemical device was being built, there would be great reluctance among the higher pay grades to sign off on a risky new mission on the word of a stranger. If any Americans were caught, the international repercussions would be severe. With every hour that passed, the attack in the UK was going to be viewed more as an investigative matter for police, and the military would be sidelined. Maybe a satellite could take pictures of the suspected site, or perhaps a spy plane could do some flyovers, but without having to put boots on the ground. Was it worth the risk?
“What’s your opinion, Trav?” asked Kyle.
“She’s telling the truth,” he answered. “Every minute she was being questioned, she just kept getting stronger. Rawls is with her right now over at the mess hall, and she is cool and focused.”
Swanson looked at Rick Newman. “I doubt if another mission will be authorized,” the young captain said. “Too much potential fallout.”
Kyle was already putting on his uniform, his mind whirring with possibilities while they watched the latest horrific televised report from London. “We have to do it, even if there is only an outside chance to get to the bottom of this whole thing. So I am thinking that my authorization for the original mission into Iran is still in force and we returned to Doha just to drop off our wounded man. We have to get out of here because this place is just too damned big and has too many competing interests.”
Travis Hughes gnawed a fingernail. “The village she mentioned is in the west of Iran, about halfway up the border with Iraq and out where the agriculture gives way to the mountains. We could stage out of Camp Baharia, which is on about the same level in Iraq.”
“Good,” said Swanson. “Once we are among just Marines, things will get easier. Rick, you get us a plane to take the team up to Fallujah and run the support side of the show from Baharia. I’ll get Captain Summers over here, and we can slide it out of the military chain of command entirely and put it under Trident and General Middleton. By the time Sybelle lands, we want to have this thing already moving. If we keep the momentum going, the paper-shufflers will never catch up.”
WASHINGTON, D.C.
Sybelle Summers arrived for work at six o’clock in the morning. Like thousands of other commuters, she rode the Washington Metro to the Pentagon station, patiently took the long escalator ride up to the main entrance, and signed in. As she walked the wide, polished hallway, the place seemed like a giant tomb, and there was an overwhelming feeling of barely restrained excitement as the men and women of the United States military services were preparing to face what quite possibly was a new attack against the homeland. She went directly to the Trident offices
Major General Middleton and Lieutenant Commander Freedman were watching television, with the general switching from channel to channel as each network devoted its entire programming to the news from England. No cheery and smiling wake-up morning show hosts today, just macabre news reports.
“How is Double-Oh?” she asked.
“The docs in Kuwait say that old warhorse is going to live to fight another day,” said Middleton and immediately changed the subject. “You up to date on this London attack?”
“Yes, sir. Watched some at home and read the Post and the Times.” Sybelle dropped her purse on a desk. “How do the news reports match up with our intel sources?”
“Got no fuckin’ intel,” snorted Middleton. “Once again, billions of dollars thrown at them, few laws to confine them anymore, and the spooks still come up short. How come TV cameras can always be there when the intel professionals can’t?”
General Middleton turned the sound down and made a quick telephone call to the Pentagon central command post that was monitoring the emergency in England. He asked for the casualty count, grunted, and hung up. “Less than a hundred and fifty dead so far, from the dirty bomb explosion to the stampede of people trying to get away, but a bunch of people are hurt. The royals were safely evacuated up to Balmoral Castle in Scotland. Lizard, show her what you’re working on.”
Freeman pulled a chair up to a small computer terminal and clicked some keys, and a chart replaced the news report on the television screen. He folded his arms and rocked back. An oval-shaped blob of red designated the most saturated area of the attack, then faded into bands of orange and yellow that followed the wind pattern. “The initial public panic kept things in gridlock for a while, and the authorities were prompt in swinging the emergency units into action. Traffic control, quarantines and showers, getting people into clean zones. Thanks to the warning from that fire chief, the first responders were in protective gear when they moved in, and they probably will have saved hundreds of lives when all is said and done.”
“The Brits’ 9/11,” said Sybelle. “Worse than the World War II bombings.”
Middleton was grim. “They picked on the wrong country. Not only are we their big brother and will kick the crap out of whoever did this, but the Brits are a tough bunch. They won’t knuckle under. Ask Hitler.”
The Lizard was out of his chair, moving nervously about the room as he spoke. “I did some statistical analysis to get a grip on what kind of biochem agent was used in the attack and found something I did not expect. Look.” He pointed a finger at the scarlet oval of maximum devastation. “Look at the very defined edges of this red zone. The material is very concentrated here, as would be expected.” Then he fanned his entire hand out over the other colors. “But the other bands of contamination are extremely narrow.”
Sybelle caught it, for like all Force Recon Marines, she had been schooled in biological, chemical, and nuclear warfare. The weak point of any chem attack is atmospheric dispersion, for the moment the toxin goes into the air, it begins to dissipate and grows weaker until it is of no significance whatever. That is why prime targets for such attacks are normally underground or very confined areas, such as in subways, where the effects can be contained and multiplied. “The wind didn’t carry it far!”
The Lizard stood and looked at her with a smile, a teacher gazing on a prize pupil. “Exactly.” He slapped the top of the television set. “This looks like something new, a heavier-than-air gas that somehow morphs into a sticky liquid on contact with the air. The contamination readings at the center of the attack are still strong right now, many hours after the explosion. This stuff preserves its lethality even in open air.”
“In other words, it stays at home and does what it’s made to do.”
Middleton nodded agreement. “Yep. And that is why we have to be worried. I think this attack was just a field trial. Imagine if huge containers of this stuff went off in the middle of a big city. The death toll could be enormous.”
Sybelle went to a sideboard and poured a cup of coffee, then cocked her head toward Middleton. “Every intel service in the world has to be working on this, and the Brits have to be going all out. Has anybody come up with anything?”
“Nobody has claimed credit yet. No demands have been made. All of the usual idiots are cheering, but none are raising their hands as being responsible because if they do, they get wiped out.” Lieutenant Commander Freedman read some notes on his computer. “The explosion came from a truck in the press area, and the chemical canisters were attached to a second truck. The police identified both as belonging to a rental company out of Scotland called Edinburgh All-Media.”
Middleton was bending a paper clip into different shapes, and it popped apart as he pulled on it. He tossed it aside. “Damned media again. That girl stuck a microphone in the fireman’s mouth just as he realized what was really happening.”
Sybelle wouldn’t buy his anger. “Wasn’t her fault, sir. The terrorists wanted this to be as public as possible, which is why they picked the press that was covering the wedding. It sent a warning straight into the living rooms of millions of viewers. Poor Kimberly Drake will always be the face of this disaster.” She felt a shudder as she recalled the horrible death of the reporter on live TV.
The general stood and looked out the window. “Okay. You’re right. I’m just trying to add it all up in my head. Get your stuff together, because we have to be at the White House in thirty minutes for a national security briefing on this attack and whether it may be related to what we are doing in Iran.”
Sybelle asked, “And exactly what are we doing in Iran, sir?”
“You will find out soon enough. Swanson’s taking another team in, and he wants you over there to ramrod the operation from Camp Baharia. The Lizard is setting up a flight, and you are out of here in a few hours.”
“Aye, aye, sir,” she replied, thinking: Wake up in my apartment in Maryland this morning, go to work at the Pentagon in Virginia, visit the White House for a conference, do a drop-by at the CIA over in Langley for a final situation report, then out to Andrews Air Force Base and into the back seat of a screaming fast military fighter-bomber for a few hours, and sleep tonight in Iraq. Got to love this job.
KINGDOM OF BRUNEI DARUSSALAM
Ambassador Richard Taffe was a professional diplomat who had been entrusted by the United States government with the crucial position of ambassador to one of the smallest, richest, and most strategic countries in the world. It was not a gift position awarded to some political party loyalist or to the friend of a friend of the president. Instead, whoever held the post had earned his spurs through years of experience in the diplomatic world. Taffe peeled off his sweaty orange shirt after a morning round at the Royal Brunei Golf and Country Club in Jerudong Park and concluded once again that the years spent in Nigeria and Bangladesh and Jordan had paid off handsomely for him. What was there to dislike about Brunei?
A Malay club boy in pressed black shorts and a white tunic buttoned at the collar brought him a stack of fresh towels. The ambassador wiped his face and chest, rolled the towel into a ball, and tossed it into a hamper ten feet away.
“He shoots! He scores!” called his playing partner for the day, Zul Jock Matali, a senior officer in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade. “Nothing but net.” It had been a good day, and the ambassador had beaten Matali three-and-two in match play. Now they would shower and dress and have lunch in one of the club restaurants and talk about oil.
Brunei was attached by land to Malaysia but floated on a sea of proven oil reserves rated at about 1.35 billion barrels. The country shipped 206,000 barrels every day, and a great deal of it sailed across the Pacific Ocean to the United States. Taffe’s primary job was to keep that black gold flowing.
Taffe took a sip of chilled water from a bottle that had almost magically appeared at his side. There was only one thing to really worry about in this little land where, true, nobody voted, but nobody paid taxes and the country had zero external debt. Oil money did that. The problem was not the human trafficking that masqueraded as migrant labor from other Asian countries, because who really gave a shit? Even human rights groups couldn’t keep track of it. Just don’t call attention to what was, in reality, a booming slave trade. Neither was there any problem with the mandatory death penalty for drug smugglers, which Taffe’s people handled quietly when some stupid American kid got nailed trying to bring in dope in a backpack. There was no official arrest, so there was no trial or death sentence, and the tourist was just turned over to the U.S. Embassy, which sent him home on the next plane. At all costs, keep the black oil flowing.
The real diplomatic problem in Brunei was that the nation’s religion was Muslim. The common law could be overruled in some cases by sharia law, and the sultan himself was the official defender of the faith. The same royal family had run the little country for six centuries, even after it was spun off as an independent nation by the British Empire. They displayed some enlightened leadership in spending great wads of cash on improvements and allowing at least the appearance of listening to the will of the population of 375,000 people, almost all of whom were literate. Things were politically quiet, and Ambassador Taffe wanted to keep it that way.
Still, there was discomfort about the overall anti-Muslim zeal that seemed to be sweeping through American politicians, whose words were studied by the Brunei policy makers. There was always the possibility, too, that al Qaeda would jump over from nearby Indonesia, make militant inroads here, and turn this fabulously rich nation into a powder keg of trouble. So far, nothing serious had happened. It was so quiet that a citizen of Brunei still did not even need a visa to fly to America.
After their showers, the two officials went upstairs to an elite restaurant and were escorted to a private table beside the huge windows, with a ring of empty tables around them. Matali was much more than just an official in the Ministry of Trade, for the graduate of Stanford University and the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard also held the rank of brigadier general in the Royal Brunei Land Forces. Part of his portfolio was counterterrorism.
They made small talk as the waiters hovered around to take their orders.
“Are you and Maggie going to the Japanese Embassy reception tonight?” asked Matali.
“Yeah, maybe we should sneak away to McDonald’s and get some real food instead of sushi.”
“I can’t eat a Big Mac! It is unclean food.”
“So put curry sauce on the chicken nuggets and french fries.”
Jock Matali looked up as a waiter approached and handed him a large cream-colored envelope. “A gentleman at the front desk asked that you personally receive this, General.”
He opened it. “Strange,” he said and shook out a letter and some photographs. The dark eyes became serious and scanned the restaurant, which was almost empty. No one was watching.
Taffe also peered around. “So, what’s up?”
Matali lowered his voice. “It’s a contact about London. Someone calling himself Saladin has claimed responsibility and is setting terms.”
“Oh, no, not another Saladin. Let me guess,” said Taffe. “This latest savior of the downtrodden Middle East wants direct discussions with the president of the United States. Same answer as always, Jock: We don’t negotiate with terrorists.”
Matali shook his head, reached over, and put a strong hand on Taffe’s forearm. “No, my friend. That is not it at all. This is an invitation for the finance ministers of Muslim nations, terrorist organizations, and countries that oppose the United States to participate in an auction for the formula of the weapon used in England.”
Taffe rocked back hard in his chair. Matali let him have the note while he looked through a set of photographs. As he read, Taffe’s blood chilled.
The London attack was part of an experiment, the note said. A true demonstration of the weapon, which had been years in development, would be unleashed soon in a very public and well-known place, which was not identified.
Parties interested in bidding were to send a buy-in fee of ten million dollars to a Swiss bank account, all but one million of it refundable by the bank escrow officers if the potential bidder did not agree after the demonstration that the weapon was worthwhile. After all, for a measly million, they would be helping sponsor a huge attack against the infidels at no risk to themselves.
If they chose to bid, then the rest of the ten million dollars locked in as the final entry fee, and bids could be submitted. Details would be worked out with the winner to exchange the formula for the cash.
The United States and its major allies in Europe, Asia, and the Middle East would not be allowed to participate.