him."
"What kind of look?" Hood asked.
"It's difficult to describe," she said.
"Was it guarded, startled, doubtful?" Hood asked.
"All of that," Megan replied. Hood understood. That was what he saw in
the Oval Office.
"Where is the president now?" he asked.
"He went down to meet with Fenwick, the vice president, and Red Gable,"
Megan said.
"Did he say what the meeting was about?" Hood asked.
"No. But he told me not to wait up," she said. It was probably about
the Caspian situation. A small, non conspiratorial part of Hood said
that this might not be anything to worry about. On the other hand, the
president was meeting with people who had fed him misinformation before.
Perhaps that was what Megan had seen in her husband's expression The
fear that it might be happening again.
"Paul, whatever is going on, I think Michael needs to have friends
around him," Megan said.
"He should be with people he knows well and can trust. Not just policy
advisers." Hood's aide Stef Van Cleef beeped. She said there was a call
from General Orlov. Hood told her to apologize to the general for the
delay. He would take it in just a moment.
"Megan, I don't disagree," Hood said.
"But I can't just invite myself to a meeting in the Oval Office--"
"You have the security clearance," she said.
"To get into the West Wing, not the Oval Office," he reminded her. Hood
stopped. His eyes were on the beeping light on the phone. Maybe he
would not have to get himself invited.
"Paul?"
"I'm here," Hood said.
"Megan, listen to me. I'm going to take a call, and then I'm going to
the White House. I'll call your private line later and let you know how
things are going."
"All right," Megan said.
"Thank you." Hood hung up and took the call from Orlov. The Russian
general briefed him on the plan to try to locate the Harpooner. Orlov
also told him about the destruction of the boat in the harbor. He
suspected that Azerbaijani officials would find bodies in the water,
either the Harpooner's hirelings or people who were abducted to
impersonate hirelings. Hood thanked Orlov and informed the general that
he would have Op-Center's full cooperation. Hood indicated that he
would be away from the office for a while and that he should contact
Mike Rodgers with any new information. When Hood hung up, he
conferenced Herbert and Rodgers on his cell phone. He updated them as
he hurried to the parking lot.
"Do you want me to let the president know you're coming?" Rodgers asked
him.
"No," Hood said.
"I don't want to give Fenwick a reason to end the meeting early."
"But you're also giving Fenwick and his people more time to act,"
Rodgers pointed out.
"We have to take that chance," Hood said.
"If Fenwick and Gable are launching some kind of end game I want to give
them time to expose it. Maybe we can catch them in the act."
"I still think it's risky," Rodgers said.
"Fenwick will press the president to act before other advisers can be
consulted."
"That could be why this was timed the way it was," Herbert pointed out.
"If there's a plot of some kind, it was designed to happen when it was
the middle of the night here."
"If this is tied to the Caspian situation, the president will have to
act quickly," Rodgers went on.
"Mike, Bob, I don't disagree with what you're saying," Hood told them.
"I also don't want to give these bastards a chance to discredit anything
I may have to say before I get there."
"That's a tough call," Herbert said.
"Real tough. You don't have a lot of information on the situation
overseas."
"I know," Hood said.
"Hopefully, we'll have more intel before too long."
"I'll be praying for you," Herbert said.
"And if that doesn't work, I'll be checking other sources."
"Thanks," Hood said.
"I'll be in touch." Hood sped through the deserted streets toward the
nation's capital. There was a can of Coke in the glove compartment. Hood
kept it there for emergencies. He grabbed the can and popped the tab.
He really needed the caffeine. Even warm, the cola felt good going
down. Rodgers was correct. Hood was taking a chance. But Hood had
warned the president about Fenwick. The rerouted phone call, the visit
to the Iranian mission, failure to communicate with Senator Fox and the
COIC. Hopefully, Lawrence would look very carefully at whatever data was
being presented to him. The president might also take the time to run
the information through Op Center just to make sure it was valid. But
Hood's hopes did not change the fact that the president was under an
unusual amount of stress. There was only one way to be certain what
Michael Lawrence would do. That was for Hood to get there with new
intelligence. And while Hood was there, to help the president sift
through whatever information Fenwick was presenting to him. And there
was one more thing Hood had to do. Pray that Mike Rodgers was not
right. That there was still time.
Baku, Azerbaijan Tuesday, 9:01 a.m.
Maurice Charles settled into his small room at the Hyatt. The room had
a queen-sized bed and a tall cabinet that held the TV and minibar. There
was a desk to the left of them and a night table on either side of the
bed. An armchair was tucked into a corner opposite the desk. There was
very little room, which was fine with Charles. He did not like suites.
There was too much open space. Too many places for people to hide. The
first thing Charles did was to tie a nylon rope to one of the legs of
the desk. It was located near the window. The room was on the third
floor of the ten-story hotel. If Charles were cornered there for any
reason, the police would find it difficult to climb from the ground or
rappel from the roof without making noise. That left only the door as a
means of getting in. And he was prepared to deal with that. He carried
cans of shaving cream that were actually filled with highly flammable
liquid methanol. Spilled under the doorway and set aflame, it burned
hot and fast and drove people back. That would give Charles time to
shoot anyone who was waiting for him outside the window, then use the
rope to climb out. Methanol was also a fatal poison. The liquid's fumes
were so potent that even brief exposure to the vapors could cause
blindness. Charles turned on the light beside the bed and drew the heavy
drapes. Next, he picked the locks between his room and the adjoining
room. That was another route of escape in case he needed it. Then he
pulled over the desk chair. He braced the back of the wooden chair
under the knob of the door between his room and the next. He would be
able to remove the chair quickly to escape. But if anyone on the other
side tried the door, they would think it was locked. The security
arrangements took under a half hour. When they were finished, Charles
sat on the bed. He went to his luggage and took out his.45. He
placed
it on the floor beside the bed. He pulled a Swiss army knife from his
pocket and lay it on the night table. He also brought over a bag of
several stuffed animals he had bought when he first came to Baku. All
of the animals had costumes. If Charles were ever questioned, the plush
toys were for his daughter. There were photos of a young girl in his
wallet. It was not his daughter, but that did not matter. Then he
opened the Zed-4. There was one last call to make. The call was to the
abandoned van. The microchip he had placed in the gas tank was a remote
detonator. It had been nicknamed a Kamikaze Cell Phone by its Taiwanese
inventor. The KCP had no function other than to pick up the signal, do
its job, and then die. This particular KCP had been programmed to heat
to 145 degrees Fahrenheit when triggered. Some chips could be
programmed to emit high-pitched sounds to interfere with electronic
signals or even confuse bloodhounds. Other chips could be used to create
magnetic bursts that would cause radar or navigational tools to go
haywire. This chip would melt and leave no trace of itself. It would
also set the gas tank afire. The police and fire department would be
forced to respond at once to calls about a burning van. They would
arrive in time to save some of the vehicle along with what little
evidence Charles had left for them to find. That included the traces of
Charles's blood. The heat of the fire would cause the water content of
the blood to evaporate, leaving clear stains on the metal door handle,
glove compartment knob, and other sections of the van that had not
burned. The police would conclude that the wounded terrorist had tried
to destroy the van and the evidence before leaving. They would assume
that their quick response had enabled them to save what they were not
supposed to see. Charles punched in the number of the KCP. He waited
while his signal traveled twenty-five miles into space and bounced back
to a street three blocks away. There were two short clicks and then the
dial tone returned. That meant the call had been completed. The chip
had been designed to disconnect from the Zed-4 as it began to heat up.
Charles hung up. He put everything into his backpack except for the 45.
As he did, he heard sirens. They stopped exactly where they were
supposed to. By the burning van. Comforted by the unparalleled feeling
of a job well done, Maurice Charles made the final preparations for his
stay. He removed one of the pillows from the bed and put it on the
floor between the bed and the window, directly in front of the
nightstand. Then he lay down and looked to his right, toward the bed.
The hem of the bedspread reached nearly to the floor. Beneath and
beyond the bed, he could see the front door. If for some reason anyone
came in, Charles would see their feet. That was all he had to see to
stop them. Charles kept his clothes and shoes on in case he had to leave
in a hurry, but they did not distract him. Nothing did now. This was
the time he enjoyed most. When he had earned his rest and his pay. Soon,
even the sound of the police and fire sirens did not penetrate his deep,
rewarding sleep.
Saint Petersburg, Russia Tuesday, 9:31 a.m.
At 9:22 a.m. Piotr Korsov e-mailed General Orlov a brief data file. The
file contained a list of the secure calls that had been intercepted
between Azerbaijan and Washington during the past few weeks. Most of
those calls had been between the American embassy and either the CIA or
the NSA. The Russian Op-Center had been unable to decrypt any of the
conversations, but Orlov was able to scratch them off his list. Those
calls were pretty much routine and not likely suspects for calls made by
the Harpooner. Over the past few days, there had also been calls to the
NSA from Gobustan, a village to the south of Baku. They were all made
before the attack on the oil rig. The calls from the embassy to the
United States had a slightly different band with from the Gobustan
calls. That meant the calls were made from different secure phones. In
a note attached to the file, Korsov said he was watching for new calls
made from either line. Orlov was not very hopeful. The Harpooner
probably would not signal his allies to tell them he had been
successful. Whoever he was in league with would hear about that from
their own intelligence sources. The very fact that a secure satellite
uplink had played any part in this business was personally disturbing to
Orlov. That was the kind of technology his space flights had helped to
pioneer--satellite communications. The fact that they were being so
expertly abused by terrorists like the Harpooner made him wonder if the
technology should have been developed at all. It was the same argument
people had made for and against splitting the atom. It had produced
plentiful and relatively clean atomic power, but it had also bred the
atomic bomb. But Orlov had not had a hand in that work. Just in this.
favorite novels. Doctor Zhivago, "I don't like people who have never
fallen or stumbled. Their virtue is lifeless and it isn't of much
value. Life hasn't revealed its beauty to them." Progress had to allow
monsters like the Harpooner to surface. That was how it showed the
creators where the flaws were. Orlov had just finished reviewing the
material when his private internal line beeped. It was Korsov.
"We picked up a ping," Korsov said excitedly.
"What kind of ping?" Orlov asked. A ping was how his intelligence
officers described any kind of electronic communication.
"The same one we recorded as having been sent from Gobustan," Korsov
replied.
"Was the call made from Gobustan?"
"No," Korsov replied.
"It was made from Baku to a site very close by. A site that was also in
Baku."
"How close?" Orlov asked.
"The caller and receiver were less than a quarter mile," Korsov told
him.
"We can't measure distances less than that."
"Maybe the Harpooner was calling accomplices who have another secure
line," Orlov suggested.
"I don't think so," Korsov told him.
"The phone call only lasted three seconds. As far as we can tell there
was no verbal communication."
"What was sent?"
"Just an empty signal," Krosov said.
"We've fed cartographic al data into the computer. Grosky is overlaying
the signal and trying to pinpoint the exact location now."
"Very good," Orlov said.
"Let me know as soon as you have it." As soon as Orlov hung up, he put
in a call to Mike Rodgers to let him know about the apparent NSA
Harpooner connection and the possible location of the Harpooner. Then
he called Odette. He hoped that the American she had saved was ready to
move out. Orlov did not want to send Odette against the Harpooner
unassisted, but he would if he had to. Because more than that, he did
not want to lose the Harpooner. As Orlov punched in Odette's number, he
began to feel hopeful and upbeat. The tech
nology that he had helped put
into space was actually a two-edged sword. The Harpooner had been using
a secure satellite uplink to help destroy lives. Now, with luck, that
uplink would have an unexpected use. To pinpoint the Harpooner and help
destroy him.
Teheran, Iran Tuesday, 10:07 a.m.
The chief of the Supreme Command Council of the Armed Forces of the
Islamic Republic of Iran had been called at home shortly after dawn.
Teheran maintained listening posts on many of their oil rigs in the
Caspian Sea. From there, they eavesdropped electronically on foreign
shipping and on military sites along the Caspian coast. Each post sent
a pulse every five minutes to indicate that the electronics were still
on-line. The sudden silence of Post Four was the first indication
anyone in Teheran had that something was wrong in the Caspian. An F-14
Tomcat was immediately dispatched from the Doshan Tapeh Air Base outside
of Teheran. The Tomcat was one of ten that remained of the seventy
seven that had been a part of the shah's state-of-the-art air force. The
fighter confirmed that the oil rig had been destroyed. Salvage experts
and military engineers were immediately parachuted into the region by a
Kawasaki C-l transport. While rescue patrol boats hurried to the site
from Caspian fleet headquarters in Bandar-e Anzelli, the engineers found
burn marks on the platform that were consistent with powerful high
explosives. The fact that the underside had been struck suggested a
submarine attack that had somehow eluded sonar detection. At nine-thirty