father had was football. Charles also idolized the Beatles because they
had made it out--the same reason, ironically, his father and so many of
his contemporaries hated "those young punks." Charles realized that he
could not escape poverty musically because he had no talent for that and
it had already been done. He had to get out his way, make a mark that
was uniquely his own. How could he have known that he would find his
hidden skills by joining the Royal Marines, 29 Commando Regiment, Royal
Artillery, and learning to work with explosives? By discovering the
pleasure and genius involved in tearing things down?
It was a glorious feeling to put events like- this in motion. It was
the creation of art: living, breathing, powerful, bleeding, changing,
utterly unforgettable art. There was nothing else like it in the world,
the aesthetics of destruction. And what was most rewarding was that the
CIA had inadvertently helped him by sending that man to watch for him.
The agency would conclude that it couldn't be the Harpooner who had
attacked their man. No one had ever survived an encounter with the
Harpooner.
Charles settled comfortably into his seat as the Cessna left the lights
of the rig behind.
That was the beauty about being an artist, he told himself.
It gave him the right and privilege to surprise.
Camp Springs, Maryland Monday, 12:44 a.m.
Throughout the Cold War, the nondescript two-story building located near
the Naval Reserve flight line at Andrews Air Force Base was a staging
area for pilots and their crews. In the event of a nuclear attack,
their job would have been to evacuate key officials from the government
and military to a safe compound in the Blue Ridge Mountains.
But the ivory-colored building with its neat, green lawn was not just a
monument to the Cold War. The seventy-eight full-time employees who
worked there now were employed by the National Crisis Management Center,
familiarly known as Op-Center, an independent agency that was designed
to collect, process, and analyze data on potential crisis points
domestically and abroad.
Once that was done, Op-Center then had to decide whether to defuse them
preemptively through political, diplomatic, media, economic, legal, or
psychological means or else--after gaining the approval of the
Congressional Intelligence Oversight Committee--to terminate them
through military means. To this end, Op Center had at its disposal a
twelve-person tactical strike team known as Striker. Led by Colonel
Brett August, Striker was based at the nearby Quantico FBI Academy.
In addition to the offices upstairs, a secure basement had been built
into the facility to house the more sensitive intelligence retrieval
systems and personnel. It was here that Paul Hood and his top advisers
worked.
Hood came directly from the White House affair. He was still dressed in
his tuxedo, which earned him a "Good morning, Mr. Bond" greeting from
the Naval officer at the gate. It made him smile. It was the only
thing that had done that for days.
A strange uneasiness had settled over Hood after the president made his
comments. He couldn't imagine why the president had said the United
States would offer intelligence assistance to the United Nations. If
there was one thing many member nations feared, it was that the United
States was already using the international organization as a means of
spying on them.
The president's short speech had pleased some people, most notably
delegates who were targets for acts of terrorism.
But it struck some other attendees as odd. Vice president Cotten
appeared surprised, as did Secretary of State Dean Can" and America's
United Nations Ambassador Meriwether. And Mala Chatteijee had been
openly bothered by the comment. So much so that she'd actually turned
to Hood and asked if she had understood the president correctly. He
told her that he believed she had.
What he didn't tell her was that Op-Center would almost certainly have
been involved in or briefed about any such arrangement. Something might
have been arranged during the time that he was away, but Hood doubted
it.
When he visited his office the day before to catch up on business he had
missed, he saw no reference to a multinational intelligence effort.
Hood didn't bother talking to anyone after the dinner.
He left promptly and went to Op-Center, where he did additional digging
into the matter. This was the first time he had seen the weekend night
crew since his return.
They were glad to see him, especially weekend night director Nicholas
Grille. Grille was a fifty-three-year-old former Navy SEAL intelligence
expert who had moved over from the Pentagon around the same time Hood
had first joined Op-Center. Grille congratulated him on the fine job he
and General Rodgers had done in New York and asked how his daughter was.
Hood thanked him and told him that Harleigh would be all right.
Hood began by accessing the files of the DCI--the Director of Central
Intelligence. This independent body was a clearinghouse of information
for four other intelligence departments: the Central Intelligence
Agency;
Op-Center; the Department of Defense, which included the four branches
of the military, the National Reconnaissance Office, the National
Security Agency, and the National Imagery and Mapping Agency; and
Department Intelligence, which consisted of the Federal Bureau of
Investigation, the Department of State, the Department of Energy, and
the Department of Treasury.
Once Hood was into the DCI database, he asked for recent agreements or
initiatives pertaining to the United Nations. There were nearly five
thousand listings. He eliminated those that did not involve
intelligence gathering for the United Nations and its members. That
reduced the list to twenty-seven. Hood browsed those quickly. The last
was filed a week before, a preliminary report about the failure of the
CIA field office to catch Annabelle Hampton's terrorist-support
activities in New York. Blame was placed on New York field office head
David Battat and his supervisor in Washington, Deputy Assistant Director
Wong. Wong was given a written warning, which was not entered into his
record. Battat was given a sterner reprimand, which did not become part
of his permanent dossier. But Battat would be hung out to dry for a
while, doing what Bob Herbert had once described as "sewer rat-a-tat"
jobs--dirty work in the line of fire. The kind of work that freshmen
agents usually had to perform.
There was nothing about a United Nations operation involving any of the
fourteen intelligence agencies.
Given the new detente the president was trying to establish with the
United Nations, it wasn't surprising that Lawrence would look for a way
to help them. But presenting a desire or opportunity as a done deal was
mystifying.
The president would have needed the cooperation of the head of at least
one of these agencies just to und
ertake a study for such a proposition,
and that wasn't anywhere in the files. There wasn't even any
correspondence, electronic or otherwise, requesting such a study.
The only answer Hood could think of was a handshake deal between the
president and the CIA, FBI, or one of the other groups. But then one of
those persons would have been there at tonight's dinner, and the only
representative from the intelligence community was Hood.
Perhaps the president was trying to force the issue, the way John F.
Kennedy did when he announced, publicly, that he wanted Congress to give
NASA the funds to put a man on the moon. But United States involvement
in international intelligence-gathering was an extremely sensitive area.
A president would be reckless to attempt a wide-ranging operation like
this without assurances from his own team that it was possible.
It could all be the result of a series of misunderstandings.
Maybe the president thought he had the support of the intelligence
community. Confusion was certainly not uncommon in government. The
question was what to do now that the idea had been presented to the
world body.
The United States intelligence community was sure to be torn. Some
experts would welcome the opportunity to plug directly into resources in
nations like China, Colombia, and several former Soviet republics where
they currently had very restricted access. Others--Hood included--would
be afraid of joining forces with other nations and being fed false data,
data that would then become part of U.S. intelligence gospel with
potentially disastrous results. Herbert once told him about a situation
in 1978, just before the overthrow of the shah of Iran, when anti
extremist forces provided the CIA with a code used by supporters of the
Ayatollah Khomeini to communicate via telefax. The code was
accurate--then.
Once the ayatollah assumed power, the shah's files were raided, and the
code was found to be in American hands.
The code remained in the CiA's system and was used to interpret secret
communiques. It wasn't until the ayatollah's death in 1989--when the
secret communiques said he was recovering--that the CIA went back and
took a close look at the code and the disinformation they'd received.
Ten years of data had to be reviewed and much of it purged.
Hood could just imagine what Teheran would say about joining this new
antiterrorism network.
"Sure, sign us up. And don't forget to use this new code to monitor the
Sunni terrorists working out of Azerbaijan." It could be a real code
for real transmissions, or the Iranians could use false transmissions to
create deeper mistrust of the Sunnis. The United States could not
refuse to help them, because the president had offered; we could not
trust the code; and yet what if it turned out to be real and we ignored
it?
The whole thing was a potential for disaster. For his part. Hood
intended to contact Burton Gable, the president's chief of staff, to
find out what he knew about the situation. Hood didn't know Gable well,
but he had been one of Lawrence's think tank geniuses and was
instrumental in getting the president reelected. Gable hadn't been at
the dinner, but there was no policy undertaking in which he was not
involved.
Hood went back to the motel, napped, then was back at Op-Center at
five-thirty. He wanted to be there when his staff arrived.
Hood had spoken to psychologist Liz Gordon about Harleigh, and to
attorney Lowell Coffey about the divorce, so both of them knew he was
coming back. Hood had also informed General Rodgers, who had let
intelligence chief Bob Herbert know.
Herbert rolled in first. He had lost his wife and the use of his legs
in the American embassy bombing in Beirut in 1983. But he had turned
that setback into an advantage: Herbert's customized wheelchair was a
mini communications center with phone, fax, and even a satellite uplink
that helped to make him one of the most effective intelligence
collectors and analysts in the world.
Rodgers followed him in. Though the gray-haired officer had played a
key role in ending the terrorist standoff at the United Nations, he was
still recovering emotionally from the torture he'd suffered at the hands
of Kurdish terrorists in the Middle East. Since his return, there
hadn't been quite the same fire in his eyes or bounce in his walk.
Though he hadn't broken, some proud, vital part of him had died in that
cave in the Bekaa Valley.
Rodgers and Herbert were happy to see him. The two men stayed long
enough to welcome him back and for Hood to brief them on what had
happened at the state dinner. Herbert was blown away by what the
president had said.
"That's like the Goodyear Blimp saying it's going to watch the stands
for rowdy fans instead of watching the Super Bowl," Herbert said.
"No one would believe that.
No one."
"I agree," Hood said.
has a plan that we don't know about, we need to be brought into the
loop. Talk to the other intel people and find out."
"I'm on it," Herbert said as he wheeled out.
Rodgers told Hood that he would get in touch with the heads of Army,
Navy, Air Force, and Marine intelligence to find out what their
knowledge of the situation was.
When Herbert and Rodgers left. Hood was visited by the only key members
of the team who hadn't known about Hood's return, FBI and Interpol
liaison Darrell McCaskey and press liaison Ann Farris. McCaskey was just
back from a stay in Europe, working with his Interpol associates and
nurturing a romance with Maria Comeja, an operative he had worked with
in Spain.
Hood had a good sense about people, and his instincts told him that
Darrell would be handing in his resignation before long to return to
Maria. Since McCaskey was gone while Hood's retirement was briefly in
effect, he had not missed his boss.
Ann Farris was a different story. The five-foot, seven inch-tall
divorcee had always been close to Hood and had hated to see him leave.
Hood knew that she cared for him, though no one could have told that
just by looking at her. The thirty-four-year-old woman had developed
the perfect poker face for reporters. No question, no revelation, no
announcement made her jump. But to Hood, her large, dark-rust eyes were
more articulate than any speech-maker or television moderator he had
ever heard. And right now, her eyes were telling Hood that she was
happy, sad, and surprised all at once.
Ann walked toward the desk. She was dressed in what she called her
"uniform," a black pantsuit and white blouse with a pearl necklace. Her
brown hair was shoulder length and held back from her face with a pair
of clips. Hood's office was stripped of his personal touches.
He hadn't had time to put the photographs and mementos back. Yet after
the struggles with Sharon and the coldness of his hotel room, Ann's
arrival suddenly made this place seem
like home.
"Mike just told me," she said.
"Told you what?"
"About Sharon," Ann replied.
"About your coming back. Paul, are you all right?"
"I'm a little banged up, but I'll be okay."
Ann stopped in front of the desk. Was it only just ten days ago that
she had stood there while I packed? Hood thought. It seemed so much
longer. Why did pain stretch time while happiness made it feel so
short?
"What can I do, Paul?" Ann asked.
"How are Sharon and the kids?"
"We're all reeling. Liz is helping Harleigh, Sharon and I are pretty
civil, and Alexander is Alexander. He's okay." Hood dragged a hand
through his wavy black hair.
"As for what you can do, I just realized we're going to have to send out
a press release about my return."
"I know." She smiled.
"A head's-up would have been a big help."
"I'm sorry," Hood said.
"That's all right," Ann replied.
"You had other things on your mind. I'll write something up and show it
to you."
Ann looked down at him, her shoulder-length brown hair framing her
angular features. Hood had always felt the sexual tension between them.
Hell, he thought.
Everyone around them did. Bob Herbert and Lowell Coffey used to tease
Hood about it. Hood's unwillingness to give in to that tension had
always kept Ann at a distance. But he could feel that distance closing.
"I know you have a lot to do," Ann said, "but if you need anything, I'm