Line of Control (19 page)

    The scraping stopped. He watched the tarp through the greenish tint of his face mask Curtains of sunlight hung along the side walls of the cave. They shifted and undulated as the wind pushed against the tarp.

    The covering itself rattled against the hooks that held it in place.

    Suddenly, the tarp dropped. Particles of ice that had collected on the outside flew, glistening in the sunlight. The shimmering beads died as two large, cylindrical canisters were lobbed in. They clanked on the cave floor and rolled toward Ishaq. They were already hissing and jetting thick clouds of smoke into the air and across the ground. Some of the gas unfurled sideways, and some of it was sprayed in his direction.

    The Pakistani sat there, waiting calmly. The rolling green gas was still about fifteen meters away. The view to the nearest of the detonators remained unobstructed. He had a few more moments.

    He began to pray.

    Ishaq listened for the scraping to resume. After a moment it did, moving rapidly toward the front of the cave. He watched as the clouds of gas began to billow and roll aside as though people were moving through it.

    The gas had nearly reached the explosives.

    It was time.

    The Muslim continued his silent prayer as he pressed the blue "engage" button. A light on top of the small controller came on. Ishaq quickly pressed the red "detonate" button below it.

    For a blessed moment the sun shined all around Ishaq and he felt as if he had been embraced by Allah.

    

    Washington, D. C.

    Wednesday, 9:36 p. m.

    "What the hell just happened, Stephen?" Bob Herbert asked.

    Op-Center's intelligence chief had pulled his wheelchair deep under the desk. He was leaning over the speakerphone as he watched the Omni Com image on his computer. What he had said was not so much a question as an observation.

    Herbert knew exactly what had happened.

    "The side of the mountain just exploded," Viens said over the phone.

    "It didn't just explode, it evaporated," Herbert pointed out.

    "That blast had to have been the equivalent of a thousand pounds of TNT."

    "At least," Viens agreed.

    Herbert was glad there was no sound with the image. Even just seeing the massive, unexpected explosion wakened his sensory memories. Tension and grief washed over him as he was reminded of the Beirut embassy bombing.

    "What do you think. Bob? Was it set off by a sensor or motion detector?"

    Viens asked.

    "I doubt it," Herbert said.

    "There are a lot of avalanches in that part of the world. They could have triggered the explosion prematurely."

    "I didn't think of that," Viens admitted.

    Herbert forced himself to focus on the present, not the past.

    Op-Center's intelligence chief reloaded the pictures the satellite had sent moments before the blast. He asked the computer to enhance the images of the soldiers one at a time.

    "It looked to me like the climbers tossed gas inside," Herbert said.

    "They obviously believed that someone might be waiting for them."

    "They were right," Viens said.

    "The question is how many people were in there?" Herbert said.

    "Were the people who used that cave expecting the climbers? Or were they caught by surprise and decided they did not want to be captured alive?"

    An image of the first soldier filled Herbert's monitor.

    There was a clear shot of the man's right arm. On top, just below the shoulder of the white camouflage snowsuit, was a circular red patch with a solid black insignia. The silhouette showed a horse running along the tail of a comet. That was the insignia of the Special Frontier Force.

    "Well, one thing's dead for sure," Viens said.

    "What's that?" Herbert asked.

    "Matt Stoll just phoned to say he's not picking up the cell phone signal anymore," Viens told Herbert.

    "He wanted to see if we'd lost it too. I just checked. We have."

    Herbert was still looking at the monitor. He saved the magnified image of the shoulder patch.

    "I wonder if the cell led the commandos there to throw them off the trail," he said.

    "Possibly," Viens said.

    "Do we have any idea which way the Indian commandos would have come?"

    "From the south," Herbert replied.

    "How long would it take you to start searching through the mountains north of the site?"

    "It will take about a half hour to move the satellite," Viens said.

    "First, though, I want to make sure we're not wasting our time. If anyone left the cave they would have had to go up before they could go down again. I want to get the Omni Com in for a closer look."

    "Footprints in the snow?" Herbert said as the secure phone on his wheelchair beeped.

    "Exactly," Viens replied.

    "Go for it. I'll wait," Herbert told him as he backed away from the desk so he could reach the phone. He snapped up the receiver.

    "Herbert." "Bob, it's Hank Lewis," said the caller.

    "I've got Ron Friday on the line. He says it's important. I'd like to conference him in." "Go ahead," Herbert said. He had been wondering what Friday would find at the farmhouse. He was hoping it did not confirm their fears of police or government involvement in the Srinagar market attack. The implications were too grim to contemplate.

    "Go ahead, Ron," Lewis said.

    "I have Director of Intelligence Bob Herbert on the line with us."

    "Good," Friday said.

    "Mr. Herbert, I'm at the Kumar farmhouse in Kargil with my Black Cat liaison. I need to know what other intel you have on the farmer and his granddaughter."

    "What have you found out there?" Herbert asked.

    "What?" Friday said.

    "What did you find at the farm?" Herbert asked.

    "What is this, "I show you mine and you show me yours?" " Friday angrily demanded.

    "No," Herbert said.

    "It's a field report. Tell me what you've got."

    "I've got my ass on the front frigging line and you're sitting on your ass safe in Washington!" Friday said.

    "I need information!"

    "I'm on my ass because my legs don't work anymore," Herbert responded calmly.

    "I lost them because too many people trusted the wrong people. Mr.

    Friday, I've got an entire team headed toward your position and they may be at considerable risk. You're a piece in my puzzle, a field op for me.

    You tell me what you have and then I'll tell you what you need to know."

    Friday said nothing. Herbert hoped he was considering exactly how to word his apology.

    After a few moments Friday broke the silence.

    "I'm waiting for that information, Mr. Herbert," he said.

    That caught Herbert off guard. Okay. They were playing hardball with a hand grenade. He could do that.

    "Mr. Lewis," Herbert said, "please thank your field operative for reconnoitering the farmhouse. Inform him we will get our information directly from the Black Cat Commandos and that our joint operation is ended."

    "You bureaucratic asshole-!" Friday snapped.

    "Friday, Mr. Herbert has the authority to terminate this alliance,"

    Lewis said.

    "And frankly, you're not giving me a reason to fight for it."

    "We need each other out here!" Friday said.

    "We may be looking at an international catastrophe!"

    "That's the first useful insight you've given me," Herbert said.

    "Would you care to continue?"

    Friday swore.

    "I don't have time for a pissing contest, Herbert. I'll straighten you out later. We've learned that a Pakistani cell, part of the Free Kashmir Militia, stayed at the farm of Apu Kumar for about five months.

    The farmer's granddaughter, Nanda, is the only child of a couple who died fighting the Pakistanis. The girl wrote poetry the whole time the cell was here. It appears to have contained coded elements reporting on the cell's activities. She used to recite her poems aloud while she took care of the chickens. We suspect members of the Special Frontier Force heard what she was saying, probably by cell phone. She was with them when the bazaar attack in Srinagar took place and we believe the SFF was behind the temple bombing. We also believe that she is still with them, and might have the cell phone to signal SFF."

    "She was signaling the SFF," Herbert replied.

    "What happened?" Friday asked.

    It was time to give Friday a little information, a little trust.

    "The Indian pursuit team was just taken out by a powerful explosion in the Himalayas," Herbert informed him.

    "How do you know that?" Lewis asked.

    "We've got ELINT resources in the region," Herbert said.

    Herbert used the vague electronics intelligence reference because he did not want Lewis to know that he had satellite coverage of the region. The new NSA head might start pushing the NRO for off-the-books satellite time of his own.

    "How many men were killed?" Lewis asked.

    "About thirteen or fourteen," Herbert replied.

    "They were closing in on what appeared to be an outpost about eight thousand feet up in the mountains. The men, the outpost, and the side of the mountain are all gone."

    "Were you able to ID the commandos?" Friday asked.

    "Were they wearing uniforms?"

    "They were SFF," Herbert replied.

    "I knew it," Friday said triumphantly.

    "What about the cell?"

    "We don't know," Herbert admitted.

    "We're trying to find out if they got away."

    Herbert looked at the computer monitor. Stephen Viens had just finished zooming in slowly on the northern side of the cliff. The resolution was three meters, sufficient to show footprints. The angle of the sun was still low. That would help by casting shadows off the side walls of any prints.

    Viens began panning the flattest, widest areas of the slopes.

    Those were the sections where people were likely to be walking in the darkness.

    "If the cell did get away the SFF is not going to give up," Friday continued.

    "There's a possibility the SFF set them up to take the fall for the temple bombings in Srinagar."

    "Do you have proof of that?" Herbert asked. He was interested that Friday had come to the same conclusion as he and General Rodgers.

    "No," Friday admitted.

    "But the Black Cats would normally have handled the investigation and they were cut out of it by the SFF. They also obviously knew about the cell."

    "That doesn't mean they were involved in the destruction of the temple,"

    Herbert said.

    "The Free Kashmir Militia are known terrorists. According to Indian radio they already took credit for the bombing-"

    "Whoever made that call may not have known the extent of the attack,"

    Friday said.

    "That could be," Herbert agreed.

    "I'm still not ready to declare them innocent. Maybe someone in the group betrayed them and rigged the extra explosions. But let's assume for the moment you're right, that the SFF organized the bombing to advance an agenda. What is that agenda?"

    "My Black Cat partner believes it's a holy war," Friday said.

    "Possibly a nuclear holy war."

    "A preemptive strike," Hank Lewis said.

    Again, Herbert was encouraged by the fact that Ron Friday and the Indian Black Cat officer reached the same conclusions that he and Rodgers had.

    It meant there might be some truth to their concerns. But he was also discouraged for the same reason.

    "We think the SFF forces used gas against the Pakistani stronghold,"

    Herbert said.

    "Which would mean they wanted to try and capture them alive."

    "A perp walk and confessions," Friday said.

    "Probably. But I've got to believe the main reason the cell is running is not to save their own lives," Herbert said.

    "Even if they get back to Pakistan no one in India is going to take their word that they're innocent."

    "They need the girl." Friday said.

    "Exactly," Herbert said.

    "If she worked with the SFF to stage the attack, they need to get a complete public statement from her. One that doesn't look or sound like it's a forced confession."

    "I'm missing something here," Lewis said.

    "If we suspect that this is going on, why don't we just confront the SFF or someone in the Indian government? Get them involved."

    "Because we don't know who may already be involved in this operation and how high up it goes," Herbert said.

    "Talking to New Delhi may just accelerate the process." "Accelerate it?"

    Lewis said.

    "How much faster can it possibly go?"

    "In a crisis like this days can become hours if you're not careful,"

    Herbert said.

    "We don't want to panic the people in charge. If we're right, the SFF will still try to capture the cell." "Or at least Nanda," Friday said.

    "Maybe she's the one they're really after. Think about a teary-eyed Hindu woman going on television and telling the public how the FKM plotted to blow up the temple, not caring how many Hindu men, women, and children they killed."

    "Good point," Herbert said.