Threatcon Delta (23 page)

W
hen Jonathan Harper received a briefing from Ryan Kealey, he immediately went from his third-floor office to the Satellite Imaging Center in Basement Three. It had always amused him that the division with the highest reach was at the lowest point of the building, but then simple ironies had always held a dark humor for him. Like the fact that instead of embracing a religious figure who emerged from a Biblical desert, they were trying to discredit him.

No different than what the Romans did two thousand years ago,
Harper told himself.

But this new Moses could very well be a fake, created as a form of crowd control.
Of course, if that were true,
he thought,
what about the original Moses?
Did he sit up there on the mountain for thirty-nine days, trying to figure out how to rally the mob before finally hitting on something and carving it on the fortieth day?

It was possible,
he told himself. The idealist inevitably becomes the cynic, as the Democrat becomes the Republican—and the agency becomes the collaborator.

Harper swiped his ID card to activate a keypad that allowed him to input a code to get to the basement. The code changed each day, a random, computer-generated run of five digits that was only available by secure landline to his computer. He swiped the card a second time to enter the SIC bay. It was actually called the SIC Analysis Laboratory, but he found amusement where he could. There was so little of it elsewhere in this job.

Beyond the door was an L-shaped corridor with four offices located on the left. On the right were a series of slim cabinets, the machine-workings of the computer system. The computers located in this bombproof bunker ran everything from the CIA’s phones to the downlinked surveillance equipment.

He passed Trey Dunlap’s office and knocked on the door of Paul Schuyler, the chief surveillance analyst. There was a buzz and a click and the door popped open.

Schuyler had been pouring himself coffee that perked on a typing table that hadn’t seen a typewriter for a quarter of a century. He swung his wheelchair back to the desk. Crippled by an artillery blast in Afghanistan where he was an undercover operative during the Soviet invasion, Schuyler was a grim and single-minded man. At fifty-three he was what press director Sarah Knute had succinctly described as “a pill.” Schuyler had no life, other than to root out suicide bombers, truck bombers, terrorists, and supremacists of any color, stripe, or location.

Not that it was an unfulfilling life,
Harper had to admit. In just the first six months of this year, Schuyler had rooted out a plan to crash a bomb-laden mini-sub into the United Nations in New York and a plot to fire Stinger missiles at the Mt. Rushmore monument. He had uncovered a plot by snipers to terrorize Chicago an hour before the seven gunmen were set to open fire. He was an idealist who had cycled through bitter cynicism and come out the other side, reborn.

“Sahara Desert,” Harper said. “I need wells with anomalies.”

“What kind? Metal? Wood? Radioactivity?”

“Probably not radioactive,” Harper said. “Other than that, I don’t know.”

“How old?”

“At least sixty-four years, going back to the dawn of civilization. I’ve got nothing, Paul.”

“I noticed.”

Schuyler input the request to his master file.

“I assume you want nongeological only?” Schuyler asked as he scanned the rows of listings.

“What do you mean?”

“In a desert of sand, one might consider the black ash deposits of the Waw an Namus volcano in Libya an anomaly—”

“Man-made,” Harper agreed. “Limit it to Morocco to start.”

Harper wasn’t entirely sure he trusted Durst about the location: the group might get to Rabat and the German could head off in some other direction. In the end, the expatriate might be an idealist, too, one who might see an opportunity to revisit his own lost cause.

“We’ve mapped a lot of old stone structures, mostly abandoned way stations and wells,” Schuyler said.

“Which project was that?”

“I’m embarrassed to say,” Schuyler said. “It was called WC.”

“Water closet?”

“Worse,” Schuyler replied. “They were mythical groups called Well Cells. That was back right before you were promoted. We thought terrorists might try to connect close-proximity wells with underground tunnels and create a network through the desert, the way they did in the West Bank.”

Schuyler was referring to the fact that the Israelis couldn’t simply bomb regional terrorists out of existence because they lived with families in underground tunnels constructed for shelter and refuge.

“Wouldn’t it be pretty suffocating, a few hundred feet down in the desert?”

“A lot of the underground streams in that region flow through wide, ventilated shafts,” Schuyler said. “Computer simulations showed that circulation would be pretty good. Visual and ground-penetrating thermal scans didn’t find anyone, though. So. What are we looking for today?”

“Some kind of chest,” Harper said.

“Wood?”

“Presumably.”

“A well would be a good place for that,” Schuyler said.

“Why?”

“Organic matter left in the desert dries out and crumbles within two or three years, depending on how it was processed,” he said. “But even a nonproducing well would generate enough distillation to keep it moist.” He examined the file menus and ticking clock icon. “It’s going to take two hours and seven minutes to search the geophysical and photographic files for everything the size of a steamer trunk.”

“It could be larger than that but probably not too much smaller.”

“Was the object deliberately buried or lost?”

“Buried.”

“When?”

“About sixty-five years ago,” Harper said.

“World War II,” Schuyler said. “By the Nazis, or someone who was running from them?”

“SS.”

“You know, that region was Rommel’s bailiwick,” Schuyler said. “The Germans had a lot of matériel in the region.”

“How does that help us?”

“Why bury something unless you were afraid of being caught with it? What was inside?”

Harper told him what Durst had done. Schuyler was intrigued.

“That’s the kind of artifact one might use as barter or to raise money,” Schuyler thought aloud. “A lot of it.”

“To live on or to revive a cause, that’s what I was thinking.”

“Maybe one of his cronies sold it?”

“That’s possible, of course, though it would have had to be a while ago,” Harper said. “They’re all dead. And Kealey seems to believe him.”

“You wouldn’t just put it in a well where someone could stumble on it,” Schuyler said. “Especially in a region where someone might grasp its significance. And you’d want to mark it somehow so you could find it later.”

“How do you mark something in the desert?”

“Exactly,” Schuyler said. “Lawrence of Arabia blew up trains during the First World War and the only way to find one of those is to locate a surviving segment of track and follow it.”

Schuyler typed in two words. The search was immediately narrowed to six places. He cross-referenced those with charts from the CIA’s Center on Climate Change and National Security, specifically charts showing underground channels. Those records had been used to hunt for the mythical WCs. After the cross-referencing, only one place remained. Schuyler accessed the CIA’s photographic database of the Middle East and selected the coordinates indicated by his search. He magnified a dark spot in the midst of the tawny sands.

“Could this be what you’re looking for?”

K
ealey’s group was airlifted to Florida onboard one of the navy’s MH-60 antisubmarine helicopters.

Before leaving Honduras, Carla had been permitted to phone her mother and explain that she and her grandfather had accepted an invitation to take a trip. A Spanish-speaking officer was present in the communications center as she explained that a project had suddenly been offered in which her grandfather felt he needed to be personally involved, and that she had insisted on going with him.

“He will not tell me where we are going,” she said. “You know how secretive and headstrong he can be.” Carla added that the police had misinterpreted the American officials as terrorists, but that everything was fine.

“The police showed us a photograph of one of the men with terrorists,” Nina Montilla protested. “Why would they lie?”

“They made a mistake,” Carla insisted. “He is a Catholic priest on a mission of peace.”

“They have had terrorists in Northern Ireland, too,” Nina pointed out.

Carla assured her that Phair was a man of peace and promised to phone them in a day or two to tell them when they would be returning.

“I hope that wasn’t too difficult,” Kealey said as they headed toward the deck where Durst and Phair were waiting.

“My mother is not a delicate flower,” Carla replied. “My father often goes here or there unexpectedly, often with people from various nations and backgrounds. So it is only a little shock that my grandfather would do so.”

“What about you?”

She laughed. “I am often gone for days, hiking or biking. If not for the fact that the police came by, asking questions, she might not have noticed we were gone for another day or two. Though I assured her Major Phair is a gentleman, I am not myself convinced of this. He lacks a certain charity. How well do you know him?”

“Not very,” Kealey admitted. “He serves with the United States military. He left us for a while—sixteen years, in fact—to wander among the people of Iraq and minister to them spiritually.”

“A Catholic priest in a Muslim nation?”

“Major Phair believes that God is God, whatever He’s called, and he let that belief sustain him. There is evidence that he did a great deal of good in communities across the nation, even when he found himself forced to associate with those who had antisocial agendas.”

“Do you believe that my grandfather has an antisocial agenda?”

Kealey chose his words carefully. “I don’t agree with everything he says, but I don’t agree with Major Phair on all things, either. Men often serve nations without subscribing to their less noble aims. I am only interested in what your grandfather does now.”

The answer seemed to please her. The conversation ended as the group boarded the helicopter for the nearly four-hour flight. The cabin of the helicopter was spartan, with rows of floor-to-ceiling equipment, canvas-covered floors, and thinly cushioned fold-down seats. The aircraft was stripped down to extend its range from the typical 1,200 miles to around 1,500—often critical in tracking the actions of potentially hostile vessels. The passengers all wore headphones to block the drumming of the powerful rotors. Durst and Phair slept. It was too noisy to argue and there was nothing else to do. Carla read a book someone had left behind, a western, which seemed to engross her. Kealey checked his e-mails, most of which were cc’s of material that had been requested by or sent to Harper. They weren’t making progress quickly, but they were certainly looking under every stone.

Harper also assured him that since Ramirez was unperturbed by the police attention to Kealey’s visit, Danny Hernandez wasn’t spooked in the slightest, either. Their agreement was progressing. Kealey deleted that e-mail with rancor. Then he undid the action and filed the e-mail in the proper folder.

After landing at the U.S. Naval Air Station Jacksonville, Phair was given a cross with an electromagnetic chip to protect his identity. It struck Kealey as ironic that the necklace would, truly, be a shield to him.

The four were driven to Jacksonville International Airport, where a Gulfstream V was waiting. Before they boarded, Kealey received a call from Harper. He took it in the terminal, sitting in a quiet corner and making notes. He rejoined the others after they had already boarded.

They sat in uncomfortable silence as the jet taxied and rose into the twilight. Now that he had time to reflect, Kealey was annoyed at how ham-fisted he’d been while getting this mission on its feet. He should never have given Phair the freedom to say, ask, or question anything. That was not how Kealey had run field operations in the past. Here, he had let protocol slide because this was not a team that had trained together. He had wanted them to find their own rhythm, to interlock in a way that was comfortable. In the field, even seasoned operatives reach for instinct over training. A good leader teaches them how to work with that rather than waste time and effort trying to resist it. That hadn’t worked here, which was why he’d had to lean on Phair aboard the cutter. They didn’t have time to find what the field commanders liked to call “an organic mesh.” Phair had to play ball. After they had the Staff, Durst was expendable.

“You do not wear a ring,” Carla said. It didn’t sound like a come-on, just a woman’s observation.

“I’m not married,” he said. “You don’t wear one, either.”

“No,” she said, looking at her hand. “I almost married several years ago—to a client, the son of a shipping magnate. Then he was kidnapped, held for a year. When he was finally freed, he left the country.”

“That’s—different,” he said, hiding the annoyance he felt. That information wasn’t in the file they’d made for Carla. He opened her dossier on his laptop and forwarded it to Trey Dunlap with the subject line
Hole in the Bucket
—meaning they needed to figure out new ways to collect relationship data when engagements were not announced in newspapers. He suggested Facebook and similar sites.

“You seem to be very much involved with your work, even now,” Carla said. “What else interests you, Mr. Kealey?”

“All sorts of things,” he replied. “I play chess, read biographies of historical figures.”

“Don’t you get lonely?”

“Never,” he said. “Look at how many new friends I’ve acquired in just twenty-four hours.”

“That’s not what I mean.”

“I know,” he said. “The truth is, I’m never home and it wouldn’t be fair to subject a family to that.”

“It isn’t easy,” she replied. “Relationships, I mean. Many people pull away when they find out about my grandfather.”

“I didn’t think that would matter so much in your country.”

“Why?” she asked. “Are we not part of the world? Are our people less judgmental?”

“You were not much involved in the war, except to produce oil for the Allies,” Kealey said.

“We were taught in school that the Germans intended to conquer Venezuela as a prelude to invading the United States,” she said. “That did not earn them much support—except, we were told, among bankers who were happy to take their money. To this day, my grandfather gets nasty looks and sometimes verbal abuse when people hear his accent, notice his age.”

“I’m sorry for that,” Kealey said as sincerely as he could manage. “What matters is that it didn’t bother your father.”

“My father is a diplomat,” she said. “Most people are like Mr. Phair. Sometimes . . .” she started, then stopped to collect herself. “Sometimes it is difficult for me, too, when he says the things he does. But I know he is not an evil man. Not like the ones who put those ideas in his head.”

“What was your grandfather’s situation when he joined the SS?”

“His own father had been maimed in the First World War,” she said. “He lost his sight. My great-grandmother worked as a baker’s assistant and did not make enough money to support them. She took ill, she died. My grandfather was only eight. He robbed pockets and tills and trash cans so they could survive.”

“Did the Nazis offer hope or revenge?”

“Both,” Carla admitted. She looked over her seat to make sure her grandfather wasn’t listening, then sat back heavily. “Mr. Kealey, people judge others by labels. My father taught me that. You do it yourself, I’m sure. I can say words like
Aborigine
or
Amazon
and you think you know more than you do.”

“Those are not ideologies that one can embrace or choose not to,” he said. “Nazism, communism, fascism are different.”

“You said yourself that one does not have to agree with everything his country does. In its earliest throes, did the United States not permit cruel enslavement?”

“It did,” Kealey admitted. “We corrected that internally and decisively through bloody means.”

“In time, I believe that the idea of the Fatherland for which so many diverse people fought would have had a similar purging,” Carla said. “We will never know. What I
do
know is that my grandfather was young and impoverished and in need of something to believe in. The Reich raised him up and made him a man, but it was a man who was forged rather than grown. War gave him the tools of a man but not, in all ways, the wisdom or compassion of one. There are times when I feel very, very sad for him.”

Kealey did not. Durst had made his choices and had to live with the results. But Kealey had no intention of saying so.

“Which came first?” he asked her.

She gave him a puzzled look. “Pardon?”

“The outside exercise or your interest in being a trainer?”

Carla smiled. It changed her entire disposition. “I was always a tomboy, scaling trees and swimming across ponds. I felt good doing these things. So many of my older relatives died when they were young—they were heavy, they smoked constantly, they lived in ways that even to a child seemed unhealthy. So I made it my business to keep people from needless bad health.”

“Commendable,” he said.

“It also gave me the freedom to make my own hours, to spend time with my grandfather. With my parents away so much, we were very close.” The smile faded. “My family has always lived in fear of visits like yours, of someone coming and taking my grandfather away, even though he had done nothing.”

Kealey did not bother pointing out the sickening irony in that.

“He has spent the bulk of his life wanting nothing more than to feel useful again. I think you can imagine what that’s like.”

Kealey nodded without conviction. Carla was too caught up in her thoughts to notice.

“That is why I came with you. I want to make sure that this happens. I want to be there when it does.”

“I can understand that,” Kealey said. “But it’s a long road from here to there. Assuming the relic is where your grandfather left it, there is still the matter of persuading those who are following the false prophet to stand down. People, especially a mob, don’t always listen to reason.” Kealey wondered if there was any statement he could make that would not indirectly reference her grandfather’s past.

“You impress me as a man who knows his job and does it,” Carla said. “When we get this holy artifact, I believe you will know what to do. Perhaps even God Himself will guide you.”

Carla settled back and shut her eyes, content to have made her case. Kealey thought for a moment about asking her more questions, this time gently guiding her to the topic of Ricardo Ramirez and whether his money was supporting their household. She was more open to him now, she might willingly divulge key details of Ramirez’s operations, or accidentally reveal them, not knowing that they were important. He could come away with intel he could use later, after the Staff of Moses situation was dealt with.

But Kealey let her rest. The whole topic of Ramirez and Hernandez made him sick. And this was not a simple jaunt he was on, with a trained and trustworthy team. He was not about to hang his hat on Durst’s character. He did not believe that Carla was insincere, but field operations were like combat: One never knew what he—or she—would do until they were on the ground with bullets flying. Kealey was not convinced that either Durst or his granddaughter would simply lead them to the site, then get on a jet and go home.

Which was why Kealey didn’t try to imagine “what it was like” or what Carla was feeling during their conversation. He couldn’t afford to. He never knew when it might be necessary, for the good of the mission, to do something for which someone would never forgive him.

He just couldn’t afford to care about that. Innocent lives could be depending on him.