Viper Team Seven (The Viper Team Seven Series Book 1) (46 page)

“None
whatsoever. But we need some. Do you know any more friends that’d be willing to
conduct background checks on our suspects?” Parks hoped.

“That’d be
sketchy. I’m not sure that the guys I have in mind wouldn’t ask questions. We
can’t answer questions because we can’t really let anyone in on this.”

“I know that,
but could you try anyway? Do you know of anyone that could accomplish that task
without anyone knowing that he’s doing it?”

Solomon grumbled
something under his breath as he thought of just the right person. “KP, I’ll really
be sticking my neck out by asking anyone, but since I have to, I’ll ask Sally
Irving. She’s pretty good but low enough on the hierarchy that she can do
things without too much interest.”

“Fine. Just get
me the report by 1800, will you?”

Solomon shot a
quick look at the clock. “It’s 0730 now. That’s hardly enough time, KP.”

“Just get me what you can,” Parks begged. “We need anything we can get,
because time is running out.”

*          *          *

Parks didn’t
need to see the clock to know that it was 1815, and not a word had come from
Solomon ever since he left the office that morning. Parks knew he couldn’t
leave his office without the reports, but what could he do besides wait?

Parks decided to
give Solomon a call and check on his progress. He didn’t use his desk phone but
pulled out his cell and punched in Solomon’s cell phone number.

“KP, I have only
half of what you asked for,” Solomon admitted as soon as he answered. “She’s
going as fast as she can but she doesn’t want to make a mistake.”

“Okay, how’d she
send the reports?” Parks asked.

“Classified
email. I deleted them the minute after I printed them. I’ll bring them over.”

Parks didn’t
bring to light that Solomon was fifteen minutes late. He knew his friend was
working hard so he’d cut him some slack. “All right I’ll see you in a second.”

Parks snapped
his phone shut and waited. He didn’t have to wait long, only about a minute,
before Solomon entered the office and handed him the papers.

“She did the D/CIA
first, then the FBI Director. We still have three left to go. I was pressing
her as hard as I could, KP,” Solomon reiterated.

“Yeah that’s
okay, I understand. What’s it look like?”

Solomon raised
his eyebrows. “Their records are cleaner than a Sunday shirt. If the rest of
the reports are like this then the mole’s good at covering his tracks. Of
course you have to remember who we’re dealing with: the Directors of
intelligence agencies. If one of them really is the mole then it’ll be
impossible to prove it by doing background checks.”

Parks read the
first few pages and had to admit that things weren’t looking so good. “I got as
much out of your little reports,” he told Solomon. “You’re right, this will be
impossible. I don’t know what I was trying to find.”

“At least you
tried.”

“How much did
you tell this woman?” Parks questioned. “Does she know why you asked for this?”

“I didn’t tell
her anything and she didn’t ask. You don’t have to worry.”

Parks rested his
head on his hand. “Solomon, I don’t know what to do,” he admitted. “We’re not
just trying to catch a bad guy, we’re quite possibly dealing with a master
terrorist that has nothing on his mind but the destruction of the U.S. What man would do this?”

“I don’t know,
KP,” Solomon said. “But we are going to find out.”

Parks crumpled
the papers on his desk. “I am more stumped than I’ve ever been in my entire
life. This is crazy. All we have is question upon question and very few answers.”
Parks stopped crumpling the papers. “But wait, the mole eventually has to get
involved in the game, especially since ‘the organization’ has lost their best
terrorist. The mole’s going to have to explain what went wrong to whoever’s
really heading this thing up, if he hasn’t already. The real boss of this kit
and caboodle isn’t going to just let his mole sit and do nothing. He’ll need
him more than ever to help pull off future terrorist attacks.”

“All right, I
follow you.”

“So that will
mean another terrorist attack will be coming soon. When it does, the terrorists
will be making contact with the mole, indirectly or directly, it doesn’t
matter.”

“What you’re
saying is that we monitor the Directors’ and NSA’s contacts to see who’s making
contact with the terrorists,” Solomon guessed. “We’d know for sure who it is
then. Great plan, there’s just ten million things wrong with it. I’ll just name
two for the sake of time though. First of all, we’d have to get lots of
intelligence officials to hack into the guys’ emails and phone lines, and that
would tip off the mole, making him run for it. The second thing is that since we
can’t let anyone else in on this, that means you and I would have to do the
hacking, and we both know that’s impossible. We just can’t hack in and monitor
five guys’ contacts without a lot of effort.”

Parks put up his
hand to stop Solomon. “Listen, I’m not finished. We wouldn’t have to monitor
five guys’ contacts, just one. That would be the lead terrorist inside the U.S. He’ll lead us right to the mole or at least to the middle man.”

Solomon approved
wholeheartedly. “Now all we have to do is find some terrorists and find a way
to track their calls without anyone knowing about it.”

Parks smiled.
His plan was sketchy and could fall apart given certain circumstances, but it
could
work, and those odds were good enough for him.

Thursday, April 17
^th
– 0630 hours

The Oval Office

The Director of the
Central Intelligence Agency entered the Oval Office and went straight to
business without any formalities.

“Mr. President,
we need to talk,” he said urgently.

Winnfield nodded
and waited for the Director to begin speaking.

Cummins was
sweating due to nervousness as he leaned on the President’s desk. “Mr.
President, we have reason to believe that Lebanon...well, we know...Lebanon has acquired a nuclear weapon.”

The President’s
mouth dropped open and he stood from his chair. “What are you talking about?”
he demanded.

“Sir, I’m afraid
that Lebanon has–”

“
I heard what
you said.
Give an explanation – now!”

“As we both know
the U.S. has a mole inside the lower echelon of the Lebanese government,” the D/CIA
continued. “It seemed that he’s not high enough to give us good, solid
information; as a matter of a fact he really has known nothing, until now.”

“Spit it out,”
Winnfield ordered through clenched teeth.

“Yes, Mr.
President. The mole is an officer in the Lebanese army and evidently he says
that there was a stir in Lebanon about a cargo shipment coming from a different
country. This shipment is quite important, apparently because the prime
minister himself has been to the place where the shipment will be delivered
many times just to make sure everything’s going as planned. The shipment
delivery site is a location where our mole has been working for quite a while.”

“Why hasn’t he
reported this information sooner?”

“He’s been
watched closely, sir, and hasn’t been able to contact us. Anyway, this delivery
site happens to be a war bunker under a mosque somewhere in Tripoli, Lebanon. The mole says it’s a military center deep, deep, underground and completely secure. He says
it’s real top-of-the-line and that it’s no wonder no one has known about the
activity since it’s buried so deeply and in such a strategic location. Well,
one day the prime minister and several top officials came to the military
center and just hours later the shipment was delivered.”

“You mean to
tell me our mole was watched that closely for that long that he couldn’t report
to us at all?”

“That’s what he
says, Mr. President, and I believe him.”

“Did he ever see
the shipment?” Winnfield wondered.

“He saw it being
unloaded and moved.”

“To where? And
was it what I’m thinking?”

“To where, he
didn’t know; he was relieved of duty the minute after the shipment began to be
transported elsewhere. But he guesses it’s being transported to a safer place.
As for what it was, he had a real quick look at it. It was a nuclear warhead, equipped
with multiple independently targetable reentry vehicles.”

The President
recoiled. “MIRVs? How many independent warheads are in that thing?”

Winnfield knew
that a nuclear warhead was a devastating force but a warhead with MIRVs was a
million times worse. The MIRVs were several independent warheads that could hit
multiple cities or pound the same one several times. A few countries possessed
that technology but even the U.S. was not as stocked up on them as it should
be.

“Mr. President,
the mole has no clue,” Cummins admitted. “But who cares? Lebanon has a nuclear warhead and it’s only a matter of time before they mount it on an ICBM. If
Aziza’s right and they really do intend to wipe out Israel – or worse yet, us –
we have to take that thing out.”

“How much time
do we have?” Winnfield questioned. “We must have a timeframe.”

The Director’s
face was expressionless. “It’s my guess that if they wanted to they could mount
the warhead on a missile and launch that nuclear weapon any day.”

The President
was getting very upset. “Mike, Lebanon had to have bought the warhead from
someone because they couldn’t have made a nuke that quickly and without us
knowing about it. But from whom? China doesn’t have that many warheads to
spare, neither do the North Koreans, and I doubt the NK has MIRVs to begin with.
The only ones that seem liable are the Russians.”

Cummins stopped
the President. “Our main objective, Mr. President, needs to be planning a way
to take out that nuclear warhead. We can worry about the other things later,”
the D/CIA pointed out.

“What day did
this warhead arrive?”

“Yesterday sir.”

“And the mole is
relieved of his duty at the military center?”

“Yes, Mr.
President.”

“They must trust
him a lot if he was allowed to witness that.”

The Director
shook his head. “He was relieved of duty with the threat that if any country
found out about the weapon his head would come off.”

President Winnfield faced the American flag as his thoughts began to take
shape. He knew a preemptive strike was the only option. But who should do it? Israel or the U.S.? Winnfield knew it was a matter of which country the warhead would be aimed at.
But there was no time to find out which nation it would be. That warhead needed
to be destroyed or the lives of millions could be in danger, if they weren’t
already.

*          *          *

The National
Security Council was gathered in the Situation Room awaiting the topic that
would be discussed. The President had gathered the NSC on short notice saying
simply that it was an urgent meeting. Everyone had arrived quickly and nothing
was stopping Winnfield from starting. Quietly he cleared his throat and took
charge of the meeting.

“As you might
guess, this concerns Lebanon,” he began. “More specifically it concerns the
MIRV nuclear warhead that they received yesterday.” Nearly everyone gasped and
several people’s hands flew over their mouths. “We suspect that the Lebanese
bought the warhead from the Russians, due to its high technology. It needs to
be taken out. We can’t let a hostile nation keep a nuclear weapon if we know that
it’ll be used against us or our allies. To make a long explanation short, I
need advice on what to do.”

“Where is this
warhead?” Steve Danner asked. “And how do we know it even exists?”

“The warhead was
in a military center deep underground below a mosque,” the President answered.
“They probably used Hussein’s idea. Anyway, I’ve been told that the warhead was
delivered to that location and then moved elsewhere. What we need to do is
pinpoint the weapon to an exact location and not let it out of our sight until
it’s destroyed.”

“What about my
second question, Mr. President?” Danner pressed. “How do we know this even exists?”

“That’s none of
your concern, Steve. We know it’s around and that’s all that matters.”

“Why doesn’t the
Mossad know about this?” Roxon wondered. “And why didn’t
we
catch wind
of it until now?”

“I’m not so sure
the Mossad doesn’t know about it,” Winnfield said. “But I’m positive that the whole
purchase was done in utmost secrecy, and if the Russians are the suppliers,
then that would explain how it was smuggled into Lebanon in such an
unnoticeable way.

“Will we be able
to find the warhead again?” Anders asked.

“We’ll find it,”
the President replied. “The thing that worries me is that I doubt Lebanon was a one-item customer. They’ll probably be getting others and hiding them somewhere
too.”

“Why would Lebanon send in Qasim before they had that weapon though, Mr. President?” Watkins
questioned. “It makes no sense that they wouldn’t have waited for a fight until
the warhead was delivered.”

“Let me get
something straight – I’m not saying Lebanon did send in Qasim but I’m leaning
more toward that way,” Winnfield declared. “I originally was thinking Iran was to blame but now I’m having my doubts. Anyway, here’s why they wouldn’t have
waited to send in Qasim. They knew they would be getting a warhead soon and I
don’t think they thought it necessary to wait for a fight any longer. They
obviously had lots of faith in their supplier.”

“They had a
right to,” Cummins stated. “When doing anti-American business with the Russians
they knew they’d get what they wanted.”

“All right let’s
get to the meat of this,” the President commanded. “That warhead needs to go.
If anyone disagrees with that let me know about it right now.” Winnfield
scanned the room and when no one spoke, he took the silence as agreement.
“Good. Now we need to figure out three things. First, are we going to take this
weapon out or are we simply going to back an Israeli attempt? If
we
are,
then we need to figure out how and when. Probably the most important thing for
now is we need to find where this warhead is and if there are any more coming.
Any comments?”

“Mr. President,
I completely believe that this warhead needs to go as fast as possible and by
whatever means necessary,” Treasure Secretary Sandra Wright voiced. “We are
playing with fire every minute it remains in Lebanon’s hands. We cannot afford
to take any chances with this matter.”

The President
looked to his Treasure Secretary and responded, “I agree, Sandra. I do. And I
thank you for giving your opinion. But the big question is, what means are
necessary to take out the nuke?”

The room fell
silent for just a moment and then the Secretary of Defense spoke up. “Mr.
President, I must say that this whole business of Lebanon acquiring a nuclear
warhead is very disturbing. Also, I must say that Lebanon is considered to us
as a hostile nation, and the fact that they are armed with nuclear weapons
gives me a bad feeling. We both have to admit that we are not sure that they
aren’t the ones who are responsible for the attacks on our nation on 1/16. But not
even factoring that in, we can’t let them keep that nuke. Yes sir,
we
can’t let them keep it. This is not Israel’s job, it’s ours, and we need to
take care of it.”

Winnfield
thanked the SecDef and moved on. “Anyone else have something to say?”

The Situation
Room was silent until Secretary of State Dan Bradley cleared his throat. “Mr.
President, it is with all due respect that I say that this whole notion is
crazy,” he commented with confidence. “Lebanon could not obtain a nuclear
weapon, even from the Russians. They know we’d obliterate them once we got wind
of it. I hate to say this but I feel we’re chasing shadows. If you can tell me
how you’re sure that they have a nuclear weapon then maybe I won’t feel this
way. But until then I don’t see how I can support a preemptive strike.”

“You must be
pretty shortsighted if you can’t see that a preemptive strike is just about our
only option,” the President informed him. “But I asked for your advice and
thanks for giving it.”

Angry, the Treasure
Secretary jumped in. “Mr. Secretary,” she started, “why can you not understand
that we don’t have any other option than to conduct a preemptive strike? We
don’t have the luxury to doubt that statement when time is running out and
common sense is telling us that when an enemy of our nation obtains a nuclear
weapon they’re going to use it against us or our friends. Look at what happened
with Iran. They tried making a nuke and just about got away with it because the
previous administration just kept saying ‘oh please don’t do that’ and didn’t
do anything else. If you recall, Mr. Secretary, when President Winnfield was
inaugurated, he gave Iran an ultimatum. He said that they’d better stop their
nuclear weapons program or he’d obliterate their nation. They didn’t listen,
and now Iran is what it is.”

Winnfield was
smiling as he remembered his first few weeks in the Oval Office. The War on
Terror was finally taken seriously, the Taliban and Al-Qaida had been
completely wiped out, and a new threat dashed onto the scene. Iran had almost completed their first nuclear weapon and Winnfield had known he had to stop them.
When his ultimatum wasn’t heeded, he sent in half the U.S. forces which had been occupying Afghanistan and Iraq – Iraq had been freed officially from
terrorism – and told them to take out the Iranian government. And so they had.
Now, Iran was a mere shadow of what it used to be but Winnfield still knew they
would try and rise again some day. He knew it would do them no good as long as
he was in office.

“Thank you for
your history lesson,” Bradley retorted. “But I didn’t need it. I am well aware
of what this administration has accomplished. Frankly, I have had a major part
in seeing those accomplishments achieved. I backed the President when he wiped
out the Taliban and Al-Qaida, and overthrew the corrupt Iranian government. But
I cannot and will not support this move. We just finished fighting a
four-nation war and I don’t believe another war will be acceptable.”

“To whom are you
trying to prove us acceptable?” the Vice President shot back. “The rest of the
world? The United Nations? Listen Dan, we don’t need to be acceptable in the U.N.’s
eyes. This nation is free and safe not because of the U.N., but because we’ve
taken a stand for what’s right. This country’s values and interests come first.
I don’t care how many wars it takes or who looks down on us, I will always back
a move that will keep America free. You should too.”

Bradley sank
back in his chair and remained silent. The President smiled his approval at his
advisors and asked for any other comments. When no one spoke, Winnfield seized
the opportunity.

“All right then,
we will take this warhead out,” he concluded with certainty. “We will make a
plan once the D/CIA finds where exactly it is and if there are any more coming
in. You’ll be briefed as soon as any information comes in. That’ll be all.”
Everybody stood and began to exit the room. “Um, I need to speak with the
Directors, National Security Advisor, and Vice President,” he added.

The six men
reentered the Situation Room and seated themselves.

“I know what
you’re thinking, Mr. President,” Smith spoke up. “And I’m not so sure Parks is
ready to handle something like this.”