Comfortably stuffed, they sat on Frank’s back porch overlooking the courtyard garden. The sun was an hour away from setting and the garden was cast in hues of orange.
“So, tell me,” Frank said. “What’s new?”
“Same old thing,” Sam replied. As far as Frank knew, Sam had left government service to take a job as a private security consultant. “You know: meetings, airline food, bad hotels . . .”
Frank sipped his beer and glanced at Fisher over his glasses. “Up for a game?”
Sam smiled. Retired or not, Frank hadn’t lost a mental step. At eighty-four, he beat Sam at chess more often than he lost. “Sure. No money this time, though.”
“What’s the fun in that?”
“For you, none. For me, I get to eat next week.”
Frank gathered the chess set from inside, pushed aside the dishes, and laid out the board. By coin toss, Sam took black. Frank stared at the table for ten seconds, then moved a pawn.
Sam thought immediately,
Queen’s Gambit
. It was a favorite opening of Frank’s, but Sam knew better than to accept it at face value. As a man, Frank was without pretense; as a chess player, he was a shrewd and calculating opponent who gave no quarter. Sam had fallen too many times for his feints and ambushes; his rogue pawn charges that diverted Sam’s attention; his fake bishop attacks that shielded a flanking queen.
The game went on for forty minutes until finally Frank frowned and looked up. “I’d call that a draw.”
Sam’s eyes remained fixed on the board. His mind was whirling.
Feints and false bishop attacks
. . . When the movement of every piece on the board screams Queen’s Gambit, save for a lone pawn moving behind the scenes, do you ignore the Gambit and concentrate on the pawn? Of course not. The pawn is a mosquito—an aberation to be discounted. The queen, the deadliest piece on the board, is what you’re watching. The queen’s attack is what you try to counter. . . .
“Sam . . . Sam, are you here, son?”
Sam looked up. “What? Sorry?”
“I said, I think we’re at a draw.”
Sam chuckled. “Yeah, I guess we are. With you, I’ll take that any day.”
Frank moved to clear the pieces from the board, but Sam stopped him.
“Leave it for a little bit. I’m working on something.”
27
THIRD ECHELON
THIRTY
minutes after receiving Lambert’s terse “Come in” call, Fisher swiped his card through the reader and pushed through the Situation Room’s door. Waiting for him at the conference table were Lambert, Grimsdottir, Redding, and a surprise guest: the CIA’s DDO, or Deputy Director of Operations, Tom Richards. Richards was in charge of one of the CIA’s two main arms: Operations, which put agents and case officers on the ground to collect intelligence. Intelligence then analyzed the collected data.
Richards’s presence wasn’t a good sign. As DDO, he knew about Third Echelon, but for the sake of compartmentalization, the CIA and Third Echelon generally remained distant cousins. Something significant had happened, and Fisher had a good idea what it was.
“Take a seat,” Lambert said. “Tom, this is my top field operative. For simplicity’s sake, let’s call him Fred.”
“Good to meet you, Fred.”
Fisher gave him a nod.
Lambert said to Fisher, “The other shoe has dropped. Tom has come over at the request of the President to brief us. For reasons that you’ll understand shortly, we’re going to be taking the lead on what comes next. Go ahead, Tom.”
Richards opened a folder lying on the table before him. “As you know, the predominant isotope we found in Slipstone’s water supply was cesium 137. It’s a natural byproduct of nuclear fission—whether from the detonation of nuclear weapons, or from the use of uranium fuel rods in nuclear power plants.
“The problem is, cesium 137 is too common. It’s everywhere: in the soil from nuclear weapon testing . . . in the air from power plant leaks. It’s the vanilla ice cream of nuclear waste—almost. In some cases, the cesium contains imperfections. For example, from where the uranium was mined, or in the case of fuel rods, from the chemical makeup of the water used to cool them.
“Since the 1950s the CIA has kept a database on isotopes—where and when it was found; its likely source . . . those sorts of things.
“It took a while, but we’ve identified the source of the cesium found at Slipstone. First of all, the material found aboard the
Trego
and the traces we found at Slipstone are of identical makeup. No surprise there. In this case, the database came up with a hit from twenty-plus years ago.”
“When?” asked Grimsdottir.
“April 26th, 1986.”
Fisher knew the date. “Chernobyl.”
RICHARDS
nodded. “You got it. On that date, following a systems test that got out of control, Chernobyl’s Reactor Number Four exploded and spewed tons of cesium 137 into the atmosphere.”
“How sure are you about this?” Lambert asked.
“That it’s Chernobyl cesium we found? Ninety percent.”
“And I assume we’re not talking about trace amounts here, are we?” asked Redding.
“No, it’s pure Chernobyl cesium. In the
Trego
’s forward ballast tank we found three hundred fifty pounds of debris that we’ve determined came from actual fuel rods.”
“From Chernobyl?” Grimsdottir repeated, incredulous. “
The
Chernobyl?”
“Yes. We’ve estimated it took upwards of thirty pounds of material to produce the level of contamination we found in Slipstone’s water supply, so we’re talking about a total of almost four hundred pounds. There’s only one place you can get that much.”
“Ukraine or Russia can’t be behind this,” Lambert said.
“Not directly,” Richards replied, “but that’s where the Iranians got it. How we don’t know. That’s what we’re hoping you can answer. We need someone to go into Ukraine—into Chernobyl—and get a sample.”
Someone,
Fisher thought.
Good old Fred
.
“And, if possible, do some sleuthing,” Richards added. “If this stuff is from Chernobyl, we need to know how and who. It had to leave there somehow. As far as we know, only about half of the undamaged fuel rods from Reactor Number Four are still inside the reactor core—in what the Russians call ‘the Sarcophagus.’ The other half were blown outward, into the surrounding country-side.”
Sarcophagus was an apt term, Fisher thought. The morning after the explosion, hundreds of thousands of Russian soldiers and volunteers from all around the Soviet Union began converging on Pripyat, the town nearest the Chernobyl plant, which by then was in the middle of an evacuation that would eventually transport 135,000 residents from the area.
Working with no safety equipment except for goggles and paper masks, soldiers and civilians began shoveling debris back into the crater that had been Reactor Number Four. Radioactive dust and dirt swirled around the site, coating everything and everyone it touched with a layer of deadly cesium. Hastily formed construction brigades began mixing thousands of tons of concrete, which were then transported to the lip of the crater and dumped over the side and onto the shattered roof until finally the open maw was overflowing with concrete.
Richards said, “As best we can determine, debris blown outside the reactor was collected and buried in bunkers somewhere nearby.”
“Have the Ukrainians reported any thefts? Any missing material?” Fisher asked.
“No, but that doesn’t surprise us. Hell, for days after the explosion the Soviet government continued to call it a ‘minor incident.’ Even if they knew about something fishy, we wouldn’t expect them to tell anyone.”
Fisher could see what was coming. Aware of the missing material or not, when this revelation became public, Ukraine—and by proxy, Russia—would be held complicit, a silent partner in Iran’s attack on the United States and the deaths of what could be as many as five thousand people.
In his mind’s eye Fisher imagined a chessboard. What part did this news play? Was this a distraction strategy, the white knight jumping its way toward the black king, or something more—that lone pawn no one is paying attention to? Or was it exactly what it seemed: Iran’s Queen’s Gambit?
“We have some leads?” Fisher asked. “Chernobyl’s Exclusion Zone covers a lot of territory. I assume you’re not asking me to wander around with a Geiger counter waiting to get lucky.”
“No. We’re working to identify the bunkers most likely to contain the debris we’re interested in. We also have some human assets in Ukraine that might point us in the right direction.”
“What’s our timeline?”
“You’ll leave in five days,” Lambert replied.
Richards closed his folder and stood up. “I’ll leave you to it. Fred, good luck.”
“Thanks.”
ONCE
Richards was gone, Lambert said, “Sam, this is a volunteer mission. You can decline with no questions asked.”
“I’ll go. How often do you get a tour of Chernobyl? One question, though: How long can I walk around that place before my hair starts falling out?”
“Longer than you think,” Grimsdottir said. “Don’t worry, we’ve got you covered. I’ll brief you once you’re en route.”
Lambert said, “While the CIA is putting the pieces into place, we’ve got another lead—or maybe a red herring—for you to chase down. Go ahead, Grim.”
“The microfiche you found in Kolobane’s office was a gold mine. There was nothing specific about either the
Trego
or the
Sogon,
but there was loads of information on the diesel engines installed aboard the
Trego
.”
“Another finger pointing at Iran?” Fisher asked.
“Maybe, maybe not. The engines were purchased and transported to Kolobane by a company called Song Woo Limited out of Hong Kong.”
“Another layer of the onion.”
“Unfortunately, I’ve found no trace of the company in cyberspace.”
“Which means a personal visit,” Fisher said.
28
HONG KONG
“
SLOW
down,” Fisher ordered the driver, whose grasp of English was weak but probably better than he let on. Some taxi drivers didn’t want to be bothered with “touristy” questions, and nothing shuts up a tourist quicker than a Hong Kong driver’s practiced “Eh?”—which is exactly what he gave Fisher now.
“Slow down,” Fisher repeated in Cantonese.
The driver slowed the taxi and Fisher stared out the window at the line of darkened windows trolling by. The characters on the windows were Chinese, but Fisher had memorized the ones he was looking for. It appeared in the window of the fourth storefront:
SONG WOO LTD
.
“Stop,” Fisher said in Cantonese.
The street was more alley than thoroughfare, dark and narrow and bracketed on both ends by the bustling nightlife of Kowloon, most of which involved laborers coming from or going to work, and shop owners closing down for the day. It had been raining all afternoon and the pavement glistened under the illumination of a lone streetlight farther down the alley. In the distance, like a faint melody, he could hear the sing-song babble of voices speaking in Mandarin and Cantonese.
Following Grimsdottir’s map, he’d taken a taxi from his hotel on Hong Kong Island and through the Cross Harbor Tunnel to this mostly commercial area of Kowloon—commercial only on its face, Fisher knew. Many of the businesses were owned and run by families who lived in apartments above the shops.
Song Woo Limited’s storefront stood out for two reasons: One, it was situated between an herbalist and a dim sum kiosk; two, the space was vacant—a rarity in Hong Kong, one of the most densly populated cities on the planet.
“What’s that sign say?” Fisher asked in English.
“Eh?”
Fisher handed a five-dollar bill—about forty HKD—over the seat.
“Say, ‘For Lease,’ then give phone number for agent.” The driver recited the number.
The fact that the space was still unleased told Fisher Song Woo Ltd. had only recently been vacated.
Fisher handed over another bill. “You know this place?” The driver grabbed the dollar, but Fisher held on. “You know how long it’s been here?”
“Maybe two month. Gone last week. Never see nobody.”
“Okay, take me back.”
The driver drove to the end of the alley and turned onto the main road. Fisher let him get three blocks away, then said, “Let me out here.” He paid the fare and got out, then flipped open his satellite phone and speed-dialed. Grimsdottir answered: “Extension forty-two ninety.”
“Hey, it’s me. Aunt Judy isn’t home, but she left a forwarding number.” He recited the leasing agent’s phone number. “Give her a call and let me know what you find out.”
“Will do.”
Fisher hung up and started walking. In the distance, over the stacked rooflines of Kowloon, he could see a rainbow of searchlights crisscrossing the sky. This was a nightly event in Hong Kong, a light show atop the sky-scrapers that lined the shores of Victoria Harbor. In contrast, here he was just a few miles inland walking past a coop full of clucking chickens. This was the lure of Hong Kong: two worlds, the modern and the traditional, crowded into a chunk of land one third the size of Rhode Island.
He took a circuitous route through the streets and alleys until certain he wasn’t being followed, then made his way back to the alley where Song Woo was located. He wasn’t hopeful of finding anything in the deserted office, but it was an i he needed to dot.
He found the alley as he’d left it: dark and deserted. He felt slightly naked without his tac-suit, but his pants were black and after turning it inside out, his jacket was as well.
He clicked on his flashlight and gave the door a quick study. He clicked off the flashlight and pulled a pick set from his pocket and went to work. Twenty seconds later, he got a satisfying
snick
as the lock snapped back. He eased open the door, slipped through, and shut it behind him.