Threat Level Black (21 page)

The ship appeared in the distance. It was a small tanker, riding low in the water as if carrying fuel, though as a man who had spent his whole life on land, Kuong did not appreciate this piece of deception.

What he did appreciate was the tarpaulin-covered deck amidships. His revenge.

The helicopter swooped lower, its skids within six feet of the deck at the stern. There was not enough space for it to land, but Kuong was prepared. He opened the door and stepped out, grasping the line at the side that had been prepared for him. He lowered himself slowly, using his feet rather than his hands to control the brief descent. As he reached the deck he handed his thick gloves to the crewman who had come to assist him, then turned and opened his arms to the captain, a childhood friend who was one of the few men in the world he would trust with his life.

The captain folded him against his chest, then turned and yelled an order.

The helicopter had begun to rise, starting away. There was a light swoosh nearby, a plume of smoke as the ship’s crewman fired an antiair missile. A half-second later the shoulder-launched SAM struck the helicopter. Kuong turned to watch as the aircraft stuttered forward in the sky for a few meters before bowing down into the waves.

Things were proceeding very well indeed.

The NADT security people looked embarrassed and even pained, but neither would budge nor say anything except that they were following their directions. Colonel Howe was not permitted in the facility.

“All right, get me Nancy Meile,” Howe said finally, asking for the head of security.

“Sorry, sir, she’s unavailable.”

“She’s not here, or she’s not available?”

“Not available, sir.”

Howe knew from experience that Meile generally did not schedule meetings after eight
A
.
M
., just so she could be available to the security details. Nonetheless, he asked for the shift supervisor. He was told the man was also unavailable.

“And my access is denied?”

“Your clearance expired.” The guard twisted the screen around so Howe could see it from the car. The other man came over to the window and squatted down. “Sir, it’s probably just a computer glitch, we know. But we can’t let you past. It’s the rules. It would be our jobs if we did. We’re sorry. It’s not like we don’t know who you are.”

The man rose. Howe knew the guards were just doing their duty—and that they were in no-win positions. They probably thought he’d have them fired when his appointment was made official.

On the other hand, they could also be fired immediately for letting him through now.

“All right,” he said, stifling his anger, “I know it’s nothing personal. Just do your jobs.”

The guards nodded grimly as he backed up to turn around.

Howe’s first call was to Delano, who apparently was in the same meeting as the security people. Howe didn’t bother leaving a message.

He put in a call to Blitz and ended up talking to his assistant, who of course was sympathetic but had no idea what was up. She promised to have the national security advisor call, but warned him it might be a while: The Korea situation had made him even busier than normal.

Howe ended up at a diner, thinking things through. Halfway through his first cup of coffee he decided it had to be just a computer glitch. He called Meile and left a message, asking her to get back to him; he did the same with Delano. The second cup of coffee made him suspicious once more and he made a call to a friend of his who worked in the Joint Chiefs of Staff J2 intelligence section and asked for some background on how the clearance system worked, explaining what had happened. His friend told him mistakes were certainly possible, though the circumstances seemed odd. The fact that he hadn’t been notified argued for a mistake. But his friend had no way of finding out why the clearance had been cut, and he was too busy today to hunt around. Howe thanked him anyway. He was just hitting the End button on his cell phone when Andy Fisher came into the diner and walked over to his booth.

“Colonel Howe. How’s the coffee?”

“Andy Fisher. What are you up to?”

“Looking for you,” said the FBI agent, sliding into the booth.

“Excuse me, sir,” said the waitress coming over. “You can’t smoke in here.”

“Don’t those laws annoy you?” asked Fisher.

The waitress was unmoved. Fisher asked for a cup of coffee but made no sign of extinguishing the cigarette.

“You’re looking for me?” Howe asked.

“All morning,” said Fisher.

“What for?”

The waitress reappeared with two coffee cups: one filled with coffee, and one with water to extinguish the cigarette.

“I heard you took a trip overseas,” said Fisher as the waitress walked away.

“I can’t talk about that,” said Howe.

“Sure you can. My clearance is higher than yours.”

You don’t know how true that is,
thought Howe.

“Obviously, I already know about Korea,” said Fisher.

Howe didn’t answer.

“Look, Colonel, I can get the paperwork and the official orders to make you spill the beans if I have to, but what’s the sense?” asked Fisher. “Making me spend the whole day chasing down my boss, the military liaison, the NSC people—you know how many cups of coffee that’s going to take?”

“Let’s go for a ride,” Howe suggested. “We can’t talk here.”

It was the sort of deal Fisher appreciated: straightforward tit-for-tat, no strings. Howe would tell him everything he knew without making him go through the bureaucratic rigmarole to get proper authorization. In exchange, Fisher would use his wiles to find out who had pulled his clearance.

“It’s not that I don’t trust the people I’m asking already,” Howe told him. “I just want to make sure.”

“Oh, I get it,” said Fisher, who was now curious himself to find out who was screwing Howe and why.

As it turned out, though, Howe’s description of what had happened in Korea and Japan gave Fisher no more insight than what Kowalski had told him.

“Had to be somebody very, very important,” said Fisher. “Close to the top. Somebody the military would know.”

“A general or somebody?”

“At least.” Fisher’s list of missing North Korean leaders was extensive and started with Kim Jong Il himself.

“Thing that bugs me is why they didn’t kill you when they had the chance,” said Fisher. “He just knocked you out.”

Howe shrugged. “I made him get rid of his gun.”

“Probably had another one. Or he should have. Sets this up so carefully—probably covered a dozen bases with people—then doesn’t kill you? You sure there isn’t a deposit in a bank account somewhere I ought to know about?”

“Fuck you,” said Howe.

“What did he hit you with?”

“I didn’t see.”

“What’s the doctor say?”

“Something hard.”

“Big or small?”

“Hard.”

“Maybe it was a gun that couldn’t fire,” suggested Fisher. “It jammed or something. Maybe it was your lucky day.”

“I guess.”

Howe was the touchy type; the bank account question still bugged him. Most likely he thought his honor besmirched.
Tough to live like that around here,
thought Fisher, though it wasn’t useful to point out.

“You don’t believe in luck, Colonel?” Fisher asked.

“Not hardly.”

“Luck is greatly undervalued in America. Except by people who play the lottery.” Fisher took a puff of his cigarette. “I would lay money that they’re looking for you now.”

“Why?”

“Because you can identify who it was who got away.”

“I can’t,” said Howe. “I’ve already looked at all sorts of pictures. The debriefers had me do that at the embassy.”

“Yeah, but the bad guy doesn’t know that. You being followed?”

Howe twisted his head to look. “Am I?”

“I don’t think so. Let me off up there.” He pointed to a convenience store just ahead.

“What about your car?”

“Ah, it’s a Bureau car, don’t worry about it,” said Fisher. “You’re not going back to the diner, are you?”

“I’ll take you back if you want.”

“Actually, I don’t,” said Fisher.

“Fine.”

“Fine.”

Howe stopped the car. Fisher dug into his pocket and pulled out a business card. “Day or night, you call me,” he said, tapping his satellite phone. “This sucker always rings.”

“You’re going to keep your end of the bargain, right?”

“I will. One more favor,” added Fisher.

“What?”

“You see my boss, don’t give him the number. Okay? I’m pretty sure the paperwork on it got lost before it made his desk.”

Disaster had followed disaster. Providence had saved Faud from being arrested like the others, but the news of the raid on the warehouse in Staten Island shocked him. For surely the all-knowing God could have prevented such a catastrophe.

Blasphemy.
It was a grave sin even to think that.

Faud knew sin. He knew sin very well. He was trying to redeem himself, purify his soul as it must be purified.

Was this God’s way of testing him? Or was Faud’s way to paradise being blocked by a devil?

Surely it was the latter. Faud heard it in the boasts on the TV in the corner of the store, the policemen bragging that they had stopped a “nefarious plot.”

Nefarious.
What precisely did that word mean?

“Terrible,” said the woman behind the counter. Her skin was dark; she came from Pakistan. But he knew where she stood before she continued. “It shames us all. And makes it more difficult.”

“Yes,” Faud told her. He handed over a dollar for the newspaper. The system of passing messages was complicated: One paper would have a key or a clue referring to another. In this case he needed the
Times
to know which classified in the other to follow.

“What do you do?” demanded a voice behind him.

Faud froze. He was the only other person in the store, so it was clear he was being addressed.

Had they caught him too?

He turned slowly to face the person who had spoken. He saw with some relief that it was only the middle-aged black man who ran the store.

“What do you do?” asked the man again.

“I’m a student.”

“I meant, what do you do about these terrible things?” said the man, shaking his head.

Faud nodded and started to leave.

“Wait!” said the woman at the counter.

Faud turned to her. Something in her eye showed him he had given himself away.

Fear had betrayed him. He was unworthy; his cowardice was shameful in the sight of angels.

“You forgot your change,” she said.

He forced a smile, went back for the money. Hopefully this would end soon.

Blitz rushed into his office, head tilted forward, walking so fast that he nearly bowled Mozelle over. As if the difficulties in Korea weren’t enough, the Israelis had just launched a massive raid against Palestinian terror groups, rounding up more than a hundred leaders of Hamas. Under other circumstances Blitz might have applauded the move, but it came at a particularly bad time: The U.S. secretary of state was due in the region next week for the latest round of peace talks, and now there were sure to be reprisals and more unrest. Blitz’s staff was already working on a paper listing potential fallout.

“Colonel Howe needs to talk to you,” said Mozelle as she backed up to let him pass.

“God, I forgot all about him. Did John call about the CIA review?”

“He was going to e-mail you.”

Blitz dropped into his chair behind his desk, grumbling to himself. He wasn’t sure exactly what to tell Howe, but he couldn’t let the poor guy hang out there, either.

“Coffee?” asked Mozelle. She’d already figured out the answer: A fresh cup was in her hand.

“Thanks.”

“Where do you want to start?” she asked.

“Better get Howe on the line,” he told her. “Might as well get that over with.”

“Then you’ll want to talk to Keiger at State.”

“All right.”

Blitz opened his e-mail queue and began going through his messages. He was about three e-mails in when Mozelle buzzed through, indicating Howe was on the line.

“Colonel, I’m sorry,” said Blitz immediately, without waiting for Howe to say anything. “The CIA is throwing a roadblock up.”

“That’s why my clearance was pulled?”

“It’ll be restored. They moved ahead before I could cut it off.” Blitz had decided to simply have interim clearances posted through his office; he scanned the list of his e-mails to see if he had received confirmation that this would happen.

“What’s going on?” Howe asked. “Am I being screwed here? Because if I’m being screwed, I don’t want the job. The hell with it.”

“Colonel…Bill. You have to calm down. This is unfortunately something that occasionally happens around here. I’ll deal with it. I promise you, I’ll deal with it. What happened was that the CIA launched a review, and as part of the standard practice, certain individuals who aren’t under immediate control—say, a military person still working in a certain area—the clearance gets—”

“The CIA is screwing me?”

“It’s not clear, precisely,” said Blitz, who wasn’t about to stick up for the agency. “On the one hand, the investigation has nothing to do with you. But on the other hand, they may be using it—
may,
I emphasize—they may just be trying to put pressure on. You’re in a bit of a unique position. It’s possible that they’re looking for you to genuflect.”

“You know what they can do with that.”

Blitz drew a breath.

“Colonel, let me ask you a question,” he said. “You knew nothing about the Korea operation until the Pentagon contacted you, correct?”

“That’s a question?”

“Yes.”

“I didn’t know anything about it, no.”

“And you’ve already told several people everything that happened.”

“Absolutely.”

“Then there’s not going to be a problem. One of my aides will clear this up for you. As a matter of fact, it may already have been cleared up. In the meantime, you can just go about talking to the board members.”

“How the hell am I supposed to do that?”

There were already two other lights lit on his phone, the next calls he had to make. Blitz decided to push on: Either Howe would stick with him or not. He couldn’t afford any more time on this today.

“It’s important that NADT be headed by someone with your experience and abilities,” Blitz told him. “This isn’t a roadblock, this is a pothole. Please don’t get discouraged.”

“Right.” Howe hung up, clearly unhappy.

Blitz hit the Next button, moving ahead.