Volcano (23 page)

Mooney laughed out loud and started to pour himself another,
then realized the bottle was empty. God damned wouldn’t happen when Mooney was
president!
 
When
he
was in
charge, booze cabinets would be stocked across the nation- and Uncle Sam would
foot the bill.

Say, not a bad idea...Mooney thought, slumping lower in his
chair, not unlike the Asians freely distributing opiates
. Placate the masses.

Tom startled at the sound of glass breaking in the front
hall.

What, god dammit?
he
thought,
stumbling to his feet.

Mooney stepped into the corridor on unsteady knees and
stared at the intruder in disbelief. “
You?”
he said, staggering back
from the pistol aimed at his head.

***

“Something’s wrong about this,” Ana told Mark. “Dead wrong.
I can feel it in my bones. There’s something my father’s not telling me.”

She and Mark sat in the basement DOS cafeteria. Here and
there a few weary workers from the skeleton crew sat stone-faced drinking
coffee.

Mark swirled another packet of sugar into his cup and looked
up. “It was your father’s plan.”

“
What?”
Ana asked, nearly upsetting the small two top
between them. “What do you mean?”

“Volcano.”
 
Mark
took a tentative sip of coffee, grimaced and tore open another sugar packet.

“Your blood is going to crystallize,” Ana told him. “Now,
what’s this about Volcano? What is that- some kind of
code
name
? And what do you mean it was
my father’s plan?
”

Mark nodded and set down his cup, apparently finally
satisfied with its sugar content. “An old DOS plan, actually. One developed by
your Dad, Tom Mooney and their old Chinese friend Au Yang.”

Ana bit into her lower lip and stared down at her coffee,
realizing for the first time just how immune she’d become to the sting of
surprise.
Immune or perhaps cynical.
The fact her
father had concealed one more detail scarcely phased her at all.

 
“Au Yang?”
 
Ana said.
“How
old of a friend?”

“What do you mean how old?
Old World War II
connection, at least in his seventies by now.
Late seventies.”

“Mark,”
Ana
said, leaning forward,
“the man who-”

Mark shook his head. “Au Yang is dead.”

“How do you know?”

“Your father received verification this morning.”

“From?”

“Beijing.”

“Our guys or theirs?”

“What are you getting at?” Mark asked, taking a big swallow
from his cup.

“Our guys or theirs, Mark?”

“Who reported Au Yang’s death? I believe the information
came through a DOS connection.”

Ana fell back in her chair with a hoot.

“What’s so god damned funny?” Mark asked, leaning forward.

“I no longer believe the DOS when they tell me someone’s
dead,” Ana said, with a smug smile. “But anyway, what was the deal with this
plan- Volcano? You’re not saying...”
Oh my God.
“Mark, are you telling
me the analyst scare, all this hell breaking loose right now, is the
manifestation of some old operation planned by my father?”

Mark looked at her but said nothing.

“Jesus Christ!
 
And just when were you and my father going to get around to telling me?”

“Keep your voice down,” Mark cautioned through barely-parted
lips.

“Jesus.”
 
Ana
picked up her own cup that had gone completely cold and set it back down again.
“What the hell was the idea of this thing?
To destroy the
USA?
Disable
its own
military intelligence capability?
How much fricking sense does that make?”

“No, Ana,” Mark said, his voice a hoarse whisper. “Volcano
was designed as a way to bring down communist regimes, cripple their
intelligence infrastructure in order to simplify the removal of a dictator. The
plan was to work in three phases. The first phase involved terrorizing the
intelligence gathering community to force a mass exodus of its skilled work
force.”

Of course, it was all starting to make sense.

“The second phase involved toppling the dictatorship.”

“Or, in this reverse case scenario,” Ana guessed,
“democracy- by throwing a blow-out party. Oh my God,” Ana said, cupping her
hands to her mouth. Oh…my...God.”

“What? What is it?” Mark asked, reaching across the table to
steady her elbows with his hands.

Ana looked at him and knew, from its cool pallor, her face
was devoid of color. “We’ve been barking up the wrong tree, Mark.”

“What? What on earth are you talking about?”

“Didn’t you hear what I just said? A ‘blow-out’ party
?!
”

“As in explosive? Hell yes, Ana. That’s what we’re so damned
worried about.
Some kind of chemical weapon, something that’s
going to blow the lid off The Old Post Office or at least everyone inside.

“That’s why your Dad had me get the lists, pull all those
champagne imports. Soda cans, too. Anything that could possibly serve as a
receptacle for-”

“How about balloons?” Ana said flatly.

Mark guffawed. “
Balloons
? Get real, Ana. What on
earth could you-
”

“Mark,”
Ana
said, slapping a palm
to the table in agitation and suddenly feeling just like her husband. “Joe
mentioned something about- ”

Mark set his jaw. “No matter what I think of him, I’m sure
McFadden wouldn’t have told you-”

“I don’t think he
meant to
,” Ana said. “Least ways it
seemed like he was making tracks to cover it up.”

Mark emphatically shook his head. “No way. No fricking way.
What are you suggesting? Some sort of gas-
in balloons
?”

“What’s so absurd about it?”
Ana asked.
“It’s the one thing nobody would think to check!
 
You yourself said you were looking for
more typical containers- like the cola cans in Tokyo...”

Mark gleamed at her and brought a hand to his chin. “Hang
on. Maybe if we were dealing with some sort of binary product. Two chemicals
that would react only when combined.”

“That would eliminate the transportation problems, the risk
of things blowing prematurely,” Ana said, egging him on. “One agent maybe in
the tanks- something that looks and smells like oxygen. Anything inert that
would allow the balloons to drop rather than rise.”

“Combined with what, Ana?” Mark pressed. “Something
inside
the goddamned balloons?”

Ana set her brow in concentration and leaned forward,
lowering her voice. “Precisely.
A powder, some type of
chemical resin.
Separated from the agent in the tank, no problem. But
fill those balloons for the big drop at the Old Post Office and-”

“Christ,” Mark said, slamming back in his chair. “They do
drop balloons at that event. Straight from a big net near the ceiling at
midnight.”

“Balloons that float
down,
Mark.
Onto
the unsuspecting masses.
Until the gasses reacting inside expand to
one...two...three.”

“Kaboom,” Mark finished with a frown. “Christ, and if we’re
dealing with even small doses of a chemical weapon like Sarin, that would be
highly toxic in an enclosed area.”

“Something like Sarin-plus,” Ana told him. Something that
was being manufactured in that plant Joe was sent to investigate. Something
very specific, maybe, that’s been in the works for more than two years just
waiting to be implemented as the final phase to this explosive plan.”

“Not quite the final phase,” Mark said, shaking his head.
“Phase three
involved the installation of a new regime. Under Volcano’s
original premise, that would have been some sort of US-government supported
democracy.”

“So, in our current situation,” Ana said, feeling her skin
go hot and the
styrofoam
cup slip in her hand, “we’re
talking a dictatorship. Either the Arabs or the Chinese are planning to remove
the President from the White House and insert a maniacal dictator in his
place?”

“That’s the worst case scenario.”
 
Mark set his jaw. “That’s why I’m
supposed to notify the Commander in Chief.”

“
Only
if my father doesn’t come back from wherever it
is he’s gone? Are you crazy,
Mark
? Why wait? Somebody
needs to notify the President now!”
 
Ana made a move to stand from the table, but Mark reached out an arm to
restrain her.

“Calling the White House now will only incite panic.”

“Well, maybe we
need
to incite panic.”

Mark gritted his teeth. “This is a DOS problem, Ana. A
problem that starts and ends with us.”

“We hope!”
Ana said.

“Better that the Commander in Chief see this whole mess in
the after-action report once the DOS has had the chance to clean everything
up.”

“Well, you better goddamned hurry,”
Ana
said, her eyes brimming with fury as she checked the clock on the wall. “You’ve
got less than twenty-four hours!”

“Ana,” Mark said, leaning across the table and gripping her
by the elbows. “If you really want to get involved in DOS work, there’s
something you need to understand. We’ve been granted
a
certain
latitude to get our job done. What the President doesn’t know
about, he can’t be held accountable for.”

“Are you telling me the President hasn’t even been advised
of the scare? That it didn’t make the papers?”

Mark hung his head but maintained his grip on her arms.

“How, Mark? How is it possible that so many deaths...
”
She paused. “Just how many deaths
were
there
anyway?”

“Actual casualties?” Mark asked, looking up with tired eyes.
“A couple dozen. The threats, home and systems invasions were much wider
spread.”

“Still,” Ana said, shaking herself free of his crushing
grip. “Two dozen is no small number. Surely, some frightened party would have
run to-” Ana stopped talking. Mark’s expression was one she didn’t recognize,
but
its
meaning was completely clear. Whatever Ana was
asking she didn’t have a
need to know.

“You’re not going to tell me, are you?”
Ana
asked.
“Not going to tell me how it is none of this got into the papers,
how it’s possible even the President himself doesn’t know of this imminent
threat to his survival.”

“The President is always protected,” Mark assured her,
pushing back his chair. “And based on what you’ve told me, we’re just going to
make him a little more so!”

“Fine,” Ana said, springing to her feet and grabbing Mark’s
arm. “But how about my father?”

“Your father,” Mark agreed, looking her in the eye, “might
very well be in danger.”

***

“You’ve found out about the plan,” Mooney said, squinting in
the glare of the hall light.

“I
wrote
the god damned plan,” Albert said, leveling
his weapon.

“And so what?” Mooney asked, his heavy jaw reverberating.
“You’ve come here to kill me?”

“
Why?”
Albert asked. “How could you do it, Tom? Turn
your back on your own country?”

Tom’s brow furrowed as his eyes darted from Albert’s pistol
to the front door, at Albert’s back. “My country,” Tom growled, “is fucking
falling apart!”

“With plenty of thanks to you,” Albert answered. “How could
you
do
it? Me, I can understand. You’ve never really felt you’ve gotten
the fair shake have you, Tom?”

Tom wobbled on his feet and made an effort to step forward,
but Albert stopped him by raising his pistol.

“And you know what’s funny, so god damned funny?” Albert
laughed. “Is that somehow Isa
knew
.”

“What the hell you talking about?” Mooney snarled. “Your
granddaughter?”

“I’m talking about my wife-”

“Your wife is dead, you crazy old man!”

Albert released his safety and took a step forward.

Mooney retreated against the far wall.

“My wife may be dead,” Albert said, “but she had a gift for
seeing things, old friend. And before she died she told me about you.”

“I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about,” Mooney
said shaking his sweaty head.

“Isa told me you weren’t to be trusted. ‘Watch your back
with that one,’ she said. ‘Sometimes old friends make the worst adversaries.’”

“Hogwash!” Mooney shouted. “Isa would have never said that
about me. You’re fucking making that up!”

“You still haven’t answered my question,” Albert said,
taking another step forward.

Tom reached inside his coat and a bullet pinged through the
air, sending Tom doubling forward.

Albert looked over his shoulder at Joe McFadden. “My God,
son,” Albert said, staring in disbelief, at the Barretta in McFadden’s hand,
“you didn’t!” But Joe just stood there looking numb.

“Why?” Mooney said, looking up and dropping to his knees.
“It was the commies, Al. The fucking commies...”

Joe took a giant step forward toward his uncle.

An Arab stepped from the shadows behind Joe. “Hold it right
there, Mr. Smith!” Al Fahd said, angling his smoking pistol at McFadden’s head.

Both Albert and Joe slowly lowered their weapons.

Mooney curled into a ball and slumped onto the hardwood
floor.

“God damn son of a bitch!” Joe said, spinning back toward
the Arab.

“I just did your family name a favor,” Al Fahd grinned
around his unlit cigar. “Which of the two of you,” he asked, pivoting his
weapon between Joe and Albert, “is next?”

“Not another move, Al Fahd!”