Divide and Conquer

EIGHTEEN

The other men had gone to sleep on threadbare bed-rolls they had bought secondhand in Baku. But Maurice Charles was still awake, still sitting at the wooden table in the shepherd’s shack. Though he never had trouble sleeping before a mission, he did have trouble waiting for other people to do things. Things on which the mission depended. Until then, he would not — could not — rest.

When the phone finally beeped, he felt a nearly electric shock. This was it. The last unfinished business before H-hour.

Charles went to the equipment table. Beside the StellarPhoto Judge 7 was a Zed-4 unit, which had been developed by the KGB in 1992. The secure phone system was the size and general shape of an ordinary hard-cover book. The small, flat receiver fit neatly into the side. It was a remarkable improvement over the point-to-point radios Charles had used when he was first starting out. Those had a range of two and one-half miles. The Zed-4 utilized a series of satellite links to pick up cellular transmissions from around the world. A series of internal audio enhancers and boosters virtually eliminated breakup and lost signals.

The Zed-4 was also quite secure. Most secure-phone calls, including the United States Tac-Sat units, were encrypted with a 155-digit number. In order to crack the code, eavesdroppers had to factor that into its two-component prime numbers. Even using sophisticated computers like the Cray 916, that could take weeks. The CIA had managed to cut that time into days by stealing computer time from personal computers. In 1997, the agency began using Internet servers to piggyback the numbers into home computer systems. Small amounts of memory were appropriated to work on the problem without the user being aware of it. Networked throughout a system of millions of PCs, the CIA was able to add gigabytes of computation power to the problem. It also created a problem for counterprogrammers, since it was not possible to shut down the CIA’s so-called Stealth Field System. Thus, the Zed-4 was created using a complex encryption code of 309 digits. Even the SFS lacked sufficient power to break that code in a timely fashion.

Charles answered on the third ring. “B-sharp,” he said. That was the receiver code name.

“C-natural,” said the caller.

“Go ahead,” said Charles.

“I’m across the street from the target,” said the caller. “They’re bringing him out the side door.”

“No ambulance?”

“No,” said the caller.

“Who’s with him?” Charles asked.

“Two men,” said the caller. “Neither of them in uniform.”

Charles smiled. Americans were so predictable. If there were more than one operative, they invariably went to the user’s manual. “How to Be a Soldier or Spy,” Rule Fifty-three: Put the man above the mission. That thinking went at least as far back as the United States cavalry out West. Whenever the more aggressive Native American tribes like the Apaches were being pursued, they would stop to attack homesteaders. The warriors would always rape one of the women, leaving her where the cavalry was certain to find her. Invariably, the soldiers would send the woman back to the fort with an escort. That would not only delay the pursuing column but leave them depleted.

“Is backup in place?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Then take them,” Charles said.

“It’s done,” the caller said confidently. “Out.”

The phone went dead. Charles hung up.

That was it. The last piece. He’d allowed the one agent to live to draw the others out. An injection in the neck, a fast-acting bacterial pneumonia, and the entire local cast was out of commission. Now there would be no one to put pieces together, to stop him from completing the mission.

Charles had one more call to place before he went to bed. It was to a secure line in Washington, to one of the few men who knew of Charles’s involvement in this operation.

To a man who didn’t follow the rule book.

To a man who helped devise one of the most audacious schemes of modern times.