Payback

54

Rubens swiveled in his desk chair, listening as Jackson detailed what he had discovered over the course of the last two days. When he had asked to speak to Rubens, the weapon had not been discovered. Now the images from Peru seemed a graphic verification of Jackson’s work, though he apparently had not been told about them yet. Rubens listened to the ambassador, trying not to interrupt or prejudice him; he wanted as much raw information as possible before saying anything that might influence the researcher’s opinion or presentation of the facts.

“The arms dealer worked in Russia and the Middle East, traveling back and forth,” Jackson told him. “He must have been planted or cultivated around the time of Bosnia, because there are no references to him earlier than that. There are two different possibilities for the program that he was part of, but wherever he started, he quickly became more important. There’s a reference to someone working with the CIA in Moscow in 1999. They used the code word Sholk or ‘silk’ in Russian, which is from ‘IIIëJIK.’” Jackson spelled the Cyrillic letters out. “I’m not very good with Cyrillic letters.”

“That’s quite all right.”

“You see, the Cyrillic is important, because they use that for an operative in Syria the next year,” explained Jackson. “And it’s in several intercepts a few months before Iron Heart begins — the Russians may have been on to him by then.”

“You don’t think that’s a coincidence?”

“Unlikely, given the way they were assigning identities at the time. But possible. Notice the parallels — again in Afghanistan after the American action there, and then in Moscow.”

Jackson had unearthed a number of communications and vouchers for money, tracing through four different projects. While only the CIA officer who had “run” Sholk would know for sure, Sholk was most likely the asset who had gotten involved when Brazil tried to buy nuclear warheads from the renegade Russian in Iron Heart.

NSA intercepts of e-mails showed that a Russian arms dealer had supplied weapons to Middle Eastern terrorists after several meetings in Beirut. Sholk was in Beirut the same time as at least two of the sales.

He was clearly the same person. Which meant that the CIA had had a man who gave weapons to terrorists on its payroll.

And then they’d brought him into Iron Heart. He helped make the deal — and mysteriously died in a plane crash when it was done.

A very convenient plane crash. Though Jackson didn’t say it, Rubens thought it very possible that by then Sholk had become a liability. Destroying his plane with a shoulder-launched missile or a bomb would have been child’s play.

But Sholk’s background wasn’t the most interesting thing Jackson had discovered.

“There were three warheads discussed in one of the original communications from Brazil. ‘Three bags of bread’ were the words they used.” The ambassador passed a yellow sheet of paper across the conference table to Rubens — the original decrypted translation of a communication sent to Russia that the NSA had intercepted, the message that had probably gotten Iron Heart started in the first place.

“And then there’s this photo.” said Jackson, laying the paper onto Rubens’ desk. “This was of the shipping point, the evening right before the raid.”

The paper was a print of a satellite photo taken by a KH- 11A spy satellite. The warheads were small rectangular boxes in the lower right-hand comer of the photo, identified by a photo interpreter at the time as the payload of SA-10 “Grumble” missiles. Roughly five feet long and about three feet across, they looked like ordinary crates; the interpreter relied on information about packaging and other data to classify them.

“This is why the search in Peru was so extensive after the plane went down,” said Jackson. “They had the warhead on the ground already. They got to the plane and for some reason worried that there was another one. They followed the exact same procedure they would if an American plane had gone down with a bomb. But they never mention it in the report.”

“Because they didn’t find anything,” said Rubens.

“Probably. They might have seen something as simple as a flight plan suggesting another stop, or some document, or even an extra set of tiedowns and decided to investigate. They didn’t find Sholk, either.” Jackson pointed to one of the printouts. “You can see the report of the helicopter crew that took the bodies out — there are only two bodies, and they’re identified as the pilot and first officer of the airplane that crashed.”

“Perhaps his body was so incinerated they never found it.”

“Maybe. But there’s a long ground search near the plane and nothing is recorded as being found. They don’t mention that his corpse was identified. There’s no call for records that I can see.”

“The CIA officer in charge of the mission would have known him by sight.”

“Notice that he never specifically mentions in the report that the unnamed asset — Sholk — died.”

Rubens got up from his seat and began pacing around the room. How much of this did Collins know? Rubens wondered.

Probably everything.

“I don’t want to mislead you,” continued Jackson. “There are many references to two warheads in the material. Both of those were accounted for.”

“Three hours ago, a Peruvian army unit made a raid on a guerrilla hideout on the border of the Amazonian area of the country,” Rubens told Jackson. “Not terribly far from Ecuador. They found something they believe is a nuclear bomb. They also found a truck and maps for Lima, along with some other documents.”

“This bomb?”

“Obviously that’s the question we’ll have to try to answer. I have some people on the way there to make sure it is a nuclear warhead. It seems rather… interesting.”

“Yes,” said Jackson.

“I’d like to know the identity of the arms dealer, Sholk,” said Rubens. “Can you figure it out?”

“Maybe. But it won’t be easy,” said Jackson. “Wouldn’t it be much easier to ask the CIA?”

Rubens leaned against his bookcase without answering.

“You don’t think they’ll tell you,” said Jackson. “And you don’t trust them to tell you the truth.”

Rubens pressed his lips together. “There is that.”

“If he’s dead…”

“Ordinarily that would make no difference. In this case, we could follow the procedure to get his name. We will follow that procedure. But I’d like you to undertake it as well.”

Jackson nodded. In truth, the CIA did not appear to warrant any trust in this case.

“I’ll look into it right away,” he told Rubens. “May I make a suggestion?”

“Please.”

“I wouldn’t let that weapon stay in anyone’s hands. It’s too tempting.”

“I quite agree.”

As soon as Jackson had gone, Rubens picked up the phone to call Hadash. It was an ingrained reflex — he had always shared important intelligence, even hunches, with the national security adviser. If Jackson’s theory was correct — if this was a warhead involved in Iron Heart — the implications were immense.

But in the few brief seconds it took for the call to go-through and the national security adviser to come on the line, Rubens reconsidered. It wasn’t that he doubted the evidence Jackson had just shown him; on the contrary. But he was unsure now of Hadash’s standing in the government — and his attitude toward him. Maybe he couldn’t depend on his former teacher for advice. Maybe telling Hadash was the worst thing to do.

“Bill? What’s the latest on Peru?” asked Hadash when he came on the line.

“I have people en route to verify the find,” he told Hadash. “I understand the president and the secretary of state have been talking with the Peruvian government. They seem to have very little information. Otherwise, nothing has changed in the last hour since our conference call with the secretary of defense. I did see a note just a short while ago that the aircraft carrier Reagan and her escorts have been ordered to sail for Lima. They’re three days away.”

Hadash grunted.

“I’m drawing up a plan to take custody of the weapon, drawing on resources we have in the area for the existing mission,” continued Rubens. “It can be put into motion as soon as the president gives the word.”

“The president has not made that decision yet. It’s not a foregone conclusion that he will.”

“I understand.”

“We need to know definitively whether that is a warhead or not,” said Hadash. “We need precise data on it, an absolute location, information about the unit that found it—”

“We’ll have all the information within hours.”

Should he tell Hadash about the connection with Iron Heart? It was best to wait. Dean and Karr would be there soon; at that point, he’d know for sure.

“Did you read the draft of the president’s statement?” said Hadash.

“Yes.”

Marcke was due to go on national television at 9:00 p.m. eastern time, announcing the discovery and saying that he had asked Peru to turn the weapon over to the International Atomic Energy Agency for dismantling. He was also going to reiterate what had been American policy since John F. Kennedy confronted Khrushchev during the Cuban Missile Crisis: no nuclear weapons would be allowed in the Western Hemisphere.

What else he would say depended in large part on what the Peruvians said to him.

“Was there something else, Bill?” asked Hadash.

“Why didn’t you tell me you were thinking of resigning?” blurted Rubens.

Hadash didn’t answer. It had come out unbidden, but now that it had, Rubens told his old friend what he truly felt.

“I think, considering how long we’ve known each other, you might have mentioned it,” he told Hadash.

“I really can’t discuss it at the moment,” said Hadash. “I’m sure you understand.”

No, I don’t, thought Rubens. But instead of saying that, he simply hung up.