Acts of War

TWENTY-SIX

Martha Mackall had been conferring with Op-Center Press Officer Ann Farris about how best to present Paul Hood's mission in the media. Martha was seated behind her desk and Ann was working on a leather couch, her laptop resting back near her knees. Together, the women plugged phrases like "exploratory intercession" and "interpositive mediation" into Ann's rough-draft press release. The trick was to position the post-flood mission as a diplomatic one rather than as intelligence-oriented, Hood's directorship of Op-Center notwithstanding.

Suddenly, it seemed as if a second flood had washed over Martha's office. First came Bob Herbert, who wheeled in with word that they had broken the repeating phone code from the ROC.

"We broke the pulse signal," he said proudly. "The beeps represent the numbers 722528573. That has to stand for RC2BKVKRD, which appears to translate as 'ROC to Bekaa Valley Kurds.' Our people are being taken to the Syrian Kurd stronghold in the Bekaa."

Even as Herbert was explaining the code, his wheelchair phone rang. He snatched it up. It was Chingmy Yau, one of his assistants, informing him that they'd lost the ROC on every one of their satellites.

"How can that be?" Herbert demanded. "Are you sure there isn't an equipment failure on this end?"

"Positive," said Chingmy. "It's as if someone nuked an area ten miles across. There's nothing but static."

"What about the Rhyolite?" Herbert asked. The Rhyolite was a small, orbiting radio telescope in a 22,300-mile-high geostationary orbit. Guiding a high-gain beam to earth, it was able to detect even the faintest electronic signals. The most common of these signals was side-lobe energy, radio beam energy which spilled at angles from the main beam. Sigint specialists were usually able to decipher the primary messages from the contents of this leakage.

"The Rhyolite's gone out too," Chingmy replied.

"It's got to be interference from the ROC," Herbert said.

"That's what we decided," Chingmy said. "We're working on reestablishing contact. But it's as if someone threw a blocking program into the ROC computers. They just don't want to let us in."

Herbert told his assistant to update him one way or the other. Less than a minute later, before he could return to discussing the Bekaa Valley message with Martha, his phone rang again.

"Yes, Ching?" he said. Only it wasn't his assistant this time.

"I have someone who wishes to speak with you," said the caller.

Herbert slapped the speaker button and fired a look at Martha. "Mike," he mouthed.

Martha turned to her computer keyboard and typed:

Priority One: Triangulate call on Bob Herbert's cell phone. Expedite.

She E-mailed the message to Radio Reconnaissance Director John Quirk, then listened to Herbert's conversation.

"What do you see when you look for your van?" asked the caller.

"First tell me," said Herbert, "with whom have I the pleasure of speaking."

"One who holds your van and its crew of six," the caller replied. "If you wish it to remain a crew of six instead of five, please answer."

Herbert swallowed his quick temper. "We see nothing when we look for the van," he replied.

"Nothing? Describe this nothing."

"We see color static," said Herbert. "Confetti. Glitter."

Herbert was watching Martha. She received a "Mapping in progress" reply from Quirk. From this point it would take the RRD another twenty-five seconds to position the caller.

"Is there anything we can do for you all?" Herbert asked pleasantly as he slipped into his old Philadelphia, Mississippi, drawl. "Maybe we can talk about this, uh — this situation? Find a way to help you."

"The only assistance we require is the following. We wish you to make certain that the Turkish government does not stop us from reaching and then crossing the border," the caller said.

"Surely, sir, you must understand that we don't have the authority to do that."

"Get it," the caller said. "If I ring you again, it will be so you can hear the sound of the bullet which ends the life of one of your spies."

A moment later the line went dead. Martha gave Herbert a thumbs-up.

"The ROC is exactly where the ES4 placed it," Martha said. "Right outside of Oguzeli, Turkey. It hasn't moved."

"But it will," Herbert said.

Martha swung her high-backed chair around so she was facing away from the others. Then she phoned her assistant and asked him to ring the Turkish Ambassador's office at the Chancery in Washington.

While she waited, Herbert tapped the armrests of his chair.

"What are you thinking, Bob?" Ann asked.

"I'm thinking that I can't get anyone over to Oguzeli in time to follow the ROC," he said. "And if we try to watch it from space, all we'll get is ten miles of video and audio garbage."

"Is there any other way you can do it?" Ann asked.

"I don't know," Herbert said angrily. He was mostly angry at himself that this had happened. Security was one of his areas of responsibility.

"What about the Russians?" Ann asked. "Paul is pretty close to General Orlov. Maybe their operations center in St. Petersburg can see it."

"We had a scrambler built into the ROC so they couldn't," Herbert said. "Paul may be close to Orlov, but Washington and Moscow are still just dating." He punched his open palm. "The world's most sophisticated mobile intelligence unit and it gets coldcocked. Worse, the terrorists have access to our new SINCGARS-V."

"What's that?" Ann asked.

"Single-Channel Ground and Airborne System VHF," Herbert said. "It's a radio which hops at random over a wide range of frequencies during a single broadcast. Most SINCGARS-V, like the ones used by the U.S. Army, make a few hundred hops a second. Our unit makes seven thousand hops. Even if it's picked up by an enemy satellite, it's virtually impossible to decode. The people who have the ROC have both the transmitter and receiver."

Martha waved them quiet as she spoke with the ambassador's executive secretary. Herbert sunk into a brooding silence. When Martha was finished, she turned the chair around. She was frowning.

"There's a bit of a setback," she said.

"What happened?" Ann asked.

"In fifteen minutes I'll be talking to Ambassador Kande about the terrorists' request for non-intervention," Martha said. "But her deputy assistant doesn't think we'll be able to swing any kind of a deal for them. The ambassador has been given marching orders to do whatever's necessary to help find the dam-busters and bring them in, dead or alive. Fact is, I expect I'll get a lot of pressure to tell the Turks what we know."

"Can't say I blame them," Herbert said, still brooding. "We could use a little more of that spirit in this town."

"Blind justice?" Martha asked. "Lynch mob justice?"

"No," Herbert replied. "Plain old justice. Not worrying about repercussions, like what nation is going to cut off our oil supplies if we do this, or which corporation is going to pull their billions from our banks if we do that, or which special interest group is going to get pissed off and uppity because we came down hard on some of their twisted brethren. That kind of justice."

"Unfortunately," Martha said, "that kind of justice and this kind of country weren't made for each other. Due process is one of the things which made this country great."

"And vulnerable," said Herbert. He exhaled. "Let's do this over a table of frozen yogurt when we're all done." He pointed toward Martha's computer. "Would you bring up a map of Turkey for me?"

She obliged. Herbert wheeled toward the desk.

"There are about three hundred miles of border between Turkey and Syria," he said. "If we've interpreted Mike's covert message correctly, and I think we have, the ROC is headed toward the Bekaa Valley. That starts about two hundred miles southwest of Oguzeli."

Martha measured the distance with her thumb and index finger. She compared it to the scale on the bottom. "I make it to be less than a hundred miles of border between Oguzeli and the Mediterranean."

"And the ROC'd be entering in a corridor much narrower than that," Herbert said. "With the Euphrates flooded by the dam blast, they'll probably stay pretty wide to the west of the river and then shoot straight down. That gives them a border window of about seventy miles to drop down through."

"That's still a lot of area to cover, isn't it?" asked Ann.

"And flyovers by Turkish jets or helicopters wouldn't be exactly low-profile," Martha said.

"We might not need aerial recon," Herbert said, "and seventy miles isn't bad if you know where to look." He reached the computer and traced a line down through Turkey into Lebanon. "A lot of that terrain isn't going to be ROC-friendly. There are only one or two good roads in that region. If I can find someone with contacts along those roads, we may be able to spot them."

"A Racman," Martha said.

Herbert nodded.

"Excuse me," said Ann. "A rack man?"

"R-A-C-man," said Herbert. "The Redcoats Are Coming. Instead of Paul Revere, Samuel Prescott, and William Dawes on horseback warning the militias of Lincoln and Concord, we use a phone relay of people watching from their windows or hilltops or marketplaces. They report the target's progress to the Racman, who reports to us. It's primitive but efficient. Usually, the only potential problems with the system are leaks along the Racline, someone warning the target that they are a target."

"I see," said Ann.

"But that usually isn't a problem with the people I'm thinking of using," Herbert said.

"Why not?" asked Ann.

"Because they cut the throat of anyone who turns on them," Herbert replied. He regarded the map. "If the Bekaa's our arena, then Striker will have to land in Tel Nef. Assuming they get Congressional approval to go forward from there, they move north into Lebanon and into the Bekaa. If a Racman can meet them there, we've got a chance of getting everyone out."

"And possibly saving the Regional Op-Center," Martha added.

Herbert wheeled around. "It's a shot," he said as he rolled quickly toward the door, "and a good one. I'll let you know what I can set up."

When he was gone, Ann shook her head. "He's amazing," she said. "Goes from James Bond to Huck Finn to Speed Racer in the space of a few minutes."

"He's the best there is," Martha said. "I only hope that's good enough to do what has to be done."