Jihad

CHAPTER 82

The air conditioning in the secure conference room in the White House basement was on the fritz, and Rubens estimated that the temperature was no higher than sixty-five degrees. CIA Director Louis Zackart and Debra Collins huddled around a carafe of coffee for warmth. Even Secretary of Defense Art Blanders, who made a habit of attending even the most formal cabinet meeting in shirt sleeves, had left his suit jacket on.

Bing entered the room with the president. Rubens reminded himself not to read anything into that; the national security advisor might very well have been stalking him in the hall.

“Gentlemen, ladies, good morning,” said Marcke, his tone as brisk as the air in the room, “thank you for getting up early for me. Let’s get going. Where are we, Billy?”

“The Saudi situation is stable,” said Rubens.

He ran over the highlights quickly, indicating that the Saudis had moved after tentatively linking the two al-Qaeda contacts to the oil fields; more arrests were expected and the entire military was on alert. He then moved on to Asad — identified even here only as Red Lion — noting that he had spent the night in Detroit.

“The operation is proceeding, but it is at a difficult stage,” said Rubens. “We still do not know what the American target is.”

“An attack on the Alaskan pipeline would be on par with an attack against the Saudi oil fields,” said Defense Secretary Blanders. “It’ll be on that sort of scale.”

Rubens listened as other possible targets were named: natural gas pipelines, large oil fields in Texas and the Gulf of Mexico. But the target did not have to be bigger than the Saudi oil fields to have a large impact on the U.S. Striking even a small American facility would send tremors through the commodities market. Hurricane Katrina had proven how sensitive the system was to disruption, and while that disaster had by now been accommodated, the market was still shaky. The price of oil had jumped twenty dollars a barrel following the attack in Germany. A successful strike in the U.S. might be triple that, at least in the short term. The successive attacks, fully successful or not, would make it seem as if al-Qaeda was gaining momentum in its war on the West. Within weeks it would cost over two hundred dollars to fill an economy car with gas.

“Rather than guessing or waiting for Red Lion to tell us what he has in mind,” said Bing, “we should arrest him now and find out what the target is.”

“I doubt we could break him in time,” said Rubens. “I doubt we can break him at all.”

“Maybe arresting him will stop the operation altogether,” she said.

“Arresting al-Qaeda’s number three man last year didn’t stop the attack on our embassy in Pakistan. I doubt it would work now.”

“These points were discussed during the planning stage,” said Blanders. “I seriously doubt any interrogation will be as effective as the implanted bug. And if we want to put him on trial—”

“We can’t put him on trial,” said Bing. “If it comes out that we implanted a bug in him, we’re finished.”

Rubens didn’t particularly relish the idea of a trial; too much could go wrong, and inevitably some information about the operation would slip out. Still, he resented Bing’s implication that Desk Three was operating illegally, and her insistence on revisiting decisions that had been made before she was appointed.

He resented Bing, period.

“The legal issues were thoroughly researched beforehand,” said Rubens. “This is just another instance of electronic information gathering.”

“I’ve read the background legal papers, thank you, Mr. Rubens,” said Bing. “And in no case do they mention what would happen in a U.S. court. The idea was always to render Red Lion to Yemen for justice. Assuming he was alive.”

“We’ll have the lawyers work this bullshit out,” said the president angrily. “I want the bastard to pay for what he’s done, and I want him to do it here. I want a trial — I want to show the world exactly what kind of slime advocates killing innocent women and children. Bitty — have your people stay on him until they know exactly what the target is, then I want him in custody. The bug won’t be used to make the case. The attorney general assures me we’ll have plenty of evidence without it.”

“Yes, sir, Mr. President,” said Rubens as Marcke rose and abruptly left the room.