Line of Control

TWENTY-FIVE

Paul Hood was glad when Bob Herbert came to see him.

Hood had shut his office door, opened a box of Wheat Thins, and worked on the Op-Center budget cuts for the better part of the evening. He had left word with Bugs Benet that he was not to be disturbed unless it were urgent. Hood did not feel like end-of-the-day chitchat. He did not want to have to put on a public face. He wanted to hide, to lose himself in a project — any project.

Most of all Hood did not feel like going home. Or what passed for home these days, an undistinguished fifth-floor suite at the Days Inn on Mercedes Boulevard. Hood had a feeling that it would be a long time, if ever, before he regarded anything but the Hood house in Chevy Chase, Maryland, as home. But he and his wife, Sharon, were separated and his presence at the house created strife for her. She said he was a reminder of their failed marriage, of facing a future without a companion. Their two children did not need that tension, especially Harleigh. Hood had spent time with Harleigh and her younger brother, Alexander, over the weekend. They did things that Washingtonians rarely did: they toured the monuments. Hood had also arranged for them to get a personal tour of the Pentagon. Alexander was impressed by all the saluting that went on. It made him feel important not to have to do it. He also liked the kick-ass intensity of all the guards.

Harleigh said she enjoyed the outing but that was pretty much all she said. Hood did not know whether it was post-traumatic stress, the separation, or both that were on her mind. Psychologist Liz Gordon had advised him not to talk about any of that unless Harleigh brought it up. His job was to be upbeat and supportive. That was difficult without any input from Harleigh. But he did the best he could.

For Harleigh.

What he had been neglecting in all of this were his needs. Home was the biggest and most immediate hole. The hotel room did not have the familiar creaking and pipe sounds and outside noises he had come to know. There was no oil burner clicking on and off. The hotel room smelled unfamiliar, shared, transient. The water pressure was weaker, the soap and shampoo small and impersonal. The nighttime lighting on the ceiling was different. Even the coffeemaker didn't pop and burble the same as the one at home. He missed the comfort of the familiar. He hated the changes.

Especially the biggest one. The huge hole he had dug for himself with Ann Farris, Op-Center's thirty-four-year-old press liaison. She had pursued him virtually from the day she arrived. He had found the pursuit both flattering and uncomfortable. Flattering because Paul Hood and his wife had not been connecting for years. Uncomfortable because Ann Farris was not subtle. Whatever poker face Ann put on during press briefings she did not wear around Hood. Maybe it was a question of balance, of yin and yang, of being passive in public and aggressive in private. Regardless, her open attention was a distraction for Hood and for the people closest to him, like Mike Rodgers and Bob Herbert.

So of course Hood made the desperate mistake of actually making love to Ann. That had ratcheted up the tension level by making her feel closer and him feel even guiltier. He did not want to make love to her again. At least, not until he was divorced. Ann said she understood but she still took it as a personal rejection. It had affected their working relationship. Now she was cool to him in private and hot with the press in public.

How had Paul Hood gone from someone who reached the top of several professions at a relatively young age to someone who had messed up his own life and the lives of those around him? How the hell had that happened?

Ann was really the one that Hood did not want to see tonight. But he could not tell Bugs to keep only her out. Even if she did figure out that was what Hood was doing he did not want to insult her directly.

Ironically, the work Hood was doing involved cutting Ann and her entire division.

Hood was not surprised that Herbert was working this late. The intelligence chief preferred work to socializing. It was not politically correct but it was pure Herbert: he said that it was more of a challenge trying to get inside a spy's head than into a woman's pants. The rewards were also greater, Herbert insisted. The spy ended up dead, in prison, or incapacitated. It was a lesson Hood should have learned from his friend.

Hood was glad when Herbert came to see him. He needed a crisis to deal with, one that was not of his own making. The briefing that Bob Herbert gave Hood was not the low-intensity distraction he had been hoping for. However, the prospect of nuclear war between India and Pakistan did chase all other thoughts from Hood's mind.

Herbert brought Hood up to speed on the conversations he'd had with Mike Rodgers and Ron Friday. When Herbert was finished, Hood felt energized. His own problems had not gone away. But part of him, at least, was out of hiding. The part that had a responsibility to others.

"This is a sticky one," Hood said.

"Yeah," Herbert agreed. "What's your gut say?"

"It says to take this situation to the president and drop it square in his lap," Hood replied.

Herbert regarded Hood for a moment. "There's a 'but' in your voice," Herbert said.

"Actually, there are three 'buts' in my voice," Hood told him. "First, we're only guessing about what's going on. They're educated guesses, but we still don't have proof. Second, let's assume your intel is right. That there is a plot to start a war. If we tell the president, the president will tell State. Once you tell State, the world will know about it through leaks, moles, or electronic surveillance. That could scare the perpetrators off — or it could accelerate whatever timetable they have."

"I agree," Herbert said. "The SFF and their allies would have insecurity issues instead of security issues. Typical when you're keeping information from your own countrymen."

"Exactly," Hood said.

"All right. So what's the third 'but'?" Herbert asked.

"The fact that we may prove a nuclear attack plan is in place," Hood said. "If the United States exposes it we may actually give it impetus."

"I don't understand," Herbert said.

"In terms of military support and intelligence assistance, India has always leaned toward Russia," Hood said. "An entire generation of Indians considers the United States the opposition. Suppose we expose a patriotic plan. Do you think that will cause the Indians to kill it?"

"If it involves a nuclear exchange, yes," Herbert said. "Russia would come down on our side. So would China."

"I don't know if I agree," Hood said. "Russia is facing an Islamic threat along several of its borders. Op-Center just defused a crisis where the Russians were scared about Iran's access to Caspian oil. Moscow fought the mujahedin in Afghanistan. They're afraid of aggressive fifth-column activities in their own cities, in allied republics. We can't be sure they would back a Muslim nation against their old friend India. As for China, they're looking for allies in a move against Taiwan. Suppose India provided them with that, a kind of quid pro quo."

Herbert shook his head slowly. "Paul, I've been in this game a long time. I've seen videos of Saddam using gas and gunships against his own people. I've been to a Chinese execution where five men were shot in the head because they expressed dissenting political beliefs. But I can't believe that sane individuals would make a deal about nuclear strikes that will kill millions of people."

"Why not?" Hood asked.

"Because a nuclear exchange raises the bar for all of human conflict," Herbert insisted. "It says that anything goes. No one gains by that."

"Fair enough," Hood said.

"I still believe that we may have a radical group of Indian officials who may want to nuke Pakistan," Herbert said.

"Then valid or not, all three of my concerns point to the same thing," Hood said.

"We need more intel before we go to the president," Herbert said.

"Right," Hood said. "Is there any way of getting that electronically or from sources in the government?"

"There might be, if we had the time," Herbert said. "But we've got the Pakistani cell on the run in the mountains and the dead SFF commandos behind them. The Indians are not going to wait."

"Has anything been on DD-1 yet?" Hood asked. DD-1 National was the flagship station of Doordarshan, the Indian national television network. The broadcaster was also closely affiliated with Prasar Bharati, All India Radio, which was run and maintained by the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting.

"One of Matt's people is taping the newscasts," Herbert replied. "He's going to give me an assessment of how riled up people are and at what rate the media are adding to the whipping-up process."

"Can we go in and bust up their satellite?" Hood asked.

Herbert grinned. "They use five," he said. "INSAT-2E, 2DT, 2B, PAS-4, and ThaiCom. We can scramble them all if we have to."

"Good," Hood said. He regarded Herbert. "You're pushing for Striker to go in and grab the Pakistanis, aren't you?"

"Hell," Herbert said, "I don't want to just drop Mike and his people into the Himalayas—"

"I know that," Hood assured him.

"But I don't know if we have any other options, Paul," Herbert continued. "Whatever we think of what the Pakistanis have done, they have to get out to tell what they did not do."

"What would we do if Striker weren't headed toward the region?" Hood asked.

Herbert thought for a moment then shrugged. "What we did in Korea, Russia, and Spain," Herbert said. "We'd send 'em."

Hood nodded thoughtfully. "We probably would," he agreed. "Have you run this past Mike?"

"Not in so many words," Herbert said. "But I did tell him to sleep on the flight from Alconbury to Chushul. Just in case."

"How long is that leg of the trip?" Hood asked.

Herbert looked at his watch. "They've got another six hours or so to go," he said. "Four and change with a good tailwind and if we don't keep them on the ground in Turkey for more than a few minutes."

Hood clicked on the Op-Center personnel roster. He opened the file. "Matt is still here," he said, looking at the log-in time.

"He's going over the surveillance photos with Stephen Viens," Herbert said. "He hasn't left his desk since this started."

"He should," Hood said. "We'll need him to work on any ELINT that we need in the region."

"I'll have Gloria Gold spot him for a while," Herbert said.

Gold was the nighttime director of technical affairs. She was qualified to run tech operations though she did not have the same background in analysis that Stoll had.

"We also better get Lowell and Liz Gordon in on this," Hood said. Lowell Coffey was Op-Center's international legal expert. "We need to be up on Pakistani and Indian law in case they get caught. Psych profiles of the Pakistanis would also help. Did we get a detailed jurisdictional map of the region for Striker's missile search?"

"No," Herbert said. "That was going to be pretty tightly localized in Pakistani territory."

"We'll definitely need that, then," Hood said. "We're screwed if Striker stumbles into Chinese spheres of influence and gets caught."

"If Al George doesn't have those maps in archives I'll get them from State," Herbert said. "I've got a friend there who can keep his mouth shut."

"You've got friends everywhere." Hood grinned. It felt good to be part of a team that included people like Bob Herbert. People who were professional and thorough and there to support the team and its leader. It also felt good to smile. "What about Viens? How many satellites are there in the region?"

"Three," Herbert said.

"Will he be able to hold on to them?" Hood asked.

"That shouldn't be a problem," Herbert told Hood. "No one else is asking for intel from that region right now. Viens also has his entire team on rotation, so the satellite monitoring stations will always be manned. They can run three separate recons at once."

"Good," Hood said. He continued to look at the computer screen. There were other people he could call on if needed. Right now, though, he thought it was best to keep the number of people involved to a minimum. He would call Hank Lewis at the NSA and recommend that he do the same. He hoped that the new appointee would be content to let Op-Center run this as a "silent operation" — one in which the chain of command stopped short of involving the president.

Herbert left to get his personnel set up and to obtain the map. Hood called Coffey and tore him away from Politically Incorrect. Since Coffey's home phone line was not secure, Hood could not tell him what the late-night meeting was about. All he said was that the title of the TV show pretty well summed it up. Coffey said he would be there as soon as possible.

Hood thanked Coffey. He fished a few more Wheat Thins from the box and sat back. There was still a lot to do before he would authorize this mission. For one thing, Stephen Viens had to find the cell. Without that information they had nothing. Then Hood and Herbert would have to decide whether to land Striker as planned and then chopper them near the cell or try to jump them in. Parachuting would be extremely dangerous in the mountains due to the cold, wind, and visibility. Perhaps they could get Ron Friday out there first to plant flares. But landing would also present a problem since Striker was expected in Srinagar for an entirely different mission. It might be difficult to break away from their hosts as quickly as Op-Center needed them to.

Besides, Hood thought, the fewer people who came into contact with Striker the better it would be for security. Lowell or Herbert could come up with a reason for them to have parachuted in. The Indian air force would have to go along with that or face the mission being scrubbed.

Hood thought about Rodgers and his team. He was proud to be working with them too. Regardless of how this unfolded it would be brutally difficult for Striker if they went forward. Thinking about it did not make Hood's own problems seem less immediate or important. Relativity never worked like that. Harleigh was traumatized by what had happened at the United Nations. Knowing that other people had lost their lives there did not make it any easier to deal with her condition.

But it did do one thing. It reminded Hood what courage was. He would not forget that in the hours and days ahead.