Line of Control

FORTY-ONE

Paul Hood was on the phone with Senator Barbara Fox when the interoffice line beeped.

Now that the mission was beyond the point of recall, and politics would not get in the way of international security, Hood briefed the senator on the status of Striker and its mission. Several years before, the senator had lost her own teenage daughter in a brutal murder in Paris. Hood had expected her to respond with compassion and to give her support to the personnel who were still in the field.

She did not. The senator was furious.

"Op-Center took too much responsibility in this operation," the woman charged. "The other intelligence agencies should have been involved to a much greater extent."

"Senator, I told the CIOC that we have a crisis requiring immediate attention," Hood said. "I said we were involving the NRO and the NSA to the extent that time and on-site manpower permitted. You did not object to our handling of this at that time."

"You did not outline the specifics of the danger," she replied, "only the gravity of the threat."

"We did not know the specifics until we were in the middle of this," Hood pointed out.

"Which is exactly my point," she replied. "You sent resources into this situation without adequate intelligence. And I mean that in every sense of the word, Mr. Hood."

The interoffice line beeped again.

"Do you want me to pull the remaining assets out?" Hood asked the senator. Hell, he thought. If she was going to criticize his judgment he might as well leave the rest of the mission in her hands.

"Is there another way of resolving the crisis?" she asked.

"Not that we've come up with," Hood replied.

"Then unfortunately we are married to the scenario you've mapped out," the senator said.

Of course, Hood thought. It was now a no-lose situation for the politician. If it worked she would grab the credit for involving the CIOC at this juncture, for saving the lives of the rest of the Strikers as well as countless Indians and Pakistanis. If the mission failed Hood would take the full hit. This was not the first crisis the two had been through together. But it was the first one of this magnitude and with this high a price tag. Hood was disappointed that she was looking for a scapegoat instead of a solution.

Or maybe he was the one looking for someone to blame, he thought. What if the senator was right? What if he had fast-tracked this operation simply because Striker was en route and it seemed relatively risk-free at the onset? Maybe Hood should have pulled the plug when he learned how risky the jump itself would be. Maybe he had let himself become a prisoner to the ticking clock he feared instead of the things he knew for certain.

The interoffice line beeped a third time.

Years before, Chad Malcolm, the retiring mayor of Los Angeles, gave Hood some of the best advice he had ever received. Malcolm had said that what any good leader did was take information in, process it, and still react with his gut. "Just like the human body," the mayor had said. "Goes in through the top and out through the bottom. Any other way just isn't natural."

Senator Fox informed Hood that the CIOC would take up this "fiasco" in an emergency session. Hood did not have anything else to say. He clicked the senator off and took the call.

"Yes?" Hood said.

"Paul, we've got him," Herbert said. "Brett spoke with Mike."

"Is he okay?" Hood asked.

"He's fine," Herbert replied. "He landed in the valley at the foot of the plateau."

"Bob, thank you." Hood wanted to shout or weep or possibly both. He settled for a deep sigh and a grateful smile.

"While I was waiting for you to pick up the phone I called Viens," Herbert told him. "Instead of searching for Mike I've got him looking to see if the cell broke off. The way I read my map, there's a point between where Ron Friday joined the cell and where Colonel August is now that would have been perfect for the Pakistani group to split. If one team headed straight toward Pakistan, they would have had a relatively short distance of about nine or ten miles to cross. The two barriers they would face there were the line of control and the Siachin Glacier. But if Indian soldiers have been moved from the LOC to this new forward line, that would leave the border relatively clear."

"Which makes the glacier the big impediment," Hood said.

"Right. But that makes stamina instead of greater numbers the big obstacle," Herbert pointed out. "Under the circumstances, that's the challenge I'd choose to face."

"I agree," Hood said.

"The good news is, Mike is at the foot of the glacier," Herbert went on. "If we find a second group of Pakistanis, he has a good shot at intercepting them."

Hood brought up the map on his computer. He studied it for a moment. "Who's in touch with Mike?"

"Brett is," Herbert said.

"Bob, we're going to have to have Mike move out of the valley now," Hood said.

"Whoa," Herbert said. "You want him on the glacier before we know for sure that the Pakistanis are even there?"

"We don't have a choice," Hood replied.

"We do," Herbert protested. "First, we find the cell. Second, if they exist, we see which way they're going. If they're coming toward the valley, and we've sent him up the glacier, we'd be committing him to some pretty unfriendly terrain for nothing."

"I'm looking at the relief map of the region," Hood said. "They have to take the glacier. The valley route adds another twelve miles or so to the trek."

"Twelve relatively flat, easy miles," Herbert added. "Listen to me, Paul. That glacier is over eighteen thousand feet high."

"I see that."

"The cell was seven thousand, three hundred feet up in the mountains when Friday caught up with them," Herbert went on. "They would have to be out of their minds to go up when they could go down to a valley that's just two thousand feet above sea level."

"Certainly the Indian army would assume that," Hood said.

"Maybe," Herbert said.

"No, they'd have to," Hood insisted. "Think about it. If your manpower were depleted at the LOC would you reinforce the valley exit or the glacier? Especially if you thought the cell was moving in another direction altogether?"

"I just think it's premature to send Mike up there," Herbert said. "Especially if he just ends up walking back down with the cell. What we need to do is have Viens find the cell and see which way they're going. Then we can decide."

"If Viens finds them and if there's time to get Mike up there," Hood said. "The satellite has a lot of terrain to cover."

"Then here's an alternate plan," Herbert said angrily. "Why don't we just have August hold an AK-47 on the group that's heading his way and make them tell him what their plans are?"

"Would you trust what they tell you?" Hood asked.

That obviously caught Herbert by surprise. He was silent.

"Think about it logically, Bob," Hood continued. "If the cell divided they won't want to run into a sizable Indian force. That means taking the glacier route, which is where they would need Mike's help the most. If he doesn't start out now there's a chance he may not catch them."

" 'If,' " Herbert said. " 'Would.' 'May.' There's a lot of conjecture there, Paul. An awful lot."

"Yeah," Hood agreed. "And Barbara Fox just ripped me a new one for letting this mission out of the gate without sufficient intel. Maybe I did. Nuclear war is pretty serious stuff. But right now the goal is very clear. The key person isn't Mike, it's that girl from Kargil. And the mission is to get her safely to Pakistan. If there is a second group of Pakistanis and they go over the glacier, we can't afford to have Mike stuck in the valley or racing to catch them. He's our strongest, maybe our only asset. We need him in play."

"All right, Paul," Herbert said. "It's your call. I'll have Brett relay your orders to Mike."

"Thank you," Hood said.

"But I'm not with you on this one," Herbert added sharply. "My gut isn't telling me much because it can't. It's tied in a big goddamn knot. But my brain is telling me that before we send Mike up that glacier we need more time and intel to properly assess the situation."

Herbert hung up.

Slowly, Paul Hood replaced the receiver. Then he turned to his computer and diminished the map of the Himalayas. He switched programs to receive the direct feed from the NRO.

The OmniCom was just completing its retargeting and a barren, brown-and-white image began to fill the screen. Hood watched through tired eyes as the pixels filled in. Right now he wished that he were there, in the field with Mike Rodgers. The general had an organization solidly behind him, people praying for him, honor and pride at the end of the day, whichever way events took him.

But no sooner did Paul Hood stumble onto that thought than two others bumped it aside. First, that he had no right to be thinking about himself. Not after the sacrifice Striker had made or the risks Mike Rodgers, Brett August, and the others were taking.

Second, that he had to finish the operation he had started. And there was only one way to do that.

With resolve greater than that of the people who had started it.