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Carver had been wrong. There were people Grantham could call. Had to call, in fact. He could not hope to keep this operation completely private anymore; there was far too much at stake. But if he was going to spread the word, he had to do it discreetly. Like all senior MI6 officers, he had close contacts with his counterparts in the CIA. While Carver was upstairs, clearing out of his room, Grantham stepped outside and considered his options. He needed someone he could trust enough to call on a personal, off-the-record basis.
Ted Jaworski was dragged from sleep by the ringing of his bedside phone. His hand reached out from beneath the blankets and scrabbled for his handset. He screwed up his eyes, trying to make out the caller ID, then mumbled, “Jack, hi… do you know what the friggin’ time is here?”
“A little after four. But this can’t wait. Is your line secure?”
“Sure-what the hell is this about?”
“We’ve obtained information-stumbled across it, really-about one of your people, an ex-army general, Kurt Vermulen.”
Jaworski was getting out of bed now, figuring he’d better take the call somewhere more private. He put a hand over the mouthpiece and whispered, “It’s okay-go back to sleep,” to his wife as she looked up at him blearily.
“Uh-huh-what kind of information?” he asked Grantham.
“It’s complicated. But the bottom line is, last night Vermulen obtained a document which contains the precise locations and arming codes of more than one hundred Soviet nuclear weapons.”
“What did you say?”
“You know those legendary missing suitcase nukes? Turns out it wasn’t a legend. They really are out there. Vermulen knows where to find them, and we think that’s what he’s going to do, probably within the next twenty-four hours.”
Jaworski stopped dead in the corridor and gave a low whistle.
“My God, she was right…”
“Sorry?”
“Something someone over here said…” Jaworski replied, moving again. “Put it this way-this doesn’t come as a total surprise.”
Grantham sounded mildly irritated. “So you know about McCabe as well?”
“Okay-now there you got me.”
“Waylon McCabe. He’s some bigshot from Texas, fundamentalist Christian.”
“Oh, sure, know the name… what about him?”
Jaworski had made it to his home office. He slumped into the chair behind his desk as Grantham replied.
“I don’t know, exactly. But whatever Vermulen is up to, McCabe is backing him. Right now, Vermulen is somewhere in the Adriatic Sea, on McCabe’s yacht, and we think he’s headed for Kosovo. One of the bombs is planted there.”
“How do you know?”
“Friends in Moscow. Turns out this was a KGB operation. Some of their people knew where the damn things were all along. I’ll bet they’ve got their own copy of this list, just haven’t seen fit to pass on the information, even to their own government. You’d better have a word with the White House about that. Someone should call the Kremlin, tell them to force the top brass in the FSB to hand over the list. Suggest it’s their last chance to do this hush-hush, or else you’re going public. You need to see it. So do we, come to that. I get the distinct impression both our countries are littered with bloody bombs.”
“Yeah…” said Jaworski distractedly, squeezing a rubber ball in his spare hand.
“You sound remarkably unconcerned by what I’ve just told you.”
“Oh, no, I’m concerned, all right, Jack. You can trust me on that. But what you just said, that wasn’t exactly a surprise, either.”
“What? You knew about these things all along?”
“Kind of…”
“And when, exactly, were you planning to inform your closest ally of the dangers we both face?”
“When we knew exactly what that danger was.”
“Well you know now.”
“Sure do, and we’re going to do something about it, too.”
“Do keep me posted on that,” said Grantham sarcastically.
“Don’t worry, Jack. The day is young. But you and I are going to be talking a lot, a helluva lot, before it’s through.”
Jaworski ended the call. Then he started dialing. And suddenly his attitude wasn’t half so casual.
Dawn was still more than an hour away when Kady Jones arrived at Andrews Air Force Base. She’d been woken by a series of firm, insistent taps on the door of her Washington hotel room. She stumbled out of bed and made her way to the door. Through the peephole she could see a man in military uniform. Without undoing the chain, she opened the door a fraction.
“What is this?” she mumbled.
“Dr. Kathleen Dianne Jones?”
“Uh-huh… who are you?”
The man held up an I.D. card, which named him as a captain in the Marine Corps.
“May I come in, please, ma’am?”
Kady hesitated, her hand hovering over the chain, uncertain whether to trust a stranger, even one in uniform. Yet the I.D. looked genuine enough. She opened up and stepped back into the room, her suspicions now giving way to the embarrassment of being seen with no proper clothes, her hair unbrushed, her face un-made-up, and her room a mess.
“Thank you, ma’am,” said the captain. “You need to get ready to leave here at once. There is a car outside, waiting to take you to Andrews. You will be boarding a flight there. I cannot tell you the precise destination of that flight, but I have been authorized to inform you that it is somewhere in Europe, and you are advised to pack for a trip of two to three days’ duration, some of which may involve work in the field.”
“But…” Kady just stopped herself from saying, “I haven’t got a thing to wear.” Instead she managed, “My field equipment is all back in New Mexico.”
“I’m sure whatever you need will be provided, ma’am. But you’ve really got to hurry. I’ll leave you now. I’ll be waiting outside the front entrance. Five minutes, okay?”
The captain did not wait for her reply before he left the room. He simply assumed she could wash, dress, fix her appearance, and pack, all within the space of five minutes.
Only a man could be that dumb.
Jaworski told Tom Mulvagh to cancel his plans for the weekend.
“Does Horabin know about this?” asked Mulvagh, once he’d been told the news about Vermulen and the link to Waylon McCabe.
“He will. But you know Horabin, Tom. He doesn’t wipe his ass without figuring out how it’ll impact the President’s poll ratings. We can’t wait for him to make up his mind how to respond to this. We have to find out what McCabe’s been doing. Now.”
“I’m on it.”
The FBI is no different from any other organization: At half past four on a Saturday morning it’s not at its most dynamic. So agents weren’t leaping from their beds and making for their cars within minutes of Mulvagh getting the call. People had to be found, woken, and briefed-both FBI staff and the people they needed to interview. A couple of hours went by before the first information started getting back to Mulvagh.
In Europe and the Middle East, however, the day was already well under way. Even if the Pentagon brass were groggy when they got the call from Jaworski, their men and women in the field were wide awake and ready to go.