Rules of Betrayal

30

Frank Connor eyed his deputy, Peter Erskine, with an unsettling suspicion. “We don’t have any other choice,” argued Connor. “We’ve got to run this op ourselves. No one else can act quickly enough.”

“Division is an intelligence agency,” replied Erskine, with the glacial cold that seemed to flow through his veins. “We are not a branch of the military.”

“We are a clandestine agency whose one and only mission is to insert operators into foreign territories-”

“To gather intelligence-”

“To safeguard our nation’s interest!”

The clock on the wall of Division’s operations center gave the time as one minute past four o’clock in the morning. Though nothing to compare to the size or sophistication of the ops center on the sixth floor of the Core at the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, the room boasted enough state-of-the-art equipment to meet all of Division’s needs and then some. Liquid crystal display monitors measuring sixty-two inches diagonally and only one-half inch in width covered one wall. A bank of sleek workstations lined another. A red telephone and a white telephone and a black telephone were embedded in the console, and each had its use. Connor and Erskine sat at opposite ends of the conference table in the center of the room.

“What you are proposing is a full-scale, overt, armed intervention outside a recognized theater of war,” said Erskine. “The minimum force requirement is an entire special operations team with air support. You might as well be ordering an invasion.”

“Less,” said Connor. “I need a squad of operators. Ten men. And the missile is sitting in no-man’s-land, the northwest tribal territories. No one has sovereignty over it.”

“You’re missing the point, Frank. We’re not talking about blackmailing the dictator of Guinea-Bissau in exchange for some oil leases. This is a pressing national security issue.”

“You’re right. That’s why we can’t sit on our asses a second longer. This is actionable intel that requires an immediate response.”

“But not the response you’re thinking of.”

Connor cracked a can of diet soda and drank a slug. “Let me tell you what’ll happen once I breathe word of this up the official chain of command.”

Erskine looked away, a child who’d heard this lecture too many times already. “Please, Frank, I know…”

“Maybe so, but let me remind you. The first person I’m going to call is SecDef himself. The secretary will need a few minutes to wake up and process everything I’ve told him. I guarantee you he’ll call back an hour later and make me repeat the whole thing again. He’s an SOB, so naturally he won’t believe a word I say. He’s going to call the air force and ask if it’s in fact true that they lost a nuclear-tipped ALCM twenty-five years back. The air force will say, ‘No. Frank Connor is full of malarkey. The whole thing is complete and utter BS.’ But the secretary won’t stop there. He’s a politician from way back. To cover his ass, he’ll ring up the National Security Council and pass along my warning. The NSC is paid to be suspicious, so they’ll talk to the air force and yours truly before ringing up the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and running the scenario by him. You know what time it is by now?”

Erskine shrugged. “Noon.”

“Tomorrow at five p.m., earliest,” said Connor. “So anyway, the Joint Chiefs will call the air force themselves, and this time the flyboys will realize that we’re onto them. They’ll ask for time to conduct an internal investigation, which means everyone will start scrambling to see whose ass is in the ringer if they admit to losing the bomb. Finally they’ll realize that too many people are in the loop to make this thing disappear, and they’ll cough up some excuse about ‘possibly having lost a weapon,’ but being certain that ‘if the weapon were lost, it was certain to be irretrievable.’ That’s another day gone by.

“At which point the Joint Chiefs will convene a crisis meeting in the Situation Room at the White House. The Oval Office will call me on the carpet and ask where in hell I came up with this information. I’ll tell them about Emma and Prince Rashid and about Congressman Grant’s confirming the missing bomb, and then we’ll all look at the satellite imagery and someone will ask how I managed to task a KH-14 satellite without a written order. And finally, after all this crap, I’ll have to identify Emma and admit that one of my agents has apparently lost her mind and is leading the team of bad guys up the mountain to retrieve the nuclear payload.”

Connor unbuttoned his collar and stretched his neck. His heart was beating a mile a minute, and his face felt flushed as red as a beefsteak tomato. “Four days from now, the president will authorize a strike. A SEAL team will go in and find absolutely nothing, because Emma will already have removed the payload, and if she’s smart-which we know she damn well is-she will have blown the rest of the missile to kingdom come. The president will call me over to the White House and personally fire me and shut down Division once and for all.”

“That’s a worst-case scenario,” said Erskine.

“No,” railed Connor. “The worst-case scenario is that Balfour gets the nuclear payload, the thing actually still works after all these years, and he sells all one hundred fifty kilotons of it to a group of bloodthirsty terrorists slobbering at the mouth to use it.” Connor slumped in his chair. “You know, I don’t even care if the president does fire me, but I’d like for him to do it after he authorizes a strike to stop Balfour from getting that WMD. She’s there, Pete. She’s up in those mountains making her way to the missile right this second.”

“Tell me this. Why is Emma helping him?”

Connor pushed himself out of his chair and circled the table. Gazing through the glass panel that made up one wall, he counted seven men and women hard at work. With a flick of a switch, the glass wall grew opaque. He looked over his shoulder. “One word: revenge.”

“For what?”

“Haven’t you asked yourself how Rashid knew about the gun?”

“He didn’t. He just assumed it was booby-trapped when the bullet backfired. We already know he’s paranoid-and with good reason.”

“Maybe,” said Connor, softly and with conviction. “Maybe not. But tell me how Rashid knew that she was a double agent working for us. I’ve been getting an earful from the FSB ever since. They’re threatening to expose the entire operation to the press unless we release two of their agents from custody.”

Erskine pushed his glasses onto the bridge of his nose as his brow worked furiously. Finally he raised his hands in defeat.

“Emma’s working with Balfour because she’s convinced we betrayed her,” said Connor.

“What you’re suggesting is impossible,” said Erskine. “Too few people knew.”

“It’s never impossible, Pete. If you start counting, at least twenty people knew of the op, one way or another.”

Erskine’s pale, boyish face grew flushed. Suddenly he flew out of his chair. “You don’t think it’s me?”

Connor let him hang for a good long time, all the while taking careful note of his deputy’s reactions. Erskine was quaking. Not with fear, but with a heartfelt and entirely merited indignation. “No, Pete. I don’t. But I’ve thought about it.”

“I don’t appreciate that, Frank,” stammered Erskine. “Not one bit. I’ve given everything I have to this organization. Why, my grandfather worked for Franklin-”

“Yeah, yeah, I know about your grandfather.” Connor waved him down. “And I know you didn’t tip off Rashid. You’re very good at a lot of things, but you’re the lousiest goddamn liar I’ve ever met. You couldn’t pull it off, Pete. You’re too honest.”

“Thank you, Frank. That’s good of you to say-I think.” Erskine spent a minute cleaning his scholar’s horn-rimmed spectacles, and Connor saw that his hand was still shaking. It took real guts to spy on your own. No mole could be so easily rattled. Erskine replaced his glasses. “So who?”

“I don’t know. But I’ll find out. I’ll find out for her, because you know what, Pete? Emma won’t forget this. They always say that it’s the ones who move to this country who are the most patriotic. No one was more loyal to us than Emma. But deep down she’s Russian, born and bred. She’ll get her revenge. I have no idea what’s on her mind right now. But I’m scared. I truly am.”

“So what exactly do you propose?” asked Erskine.

Connor rubbed a hand across the back of his neck. “Immediate action. We found it. We nip it in the bud. Keep this whole situation in-house. The quicker we clean it up, the fewer people will ever know about it.”

“That’s quite some mantle of responsibility. Even for you.”

“Yeah, well. You do what you gotta do.”

Erskine leaned forward, appraising Connor. “Are you all right, Frank? I mean, you sure you’re up to this?” His concerned tone did not inspire confidence.

“If I drop dead, I’ll make sure you’re the first to know.”

“You’re immortal, Frank,” said Erskine, much too smoothly.

“So they tell me.” Connor finished up the can of diet soda and felt a little better. “You with me? As you said, it’s quite some mantle of responsibility. I wouldn’t mind sharing it.”

“You know I am, Frank. It’s my job to make you aware of our options.”

“I understand. I just wish we had more of them in this instance.”

“So what are you going to do?”

Connor sat stock-still for nearly a minute before answering. “I’m going to take her out,” said Connor. “Right now.”