The Enemy Within

CHAPTER 10 BACKGROUND NOISE

The producers of the PBS Newshour were delighted with their Washington-based anchor’s interview of the U.S. Attorney General. Normally dour and reserved, Sarah Carpenter was in full swing and high dudgeon the very picture of official outrage at the terrorist attack on Temple Emet. She was making her anger and disgust plain with every icy word.

“According to reports this morning, the FBI has now positively identified the three dead terrorists James Burke, Anthony McGowan, and David Keller as ringleaders of a neo-Nazi fringe group located just outside of Richmond, Virginia. Are those reports accurate?” the interviewer asked.

The Attorney General nodded briskly. “They are. Our investigation has revealed that these men were the leaders of a white supremacist organisation called the Aryan Sword. We believe this organisation may also have been involved in the earlier murder of a local civil rights leader, John Malcolm.” She pursed her lips. “Past administrations have turned a blind eye toward the activities of fanatical, right-wing hate groups. This administration will not.”

“In what way, Ms. Carpenter?”

She leaned forward. “With the President’s approval, I have instructed the FBI and all other appropriate federal law enforcement agencies to immediately redouble their efforts against these potential terrorists.”

“And can you give us the broad outlines of these expanded efforts?”

“Certainly. We intend to mount a coordinated campaign on a number of fronts. First, we will increase our surveillance of known and suspected neo-Nazi terror groups. Second, I will direct the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms to take other steps to boost its seizures of illegal weapons and explosives. We will also take legal measures against illicit underground publications that advocate violence or promote bigotry and race hatred.” The Attorney General tapped the table in front of her for emphasis as she spoke. “Perhaps most important of all, I intend to seek immediate congressional action to toughen and expand our federal gun control laws. We must make it impossible for these criminals and right-wing hatemongers to acquire weapons of death and destruction.”

The PBS anchorman arched a skeptical eyebrow. “Surely only a very small proportion of the American people espouse such extremist views?”

“On the surface, the numbers are small,” she agreed. “But I believe it would be a grave error to underestimate the threat the radical right poses to this nation. We live in an increasingly complex and fragile society. In such a situation, even a tiny number of fanatics are capable of causing enormous damage.”

“You sound as though you anticipate more terror attacks like the one at Temple Emet, Ms. Carpenter.”

The Attorney General nodded grimly. “In my considered judgment, we now face a much graver threat from within our borders than from without. I’m afraid that the new terrorist threat we must combat is largely homegrown the terrible product of American racism and bigotry.”

General Amir Taleh watched the images flickering across his television screen with satisfaction. This American official, Sarah Carpenter, was unknowingly sowing the seeds for his own campaign.

Monitoring U.S. news broadcasts for items of special interest was one of the primary duties of the Iranian Interest section in Washington, D.C. At Taleh’s express order, tapes that met certain preselected criteria were flown to Tehran via diplomatic pouch for further study and analysis by his special intelligence staff. And so the full tape of this Newshour interview with the American Attorney General had made its way to his office within forty-eight hours.

Captain Farhad Kazemi waited until the picture faded to black before punching the eject button on the general’s videotape player. He straightened up with the tape in hand. “This was good news, sir?”

“Very good news,” Taleh confirmed. “As always, the Americans see only what they want to see. We shall have the element of surprise.” At that thought he felt again the surge of fierce joy that burned away much of his fatigue. But not all of it. After so many months spent in this office and in the field, he was all too aware of the enormous mental and physical strain he incurred by managing almost every aspect of this complex operation.

In theory he should have delegated more of that work to his subordinates.

Taleh snorted to himself. Theories were rarely worth the space wasted on them in textbooks. In the real world of the Iranian Army, there were few junior or senior officers with the grasp of strategy, logistics, and politics needed to fully comprehend his master design. And there were fewer still he could fully trust.

His mind turned to the staff conference scheduled for that evening. He had intended to use the meeting to finalise a decision to proceed with his plans. But why? He already knew what his decision would be. Seeing the news reports of the foolhardy Aryan Sword terror attack and watching the Americans rushing to confuse themselves only strengthened his resolve. After all, had not God Himself joined the fray drawing a concealing cloak over the marshaling armies of the Faithful?

Taleh nodded abruptly. Why waste more time? He looked at his military aide. “Cancel the staff conference, Farhad.”

“Sir?”

“Instead, contact London and all first-wave field commands. Instruct them to activate SCIMITAR as planned.”

Hamir Pahesh closed and locked the door of the small, rundown apartment. When he was in Tehran, he shared the apartment with another man, his wife, and their four children. There really wasn’t room for Pahesh, but both men came from the same village, and ties like that, especially in a foreign, hostile land, were almost as good as family. Besides, the truck driver was gone a lot and always returned with gifts: usually food, sometimes medicine. Mohammed Nadhir, his host, worked as a day laborer for even worse wages than he did, and the man had a family to support.

Pahesh would have helped a fellow countryman out in any case, and now because of his “extra income,” he was the Afghan equivalent of the rich uncle. Thus, whenever he asked after the health of their nearby friends, the whole family packed up and left, usually bearing one of his gift packages. They thought he was a smuggler, which explained not only his need for privacy but his extra income.

After double-checking the drapes to be sure they were closed, Pahesh pulled out his duffel. The green canvas bag held his whole life: the few clothes he owned, a comb and brush, a few photos, and some mechanic’s tools. It also held another small satchel.

He unzipped that, pulled out a cloth-wrapped bundle, and unwrapped a small grey plastic case, no bigger than a telephone book and half the thickness. Half the top surface was taken up by a keyboard and a yellow-green window high enough to display two lines of type. The display ran the width of the keyboard.

Working from memory, Pahesh typed quickly if not smoothly. He knew enough English to use a standard keyboard, but he had no real expertise with the thing. Allah help him if it ever broke.

It took him no more than half an hour to report his findings for the week. Not only did he have his own observations, but he also found rich pickings in the gossip exchanged by other truck drivers plying Iran’s highways and military bases.

Something was going on. Stockpiles were being built up to an unheard-of level. New equipment was flowing into the combat units, and what was most interesting, they were in a terrible hurry to get it running. The Iranians were moving toward some sort of deadline.

Pahesh said as much in his report and provided the facts and figures that had brought him to that conclusion. Satisfied, he pressed a button. The machine hummed and then spat out a dot of plastic with his message microfilmed on it.

He picked it off the tray and using a bit of glue, attached it to a letter he’d already written, then sealed and addressed it. Packing up took only a few moments. Pahesh felt pleased, even proud of himself. It was a good report. He hoped the nameless men who read his work appreciated its worth.

Colonel Peter Thorn slid the bulky set of reports and attachments back across the desk to Joseph Rossini. He sighed and shook his head. “It’s not enough, Joe. We’ve invested a few thousand hours of staff and computer time in a hunt for these Bosnian Muslim terrorists, and we’re coming up with a big fat negative. No Bosnians. No training camps. No nothing.”

He nodded toward the ceiling. “And I’m afraid we’re about out of leeway for what seems more and more like a wild-goose chase. Farrell’s under pressure from the JCS, and the Chiefs are under heavy pressure from the White House. The attack on that synagogue has everybody all shook up about right-wing terrorism. The brass can see the way the budgetary winds are blowing inside the administration, and they want us to ‘refocus’ our resources on what are called ‘more pressing problem areas.’ ”

“Like Germany?” Rossini asked sceptically.

“Yeah. Apparently, the FBI believes some of the weapons and explosives the bad guys used came from a Nazi group in eastern Germany. So everybody’s in a hurry to find and rip up the links between our crazies and theirs.”

“Jesus Christ, that’s even a bigger waste of resources!” Rossini exploded. “The Krauts are already working hard on their neo-Nazi problem, Pete. We’d just be plowing the same ground with every other intelligence agency from here to Tokyo.”

“I know that,” Thorn said. “And Sam Farrell knows that. But we just can’t keep coming up dry and expect the money and satellite time to flow our way. A lot of people higher up the ladder want to close us down entirely. They’re arguing that the CIA and the State Department can do a perfectly good job of monitoring Middle East terrorism.”

He shrugged. “I don’t know, Maestro. Maybe General Taleh was right. Maybe those reports from Bosnia really were just meaningless rumors. Sergeant Major Diaz has a saying, ‘If the complex answer doesn’t fit, try something simpler, stupid.’ ”

“Another gem from the Little Green Army Manual of Chairman Tow?” Rossini murmured.

Thorn grinned and nodded.

“There is another possibility,” Rossini argued. “Maybe we’re just looking in the wrong place.”

“Oh?”

Rossini tapped the sheaf of papers in front of him. “Look, so far we’ve been concentrating our search on Bosnia and Iraq, right?”

“Right,” Thorn agreed, curious to see where his subordinate was going with this.

“Well, maybe we’re taking too much for granted. Maybe Taleh doesn’t have as much control inside Iran as he thinks. Maybe there are still people in power in Tehran who would like nothing better than to stick a knife between our ribs.”

“That’s a lot of maybes, Joe,” Thorn said.

“True.” Rossini spread his hands in frustration. “I can’t point to any hard evidence. Hell, I can’t get any god damned hard evidence. You remember the NRO turned down my last request for another pass over southern Iraq?”

Thorn nodded. He’d had a testy run-in with his opposite numbers at the National Reconnaissance Office and the Defense Intelligence Agency’s Directorate for Imagery Exploitation over that to no avail. Control over America’s sophisticated spy satellites was one of the most valuable commodities in the intelligence business, and you had to have a lot of clout to win extra time on a KH bird these days. Unfortunately, he and the JSOC Intelligence Liaison Unit had long since exhausted what little clout they had.

“Well, part of that pass would have taken the KH over the central Zagros Mountains. I’ve been seeing reports passed to us from the Mossad network inside Iran. The Israelis keep mentioning persistent rumors of some large-scale commando training facility out in the middle of nowhere in those mountains.”

“And you think that might be our missing terrorist camp?”

Rossini shrugged. “Possibly.”

Thorn shook his head. “I think you could be on the wrong track there, Joe. From what I saw and from what I’ve heard since, Taleh is firmly in control of the Iranian military. And remember, he has an Iranian Special Forces background. It wouldn’t surprise me one bit if he’s building up Iran’s commando units along with the rest of his Army.”

In fact, Thorn thought that was the most likely explanation. The CIA’s Weekly Intelligence Summaries were full of stories on Taleh’s efforts to modernize the Iranian armed forces. Iranian purchasing agents were procuring supplies of modern armored vehicles, artillery, ships, and aircraft in immense quantities mostly from Russia and the other former Soviet republics. Those purchases were matched by increasingly realistic training and by a series of purges that seemed aimed at ridding Iran’s military of incompetent officers. The conventional wisdom was that the general and his supporters were preparing to fight and win a possible rematch with their old adversary, Iraq.

In this case, Thorn thought the conventional wisdom was right. He knew personally how much Taleh loathed the Iraqis. The chance to smash them and restore Iran’s position as a regional superpower would probably seem a godsend to the Iranian general. He said as much to Rossini.

The larger man’s shoulders slumped slightly. “So you think we should drop this investigation, Pete?”

Thorn hesitated. Though he believed Rossini’s latest hypothesis unlikely, he wasn’t ready to dismiss all of the analyst’s work so readily. Given the necessarily limited nature of the data they had to work with, intelligence professionals like the Maestro were often guilty of seeing “tigers in every patch of tall grass.” On the other hand, he also knew how easy it was to fall under the spell of the “rosy scenario” to see events and data through a mental filter that blocked out inconvenient facts. And he’d worked long enough with the older analyst to respect both his intelligence and his intuition. If something about the situation in Iran was niggling at Rossini, now was the time to pin it down.

At last he shook his head. “No. I don’t think we should drop it. Look, Joe, I’m scheduled to see Farrell the day after tomorrow. Do what you can to refine that” he pointed toward the bulky report on their Bosnian probe “and I’ll try to wangle a little more time and some more resources from the Boss.”

The long-drawn-out rumble of jet engines penetrated even the thick walls of Major General Sam Farrell’s personal office. The C-141 Starlifter pilots assigned to fly the 82nd Airborne Division into any battle were practicing touch-and-goes on Pope’s mile-long runways.

“Let me get this straight, Pete,” Farrell said wryly. “You want me to tell the Joint Chiefs and the White House to take a hike because Joe Rossini still has a mental itch he can’t scratch.”

“Well, maybe not in so many words, sir.” Thorn smiled. “I thought you might phrase it a little more diplomatically.”

Farrell chuckled. “Since I like my job, I probably would.” His expression turned serious. “But I don’t know how much slack I can cut for you and your team, Pete. We’ve got some serious budget battles on the horizon, and I can’t piss off too many people now who I’m going to need down the road later.”

Thorn nodded his understanding. He’d been hearing the rumors on the JSOC grapevine for weeks. Faced with threadbare defense budgets and a reduced worldwide terrorist threat, some in Congress and in the SecDef’s office wanted to disband at least one of Delta’s three squadrons with commensurate reductions in force for the 160th Aviation Regiment and other support units. There were senior officers in the Army’s hierarchy who supported those proposals. Some were motivated by continuing doubts about the real military utility of “special operations.” Others believed the Army would be better served by reintegrating Delta’s highly trained noncoms into regular combat units. With his command under such close congressional and JCS scrutiny, it was no wonder that Farrell was reluctant to rock the boat very much right now.

He pulled his cap off the general’s desk, preparing to rise.

“Not so fast, Pete.” Farrell waved him back down. “Don’t give up so easily. I didn’t say I couldn’t do anything at all.”

“No, sir.”

“But you will have to compromise,” the general said. “Assign most of your people to research this European neo-Nazi connection the FBI is all hot and bothered about. In turn, I’ll pull some strings with the powers-that-be. I should be able to make sure you can keep Rossini and a small team at work on this Bosnia problem. I know that’ll slow you down some, but it’s the best I can do. Fair enough?”

“Fair enough, sir.” In truth, that was more than Thorn had expected.

“Good.” Farrell rocked back in his chair. “Before you go, my wife wanted me to ask you how Helen’s doing. That was one hell of a piece of work she did inside that synagogue. But I understand she had a rough time of it afterward.”

Thorn nodded, remembering the exhaustion and regret he’d heard in Helen’s voice during their first phone conversation after she came off duty. “It was the first time she’d ever shot anyone,” he explained.

Farrell nodded sympathetically. “Killing’s never easy on the conscience.”

“No, sir.” The image of a young Panamanian Defense Force soldier rose in Thorn’s mind. The kid couldn’t have been much more than seventeen years old. He shook off the memory. “But Helen’s tough. She’s recovering pretty well. In fact, I’m supposed to see her this weekend.”

“That’s good.” The general smiled broadly. “I know Louisa would give me holy hell if anything went wrong between you two now. I think she’s already planning your rehearsal dinner.”

Thorn suddenly felt like a deer standing frozen in the headlights of an oncoming truck. And curiously, he wasn’t sure that he really wanted to spring out of the way.