Weapons of Mass Deception

CHAPTER 13

Don Riley huffed his way up the last steps to the third floor. One more to go. The stairs were adjacent to the bank of elevators, and he longingly eyed the wide silver doors.

No. New Year’s resolution. More exercise. Good for me. Christ, he was even panting in his thoughts.

He could feel the sweat sticking to the underarms of his T-shirt, and he knew his face was probably bright red now, but he attacked the next set of steps with something that approached vigor. When he was out of sight of the elevators, he took a quick sniff of his right armpit. Nothing too rank. Yet.

He pulled his way up the last step, slapped his badge against the card reader, and punched in his personal code. The light on the reader shifted from red to green and the door made a chunking sound as the magnetic lock released.

Don did a quick check that his dress shirt was still tucked in after the exertion of climbing four flights of steps, then straightened his tie. He wasn’t sure why he bothered. Most of the analysts at NCPC didn’t wear ties, or even dress shirts half the time.

NCPC was founded by President George W. Bush in 2005 as a way to counter the threats caused by chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear weapons — commonly known as weapons of mass destruction, or WMDs. After the scathing findings by the 9/11 Commission, Congress and the Bush administration agreed on the most far-reaching reforms to the US Intelligence Community that had happened since World War Two. The Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of December 2004 established the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, and also created a number of specialized agencies. The NCPC was one of these new organizations, overseen directly by the new Director of National Intelligence. As bureaucracies so often did, the agency split into seven “kingdoms,” known in Washington-speak as “directorates.” Don was in the WMD — Security Directorate.

Like almost everyone in the building, Don was assigned, or detailed, from his home agency to the NCPC. In theory, this built personal connections between agencies, but teamwork was really based on the leadership of the Deputy Director for each directorate, one of the few permanent employees of the NCPC. If you had a DD who was confident in the system, and capable, the personal connection concept worked well. If you had Don’s DD as your manager, it didn’t.

He did his best to pass Clem’s office as quickly as possible. Not fast enough.

“Riley! Get in here.” Clem’s voice stopped him in his tracks. He turned and took a step into the open doorway.

The first impression of Clem Reggins was always a good one. Tanned, with biceps that bulged out of his shirtsleeves and pecs rippling under his shirt, his icy blue eyes and short blond hair screamed “all-American boy.” And that impression was a fraud. The Clem Reggins that Don knew was the worst kind of narrow-minded, power-grubbing bureaucrat. Worse than that, the man was a bully.

“Running a little late this morning, Riley?” Clem’s voice was a touch higher than one might expect in a man of his physique.

Probably the steroids, you sick fuck. I hope your nuts shrink to the size of soybeans. “Traffic, Clem… you know.”

Clem came out from behind his desk and stretched so that Don could admire his magnificent arms. He stared pointedly at Don’s belly straining against his belt. “Not me. I hit the gym before work. No traffic at 0430, Riley. You should try it.” He struck another pose.

“Get out of here, Riley. Half the day’s gone already. Oh, and remember, no more of those stupid RFIs. We don’t need them to do our job.”

Don opened his mouth to protest, but decided against it.

An RFI was bureaucratic talk for a request for information. Basically, if an NCPC analyst wanted more information on a topic, he could query another agency using an RFI. All RFIs for his department had to be signed by Clem, and in his boss’s steroid-addled worldview, asking for help was a sign of weakness. It irked Don even more that he was officially a CIA employee on loan to NCPC. If he wanted a piece of intelligence from the CIA — his home agency — he needed to write an RFI, which was then promptly denied by his boss.

So much for interdepartmental cooperation.

Don sighed and backed away from Clem’s muscle show.

His desk was the normal junkyard of paper. For all his tech background, Don preferred paper copies when he really wanted to dig into a topic. His normal mode of operation was to scan the message traffic and then print off the ones he wanted to read in detail. And he never threw anything away. If he printed it off, it meant his brain had picked up a connection somewhere, even if he didn’t know the reason right then. The idea just needed time to marinate.

His message queue was the typical Monday-morning train wreck. Hundreds of unread items in bold letters waited for him in his secure email inbox. He pulled a warm Diet Coke from his bottom drawer, cracked it open, and took a long sip. The acidic taste cleansed his palate of Clem’s cologne.

Don slouched in his chair and opened the first message, a follow-up from a Baghdad car bomb. He scanned it and moved the message to trash. His mind slipped into neutral as he chewed through the messages one by one, hitting his stride. He finished the first Diet Coke and retrieved another without stopping reading.

He reached the end of a summary report about jihadi activity and scanned the footnotes. FBI Special Agent Elizabeth Soroush was mentioned as the author of a referenced report. Liz was in Iraq? He clicked on the link.

Liz’s original report was short, only a page in length. Basically, it reported that three suspected jihadis had been picked up in a raid and processed in the Green Zone. During a review of the detention footage, Liz had noticed the detainees were speaking in Farsi. Attempts to question the men further were not possible, as they had already been turned over to the Iraqi government and subsequently “lost in the system.” Don snorted.

Lost, my ass — they bribed their way out of Iraqi jail. Or they were simply released to the Iranian authorities. As the US began to make noises about leaving Iraq, it was obvious to Don that the Shia-dominated Iraqi government was already paying a certain amount of fealty to their powerful Shia neighbor to the east.

But what held his attention was Liz’s summary of their conversation.

Don stared at the screen for a long moment, then hit PRINT. He took the long walk to the printing station — Clem had denied his request for a personal printer, too — and stared at the page all the way back to his desk.

Liz had concluded that the detainees were of Iranian origin, and the reference to “the blade” was most likely a code name for a new weapon they were planning to use against the coalition forces.

Don stared at the paper, the buzz of curiosity tingling in his brain. He was onto something here; he could taste it. He fired up his connection to the Joint Worldwide Intelligence Communications System, or JWICS — the US government’s top-secret Internet — and started a search around the term blade, adding in some parameters to focus on Iranian origins. It always gave Don a chuckle that the most-used search engine inside the most secure intelligence network in the world was also the most popular search engine in the civilian world: Google.

Multiple hits came back. Some about various ancient weapons, some about the latest knives being bought and sold for use by foreign militaries. The analyst who had written the report obviously had a thing for ancient weaponry. Don read through the description of the curved ivory handle and ancient blade, then clicked on the link for the picture of the weapon.

He nearly dropped his soda.

He’d seen this knife before. In Iraq. The Iranian diplomat that Brendan had picked up back in 2007 had been carrying it.

Using his CIA login, he called up the data from the raid. Clem would have a kitten if he found out Don had bypassed the RFI process — which he wouldn’t approve in the first place — but Don could feel that he was on the verge of a breakthrough. There was a connection between Liz’s report and that raid. Somewhere in this puzzle was the magic link he needed to make all the pieces fit together. He just needed to keep looking.

He scanned through the folder. They’d uncovered a major weapons cache, including the source of the more sophisticated EFPs that were just showing up in the region. The explosives were of Iranian origin and the technology impressive, especially for local militia. These guys obviously had advanced training.

He pulled up the digital photos from the raid, tapping the cursor until he found the one he was looking for. The knife was in someone’s flat palm. It had a curved white handle and a short arced blade, wrought with filigree designs. The next picture showed a crushed pack of Marlboros and a silver Zippo lighter.

He scanned the text of the after-action report from Brendan. The Iranian diplomat’s bodyguard had been killed in the raid. How important did you have to be to rate your own bodyguard?

Don pulled up the picture page of the Iranian diplomat’s passport next to the photo of the ivory-handled knife and focused on the man’s face. A classic face, with a noble nose, steady dark eyes, and thin lips set in a cruel smile.

Alizera Mogadaham, who are you?

He flipped back to the text from Liz’s report. What about the blade? That was what the Farsi-speaking prisoner had asked.

The puzzle pieces in Don’s mind snapped together: They weren’t talking about a weapons system, they were talking about a person.

And now Don had his picture.