For Honor, page 11
part #17 of Tom Clancy's Op-Center Series
In the equation, the Desire was simple: Iran wanted nuclear weapons or the high-grade material to make them. The Iranians also had the Will: nothing else was as important to Tehran. And they also had the essential Tools by way of a globe-spanning navy and a great deal of cash. The only one that was partially complete was Plan. That required intelligence, experience, and relationships. They had a great deal of HUMINT—human intelligence—eyes and ears on the ground around the world. There were also rumors—
And there’s a piece, he thought suddenly.
Iran was suspected to be buying information from Russia via Lourdes in Cuba. And if Ghasemi had been sent here to spy—and still might be, while telling January Dow he wasn’t—intelligence was a certainty in the equation. Experience? They were known to be purchasing nuclear know-how from Germany and North Korea.
So the Iranians were known to have a few of all the pieces needed to execute a method. The trick, now, was to find out which way the elements in the equation pointed to achieve G—the Goal.
The key to solving that puzzle was “evidentiary weight,” as McCord called it. He looked to see which elements showed up the most, directly or even obliquely, throughout the equation. When he laid out the random pieces of intelligence they had acquired, the ones that stood out—Operation Anadyr, Bermejo, Lourdes, and even the Shukur-punch. And they all fell under the same heading, one that completed the equation.
He did a word-search on a CIA white paper from 1962, then called Williams.
“What have you got, Roger?”
“A bunch of roads if not leading to Cuba, bringing us close,” McCord said.
“As a staging area or for more intel?” Williams asked.
“The latter. We’ve got four associations with the Cuban Missile Crisis. That’s too high for coincidence. I just skimmed a CIA postmortem on Operation Anadyr and it’s amazing what we did not know, and what we still do not know.”
“We weren’t doing flyovers by then,” Williams said.
“Uh-uh.”
Williams was referring to the capture of U-2 pilot Francis Gary Powers when the Russians shot the spy plane down over Sverdlovsk during a May 1960, mission. Powers’s release, in 1962, came with a tactically timed caveat that the U.S. effectively stop overflights of Russian interests.
“The CIA concluded that one of two things happened in the fall of ’62,” McCord went on. “One, that Khrushchev didn’t clear out all the nukes and that they are still somewhere in Cuba. Or two, that Cuba was only one of the destinations. Syria was aligned with the Soviet Bloc back then, and Moscow was not happy about our missiles in Turkey.”
“Christ, if there are nukes in Syria—”
“Could be,” McCord said. “Off the radar and buried for over a half century. Or Khrushchev might have deployed them somewhere else in Russia. Our eyes were on Cuba, then. Our HUMINT eyes were on the silos we knew about. He may have wanted a secret stash, possibly within striking distance of an allied target.”
“Kathleen reported a Russian arms dealer showing up in the northeast.”
“She also said that could be nothing more than a family reunion,” McCord said. “She should watch that, but we really need to follow the nuclear trail from where it began. There are only three places where records like that might be found. Russia, Syria, or Cuba.”
“Cuba,” Williams said thoughtfully. “Bermejo and Operation Anadyr. Your equation.”
“Kathleen also zeroed in there,” McCord said. “She places the SIGINT station at Lourdes as a likely place for Dr. Bermejo to be.”
“Pretty tightly bottled up,” Williams said. “Even if you had forged papers, you don’t look Cuban and you don’t look Russian.”
“Cubans are a mix of everything from African to Chi—”
“You only speak high school Spanish—”
“Cuatro años.”
“And they’d follow the hell out of you. Or if you could sneak inside, how will you find her and what makes you think she’ll talk to you? Or that she’s fully compos mentis?”
McCord sat thoughtfully. “She emerges from time to time,” McCord said. “She has an account at the National Bank of Cuba. Kathleen is looking to see if she makes withdrawals.”
“There’s probably an ATM and a commissary at Lourdes, for the Russians. To keep them happy when they’re not on leave.”
“Russians,” McCord said. “All the more reason for a Cuban to want to get the hell out of there. Look—we have to look into a possible connection. I’ve got a sculling background. The sport’s been big in Cárdenas for over a hundred years and that’s near both Havana and Lourdes. Might get me in.”
Despite the establishment of diplomatic relations, travel to Cuba for tourist activities was still prohibited by statute. The United States Department of Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control still issued general licenses for a dozen categories of travel of which athletic activities and competitions were one.
“I’ll go with your gut on this,” Williams said, glancing at his computer. “It may not have anything to do with this matter, but I’m looking at our file on Cuba and it’s full of SIGINT and ELINT, not eyeballs. Also, ask Aaron to have his team watch for anything that has to do with Dr. Bermejo—travel, bank withdrawals, photos … anything. She may have routines that’ll make it easier for you to get to her.”
“Good. I’ll brief Paul and the Tank,” McCord said, “and I’ll stay in touch via the usual channels.”
McCord hung up feeling as though a weight had been lifted, one he hadn’t even realized was there: being office-bound. Injured, in his middle forties, a family man, he had simply accepted this evolution into the routine of middle-age. After his own recent adventure with Mike Volner in New York, operations director Brian Dawson had suggested to McCord that he do the same thing, get himself a field assignment. McCord hadn’t been sure that he was up for it physically or psychologically. At least as far as the latter was concerned, McCord had been wrong.
Getting up and going down the hall, he had a chat with Dan Carbonero who was Op-Center’s one-person travel office. If documents were needed, legal or not, the sixty-five-year-old former Washington, D.C., travel agent was the man to see. His sister Jodi was a retired engraver at the U.S. Mint. It was a useful partnership.
After telling Carbonero what he needed, McCord got in touch with Mike Fogel, secretary general of the United States Rowing Association. McCord told him he had some vacation time coming and wanted to spend it in Cuba, where he had never visited. Fogel said he’d call his counterpart in Havana to make it happen—provided McCord could get his papers in time.
“Already taken care of,” McCord assured his old friend.
“I forgot,” Fogel chuckled. “You are plugged in down there.”
“Rowing is the only thing I do solo,” he replied.
McCord returned to his formula to see what other data he could apply. He was interrupted after a few minutes by a call from Aaron Bleich.
“Need you in the Tank, if you’re free,” he said.
“What’ve you got?”
“Chase asked me for surveillance of where you’re headed,” the tech wiz replied. “I think you’re going to want to see this.”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
SIGINT Base, Lourdes, Cuba
July 1, 3:09 P.M.
Adoncia was in her tiny living room, listening to a recording by singer Xiomara Alfaro and working on her autobiography, when she smelled smoke. Moments later, a fire alarm sounded. A few seconds after that, a second alarm sounded—from the opposite direction. Then came a peppering of shouts.
The smells and sounds were not in her three-story building; they were coming through the open window, from the direction of Listening Post A about a half mile away. She rose from the desk, no real urgency to her movements as she walked out her back door onto the small patio. Leaving the door open behind her, she walked closer to the burning buildings. By the time she arrived she heard the siren of the fire truck that was stationed permanently at the base. In the distance, to the north, was the sound of sirens coming from the city.
The blaze was churning black smoke from two ends of the long, two-story wood-and-brick structure. The wind was carrying it inland, to the southeast, away from where she was standing. Either the first-story windows had been open or the heat had blown out the glass. Fingers of flame were beginning to reach up along the façade as both Cuban workers and Russian officers ran onto the paved streets of the compound. The old red fire engine arrived from behind the far end of the building and plugged into the nearly sixty-year-old hydrant; she couldn’t quite make it out, but it looked as if the firefighters were having trouble unscrewing the cap.
Adoncia decided to go inside, save her work, and power down her laptop in case it were necessary to evacuate. She remembered, from the days of campfires and Batista’s jungle defoliation-by-flamethrower, how fast and unpredictable fire could be. It was survival instinct honed around those same campfires, at night, that told her at once she was not alone.
“Forgive me, Dr. Bermejo,” a voice said from around a corner. It was followed by a cough.
The physicist walked through the living room. There was a small kitchen and dining area to the far left. To the right was a short corridor that lead to the bedroom, bathroom, and closet. The sound had come from there.
“Who is there?” she asked. There was no fear in her voice. If someone had meant her harm, he would not have announced himself. Whoever it was must have slipped through the open door when she went to look at the fire.
“I-I am Enrich Sanjulian. I work here as a janitor.”
“Why are you hiding?” she asked, though she already suspected the reason. “Did you have something to do with the fire?”
“Yes.” He coughed again, apologizing.
“It was not an accident?” she asked.
There was no answer. Adoncia stopped just short of the hall.
“Come out and talk to me, Enrich,” she said.
A man of medium height, middle age, and modest build came into the afternoon light. He was dressed in coveralls and wore a black baseball cap with a Cuban flag and the slogan ¡VIVA CUBA! beneath it.
“Hello,” she said with an encouraging smile. “Do you know me?”
“I know of you,” the man said. It occurred to him to doff his cap and he snapped it off, revealing a damp tangle of graying hair. Adoncia just now noticed that his dark skin was speckled with perspiration and he was slightly out of breath. “My parents used to speak of you, along with Che and Señores Fidel and Raúl. They were very proud of what you had done.”
“Thank you,” she said graciously. “Now, Enrich—tell me what you have done, and why—but before you do, I’m just going to save some work I was doing. In case we have to leave.”
He nodded, was squeezing his hat as she sat. She turned the screen partly toward him so he could see she was doing nothing more than saving the material and shutting the laptop down. He exhaled audibly.
“Would you like to sit?” she asked, gesturing to a cushioned wood chair opposite a small flat-screen TV.
“Thank you, no,” he said. “I stared those fires because—what you fought against is happening again. A new era, but an old taskmaster.”
“Russia, you mean,” she said.
“Yes. Each week, there are more and more of them. My friends are harassed in town, my nieces—we no longer feel safe here.”
“And you thought that setting fire to their primary intelligence station would send them home,” she said. “It will only bring more of them, for security.”
Sanjulian held out his hands. “We considered that, my cousins and I. But we wanted to get the attention of our leaders. Show them our displeasure.”
“Our leaders are paid a great deal by the Russians, by the Iranians, by the Colombians,” Adoncia said. “A fire won’t change that.”
They heard shouting outside as security forces—Russian, from the voices—spread out through the complex.
“Not one fire, but many fires,” Sanjulian said. “We will do this the way you did, rousing a people who are ready to fight back.”
The scientist considered this, then rose.
“We can talk of this later, Enrich. First—go into the bedroom and stay there. They are sure to come here. I will send them away.”
The man nodded, his lips pressed tightly together to keep from sobbing. She shooed him off, tucked the computer under her arm, and walked toward the door.
Two men were running along her side of the building. Dressed in khaki trousers and matching short-sleeve shirts, they were trying doors, looking in windows. Each man carried a Taser. Noticing her, they hurried forward.
“Have you seen a running man?” a man asked in fractured Spanish.
“Only you,” she responded in perfect Russian.
The men stopped. It wasn’t her knowledge of the language but her slightly mocking tone that caused them to look at her more closely.
“Who are you?” the second man asked in Russian.
“Dr. Adoncia Bermejo,” she replied. “I frequently advise your superiors.” She nodded toward the radio he wore on his belt. “You can call them, if you’d like.”
The men moved forward in unison as cold spray from the fire hoses misted in their direction. They were standing in front of the small window at the front of the apartment. The one nearer glanced over a window box that was rich with mariposa. The interior of the apartment was dark, still.
“We’re only interested in the man who set the fire,” the Russian said. “He was seen running from the building, under cover of the smoke.”
“I have been working here on the patio,” she said, indicating the laptop. “I saw no one.”
Two other Russian guards came running around the apartment block from behind Adoncia. They were dressed, and armed, like the others.
“Is this anything?” one of the newcomers asked in Russian.
“No,” one of the others replied. “Was everything secure?”
“No doors or windows forced. Here?”
“Everything secure,” the men said.
“How do you know he is not a resident?” Adoncia asked.
The first man who had addressed her replied. “The fire started near two custodial stations. Manual laborers do not live here.”
A radio crackled on the hip of one of the newcomers. It was a sentry at the gate: no one had gone through and none of the perimeter alarms had been tripped.
“We are gathering the workers,” the caller said. “Proceed to Listening Post C to assist.”
The man acknowledged and indicated for the others to go with him. The fire was already abating, two engines from the village having attacked it from other sides, the smoke now mixing more and more with steam. The spray had begun to abate as the breeze calmed. Mostly what lingered was the odor of the smoke and whatever oily accelerant had been used.
“We’re sorry to have disturbed you, Dr. Bermejo,” the first speaker said.
“You didn’t,” she replied. “It’s been an education.”
The man was perplexed but moved on with his companion. Adoncia waited until they looked back. Then she waited some more in case they had talked among themselves and came back. After several minutes, when neither of those had happened, she went back inside.
She closed the door and quietly locked it. She did not draw the shades; Russians might still come by and look in. Adoncia could still hear the man breathing, only now it was not from having run, but from anxiety.
“Enrich, I’m going to sit in here … I want them to see me alone if they come by. You stay where you are.”
“All right,” he replied.
“They’re still bullies,” she complained mildly. “The Russians. They were crude and thuggish in 1962, they are crude and thuggish still. They’re gathering the employees. They’re going to find out who’s missing. They’ll go to your home.”
“I live alone,” Sanjulian replied. “If I can get away, I will go to allies in Manzanillo. I can go from there to Jamaica if necessary.”
“How many of ‘you’ are there?”
“Only a dozen or so now,” he told her. “We needed something to embolden others—the way you did with your strikes at the Moncada Barracks.”
“We lost those,” she pointed out.
“But started a movement,” Sanjulian replied.
“Sixty years ago. It was a different world, with weapons and communication that were less efficient at crushing a small insurgency.”
“We can use those means, too,” he replied. “The social media. Our phones.”
The man had a point. Here, she experienced globe-girdling, space-based equipment. On the ground, technology was an equalizer. It had created a terrorist- and anarchist-friendly universe. Like ants, scouts and lone wolves could communicate with the hive in a way she and the other revolutionaries had never been able to.
“Will you stay here, at least until nightfall?” Adoncia asked.
“If you will have me, I would be grateful.”
“Tell me, Enrich. How had you planned to escape?”
“My shift was over. I would have been able to walk out before the fire spread, but the bins of shredded paper were quite full. They just went whoosh. I ran, and running—well, I was seen and pursued.”
The scientist smiled inside; she understood. It would never have occurred to him to wait. When someone was mentally and psychologically prepared to fight, when the spirit and muscles were as primed as they would ever be, adrenaline coopted judgment and survival. The energies had to be expressed.
“Would you answer another question?” she asked.
“Gladly. I appear to have the time.”
She laughed. There was the Cuban worker she knew and loved and had once fought for, a soul of humble, realistic, unvarnished candor. “What would you have done had my door not been open?”
He replied as she half expected: “I would have been captured. I was prepared for that. Señor Fidel was.”
