Kilo Option, page 6
“It’s a Pchela fast-attack patrol boat,” Lane said softly, and he gazed up at the satellite images. “How about that.”
“Black Sea Fleet,” Hughes said in wonder. “What the hell are the Ukrainians doing in that piece of water?”
“Working for the Iraqis.”
“Okay, how’d they get there? Somebody would have taken notice somewhere along the line. They had to pass through the Bosporus, cross the Med, transit the Suez Canal, traverse the Red Sea, round two capes, and steam through the Strait of Hormuz. No mean feat.”
“Maybe they went disguised as deck cargo,” Lane said. “The real question is why are they helping Hussein?”
“How can you be so sure it was the Iraqis?”
Lane switched off one set of the duplicated weapons strikes, and the originals popped up. “Air-launched bombs, probably slicks, and maybe Maverick air-to-surface missiles. The Israelis might make a strike like that on their own, but they wouldn’t work with the Ukrainians.”
“Leaves Uncle Saddam,” Hughes said. “But he doesn’t have the jets.”
Lane looked up at his old friend. “Would you bet your life on it, Tommy?”
“Moira would never forgive me,” Hughes said. He nodded toward the big screen. “So let’s say the Ukrainians are helping the RCC. Maybe trying to bring Uncle Saddam back to power. Everybody and his brother knows about Iran’s little toys. This attack surely wasn’t meant to do any real harm.”
“I agree,” Lane acknowledged. He stared at the satellite photographs. “Frances and her people think it was an intel operation.”
“What were they looking for?”
“Nuclear-tipped cruise missiles.”
Hughes leaned up against the console behind him. “I must say that your lady friend does think deep thoughts, William. Is she going to Tehran with this?”
“They leave in the morning,” Lane replied distantly.
“The Iranians aren’t going to take kindly to the UN poking around their precious secrets. All the less so if they’ve somehow managed to go nuclear. Is she aware that the Ukrainians might be involved?”
“Not yet. We’ll get this up to her before they leave in the morning.” Lane couldn’t take his eyes off the screen.
“What else, William?” Hughes asked in concern. “What connections are you making?”
“The timing makes you wonder, doesn’t it?” Lane asked. “Maslennikov shows up in Kiev and a few days later this happens.”
“I don’t get you.”
“Maslennikov,” Lane said, tearing his eyes away from the screen. “Before he became an intelligence officer he was a captain in the Soviet navy. A Kilo-class submarine captain.”
A funny look came over Hughes’s face, which was even more mottled than usual. He gave Lane the computer printout. “This came in when you were upstairs, I was trying to get a confirmation. Maslennikov is back.”
“When?” Lane asked. The printout was a twenty-four-hour summary of an Immigration and Naturalization Service surveillance operation. Maslennikov’s name showed up near the bottom.
“Yesterday afternoon. He was spotted at the embassy.”
“Alone?”
“Yes, but like I said, William, there’s no confirmation.”
“He’s back,” Lane said firmly, a cold feeling at the pit of his stomach. He picked up his phone and called Joseph Bishop’s home number. Bishop was assistant deputy directory of the FBI’s Special Investigations Division. He was an old friend, and Lane’s main contact at the Bureau. He was also chief investigating officer on the search for the penetration agent. He was a no-nonsense man who’d come up through the cops’ ranks, starting in uniform on the streets of Portland, Maine.
The phone rang twice and Bishop’s wife, Betty Lee, answered in her tiny down-east voice. “Hello?”
“This is a secret admirer, how’d you like to run away to Acapulco with me?”
She laughed. “Good timing. My bags are packed and Joseph is gone.”
“Oh?” Lane asked, keeping his voice in check.
“They called him back to the office about an hour ago, and he left in a huff,” she said lightly, but Lane could hear something in her voice. “You boys playing cops and robbers tonight?”
“Nope. Just wanted to buy him a beer.”
“Call him.”
“Will do, Betty Lee.” Lane broke the connection and called Bishop’s direct line.
The FBI cop answered on the first ring. “What?”
“Bill Lane.”
“I was just about to call you. One of your boys broke loose tonight and murdered a navy lieutenant commander in a room at the Grand Hyatt. Hired a goddamned call girl to lure him there.”
“Which one is it?”
“Gerald Isaacs. We got a good description from the girl. Name he gave her was Stewart Mann. Ring any bells?”
“No,” Lane said. “What about the navy guy? Was he working on anything significant at the Pentagon?”
“Name is Thomas Stein. Possibly naval intelligence. We found some stuff on his body from Suitland. But his ID card was missing. We’re checking out the rest of it.”
“I’m at CMC. Send me whatever you come up with.”
Bishop paused for a moment, and in the background Lane could hear the whine of a high-speed computer printer and the urgent voices of what sounded like a half-dozen people talking on telephones.
“You called here, Bill. What’d you want?”
“Mikhail Maslennikov got past your people last week and showed up in Kiev. But he came back yesterday.”
“No proof that he’s running Isaacs.”
“The timing is interesting, wouldn’t you say? Where’s Isaacs now?”
“He took a cab over to the Holiday Inn on Thomas Circle, but nobody there saw a thing. That was nearly five hours ago.”
Lane’s jaw tightened. There was no use blaming Bishop, the man was the best there was. But this situation was getting out of hand.
“Send me Stein’s package as soon as possible,” Lane said. “And anything else you come up with.”
“Will do.”
Lane hung up the phone and stared at the satellite images on the big screen. There was a connection, though for the moment he couldn’t imagine what it was.
“Pull out Isaacs’s file,” he told Hughes. “And better have a couple dozen copies of his photo run off.”
8
NORFOLK NAVAL BASE
The computer center was enclosed behind a pair of unmarked steel doors watched by low-lux closed-circuit television monitors. Just inside the first door was a small anteroom where classified dispatches and materials could be transferred under secure conditions without compromising the security of the center itself.
Yernin stood beneath the television camera patiently holding up a copy of his orders as the security lock cycled.
A young petty officer second class with sand brown hair, his tie loose, his uniform shirt collar unbuttoned, let him in. His name tag said BOWMAN, and he looked like he was only fifteen or sixteen years old. “We weren’t expecting anyone, sir,” he said.
Yernin handed the boy a copy of his orders, and grinned. “Hell, I didn’t know until after supper that I’d be driving all the way down here tonight. I’d like to get back around two. Heavy day tomorrow.”
“Yes, sir,” the young petty officer said. He logged in the orders. “What’d you bring us?”
Yernin reached down and opened his case. “Just the three of you here tonight?”
“Only two of us, sir. Not much traffic this time of the night.”
Yernin took out his pistol and shot the petty officer in the middle of the face at the bridge of his nose. His head snapped back and he crashed to the floor.
First making certain that the outer door was locked, Yernin entered a five-digit code into the inner door’s keypad. The sequence was changed every twenty-four hours. He’d gotten today’s code out of the Pentagon’s mainframe before he’d left his office. When investigators finally backtracked, they would trace this incident to him.
But that would take time. And time was still on his side, although not by as large a margin as he might have thought.
Holding the gun at his side, he opened the inner door a crack and looked inside. A row of equipment, the gray, featureless back panels facing the door, blocked his line of sight into the computer center. But he could see that the room was very large, stretching more than thirty meters to the left and nearly that far to the right. The air smelled of electronic equipment, and he could hear the irritating high-pitched whine of several superfast printers spewing out copy somewhere within. There were no alarms so far.
He stepped inside, easing the door shut behind him, and moved silently to the right to the first break in the row of equipment.
A young petty officer was seated with his back to the door at a computer terminal ten meters away, his fingers flying over the keyboard. Yernin aimed the gun at the back of the man’s head, steadying his hand on the edge of the equipment console, and waited for him to stop typing. If the operator was talking to someone, the interruption might create questions.
The petty officer hit a key, his screen went blank, and he started to turn around. “Mike …”
Yernin fired once, the shot catching the young man in the side of his head just above his right ear, driving him off his chair.
Yernin listened for several seconds, but still no alarms sounded. He sat down at one of the terminals, hit a series of keys, then Enter.
The US Navy’s seal appeared on the screen, followed a moment later by the first instructions.
CINCPAC
RESTRICTED ACCESS
ENTER YOUR PASSWORD NOW
Yernin entered hep*@.#//.
WELCOME TO COMSUBLANT
NAVBASE NORFOLK
DO YOU WISH TO SEE A MENU?
Yernin typed NO, then entered another series of codes giving him direct access to the computer center for the Commander, US Submarine Forces Pacific Fleet, which was the twin of this center. Another series of keystrokes brought him further into the system, and when he had what he’d been sent to look for, he inserted a blank superhigh-density floppy disk into a reader and began copying the data.
The transfer would take ninety seconds.
Waiting several moments to make certain that the equipment was functioning properly, he took three of the fifteen one-pound bricks of P4 Semtex and three acid-timed fuses he’d brought with him out of his case. The first he placed at the base of the terminal he was using. He cracked the fuse at the eight-minute mark. The second he placed on one of the main memory units near the door, cracking the fuse at the ten-minute mark. The last he laid on the floor near the door.
When he got back to the terminal he removed the floppy disk, put it in his belt at the small of his back, then took a small answering machine from his case and brought it to a desk on the opposite side of the terminal where it would be well away from any blast damage. He disconnected the telephone on the desk, jacked it into the unit, and connected the device to the incoming line. He switched it to playback so that it would answer the phone after two rings.
He grabbed his case and went back to the door. He cracked the third fuse for zero delay, inserted it into the pale gray mass of the plastic explosive, and slid the brick in place on the floor, then shut off the lights and stepped into the anteroom, closing the door behind him.
The first security personnel who came into the dark room might step on the fuse if they were not careful, especially if they were in a hurry. The plastique would take out the door and whoever was nearby.
He stepped over the body, opened the door to the corridor, and walked back to the elevator. He pressed the call button and waited for the car to descend from the ground floor.
BASE SECURITY’S OPERATIONS READY ROOM
Petty Officer Janet Dagen waited until the phone rang ten times before she turned around.
“Lieutenant, I think we’ve got a problem,” she called across the room.
The officer of the day, Lieutenant Earl Rowse, got up from his desk and came over. “What’s up, Dagen? Somebody raising hell at the EM club?” Rowse was a tall, lanky man with a thick, bushy mustache and flaming red hair.
“No, sir. I can’t raise security at Atlantic Fleet HQ number three entry.”
“He probably took a hike to the head.”
“Negative. I tried him twice in the last five minutes.” She brought the phone line up on the loudspeaker. It was still ringing.
“Who’s pulling that duty tonight?”
“Roy Llewellyn.”
“Okay, Dagen. Try him on his walkie-talkie channel.” Rowse figured that she was having a case of the jitters. Chief Llewellyn was her fiancé. They were getting married next month. A lot of kids in her situation got twitchy. He had, the month before he’d gotten married.
The petty officer cut the phone circuit and flipped a couple of switches on her console. “CINCLANT Base Three, this is Home Plate. Copy?”
There was a slight hiss on the speakers, but no response.
“CINCLANT Base Three, this is Home Plate, report status, please.”
Still there was no answer. Llewellyn was a good man. He would not be goofing off or asleep over there. Either his comms equipment was down for some reason, or he was away from his post checking on something. Either way, Rowse didn’t like it.
“Who’s got duty at number one entry?” he asked.
“John Spires.”
Rowse picked up the phone on the adjacent console and entered the number for Atlantic Fleet Headquarters main entrance. During the day there were three people on duty at each of three entries. At night only entrances one and three were manned, and each by only one person.
“Atlantic Fleet Headquarters Security, Petty Officer Spires. May I help you, sir?”
“This is Lieutenant Rowse. We might have a problem with the comms gear at entry three. Have you talked to Llewellyn tonight?”
“Not for the past couple of hours, sir. Do you want me to try to raise him?”
“Lock down your position and hustle back there. I want to know what’s going on.”
“Aye, aye, Lieutenant.”
“Spires?”
“Sir?”
“Take your sidearm.”
“Yes, sir. Stand by.”
It would take a couple of minutes for the security cop to get across the big building to the rear entrance. Rowse patted his pockets for a cigarette, momentarily forgetting that he had quit eight months ago, and that the navy had banned smoking in all indoor spaces. Dagen handed him one of hers and held out a light.
“Thanks,” he said. “Everything’s fine over there. Roy is checking on something and he forgot to take his walkie-talkie.”
“I hear you, sir.” Something, some gut feeling, was telling her otherwise. Woman’s instinct. Being pregnant, something no one but she knew about, did that.
“Lieutenant Rowse,” Petty Officer Spires came back on his VHF Channel. “I’m at entry three. Nobody’s here, sir. Llewellyn is gone.”
“Is his position locked down?”
“Negative. Looks as if he just stepped away for a minute. Stand by.” Dagen looked up at Rowse, a worried expression on her face, her mouth turned down.
“Something’s funny here, Lieutenant. The door into the booth is locked from the inside, but the glass is open. Llewellyn must have come over the counter.”
“Check the head,” Rowse said.
“Aye, aye.”
Rowse was on his third tour of duty, but he was getting out. With all the cutbacks, the navy was getting tough. A little sparrow had told him that he was being riffed for lieutenant commander. Every department from admin to air ops was being downsized. It was just as well, though, because he figured he could do better in the civilian sector. Another full year of school and he’d have his law degree and be ready to sit for the bar exam.
“Okay, Lieutenant, he’s not here,” Spires radioed.
“Lock it down and get back to your own post. I’m sending somebody over.”
“Aye, aye, sir. If he shows up I’ll have him check in.”
“Do that,” Rowse said, and broke the connection. “Get over there and find out what the hell is going on.”
Dagen jumped up and grabbed her uniform blouse. “Aye, aye, sir.”
“Take it easy,” Rowse said not unkindly. “The worst that’s going to happen is I’ll chew him a new asshole for not checking in.”
“Gotcha.”
She hurried downstairs to the parking lot, jumped into a Base Security jeep, and headed over to Atlantic Fleet Headquarters, a sick feeling at the pit of her stomach. She was nearly two months pregnant, and although she wasn’t showing yet, she was having trouble with morning sickness, and with keeping her emotions in check. Sometimes she wanted to crouch in a corner and do nothing but cry. At other times she wanted to lash out like a raging banshee, in what she called her “superbitch” mode. And at still other times, like now, she was so beset with fears and premonitions of disaster that it was all she could do to hold herself together.
All of it was hormones, she told herself. Nothing more.
She had to smile thinking that the lieutenant wasn’t the only one who was going to chew Roy a new asshole. She was getting pretty good at that herself. Wasn’t right to scare a pregnant woman.
She pulled up at entry three in the rear of the headquarters building and raced up the walk, expecting to see Llewellyn through the glass. But the security booth was still empty.
She keyed the lockdown override with her master pass, yanked open the door, went inside, and checked the security booth’s door. It was locked from the inside, just as Spires had reported.
It was hard to keep on track. She started down the empty corridor. It was a very big building. He could be anywhere, or nowhere. “Roy,” she called his name under her breath.
He wasn’t at his post, and Spires had checked the head. But if he was in the building she would find him. She would search the building systematically, room by room if need be.
