Dark Zone (7 page)

“And we know where it is?”

“We’ve known since the mutiny, and tracked it since 1982,” said Hadash. “William did a paper on it for me.”

The fact that Hadash remembered the paper pleased Rubens—though he feared that his former professor might share the fact that it had yielded another A-minus.

Come to think of it, A-minus was the
only
grade Hadash had ever given him. He would point that out.

“The NSA had a program called Seed Finder during the early Reagan years,” said Rubens. “By that time the French had misplaced the weapon—on paper only—at least twice and located it again. Their estimates of its size and bulk in the nineteen-eighties—well, their calculations were incorrect. They clearly underestimated its potency.”

The NSA had “contracted” with the CIA’s Special Collection Service—in some ways the predecessor to Desk Three—to place sensors at the site to help evaluate the warhead and judge its potency. A CIA officer had lost his life in one of the operations, and two agents (foreign employees of the CIA) had also been killed before the sensors were successfully planted.

“The sensors are regularly checked and updated,” said Rubens. “Two weeks ago, a change was detected.”

“The warhead is gone?” asked Collins.

“Part of it,” said Rubens. “Although a portion of the bomb structure remains.”

The unfinished bomb’s nuclear “kernel” consisted of several disks of refined plutonium, which were designed to be compressed by a special girdle of high explosives to create a nuclear explosion. At least one of the disks was still in place, because the French monitoring system had not detected the change.

“How could they miss it?” asked Lincoln.

Rubens was tempted to say it was because the French were arrogant and pompous imbeciles who couldn’t see past their noses—but he merely shook his head.

“Their technology is not particularly effective. And they have underestimated the size of the material from the beginning. The error is compounded greatly over time,” Rubens pointed out. “I must say, our technology frankly has some drawbacks as well—the units in place must be checked in person, and it may have been moved at any point over about six weeks between inspections.”

“I think what you need to address,” said the President, “is how the material is likely to be used.”

Rubens nodded. “There are two possibilities. One is as a bomb. There would be enough material to construct a weapon with a yield of sixty kilotons, more likely less, possibly more, depending on the state of the plutonium and of course the design of the bomb. The material could be inserted into a properly prepared bomb; anyone with access to the plans from the time should be able to construct a high-explosive shell to set it off. Anyone without access to that could engineer a solution. In neither case is it easy, but it’s certainly do-able. More likely, in our opinion, the plutonium could be used in conjunction with other radioactive materials to create a number of dirty bombs.”

Rubens turned to his theory that the material had been stolen by a private criminal organization with the idea of selling it on the open market. It did not appear to have been sold already—or at least the NSA detection net had not spotted it in the Middle East.

“Our best guess is that it is still somewhere in Algeria. Alternatively, it may be in France.”

“France?” asked Collins.

Rubens didn’t think so himself, but a radiation counter on a ship to Marseilles had some anomalies that were still being investigated. The ship had docked in Bilbao, Spain, after visiting the French port—and there the anomalies had disappeared.

“Either there was a problem with the device, which is not unheard of, or the material was carried into France. As you know, it can be somewhat easier to move things into Europe than the Middle East,” added Rubens. This was because the Arab and northern African countries were covered by a network of American, Israeli, and NATO sensors. Scrutiny at European ports was not nearly as intense.

“We have some additional information from an eavesdropping source in Morocco,” added Rubens. “It ties the ship to a charity used by different terrorist groups. It’s circumstantial, however.”

“Which means you have no real information,” said Collins. She was angry because Rubens hadn’t shared the information about the missing material privately before the meeting. The fact that Hadash had ordered him not to—a fact that neither Rubens nor Hadash would volunteer anyway—was beside the point.

“That’s true,” said Rubens. “It’s merely a suggestion, not hard data.”

“Are you pursuing that source?”

“We’re working on it,” said Rubens.

The “source” was actually an eavesdropping device in Morocco. As luck would have it, the battery that powered the device had died twenty-four hours before; Rubens was scrambling to plan a mission to replace it.

“We want to locate the bomb and raise the issue with the French,” said Hadash. “The difficulty is how to do it. We don’t want to give away our intelligence-gathering methods.”

Or embarrass the French too severely,
thought Rubens,
given their recent trend of cooperation with America.
The French had only recently woken up to the fact that Islamic fundamentalism posed at least as great a threat to Europe as it did to America. Now that they were finally cooperating, they had to be handled delicately.

“How long would it take to make this into a bomb?” asked Namath.

“Impossible to know for certain,” said Rubens. “Weeks rather than days. Months most likely. But it could even be years.”

“So it could have already been constructed?”

“Very possible,” said Rubens. “As I said, the most likely use is as a dirty bomb, and that could be put together relatively quickly.”

“The French have to be notified,” said Hadash. “We need their help tracking it down.”

“I believe they’ll help us,” said Lincoln. “But they’ll ask us to share information. And if we want help, we’ll have to do so.”

“The NSA concurs,” said Brown. “My suggestion is that we indicate we came by the information via an intercept.”

“What if they want more?” said Lincoln.

“I don’t think mentioning the monitoring project would help one way or the other,” said Namath. “And that’s what you’re worried about. Intercepts—we can be vague.”

“In the past the French haven’t taken much seriously unless they have very strong corroboration,” said Lincoln.

“Telling them we’re watching over their shoulder isn’t going to make them cooperative,” said Hadash.

“I agree,” said Lincoln. “But they may not take an intercept very seriously.”

“They may not,” admitted Rubens.

“Well, let’s take the chance that they will,” said the President. “They’ve been shaping up. Their cooperation in Africa over the past few months has been very useful. How many terrorists have been arrested?” he asked Namath.

“At least a dozen.”

“And now we’ll reciprocate,” said Marcke. “Since we’ll be there on Friday, I think State might bring this missing warhead up at a high but informal level, and refer the French to Admiral Brown. He can take it from there.”

“That sounds reasonable,” said Lincoln. “Since we’re on the topic of Europe, I have some concerns about some of the alerts that the NSA recently passed along concerning high-level Americans being targeted there. That was the phrase used in the Philippines last year just before an attack on one of our ambassadors. I want to issue an alert to embassy personnel.”

“‘That’s premature,” said Hadash.

The debate zigzagged from there, Lincoln worried for his people, Hadash trying to put it in perspective. Brown took Lincoln’s side; the CIA people took Hadash’s. Rubens said a few words backing up his boss, but the alert system was not under his jurisdiction and, frankly, he didn’t care much for it. Besides, Lincoln was operating on emotion rather than logic; he wasn’t going to be mollified by technical arguments about the worth of the data.

“What we need is more information,” said Marcke finally. “Admiral, let’s find out what’s going on.”

“Absolutely,” said Brown.

“I have to protect my people,” said Lincoln. “Let me tell the embassy staffs
something.”

“I think if you want to discourage unnecessary travel by close dependents, that would be in order,” said Hadash—very likely offering a face-saving compromise because he would be in Europe with Lincoln and didn’t want him grouchy the whole time.

“All right,” said Lincoln. “I will.”

As the others filtered out, the President asked Rubens if he was feeling OK.

“Yes, sir. Why?”

“You look a little tired. You should get more rest. Take a vacation.”

“Yes, sir.”

Marcke smiled at him. “I’m serious.”

“I will. As soon as I can.”

“If I didn’t know you hated France so much, I’d suggest you come with us.”

“The only thing wrong with France is the French, Mr. President. I’m as ambivalent about the French as they are about us. But I wouldn’t want them to be blown up by a nuclear weapon.”

“We’ll make sure it doesn’t happen, William. Not on our watch.”

7

Dean looked up from his seat as the door opened. He’d been in the police interrogation room now for nearly two hours, repeating the same story at least a half-dozen times. It was a short story, at least: it relayed exactly what he had seen at the park and included the outlines of the cover he had been supplied with. With the exception of his cover—businessman in town for a conference, taking a stroll with a friend he’d chanced to meet—it was all absolutely true.

It left out a lot, but it was true.

“Who is it that you know at the embassy?” asked the chief inspector, the older of the two men who’d been questioning him. His name was Lang and he smelled of cigarettes. Dean noticed that his fingertips were stained brown. Every so often he excused himself, probably to grab a smoke.

“I don’t know anyone,” said Dean. “I just called the number you gave me.”

“The embassy sent someone to speak to my superior,” said the detective. “It was all very unnecessary.”

“I didn’t mean to cause any trouble,” said Dean. “I’ve answered all your questions and told you what I saw several times. You can’t think I had anything to do with shooting the man.”

The detective gave him a look that suggested the contrary. He slid a pad of paper down on the table.

“A place where I can contact you, both here and in the States,” he told Dean. “Include address and phone number, if you will.”

Dean wrote down the name of the hotel Desk Three had reserved, then added his home address and phone number. The chief inspector took back the pad and looked over the information so slowly that he seemed to be checking each letter against some master file in his brain. Then he got up and waved the pad at Dean, indicating that he should follow.

When he got downstairs, Tommy Karr was there, talking to the desk sergeant about the best place to get “real” shepherd’s pie and a pint. As Dean walked up, the policeman had just mentioned a place near Waterloo Station—a major train station on the other side of the Thames—and Karr acted with exaggerated surprise, as if authentic British beer could not be purchased anywhere near a railway. They chatted on for a few more minutes, Karr oblivious to Dean or the embassy representative, who was waiting for them nearby. The representative was a young man in a business suit whose close-cropped hair and posture screamed military.

Karr finished kibitzing with the sergeant, pointing at the policeman as if he were a drinking buddy before walking away. “Later,” he told the sergeant, strolling over to the man from the embassy. “Say, can I get you to give me a lift? I just got some good pointers on places on food. It’s a little past teatime, but I’m hungry. Charlie, you grab some grub, too.”

“Actually, sir, the ambassador wishes to speak with you,” said the escort.

“You oughta be a salesman, or maybe a politician,” Dean told Karr as they walked to the embassy car. “You have that hail-fellow-well-met act down cold.”

“Just getting some local intelligence,” said Karr, bending himself into the backseat of the embassy’s Ford. Dean slid beside him.

“I’m guessing you’re a Marine who was ordered to dress down for the occasion,” Karr said as the driver put on his seat belt.

“Lieutenant Dalton, sir.”

“Charlie was a Marine,” offered Karr. “Back in the old days. Who was it you fought, Charlie? Barbary pirates?”

“From Tripoli to the Halls of Montezuma,” Dean said drily.

Karr smiled. Dalton glanced in the mirror. Dean realized he’d balled his fingers into a fist, tensing in anticipation of the questions: “Where did you serve?” “What was your rank?” “What did you do?”

It felt so long ago now that talking about it was an effort, one he didn’t feel like making. But the young man said nothing.

Dean reached into his pocket and took out the room key that he had snatched from the dead man. Without saying anything, he held it out so Karr could see.

Karr grinned. “They thought it was yours?”

“The first policeman made me empty my pockets in the park. Good thing we didn’t check in.”

“Ah, you would have come up with something,” said Karr.

Dean wasn’t sure about that. He’d never been a particularly good liar, and he certainly couldn’t joke and josh the way Karr did. He remembered the words an older commander had once used to describe him on a fitness report or something similar:
taciturn by nature.

He’d seen it as a compliment then. Now he wasn’t so sure.

“Semper fi,” the lieutenant said as he left Dean and Karr in a waiting room upstairs in the embassy. “Good luck, sir.”

“Thank you, Lieutenant,” said Dean. “Semper fi.”

“Nice furniture, huh?” said Karr. He dropped back into a frail-looking antique chair against the wall.

“What are we going to do now?” Dean asked.

Karr shrugged. “We give the Art Room time to sort this all out, Charlie. Relax. You’re too wound up.”

“I should be more like you, right? Water off a duck’s back.”

Karr chuckled. Dean knew by now that the op actually was much more serious, much more focused, than he appeared. Under his “What, me worry?” veneer and his corny sense of humor, he was calculating several steps ahead. He was a sharp, truly bright kid who also happened to be immensely big. Dean thought Karr had learned to pretend to be goofy as a boy growing up. Bright kids usually didn’t fit in by showing how smart they were; they had to adopt some sort of act, like class clown. And yet nonchalance was definitely part of Karr’s personality. The op would laugh in the face of a hurricane and probably honestly think getting soaked was interesting.