Day of the Delphi (26 page)
Authors: Jon Land
Wareagle flashed a rare smile. “Perhaps they have already started and you need only to listen.”
No sooner had Johnny left the office than Kristen Kurcell barged in, much to the dismay of the FBI agents assigned to watch her. She closed the door in the lead one’s face.
“I guess you’re planning what they call the fast exit, eh, McCracken?”
“Let me do what I do best, Kris.”
“And what happens to me?”
“You stay alive.”
“Not good enough,” she said resolvedly.
“Look, Kris—”
“Don’t bullshit me, McCracken. I’m a part of this, in case you’ve forgotten. I threw everything away to find out why my brother died.” She hesitated, but her eyes lost none of their fire. “Samantha Jordan was in love with me, you know—”
“I got that impression.”
“—and I killed her.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I’m not. She was part of what killed my brother, full of lies and deceptions. Even all those times she tried to seduce me, the lies were there. I could have quit my job, but I
didn’t because above everything else I thought she was my friend. Another lie.”
didn’t because above everything else I thought she was my friend. Another lie.”
“Maybe not. You admitted yourself she could have had you killed right away, but didn’t.”
“Again, to serve her own interests.”
“Isn’t that what everyone does?”
Her gaze grew suddenly uncertain. “You don’t.”
“I’m different.”
“I know,” Kristen said.
Taking a quick step forward, she pulled Blaine’s head down and kissed him with all the passion pent up within her. Blaine could feel every bit of her emotion and her fear. He wrapped his arms around her and instinctively responded. The moment lingered as she jammed her hands against his chest and drove him back against the wall.
“Take me to South Africa with you,” she said after at last pulling away, eyes demanding the response she wanted.
He raised his hands and grasped her shoulders. “Just be here when I get back, when all this is over.”
“It’s never going to be over, not for me anyway. My life’s in the sewer.”
“Try swimming, even treading water. I’ve been there. It works until the time comes to climb out.”
“What if I don’t want to climb out?”
“Then you drown.”
“You’re a son of a bitch, McCracken. You’re—”
Before the next word had left Kristen’s lips, Blaine had covered them with his own. She tried to push him off briefly and then relented, returning his kiss with a passion equal to her earlier one.
This time it was McCracken who pulled away first.
“Now we’re even,” he told her.
The contents of the floppy disk given to McCracken by Wild Bill Carlisle had been transferred to hard copy and distributed to Ben Samuelson, Charlie Byrne, General Trevor Cantrell, and Angela Taft in the Situation Room first thing
Wednesday morning. Their reactions ranged from shock to disbelief to disavowment as they scanned the eighteen-page document that contained files on the twenty-one men and women who had served with Carlisle on what had become the Delphi. Four of the twenty-one had died and two more had been incapacitated by illness, leaving fifteen in all. The President stressed the fact that some of those fifteen would have been forced out of the Delphi or left by their own choice, as had been the case with Bill Carlisle. The rest had stayed to form the nucleus behind the threat the government was currently facing.
Wednesday morning. Their reactions ranged from shock to disbelief to disavowment as they scanned the eighteen-page document that contained files on the twenty-one men and women who had served with Carlisle on what had become the Delphi. Four of the twenty-one had died and two more had been incapacitated by illness, leaving fifteen in all. The President stressed the fact that some of those fifteen would have been forced out of the Delphi or left by their own choice, as had been the case with Bill Carlisle. The rest had stayed to form the nucleus behind the threat the government was currently facing.
Before the meeting had even begun, crack troops dispatched by General Cantrell had taken control of Miravo and all other bases retasked to handle the dismantling or destruction of nuclear warheads. At the very least, then, the group could rest assured that the Delphi’s nuclear stockpile would not be expanded further.
Under the circumstances, that didn’t really reassure any of the members of the inner circle. After reading through Carlisle’s list of Delphi members, Charlie Byrne leaned back and tapped his knuckles together. Cantrell ruffled through the spent pages. Samuelson shoved the document away from him and stared it down as if afraid it might lunge back his way. Taft was shaking her head.
“How certain can we be of the accuracy of this information?” opened General Cantrell.
“
Absolutely
certain,” responded the President. “To waste our time arguing otherwise is playing the old ostrich game of sticking our heads in the sand.”
Absolutely
certain,” responded the President. “To waste our time arguing otherwise is playing the old ostrich game of sticking our heads in the sand.”
“There are three senators on this list,” Byrne pointed out.
“Also three military men,” Cantrell added. “An admiral and two generals. All three major branches of the armed forces covered.”
“It’s the representatives from the private sector I’m more concerned about,” said Angela Taft. “Three of these men became political legends without ever running for office or even granting an interview. Consultants who’ve troubleshot
in the background for the last three administrations, including this one. Men who understand power and know how to wield it.”
in the background for the last three administrations, including this one. Men who understand power and know how to wield it.”
“How familiar are you with the representatives from business, Charlie?” asked the President.
“You don’t have to go beyond the front page of
The Wall Street Journal
to recognize their names, that’s for sure, sir. But it goes way beyond that. Three of these men control companies that are among the largest multinational corporations based in this country. And the other two are billionaires several times over.”
The Wall Street Journal
to recognize their names, that’s for sure, sir. But it goes way beyond that. Three of these men control companies that are among the largest multinational corporations based in this country. And the other two are billionaires several times over.”
“Not hard to figure out where the resources came from to finance their right-wing allies across the globe, is it?” the President commented as he turned to Samuelson. “Now, Ben, how do we go about bringing them in?”
Samuelson was still flipping through the pages deliberately. “A coordinated, simultaneous effort to prevent the possibility of any of the representatives being forewarned,” the head of the FBI said without any hesitation, barely looking up from the report. “Of course, since we don’t know which of the fifteen we can safely rule out, the round-up will have to include all of them.”
“Lots of states to cover,” the President cautioned. “I counted ten for the fifteen names on the list.”
“We’re prepared, sir.”
“How long before you can bring it off?”
“Lots of men have got to be moved into place, and there’s the added complication of setting up a workable communications link. Say, between midnight and dawn tomorrow, Thursday. Catching the representatives at home should facilitate matters considerably. Of course, there are some factors we’d better get squared away right now.”
“Go ahead.”
“Do we inform the locals and take them along?”
The President shook his head. “The people on Carlisle’s list probably damn near own the locals. Absolutely not. Next?”
“What exactly, sir, are we going to charge them with?”
“To paraphrase Rhett Butler, ‘Frankly, my dear Ben, I don’t give a damn.’ But how does treason grab you?”
Samuelson nodded, satisfied with the response.
“Can we make that stick?” asked Angela Taft.
“So long as we exercise all proper procedures,” answered Samuelson, “yes, I think we can.”
“What about Dodd?”
“He’s taken up temporary residence in
Olympus
, sir,” Samuelson replied, referring to the space station Dodd had backed in a coventure with NASA.
Olympus
, sir,” Samuelson replied, referring to the space station Dodd had backed in a coventure with NASA.
“Good timing.”
“He’s got to come down sometime,” said Charlie Byrne.
“And when he does, Ben,” the President told the director of the FBI, “I want the son of a bitch brought to me with his balls in a sling.”
Clive Barnstable, a member of South Africa’s Interior Ministry, met McCracken just inside the international terminal of Jan Smuts Airport and escorted him away from Immigration toward the diplomatic entry point.
“I wish my instructions had permitted me to employ some backup,” he complained.
“Those were
my
instructions,” Blaine told him. “I don’t want to draw any more attention to my presence than is absolutely necessary.”
my
instructions,” Blaine told him. “I don’t want to draw any more attention to my presence than is absolutely necessary.”
Barnstable, a rail-thin man wearing a linen cream-colored suit flecked with sweat, ran his handkerchief across his forehead. “Whatever you say.”
The commercial flight out of Dulles had landed on time just before dawn on Thursday. The flight was seventeen hours long, and that fact, coupled with the five-hour advance in time, meant McCracken had essentially lost an entire
day he could ill afford to. His request to be met and assisted by an expert on Travis Dreyer and the AWB had been made through standard channels, nothing done that would raise any eyebrows.
day he could ill afford to. His request to be met and assisted by an expert on Travis Dreyer and the AWB had been made through standard channels, nothing done that would raise any eyebrows.
“I’ve got a car waiting outside,” Barnstable told him.
“We’ll take a taxi.”
“The car’s
illegally
parked.”
illegally
parked.”
“Must have diplomatic plates, then.”
Barnstable’s shoulders slumped further as he caught on to McCracken’s thinking. “You’re right, of course,” was all he said.
“What about the information I requested?” Blaine asked Barnstable as they moved toward the single check-in desk within the confines of the diplomatic entry point.
Barnstable’s thin frame bobbed a bit. “It’s waiting for you at a secure location.” His tone became harsh. “This better be more important. The entire schema of Whiteland is not something to be pulled out on a whim.”
“Whiteland?”
“That’s the name Dreyer’s given to the private state in the Eastern Transvaal the AWB has formed.”
“Tell you what. Let’s jump in that cab and you can give me the full briefing on the way.”
The President accepted the news from Samuelson at six A.M. Thursday with more frustration than rage. He had again slept not a wink, waiting for word that the coordinated capture of the known members of the Delphi had been successfully completed. When the duty officer informed him that Samuelson had arrived downstairs, he knew otherwise.
The President had tied his robe haphazardly over his pajama bottoms so that a large expanse of bare chest was revealed. He paced the length of the bay window in his office as the FBI director issued his report.
“So how many did we get, Ben?” he asked before Samuelson was finished, his voice strangely calm.
“Four of the fifteen, sir. That leaves eleven.”
The President stopped pacing. “I can subtract myself, Ben. I’m also pretty good at adding things up, and right now I’d say the four we did get left the Delphi around the same time as Bill Carlisle.”
“Their initial statements do reflect that, sir.”
“And what about the others?”
“None of my people can say for sure how any of them managed to avoid our nets. No two cases appear to have been the same. They just disappeared.”
“A coordinated effort, then.”
“As much as our capture of them would have been.”
“So they must have known we were coming.”
The head of the FBI stood there rigidly. “Sir, I know the responsibility for this lies with me, as does the apparent leak, since my people were the only ones involved. I can say only that I planned the operation with this very possibility in mind. Not a single one of my field commanders knew exactly what their assignment was until thirty minutes before zero hour. In some cases even the location was withheld or obscured until that time. Yes, it’s conceivable a few of the eleven caught wind of what was going on or were warned by sources. But
all
of them? No, it couldn’t have come from my people.”
all
of them? No, it couldn’t have come from my people.”
“Are you suggesting that one of those in our inner circle is the informer?”
“Not necessarily, sir. We know the clock’s ticking on this. It’s conceivable the Delphi member withdrawal was already planned and our missing them was a combination of bad timing and bad luck.”
“And if it’s not, Ben?”
Samuelson hesitated before responding, not able to fully hold the President’s stare. “Then we must assume the Delphi knew we were onto them
prior
to the dispatch of my people.”
prior
to the dispatch of my people.”
“And if that’s the case, they would also be aware that their timetable is no longer a mystery to us, either.”
“Yes, sir, in all probability.”
“Then we might be giving them no choice but to move things up and not wait for next Tuesday night at all.”
The head of the FBI said nothing.
“All right, Ben, under the circumstances I think we can dispense with the subterfuge. I want these men found. And if they can’t be found, I want them cut off.” The President stopped just long enough to collect his thoughts. “That means freezing all their personal and business assets. And I want the lines of those involved in the government tapped.”
“Should I get a court order?”
“I think an
executive
order should do quite nicely.”
executive
order should do quite nicely.”
“Of course,” Samuelson said, and hesitated. “Sir?”
“Yes, Ben.”
“Have you considered going public with this? Expose these bastards for what they are in front of the nation before they can put their plan into effect.”
“I’ve considered that and a hundred other possibilities. But even in the best-case scenario, that the people actually believed me, I can’t see anything but panic resulting. It also could lead to the Delphi becoming desperate enough to utilize their nuclear stockpile. That’s their trump card, Ben, the major unknown in all this.”
The President did not add that the two men McCracken had vouched for were at present searching for that stockpile. Similarly, on McCracken’s advice he had not informed the members of his inner circle of where Blaine himself had gone off to, or mentioned anything about the Delphi’s international interests. It was conceivable, McCracken had insisted, that the enemy’s reach extended even inside that circle, and now it appeared his fears were not without substance.
In any case, whatever advantage McCracken had briefly provided had been lost and, with it, trust. Under the circumstances, the only people the President had to rely on were a single operative presently in South Africa who had been considered an outcast until yesterday and two of his cohorts. Only one option remained.
The President would order General Cantrell to put the Evac plan into action tomorrow morning. At that point, unless something changed over the next twenty-four hours, the government would be taken out of harm’s way.
Out of Washington.
Barnstable brought McCracken to Johannesburg’s lavish Carlton Hotel in the Carlton Center, where Blaine would spend the rest of the morning familiarizing himself with the layout of Whiteland. A laptop computer and a collection of rolled-up blueprint-type plans awaited them when they entered the room.
“What’s the computer for?” Blaine asked Barnstable.
“Much of what we know about Dreyer, the AWB, and Whiteland is contained on the Interior Ministry mainframe. There’s too much to copy so I brought this laptop along so you can tie into the system.”
McCracken spread the blueprints out across the bed while Barnstable activated the modem and tied into the Interior Ministry’s data banks. Whiteland was so vast that it required eight of the blueprints to encompass the entire area. According to Barnstable, the AWB had staked their claim to the roughly 20,000 acres of land three years ago to establish what amounted to a separate nation. The South African government had ignored the gesture partly to avoid the confrontation Dreyer was looking for and partly in the hope that the problem would just go away. It didn’t, of course, and in fact was compounded as the de Klerk administration inched ever closer toward ending white rule. Soon some executive powers would be handed over to a multiracial transition team, the first universal elections tentatively scheduled for later this year. Accordingly, emotions were running high with the extremes further polarizing themselves from the center. This had resulted in a dramatic rise in the AWB’s ranks. New recruits, Barnstable reported, arrived almost daily, and construction to meet the resulting demand at Whiteland was proceeding at a frantic pace.
This trend was illustrated by the one-month-old blueprints Barnstable had provided. With few exceptions, Whiteland was not unlike any other town or settlement. Some areas were a bit more provincial, even primitive, because they were not yet supplied with running water and indoor plumbing. By all indications, Dreyer was having trouble keeping up with the need for housing.
Whiteland’s town center was just that, a quartet of crisscrossing streets set in the middle of the territory the AWB had simply laid claim to. Only a small portion of it was property of the Dreyer family. The rest had been owned and protected by the state until Travis Dreyer had dared the government to stop him from settling it. Apparently, the five-acre parcel of land owned legitimately by the Dreyers in the southeast portion of Whiteland had become home to the AWB’s command center. Blaine turned his attention to the blueprint featuring this complex.
The command center was situated with its rear close to the woods that enclosed the entire property. It was three stories in height built atop four underground levels of concrete bunkers that could be totally sealed from the outside world. A ten-foot-high electrified fence eliminated virtually any hope of accessing it stealthily from the rear. There was no additional fence, and no other elaborate security precautions to contend with, nor had Blaine expected any. After all, what kind of impression would the residents of Whiteland have if their capital was more like a fortress or a prison? Still, Blaine assumed a regular patrol of guards would be in place about its perimeter.
“What about these open lines here?” Blaine raised, pointing to a small corner of the blueprint.
“Air-conditioning ducts,” Barnstable explained from just over his shoulder. “The equipment had yet to be installed when we obtained this information.”
“From sources inside Whiteland, I would assume.”
“Yes.”
“Still present?”
Barnstable frowned. “The one who supplied this intelligence never came out. The one before that got his hand blown off in an accident. Still got a few inside, but we don’t ask much of them these days. No sense placing them in jeopardy if we aren’t planning to move on what they tell us.”
“Would they be available to me?”
“
You?
Some of ’em got families and want the piss out of there as it is. I don’t think they’d be agreeable to helping a man with your intentions.” Barnstable stopped and leaned over the table. “Those kinds of intentions leave widows and orphans.”
You?
Some of ’em got families and want the piss out of there as it is. I don’t think they’d be agreeable to helping a man with your intentions.” Barnstable stopped and leaned over the table. “Those kinds of intentions leave widows and orphans.”
“So once I get in, I’m on my own.”
“
If
you get in, you mean.”
If
you get in, you mean.”
“Shouldn’t be too hard, Barnstable. I just become one of those new recruits you said signs up every day.”
McCracken continued to study the blueprints and pertinent intelligence data after Barnstable departed to manufacture the identity Blaine would require to gain entrance to Whiteland. He returned from the Interior Ministry shortly after noon.
“I’ve arranged for your background to fit what Dreyer is most comfortable with,” he explained and pulled a manila-colored envelope from his pocket. “A frustrated out-of-work husband and father.” He gave Blaine the envelope and drew his sleeve up to check his watch. “That contains the identity papers you’ll need to be accepted. There’s a bus leaving for Whiteland from the city in forty minutes time.”
“And all I do is climb on board?”
“Whiteland maintains an open-door policy. Only trouble is that there’s no contact with the outside once you’re inside it. It’s not just a question of not being allowed; there are no phones and no mail service. All delivery trucks are unloaded at a central area on the town’s outskirts, and their contents transferred to the appropriate areas by Whiteland personnel.”
“He’s not making things easy for me, is he?”
Barnstable shrugged grimly. “Even if you find what you’re looking for in there, getting out with it promises to be bloody hard. And I’m not authorized to help you in that regard.”
“I’ll worry about that when the time comes.”
The meeting place for the AWB’s newest recruits was Johannesburg’s outdoor flea market located near an old factory warehouse converted into the Market Theater. The bus was already there when Barnstable dropped Blaine off a block away, fifteen seats taken by men who had gathered here from various points throughout the country. Men who wore their hate and hopelessness plain on their faces. They needed someone to blame for their ills, someone to strike back at.
The bus left at one o’clock sharp and McCracken spent the nearly four-hour ride to South Africa’s newest township in the fourth seat from the rear. Whiteland lay halfway between Johannesburg and Kruger National Park, and for part of the last stretch he caught glimpses of the Olifants River. The bus turned off the highway ten miles past the signs for Marble Hall onto a bumpy, hard-packed gravel road. It passed a number of sentries and signs explicitly warning unwelcome visitors to turn back. Two miles later the bus pulled through a fortified gate and up to a trio of austere white buildings.
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