Sudden Threat (32 page)

What was the reference to “Beasts of Burden?” Sure, she knew it was a famous
Rolling Stones
’ song, but could it have been something else? Then, Stone’s preceding comment about getting satisfaction on one hand seemed innocuous enough, while on the other hand, when coupled with the “Beasts of Burden” comment, could have been some kind of code.

Speaking of codes, she thought, she pulled out the three-by-five card she’d had the computer technician give her months ago. Rathburn was always forgetting his password and finally the overworked twenty-two-year-old jotted on the card the secret and regular computer code words for access to Rathburn’s computer.

“Don’t tell anyone. I’ll deny it,” he had said, winked at her, tugged on his earlobe, and departed.

As they had before when Rathburn had called for help, the passwords worked, and she was into both his unclassified and classified hard drives.

She first checked his Internet browser cache to see what kind of Web sites he surfed. She found Google, Yahoo!, MSNBC, and the garden variety of other URLs. Nothing unusual, she determined.

Then she clicked on history and was interested to see that Rathburn had never cleared his history file. She was able to view his activity from three months before, when he assumed the job. She spent some time perusing the Web sites that he had visited; again, nothing unusual. He apparently had a G-mail account and a Yahoo! e-mail account.

She tried to find the user names of those accounts, but everything came up with the blank sign-in screen. If he had been logged in, the browser had ultimately logged him out for inactivity. She then opened his Outlook work e-mail account, scanned through those, and again saw nothing that would raise a red flag.

She clicked on my pictures and saw nothing, then clicked on the trash bin and found one deleted photo.

It was a photo of four men, one of whom she presumed was Rathburn, all standing with arms laced around their buddies’ shoulders. She did a double-take as each man was wearing a Halloween mask. She immediately recognized Mick Jagger and thought she could tell which one was Keith Richards, but she wasn’t enough of a
Rolling Stones
enthusiast to remember the other two members of the band. There was a big tongue and lips superimposed on the photo, and she remembered that to be the logo on one of the
Stones
’ albums.
Sticky Fingers
maybe? Maybe not.

Huh
, she thought.

She switched the Cybex Switchview box to the classified computer, which could not access the Internet but could access a Secret domain. There wasn’t much there, some routine e-mails on Outlook.

She closed the dialogue boxes and opened the my computer icon. She saw the common O: drive, where they shared office files and such, which she opened. Scanning through those there was nothing she either hadn’t seen or hadn’t put in there herself during her duties as his special assistant.

She closed the O: drive and studied the open my computer box and looked at all of the network drives. Again, nothing out of the ordinary. No references to the
Rolling Stones
or Keith or “Beasts of Burden.” Just the one photo, but what did that mean?

Frustrated and beginning to feel foolish, she stood, grabbed the football she had initially picked up, and began to put it back in the orange placekicker’s tee from which she had lifted the pigskin.

Her eye caught something in the center of the tee. She studied it more closely and saw that there was a small tear in the middle where the ball would rest on its pointed end. She touched it and determined that the tear was actually a tab, like a battery compartment cover. Meredith pulled at the tab and peeled back the soft orange material.

In the bottom of the well of the tee was a small thumb drive.

Huh
, she thought.

Meredith flipped over the tee and a SanDisk 1-gig removable drive tumbled onto the desk. She sat back down and picked up the drive, which was indeed about the size of her thumb.

She removed the plastic tip and inserted it into the computer. A moment later a dialogue box appeared asking her if she wanted to open a file.

“Of course,” she whispered.

She clicked on the box and a series of tan manila folders appeared on the screen. They were, in order:

pred-china.

aig.

mick jagger.

charlie watts

ronnie wood.

None of the folders would open though, as they were all password-protected.

Fearing locking the drive from errant attempts to enter a password, she closed all the dialogue boxes, clicked on the icon to eject the thumb drive, then removed the device from the computer.

Meredith pocketed the drive, pushed the orange plastic back into the tee, replaced the football on the tee, then dusted off everything she had touched.

After shutting down both computers, she walked out of the office. Stepping through the darkened halls of the E-ring after most of the Pentagon work force had already departed, Meredith stopped and turned. What had she heard?

There was a noise coming from directly across Rathburn’s office. Then she saw it. A stairwell door closed just as she looked farther down the hallway.

Creepy
, she thought, and quickened her pace.

As she finally reached the dark South Pentagon Parking Lot, she shook off the creepiness and wondered:
Why wasn’t Keith Richards, the second most famous Rolling Stone of them all, on that list?

But she thought she knew why. She picked up her pace, looking over her shoulder as she unlocked her car, and said to herself, “I’m getting some satisfaction.”

CHAPTER 56

Mindanao Island, Philippines

Talbosa removed his Australian bush hat, stained with sweat and dirt, as he lifted his knife. He focused on the cobra no less than two meters away, apparently oblivious to his presence. He flipped the knife with a snap of his wrist, and the large blade pierced the back of the cobra’s neck, pinning it to the ground beneath. The snake’s body coiled and uncoiled, flipping violently until Takishi stepped on the heel of the knife and severed the snake’s head.

He felt his phone buzz as he retrieved his knife. He placed it back in the sheath and held the phone to his ear.

“You fool, why did you have to attack the Americans?” Takishi shouted. Of course, he was speaking about the defense delegation at Manila’s airport. Talbosa looked over Cateel Bay, its tur-quoise hue calming the man who had been chasing this elusive band of Rangers and perhaps even Takishi’s Matt Garrett, if such a man even existed. Talbosa was nonplussed at Takishi’s ranting. He knew that he had deviated from the plan, which called for no attacks on Americans or any NATO allies.

“This is my country, Takishi. Don’t tell me what I can and cannot do. We have suffered for nearly a century from the imperialism of the United States and your country as well. So don’t tell me how to run a revolution,” Talbosa said calmly into the satellite phone Takishi had provided him.

“We had a deal,” Takishi said. “We produce the weapons for you, and you do not kill Americans.” Takishi spoke from the luxurious confines of a Japanese government Gulfstream executive jet set-tling into its final approach into Tokyo where he would shift venues to his Shin Meiwa. He needed to give Bob Stone the personal reassurance so that he did not deviate from their plan. He believed he had succeeded. The 48-hour diversion had set him back, yet the information gained had been invaluable, and useful. This was the tricky part for Takishi, transi-tioning from able co-conspirator with the Americans to Machiavellian statesman for his country.

“No. The deal was that you make us weapons, and you get the free extraction of the many minerals in my Mindanao countryside,” Talbosa replied, his confidence bolstered by the physical separation. Really, what could Takishi do? He looked at the dead snake and thought:
Sometimes the snake charmer gets bitten
.

“Consider me, then,” Takishi said, changing strategy, like a chameleon, “an emissary from Japan. On behalf of the Japanese prime minister, I respect-fully request that you set up a release point for all of the American soldiers and citizens. To include the government officials your men have taken hostage.”

“What’s your interest in this?” Talbosa asked.

In truth, Talbosa needed to establish his presence on Luzon before the NPA beat him to the seat of government. Though the Islamic Jihad recommended small cells fighting under a unified commander’s intent, he did not want to be politically outflanked by the NPA. He would soon be in Cateel, and determined at that moment that he might just kill Takishi after arriving in Manila. Doing so would enhance his already impeccable bona fides among the lower class throughout the Philippines.

“We have an interest in maintaining strong ties with the United States for trading purposes, as you will need to do if you ever want to be anything other than a fourth-world country,” Takishi said.

Talbosa knew that Takishi’s plan was in jeopardy. The loss of Abe had been a blow to the tank plant, and the Luzon faction’s capture of the Americans, while not part of the plan, certainly had Takishi bothered.

“Are you so stupid that you cannot see victory?” Takishi asked.

“We have already achieved victory!” Talbosa replied. “We have overrun the U.S. embassy. We own the Presidential Palace. No problems.”

“You idiot, you have bitten the tail of a snake. Right now you have a Marine brigade coming down from Okinawa and carrier groups steaming from the Indian Ocean and Hawaii. Their infantry division in Hawaii is scheduled to fly to Guam tomorrow to establish an intermediate staging base. The head of the snake, my fine Filipino friend,” he said sarcastically, “is about to give you a fatal strike.”

Talbosa leaned against a mahogany tree and sighed. “How do you know all of this?”

“My ambassador was given their entire deployment plan. They’re prepared to throw every-thing they’ve got at you unless you cough up every American on these islands.”

“Then they will leave us alone?”

“Then they will leave you alone.”

Talbosa cast his gaze upon Cateel Bay a kilometer and a half below him, its water sparkling like so many diamonds. They had achieved total strategic, operational, and tactical surprise in their attack. Of course, it would not have been possible without the Japanese-produced weapons. Talbosa firmly believed, though, that they did not owe the Japanese anything. He knew that the Luzon cell planned to kill, or had already killed, one of the American hostages for general purposes and were about done with the others. He felt he was making good progress in chasing down the invaders in Mindanao, and he had issued instructions to the Luzon cell to kill the American soldiers at Subic Bay.

You told me to kill Matt Garrett
, he wanted to say, but didn’t. He sensed that Garrett was at the core of the illusory nature of his prey. And so he remained on the front lines, determined to protect his people of Mindanao and to kill the American spy before relocating to command all of the Philippines.

Talbosa felt an adrenaline rush, then sighed. Their struggle had always been difficult. They had often taken two steps back for every step forward. As much as he wanted to take revenge on the Americans, he decided that Takishi’s advice was solid. No, the cause must come before revenge. He would not let his petty emotions stand in the way of freedom for his people. He had to start thinking like a strategic leader, a president, as opposed to an operational military commander.

“Okay, Takishi. I will inform my men that Subic Bay Naval Base is off-limits. The Americans have forty-eight hours to depart. But tell them that I only want noncombat aircraft to come get their people. I am doing this in an exchange for our right to determine our own form of government. If we want to be part of Bin Laden’s caliphate, so be it. If I see combat troops or planes, we will shoot them from the sky.”

“Of course,” Takishi said. “I will pass on the message for you. My plane should be arriving shortly in Cateel to escort you to Manila, so that you can assume the presidency.”

“Thank you,” Talbosa said.

“And Talbosa, you should talk to your men at Fort Magsaysay. They have succeeded where you failed.”

“How’s that?”

“They’ve got Matt Garrett locked in a cell.”

CHAPTER 57

Abe was glad that Major Ramsey’s team had finally broken contact with the insurgents. It was dark, and they had been on the move for a full night and an entire day, each man taking a turn carrying Jones’s body. Abe was glad to contribute and demonstrate strength and character by carrying the dead man once, albeit briefly.

Abe’s heart went out to the American men. They were strong and rugged, but he knew they all had families as he did. They were all only doing what their country had asked them to do. He watched their stark faces as they faded into and out of his sight in the moonlit night, silently stalking through the high-mountain rain forest. Their painted faces, streaked with black and green camouflage, reminded him of the Indian warriors he had read about in American history. The men stepped lightly, seeming never to touch the ground. Large green leaves would brush against their faces, leaving the moisture from the dew and rain across their brows. Each man held a weapon, pointed outward. He was impressed at their professionalism and quietly yearned for their, and his, safety. One day he would write a poem about the contrast in their compassion and their duty.

He could sense that the men were scared, but they dared not reveal fear. He was reassured by their compassion for one another and the fact that their leader, Major Ramsey, had brought him into the fold. He sensed that they still did not entirely believe his story about the weapons. To them, it did not compute. To him, it made perfect sense.