Clancy, Tom - Op Center 8 - Line of Control Page 3

  still in law school. One of his professors, Vincent Van Heusen, had been

  an OSS operative during World War II. Professor Van Heusen saw in Friday

  some of the same qualities he himself had possessed as a young man.

  Among those was independence. Friday had learned that growing up in the

  Michigan woods where he went hunting with his father for food--not only

  with a rifle but with a longbow. After graduating from NYU Friday spent

  time at the NSA as a trainee. When he went to work for the oil industry

  a year later he was also working as a spy. In addition to making

  contacts in Europe, the Middle East, and the Caspian, Friday was given

  the names of CIA operatives working in those countries. From time to

  time he was asked to watch them. To spy on the spies, making certain

  that they were working only for the United States.

  Friday finally left the private sector five years ago. He grew bored

  with working for the oil industry full-time and the NSA part-time. He

  had also grown frustrated, watching as intelligence operations went to

  hell overseas. Many of the field agents he met were inexperienced,

  fearful, or soft. This was especially true in the Third World and

  throughout Asia.

  They wanted creature comforts. Not Friday. He wanted to be

  uncomfortable, hot. cold, hurting, off balance.

  Challenged. Alive.

  The other problem was that increasingly electronic espionage had

  replaced hands-on human surveillance. The result was much less efficient

  mass-intelligence gathering. To Friday that was like getting meat from a

  slaughterhouse instead of hunting it down. The food didn't taste as good

  when it was mass-produced. The experience was less satisfying. And over

  time the hunter grew soft.

  Friday had no intention of ever growing soft. When Jack Fenwick had said

  he wanted to talk to him, Friday was eager to meet. Friday went to see

  him at the Off the Record bar at the Hay-Adams hotel. It was during the

  week of the president's inauguration so the bar was jammed and the men

  were barely noticed. Fenwick recruited Friday to the "Undertaking," as

  he had called it. An operation to overthrow the president and put a new,

  more proactive figure in the Oval Office.

  One of the gravest problems facing America was security from terrorists.

  Vice President Cotten would have dealt with the problem decisively. He

  would have informed terrorist nations that if they sponsored attacks on

  American interests their capital cities would be bombed flat. Removing

  fear from Americans abroad would have encouraged competitive trade and

  tourism, which would have helped covert agencies infiltrate nationalist

  organizations, religious groups, and other extremist bands.

  But the plotters had been stopped. The world was once again safe for

  warlords, anarchists, and international muggers.

  Fortunately, the resignations of the vice president, Fenwick, and the

  other high-profile conspirators were like cauterizing a wound. The

  administration had its main perpetrators. They stopped the bloodletting

  and for the time being seemed to turn attention away from others who may

  have assisted in the plan. Friday's role in setting up the errori st

  Harpooner and actually assassinating a CIA spoiler had not been

  uncovered. In fact. Hank Lewis was trying to get as much intel as

  possible as fast as possible so he could look ahead, not hack.

  NSA operatives outside Washington were being called upon to visit

  high-intensity trouble spots and both assist in intelligence operations

  and report back firsthand.

  That was why Friday left Baker. Originally he tried to get transferred

  to Pakistan, but was moved to India by special request of the Indian

  government. He had spent time here for Mara Oil, helping them evaluate

  future productivity in this region as well as on the border between the

  Great Indian Desert in India's Rajasthan Province and the Thar Desert in

  Pakistan. He knew the land, the Kashmir) language, and the people.

  The irony, of course, was that his first assignment was to help a unit

  from Op-Center execute a mission of vital importance to peace in the

  region. Op-Center, the group that had stopped the Undertaking from

  succeeding.

  If politics made strange bedfellows then covert actions made even

  stranger ones. There was one difference between the two groups, however.

  Diplomacy demanded that politicians bury their differences when they had

  to. Field agents did not. They nursed their grudges.

  Forever.

  CHAPTER THREE.

  Washington, D. C.

  Wednesday, 6:32 a. m.

  Mike Rodgers strode down the corridor to the office of Paul Hood. His

  briefcase was packed and he was still humming

  "Witch Doctor." He felt energized by the impending challenge, by the

  change of routine, and just by getting out of the windowless office.

  Hood's assistant, Stephen "Bugs" Benet, had not yet arrived.

  Rodgers walked through the small reception area to Hood's office. He

  knocked on the door and opened it. Op Center director was pacing and

  wearing headphones. He was just finishing up his phone conversation with

  Senator Fox. Hood motioned the general in. Rodgers made his way to a

  couch on the far end of the room. He set his briefcase down but did not

  sit. He would be sitting enough over the next day.

  Though Hood was forty-five, nearly the same age as Rodgers, there was

  something much younger-looking about the man. Maybe it only seemed that

  way because he smiled a lot and was an optimist. Rodgers was a realist,

  a term he preferred to pessimist. And realists always seemed older, more

  mature. As an old friend of Rodgers's. South Carolina Representative

  Layne Maly, once put it, "No one's blowin' sunshine up my ass so it

  ain't showin' up between my lips."

  As far as Rodgers was concerned that pretty much said it all.

  Not that Hood himself had a lot to smile about. His marriage had fallen

  apart and his daughter, Harleigh, was suffering from post-traumatic

  stress disorder, a result of having been taken hostage at the United

  Nations. Hood had also taken a bashing in the world press and in the

  liberal American media for his guns-blazing solution to the UN crisis.

  It would not surprise Rodgers lo learn that Senator Fox was giving Hood

  an earful for that. The goddamn thing of it was nothing helped our

  rivals more than when we fought among ourselves.

  Rodgers could almost hear the cheering from the Japanese, from the

  Islamic Fundamentalists, and from the Germans, the French, and the rest

  of the Eurocentric bloc.

  And we were arguing after saving the lives of their ambassadors.

  It was a twisted world. Which was probably why we needed a man like Paul

  Hood running Op-Center. If it were up to Rodgers he would have taken

  down a few of the ambassadors on his way out of the UN.

  Hood slipped off the headphones and looked at Rodgers.

  There was a flat look of frustration in his dark hazel eyes.

  His wavy black hair was uncharacteristically unkempt. He was not

  smiling.

  "How are you doing?" Hood asked Rodgers.


  "Everything set?"

  Rodgers nodded.

  "Good," Hood said.

  "How are things here?" Rodgers asked.

  "Not so good," Hood said.

  "Senator Fox thinks we've gotten too visible. She wants to do something

  about that."

  "What?" Rodgers asked.

  "She wants to scale us back," Hood said.

  "She's going to propose to the other members of the COIC that they

  recharter Op-Center as a smaller, more covert organization."

  "I smell Kirk Pike's hand in this," Rodgers said.

  Pike was the newly appointed head of the Central Intelligence Agency.

  The ambitious former chief of navy intelligence was extremely well liked

  on the Hill and had accepted the position with a self-prescribed goal:

  to consolidate as many of the nation's intelligence needs as possible

  under one roof.

  "I agree that Pike is probably involved, but I think it's more than just

  him," Hood said.

  "Pox said that Secretary General Chatterjee is still grumbling about

  bringing us before the International Court of Justice. Have us tried for

  murder and trespassing." "Smart," Rodgers said.

  "She'll never get the one but the jurists may give her the other."

  "Exactly," Hood said.

  "That makes her look strong and reaffirms the sovereign status of the

  United Nations. It also scores points with pacifists and with

  anti-American governments.

  Fox apparently thinks this will go away if our charter is revoked and

  quietly rewritten." "I see," Rodgers said.

  "The CIOC acts preemptively to make Chatterjee's action seem bullying

  and unnecessary." "Bingo," Hood said.

  "Is it going to happen?" Rodgers asked.

  "I don't know," Hood admitted.

  "Fox hasn't discussed this with the other members yet."

  "But she wants it to happen," Rodgers said.

  Hood nodded.

  "Then it will," Rodgers said.

  "I'm not ready to concede that," Hood said.

  "Look, I don't want you to worry about the political stuff. I need you

  to get this job done in Kashmir. Chatterjee may be secretary general but

  she's still Indian. If you score one for her side she'll have a tough

  time going after us."

  "Not if she passes the baton to Pike," Rodgers said.

  "Why would she?" Hood asked.

  "Back-scratching and access," Rodgers said.

  "A lot of the intel I have on Kashmir came from the CIA. The Company

  works very closely with the Indian Intelligence Bureau." "The domestic

  surveillance group," Hood said.

  "Right," Rodgers said.

  Under the Indian Telegraph Act, the Indian Intelligence Bureau has the

  legal authority to intercept all forms of electronic communication.

  That includes a lot of faxes and email from Afghanistan and other

  Islamic states. It was IIB that blew the whistle on Iraq's

  pharmaceutical drug scam back in 2000. Humanitarian medicines were

  excluded from the United Nations sanctions. Instead of going to Iraqi

  hospitals and clinics, however, the medicines were hoarded by the health

  minister. When shortages pushed up demand the drugs were sold to the

  black market for hard foreign currency that could be used to buy luxury

  goods for government officials, bypassing the sanctions.

  "The IIB shares the information they collect with the CIA for analysis,"

  Rodgers went on.

  "If Director Pike helps Chatterjee, the Indians will continue to work

  exclusively with him."

  "Pike can have the trophy if he wants," Hood said.

  "We still get the intelligence."

  "But that isn't all Pike wants," Rodgers said.

  "People aren't satisfied just winning in Washington. They have to

  destroy the competition. And if that doesn't work they go after his

  friends and family."

  "Yeah--well, he'll have to get a task force for that one," Hood said

  quietly.

  "We Hoods are kind of spread out now."

  Rodgers felt like an ass. Paul Hood was not living with his family

  anymore and his daughter, Harleigh, spent a lot of time in therapy. It

  was careless to have suggested that they might be at risk.

  "Sorry, Paul. I didn't mean that literally," Rodgers said.

  "It's all right," Hood replied.

  "I know what you meant. I don't think Pike will cross that line, though.

  We've got pretty good muckrakers and a great press liaison. He won't

  want to take any rivalry public."

  Rodgers was not convinced of that. Hood's press liaison was Ann Pan-is.

  For the last few days the office was quietly buzzing with the rumor that

  the divorcee and Paul Hood were having an affair. Ann had been staying

  late and the two had been spotted leaving Hood's hotel together one

  morning.

  Rodgers did not care one way or the other as long as their relationship

  did not impact the smooth operation of the

  NCMC.

  "Speaking of family, how is Harleigh doing?" Rodgers asked. The general

  was eager to get off the subject of Pike before leaving for India. The

  idea of fighting his own people was loathsome to him.

  Though the men did not socialize very much, Rodgers was close enough to

  Hood to ask about his family.

  "She's struggling with what happened in New York and with me moving

  out," Hood said.

  "But she's got a good support system and her brother's being a real

  trouper."

  "Alexander's a good kid. Glad to hear he's stepping up to the plate.

  What about Sharon?" Rodgers asked.

  "She's angry," Hood said.

  "She has a right to be."

  "It will pass," Rodgers said.

  "Liz says it may not," Hood replied.

  Liz was Liz Gordon, Op-Center's psychologist. Though she was not

  counseling Harleigh, she was advising Hood.

  "Hopefully, the intensity of Sharon's anger will diminish," Hood went

  on.

  "I don't think she and I will ever be friends again. But with any luck

  we'll have a civil relationship."

  "You'll get there," Rodgers said.

  "Hell, that's more than I've ever had with a woman."

  Hood thought for a moment then grinned.

  "That's true, isn't it? Goes all the way back to your friend Biscuit in

  the fifth grade."

  "Yeah," Rodgers replied.

  "Look, you're a diplomat. I'm a soldier. I'm a prisoner to my scorched

  earth nature."

  Hood's grin became a smile.

  "I may need to borrow some of that fire for my dealings with Senator

  Fox."

  "Stall her till I get back," Rodgers said.

  "And just keep an eye on Pike. I'll work on him when I get back."

  "It's a deal," Hood said.

  "Stay safe, okay?"

  Rodgers nodded and the men shook hands.

  The general felt uneasy as he headed toward the elevator.

  Rodgers did not like leaving things unresolved--especially when the

  target was as vulnerable as Hood was. Rodgers could see it in his

  manner. He had seen it before, in combat.

  It was a strange calm, almost as if Hood were in denial that pressures

  were starting to build. But they were. Hood was already distracted by

  his impending divorce, by Harleigh's condition, and by the day-to-day


  demands of his position.

  Rodgers had a feeling that the pressure from Senator Fox would become

  much more intense after the CIOC met. He would give Bob Herbert a call

  from the C-130 and ask him to keep an eye on Op-Center's director.

  A watcher watching the watcher, Rodgers thought. Op Center intelligence

  chief looking after Op-Center's director, who was tracking Kirk Pike.

  With all the human drama gusting around him the general almost felt as

  if it were routine to go into the field to search for nuclear missiles.

  But Rodgers got his perspective back quickly. As he walked onto the

  tarmac he saw the Striker team beginning to assemble beside the Hercules

  transport. They were in uniform, at ease, their grips and weapons at

  their feet. Colonel August was reviewing a checklist with Lieutenant

  Orjuela, his new second-in-command.

  Behind him, in the basement of the NCMC, there were careers at risk.