Clancy, Tom - Op Center 8 - Line of Control Page 6

  India made more motion pictures than any nation in the world. Friday had

  seen several of them on videotape, including Fit to Be a King and

  Flowers and Vermilion.

  Friday believed that the dreams of a people--hence, their

  weaknesses--could be found in the stories, themes, and characters of

  their most popular films. The Indians were especially drawn to the

  three-hour-long contemporary action musicals

  These films always starred attractive leads who had no names other than

  "Hero" and

  "Heroine." They were Everyman and Everywoman in epic struggles yet there

  was always music in their hearts. That was how the Indians viewed

  themselves. Reality was a disturbing inconvenience they did not choose

  to acknowledge. Like an often times cruel caste system. Friday had a

  theory about that. He had always believed that castes were an embodiment

  of the Indians' faith. In society as in the individual there was a head,

  feet, and all parts in between. All parts were necessary to create a

  whole.

  Friday glanced back at the market proper. Movement continued unabated.

  If anything it was busier than before as people stopped by before dinner

  or on their way home from work. Customers on foot and on bicycles made

  their way to different stalls. Baskets, wheelbarrows, and occasionally

  truckloads of goods continued to arrive. The markets usually remained

  open until just after sunset. In Srinagar and its environs, workers

  tended to be very early risers. They were expected to arrive at the

  local factories, fields, and shops around seven in the morning.

  Friday finished eating and looked over at the bus. The driver had

  returned and was helping people board. The bus stop employee was back on

  his stepladder loading bags onto the roof. What was amazing to Friday

  was that amid all the seeming chaos there was an internal order.

  Every individual system was functioning perfectly, from the booths to

  the shoppers, from the police to the bus. Even the supposedly

  antagonistic religious factions were doing just finea fine drizzle

  started up again. Friday decided to head over to the bus station. It

  looked as if there were new construction there and he was curious to see

  what lay beyond. As Friday followed the last of the pilgrims he watched

  the bus driver take tickets and help people onboard.

  Something was not the same.

  It was the driver. He was not a heavyset man but a rather slender one.

  Maybe he was a new driver. It was possible; they all wore the same

  jackets. Then he noticed something else. The clerk who was loading bags

  into the rack was being very careful with them. Friday had not gotten a

  very good look at the clerk. The exiting passengers had blocked his

  view. He could not tell if this were the same man.

  The bus was still two hundred yards away. The American quickened his

  pace.

  Suddenly the world to Friday's left vanished, swallowed in a flash of

  bright white light, infernal white heat, and deafening white noise.

  CHAPTER SEVEN.

  Washington, D. C. Wednesday, 7:10 a. m.

  Paul Hood sat alone in his office. Mike Rodgers and Striker were on

  their way and nothing else was pressing.

  Hood's door was shut and a file labeled "Working OCIS" was open on his

  computer. The "working" part of the heading indicated that this was not

  the original draft but a copy.

  The OCIS was a click able chart of Op-Center's internal structure.

  Under each division was a list of the departments and personnel.

  Attached to each name was a sub file These were logs that were filed

  each day by every employee. They outlined the activities of the

  individual. Only Hood, Rodgers, and Herbert had access to the files.

  They were maintained to allow the Op-Center directors to track and

  cross-reference personnel activities with phone records, e-mail lists,

  and other logs. If anyone were working at cross-purposes with the rest

  of the team--cooperating with another agency or even another

  government--this was the first line of security.

  The computer automatically flagged any activity that did not have a log

  entry ordering or corroborating it.

  Right now Paul Hood was not looking for moles. He was looking for lambs.

  The sacrificial kind. If Senator Fox and the Congressional Intelligence

  Oversight Committee wanted cutbacks he had to be prepared to make them.

  The question was where?

  Hood clicked on Bob Herbert's intelligence department.

  He scrolled through the names. Could Herbert get by with just daytime

  surveillance of e-mail communications in Europe?

  Not likely. Spies worked around the clock. What about a single liaison

  with the CIA and the FBI instead of one for each? Probably.

  He would ask Herbert which one he wanted to lose. Hood moved the cursor

  to the tech division. What about Matt Stoll? Could he survive without a

  satellite interface officer or a computer resources upgrade manager?

  Matt could out source the work he needed whenever they had to eavesdrop

  on foreign communications satellites or change hardware or software. It

  would be inconvenient but it would not be debilitating.

  He double-clicked on the upgrade manager and the position disappeared.

  Hood's heart sped up as he checked the next department.

  It was the office of the press liaison. Did Op-Center really need

  someone to issue news releases and organize press conferences?

  If Senator Fox were afraid that the National Crisis Management Center

  was too visible, then the press officer and her one assistant should be

  the first to go.

  Hood stared at the computer. Never mind what Senator Fox thought. What

  did he think?

  Hood did not see the list. He saw the face of Ann Farris.

  After years of flirting the two had finally spent a night together.

  It was at once the most wonderful and devastating encounter of Hood's

  life. Wonderful because he and Ann cared about each other, deeply.

  Devastating because Hood had to acknowledge that a bond existed. It was

  even stronger than the one he had felt when he encountered his old lover

  Nancy Jo Bosworth in Germany. Yet he was still married to Sharon. He had

  his children's well-being to consider, not to mention his own. And he

  would have to deal with Sharon's feelings if she ever found out. Though

  Hood loved being close to Ann this was not the time for another

  relationship.

  And what would Ann think? After a rough divorce of her own, Ann Farris

  was not a very secure woman. She was poised when meeting the press and

  she was a terrific single mother. But those were what psychologist Liz

  Gordon had once described at an employee

  "Job vs. Parenting" seminar as "reactionary qualities." Ann responded to

  external stimuli with good, natural instincts. Inside, where she had

  allowed Paul to go, she was a scared little girl. If Hood let her go she

  would think he was doing it to keep her away. If he kept her she would

  think he was playing favorites, protecting her.

  Personally and professionally it was a no-win situation.

  And Hood was not even considering how the re
st of Op Center would react.

  They had to know what was going on between him and Ann. They were a

  tight-knit office and an intelligence group. This had to be the

  worst-kept secret on the base.

  Hood continued to stare at the screen. He no longer saw Ann Farris's

  face. He saw only her name. The bottom line was that Hood had to do his

  job, whatever the consequences.

  He could not do that if he let personal feelings interfere.

  Hood double-clicked the mouse. Not on a name but on an entire two-person

  department.

  A moment later the press division was gone.

  CHAPTER EIGHT.

  Srinagar, India Wednesday, 4:41 p. m.

  Ron Friday felt as though someone had jabbed tuning forks in his ears.

  His ears and the inside of his skull seemed to be vibrating. There was a

  high-pitched ringing and he could not hear anything except for the

  ringing. His eyes were open but he could not tell what he was looking

  at. The world was a cottony haze, as though a still fog had moved in.

  Friday blinked. White powder dropped into his eyes, causing them to

  burn. He blinked harder then pushed a palm into one eye, then the other.

  He opened them wide and looked out again. He still was not sure what he

  was looking at but he realized one thing. He was lying on his belly with

  his face turned to the side. He put his hands under him and pushed up.

  White powder fell from his arms, his hair, his sides.

  He blinked it away. He tasted something chalky and spit. His saliva was

  like paste. The chalky taste was still there. He spit again.

  Friday got his knees under him. His body ached from the fall but his

  hearing was beginning to return. Or at least the ringing was going away;

  he did not hear anything else. He looked to his left. For a moment he

  felt as if he were inside a cloud that was inside a cloud.

  Then the dust that had been shaken from his body began to settle. He

  could see what he had been looking at a moment ago, what had made no

  sense to him.

  It was wreckage. Where the temple and the police station had stood there

  was now a hodgepodge of rubble between jagged walls. Through the mist of

  the powder he could see the sky.

  The ringing continued to subside. As it did, Friday heard moans. He put

  a hand on his knee, pushed down, and began to rise. His back ached and

  he was trembling. Then his head grew light and his vision darkened. He

  settled back down on his knees for a moment. He looked ahead and saw the

  bus through the hanging dust. He also saw people coming toward him.

  Suddenly, behind the people, the area around the bus turned yellow-red.

  Time seemed to slow as the colors exploded in all directions. It was

  followed by another loud crack that quickly became a rumble. The bus

  seemed to jump apart. It looked like a balloon that someone had stepped

  on-stretched out at both ends and then gone. Most of the pieces flew

  out, away, or down. Some shards skidded along the ground, moving fast

  and straight like vermin. Larger chunks such as the seats and tires

  tumbled away, end over end. The people standing nearest the bus were

  swallowed whole by the fire. Those who were farther away were thrown

  left, right, and back like the bigger pieces of the bus.

  He continued to watch as a charcoal-gray cloud surged forward. Like

  lightning, flashes of blood and flame punctuated the rolling darkness.

  Friday removed his hands from his ears. He rose slowly.

  He looked down, checking his legs and torso to make sure he had not been

  hurt. The body had a way of shutting off pain in cases of extreme

  trauma. His side and right arm ached where he had hit the asphalt. His

  eyes were gummy from the dust and he had to keep blinking to clear them.

  Except for the coating of dust from the blasted temple he appeared to be

  intact.

  Papers from books and offices had been lofted high by the blast. They

  were just now beginning to return to earth. Many of them were just

  fragments, most were singed, some were ash. A few of the more delicate

  pages looked like they had belonged to prayer books. Perhaps they had

  been part of the Sanskrit text the pilgrim had been studying just

  minutes before.

  The gray cloud reached Friday and engulfed him. Nine or ten feet high,

  it carried the distinctive, noxious smell of burning rubber. Beneath

  that smell was a sweeter, less choking odor. The stench of charred human

  flesh and bone. Friday drew a handkerchief from his pocket and held it

  over his nose and mouth. Then he turned away from the stinging cloud.

  Behind him the bazaar was still. People had flung themselves to the

  ground not knowing what might explode next. They were lying under stalls

  or behind wheelbarrows and carts. As his ears began to clear Friday

  could hear sobbing, prayer, and moans.

  Friday turned back toward the remains of the temple and the police

  station. The drizzle was helping to thin the cloud of smoke and douse

  the few fires that had been ignited. No longer light-headed, he began

  walking toward the rubble. He just now noticed that the police officers

  who had been standing outside were dead. The backs of their uniforms

  were bloodied, peppered with shrapnel. Whatever did this had been a

  concussive device rather than incendiary.

  It was strange. Besides the bus, there appeared to be two blast ways the

  fanlike spray debris followed from the epicenter of an explosion.

  One line led from the front of the police station. The other led from

  deep inside the temple.

  Friday could not understand why there had been two separate explosions

  on this site. It was unusual enough for two religious targets to be

  bombed, a temple and a busload of pilgrims.

  Why was the police station attacked as well?

  Sirens cut through the cottony quiet as police who had been on patrol

  began to arrive. Other officers, who had been out on foot, began to run

  toward the toppled buildings. People began to get up and leave the

  bazaar proper. They did not want to be here if there were more

  explosions. Only a few people headed toward the rubble to see if they

  might be able to help pull out any survivors.

  Ron Friday was not one of those people.

  He started walking back toward the inn where he was staying.

  He wanted to get in touch with his contacts in India and Washington.

  Learn if they had any intel on what had just happened.

  There was a sound like bowling pins falling. Friday looked back just as

  one of the surviving back walls of the temple crashed onto the rubble.

  Thick balls of dust swirled from the new wreckage, causing people to

  step back. After the blocks stopped tumbling, people started moving

  forward again.

  Many of them had dustings of white on their faces and hands, like

  ghosts.

  Friday continued walking. His mind was in overdrive.

  A police station. A Hindu temple. A busload of pilgrims.

  Two religious targets and one secular site. Friday could imagine the

  temple being brought down by accident, collateral damage from an attack

  on the police station. A lot of terrorist bomb makers were not skilled
>
  enough to measure precise charges. A lot of terrorist bomb makers did

  not care if they took down half a city. But there were those two blast

  lines suggesting concurrent explosions. And the bus proved that this was

  a planned assault against Hindus, not just against Indians. Friday could

  not remember a time when that had happened. Certainly not on this scale.

  Yet if Hindus were the target, why did the terrorists attack the police

  station as well? By striking two religious sites they were obviously not

  looking to disguise their intent.

  Friday stopped walking.

  Or were they? he thought suddenly. What if the attack on the temple and

  bus were distractions? Maybe something else was happening here.

  Explosions drew crowds. What if that were the point? To get people to a

  place or away from one.

  Friday wiped his eyes and continued ahead. He looked around as he

  walked. People were either hurrying toward the disaster site or away

  from it. Unlike before there were no eddies within eddies. That was

  because the choices were simple now. Help or flee. He peered down side

  streets, into windows.

  He was looking for people who did not appear to be panicked. Perhaps he

  would see someone, perhaps he would not. The bag on the bus could have

  been planted at a previous stop. Explosives could have been set to go