Divide and conquer - Tom Clancy [21]
"Can't you trace the name?" Battat asked.
"Isn't there a local registry?"
"There is," Moore told him, "and the Rachel isn't in it. We're checking records in Dagestan, Kalmyk, and other republics on the Caspian, but my guess is she's a rogue."
Moore showed Battat to a small guest room on the second floor of the building. There was a cot in the corner, and Battat lay down to think.
The boat, the music they played, the brief glimpse he had of the man on deck-he replayed the sounds and images over and over, looking for more information. Something that might tell him who the crew of the Rachel were, how they were dressed, or where they might have come from. In SD sessions-subconscious debriefing-trained interviewers would walk agents through experiences to help them remember lost details. The interviewers would ask about the color of the sky, the look of the water, the force of the wind and the smells riding it. Once the agent was reimmersed in the scene, the interviewer would move him around, ask him to describe distinctive markings on the hull of the boat or whether there were banners on the stern or mast or sounds coming from the deck or below. It always surprised Battat how much information the brain stored that was not always immediately accessible.
Though Battat closed his eyes and breathed slowly and deeply and went through the SD checklist, he could not remember anything that brought him closer to whoever was on the boat or from what direction his assailant might have come. He could not even remember the feel of the fabric on the arm that had been choking him or the smell of the man who had attacked him. He couldn't remember if the man's cheek had touched him and whether he was bearded or clean-shaven. Battat had been too focused on trying to survive.
Battat's eyes remained shut. They stopped looking into the past and gazed ahead. He would stay in Baku, but not just because the deputy ambassador had asked.
Until Battat found whoever had attacked him, his confidence was broken and his life belonged to them.
Which, he realized, could be why he was left alive.
Washington, D.C.
Monday, 11:55 a.m.
It had always amazed Hood how different Washington looked during the daytime. At night, the white facades were brightly lit and appeared to stand alone, shining with Olympian grandeur. In the day, situated between modern office buildings, vending carts, and glossy restaurant logos, beneath loud and ever-present jet traffic and security barricades of concrete and steel, the landmarks seemed almost antique instead of timeless.
Yet both were Washington. They represented an old, increasingly monolithic bureaucracy that had to be dealt with, and a vision of greatness that could not be ignored or diminished.
Hood parked in the Ellipse on the southern side of the grounds. He crossed E Street and walked up East Executive to the East Appointment Gate. He was buzzed through the iron gate and, after passing through a metal detector, waited inside the East Wing for one of the First Lady's aides.
Of all the landmarks in Washington, Hood had always been partial to the Capitol. For one thing, it was the guts of the government, the place where Congress put wheels on the president's vision. They were often square wheels or wheels of different sizes, but nothing could move without them. For another thing, the building itself was a vast museum of art and history, with treasures everywhere.
Here a plaque indicating where the desk of Congressman Abraham Lincoln was located. There a statue of General Lew Wallace, the onetime governor of the territory of New Mexico and the author of Ben-Hur.
Somewhere else a sign indicating the status of the search for the cornerstone of the building, which was laid over two hundred years before in a little-noted ceremony and was somehow buried and then lost under numerous modifications to the foundation.
The White House wasn't as imposing as the Capitol.
It was a much smaller structure, with peeling paint and warping wood