Divide and conquer - Tom Clancy [88]
"You're going to wait for the American to arrive?" Orlov asked.
"He's here now," Odette said.
"Do you want to speak with him?"
"That won't be necessary," Orlov said.
"The Harpooner will probably be traveling with high-tech equipment to go with his cover story. I want you to take some of it and any money he's carrying. Pull out drawers and empty the luggage. Make it look like a robbery. And work out an escape route before you go in."
"All right," she said. There was nothing patronizing about Orlov's tone.
He was giving instructions and also reviewing a checklist out loud. He was making sure that both he and Odette understood what must be done before she closed in. Orlov was quiet again. Odette imagined him reviewing the data on his computer. He would be looking for additional confirmation that this was their quarry. Or a reason to suspect it was not.
"I'm arranging for airline tickets out of the country in case you need them when you're finished," Orlov said. He waited another moment and then decided as Odette knew he must.
"Go and get him." Odette acknowledged the order and hung up.
Washington, D.C. Tuesday, 2:32 a.m.
Hood shut the door of the Cabinet Room behind him. There was a coffee machine on a small table in the far corner. The first thing Paul did upon entering was brew a pot using bottled water. He felt guilty doing that in the midst of a crisis, but he needed the caffeine kick.
Desperately. Though his mind was speeding, his eyes and body from the shoulders down were crashing. Even the smell of the coffee helped as it began to brew. As he stood watching the steam, he thought back to the meeting he had just left. The shortest way of defusing the crisis on this end was to break Fenwick and whatever cabal he had put together. He hoped he could go back there with information, something to rattle Fenwick or Gable.
"I need time to think," he muttered to himself. Time to figure out how best to attack them if he had nothing more than he did now. Hood turned from the coffeemaker. He sat on the edge of the large conference table and pulled over one of the telephones. He called Bob Herbert to see if his intelligence chief had any news or sources he could hit up for information about the Harpooner and possible contact with the NSA. He did not.
"Unless no news is news," Herbert added. Herbert had already woken several acquaintances who either worked for or were familiar with the activities of the NSA. Calling them in the middle of the night had the advantage of catching them off guard. If they knew anything, they would probably blurt it out. Herbert asked if any of them had heard about U.S. intelligence overtures to Iran. None of them had.
"Which isn't surprising," Herbert said.
"Something of that magnitude and delicacy would only be conducted at the highest executive levels. But it's also true that if more than one person knows about an operation over there, then everyone has heard at least a piece of the story. Not so here."
"Maybe more than one person at the NSA doesn't know about this," Hood said.
"That could very well be," Herbert agreed. Herbert said he was still waiting to hear from HUMINT sources in Teheran. They might know something about this.
"The only solid news we have is from Mike's people at the Pentagon,"
Herbert said.
"Military Intelligence has picked up signs of Russian mobilization in the Caspian region. Stephen Viens at the NRO has confirmed that. The Slava-class cruiser Admiral Lobov is apparently already heading south and the Udaloy II-class destroyer Admiral Chebanenko is joining it along with several corvettes and small missile craft. Mike expects air cover over the Russian oil installations to commence within