Games of State - Tom Clancy [54]
"Touché right back." She grinned.
Rodgers smiled again, then looked at his watch. "I've got to make a call. Why don't you check with Liz and Darrell to get up to speed, and I'll see you later."
Martha relaxed at the shoulders and stepped aside.
"Mike?" she said as he passed.
He stopped. "Yes?"
"That was still a pretty hard blow you gave the Senator," she said. "Do me a favor and call her later, just to make sure she's okay."
"I plan to," Rodgers said as he opened the door. "I too, can be forgiving."
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Thursday, 2:55 P.M.,
Hamburg, Germany
Bob Herbert spent a frustrating hour-plus on the phone.
Sitting in his wheelchair and using his private line, Herbert spent part of the time talking with his assistant at Op-Center, Alberto Grimotes. Alberto was fresh out of Johns Hopkins, a clever Ph.D. psychologist with good ideas. He was still very young and without a great deal of life experience, but he was a hard worker whom Herbert regarded as a kid brother.
Question one, Herbert said, was trying to figure out which of their intelligence allies they could tap for up-to-the-minute information about German terrorists. The men suspected that the Israelis, the British, and the Poles would be the only ones who followed those groups closely. No other nations had quite the same visceral, enduring fear of the Germans.
Herbert held on while Alberto checked their HUMINT, Human Intelligence, database. This information from agents in the field was contained in what Herbert referred to as Op-Center's "pelt," the FUR file-- Foreign Undercover Resources.
Herbert was always ashamed to go begging for intelligence scraps, but his own resources in Germany were slim. Before West and East Germany reunited, the U.S. was heavily involved with helping West Germany ferret out terrorist groups coming from the East. Since reunification, U.S. intelligence had virtually withdrawn from the country. The German groups were Europe's problem, not America's. With bone-deep budget cuts, the CIA, the National Reconnaissance Office, and other information-gatherers had their hands full trying to stay on top of China, Russia, and the Western Hemisphere.
So much for our crystal balls about the next big trouble spot, Herbert thought bitterly.
Of course, assuming that other governments did have German HUMINT, there was no guarantee that they would even be willing to share their information. Since the well-publicized U.S. intelligence security leaks in the 1980s, other nations were reluctant to tell too much of what they knew. They didn't want their own resources compromised.
"Hub and Shlomo have four and ten people in the field, respectively," Alberto said. He was referring to Commander Hubbard of British intelligence and Uri Shlomo Zohar of the Mossad.
Since this was an unsecured line, Herbert didn't ask for specifics. But he knew that most of Hubbard's agents in Germany were involved with stopping the flow of contraband arms from Russia, while the Israelis were watching the flow of arms to the Arabs.
"It looks like Bog's boys are still cleaning up the Russian mess," Alberto said. That was a reference to General Bogdan Lothe of Polish intelligence and the near-war with Russia. "You want a laugh?" Alberto asked.
"I could use one," Herbert said.
"Looking over this list, the only help I see us getting is from Bernard."
If the situation weren't so serious, Herbert would indeed have laughed. "Help from them?" he said. "It'll never happen. Never."
"It might," Alberto said. "Let me just read this report from Darrell."
Herbert tapped out "Alabamy Bound" on the armrest as he waited.
Bernard was Colonel Bernard Benjamin Ballon of France's Groupe d'Intervention de la Gendarmerie Nationale. Historically, that law-enforcement organization was deaf and blind when it came to hate crimes, especially those committed against Jews and immigrants. The Gendarmerie also had an understanding with the Germans. If French agents stayed out of Germany, Germany wouldn't reveal the names of the thousands