Line of Control - Tom Clancy [39]
Another is Ron Friday's very thin dossier."
"All right," Hood said.
Herbert hung up and wheeled himself down the corridor to Hood's office.
As Herbert was enroute he got a call from Matt Stoll.
"Make it quick," Herbert said.
"I was just reviewing the latest number grabs from the Bellhop," Stoll told him.
"That telephone number we've been watching, the field phone in Srinagar?
It's making very strange calls."
"What do you mean?" Herbert said.
"The field phone keeps calling the home phone in Jammu, the police station," Stoll said.
"But the calls last for only one second."
"That's it?"
"That's it," Stoll told him.
"We read a connect, a one second gap, then a disconnect."
"Is it happening regularly?" Herbert asked.
"There's been a blip every minute since four p. m. local time, six thirty A. M. our time," Stoll told him.
"That's over four hours," Herbert said.
"Short, regular pulses over a long period. Sounds like a tracking beacon."
"It could be that," Stoll agreed, "or it could mean that someone hit the auto redial button by accident. Voice mail answers non emergency calls at the police station. The field phone may have been programmed to read that as a disconnect so it hangs up and rings the number again." "That doesn't sound likely." Herbert said.
"Is there any way to tell if the field phone is moving?"
"Not directly," Stoll said.
"What about indirectly?" Herbert asked as he reached Paul Hood's office.
The door was open and he knocked on the jamb. Hood was studying his computer monitor. He motioned Herbert in.
"If the phone calls are a beacon, then the police in Kashmir are almost certainly following them, probably by ground based triangulation," Stoll told Herbert.
"All of that would be run through their computers. It will take some time but we can try breaking into the system."
"Do it," Herbert said.
"Sure," Stoll said.
"But why don't we just call over and ask them what's going on? Aren't they our allies? Aren't we supposed to be running this operation with them?"
"Yes," Herbert replied.
"But if there's some way we can accomplish this without them knowing I'd be happier. The police are going to want to know why we're asking.
The Black Cats and selected government officials are the only ones who are supposed to know that Striker is coming over." "I see," Stoll said.
"Okay. We'll try hacking them." "Thanks," Herbert said and hung up as he wheeled into Hood's office. He locked his brakes and shut the door behind him.
"Busy morning?" Hood asked.
"Not until some lunatic decided to set off fireworks in Srinagar,"
Herbert replied.
Hood nodded.
"I haven't finished these files," he said, "but Ron Friday is obviously concerned about us having anything to do with the Black Cats. And you're apparently worried about having anything to do with Ron Friday."
Paul Hood had not spent a lot of time working in the intelligence community and he had a number of weaknesses.
However, one of Hood's greatest strengths was that his years in politics and finance had taught him to intuit the concerns of his associates, whatever the topic.
"That's about the size of it," Herbert admitted.
"Tell me about this police line blip," Hood said, still reading.
"The last home phone-to-field phone communication came a moment before the explosion," Herbert said.
"But Matt just told me that the regular pulses from field to home started immediately after that. In ELINT we want three things to happen before we posit a possible connection to a terrorist attack: timing, proximity, and probable source. We've got those."
"The probable source being a cell that's apparently been working in Srinagar," Hood said.
"Correct," Herbert said.
"I just asked Matt to try and get more intel on the continuing blips."
Hood nodded and continued reading.
"The problem you have with Friday is a little dicier." "Why?" Herbert asked.
"Because he's there at the request of the Indian government," Hood said.
"So is Striker,"