Tom Clancy's op-center_ acts of war - Tom Clancy [85]
Rodgers accessed the software which had been designed to protect the ROC from being seen by enemy satellites. After loading it and removing the safeguards built into the system, all that remained was for him to push "Enter."
"It's ready," Rodgers said.
Hasan translated. Mahmoud nodded. Rodgers pressed the button.
The three men watched as the monitor grew thick with color static until the image broke up. Hasan leaned over Rodgers and clicked the satellite icon. The NRO and Op-Center both disappeared from the image-share list.
Mahmoud stood back and smiled. He spoke to Hasan at length, then turned and pulled his tobacco pouch from his shirt pocket.
Hasan regarded Rodgers. "Mahmoud wishes me to make certain that you have done what you promised."
"I have," said Rodgers. "You can see that."
"I saw an image vanish," Hasan said. He pointed toward Rodgers's shirt pocket. "Use your telephone. Call your headquarters. I will speak with them."
Rodgers felt nervous, but he had to appear calm. Maybe Hasan had just been pointing at him, not at the pocket where he'd placed the phone. Rodgers nodded and casually reached for the telephone on the side of the computer. He lifted it from the cradle and immediately tried to work his thumb onto the stop button. The last thing he wanted was for the Syrians to hear the pulsing of the numbers he'd sent out.
Hasan's hand flashed out. He grabbed Rodgers's wrist. He hadn't hit the button yet.
"What are you doing?" Hasan asked. "Where is your telephone?"
"I lost it somewhere," Rodgers said.
"Lost it where?" Hasan asked.
"I don't know," Rodgers replied. "Outside, I suppose. Or on the floor here. It could have happened any one of the times I was tripped or pushed or knocked around."
Hasan's brows came together. "What's that?"
"What?" Rodgers asked.
Hasan looked at the phone. "It is dialing."
"No, it isn't." Rodgers smiled benignly. He had to make Hasan feel foolish if he continued this line of questioning. "It's clicking because of the static we're sending up to the satellite. If it were a number, someone would have picked up. Watch. When we put in a new number, it will be fine."
Hasan didn't appear to be buying that. But he was distracted when Mahmoud spoke sharply. It sounded to Rodgers as if he were pressing Hasan, and Hasan answered testily.
Hasan exhaled loudly, then glared at Rodgers. "Dial the number and then introduce me," he said. "I will do the rest."
Rodgers waited while Hasan released his wrist. Then he clicked the stop button, waited for the dial tone, and punched in Bob Herbert's number. Since the main dish on the driver's side of the van was being used to create the digital noise, the "mirror" dish on the passenger's side would create the uplink with the communications satellite Op-Center used.
Within ten seconds, Bob Herbert's startled assistant was summoning the intelligence chief to the phone.
* * *
TWENTY-SIX
Monday, 3:52 p.m.,
Washington, D.C.
Martha Mackall had been conferring with Op-Center Press Officer Ann Farris about how best to present Paul Hood's mission in the media. Martha was seated behind her desk and Ann was working on a leather couch, her laptop resting back near her knees. Together, the women plugged phrases like "exploratory intercession" and "interpositive mediation" into Ann's rough-draft press release. The trick was to position the post-flood mission as a diplomatic one rather than as intelligence-oriented, Hood's directorship of Op-Center notwithstanding.
Suddenly, it seemed as if a second flood had washed over Martha's office. First came Bob Herbert, who wheeled in with word that they had broken the repeating phone code from the ROC.
"We broke the pulse signal," he said proudly. "The beeps represent the numbers 722528573. That has to stand for RC2BKVKRD, which appears to translate as 'ROC to Bekaa Valley Kurds.' Our people are being taken to the Syrian Kurd stronghold in the Bekaa."
Even as Herbert was explaining the code, his wheelchair phone rang. He snatched it up. It was Chingmy Yau, one of his assistants,