Tom Clancy's op-center_ acts of war - Tom Clancy [9]
He also had wanted to work with his best friend and former classmate, Stephen Viens, who headed the government's National Reconnaissance Office. Viens was the man who had arranged the Op-Center introduction for him. He also gave Stoll and his coworkers first-dibs access to NRO resources to the detriment and annoyance of his colleagues at the CIA, FBI, and Department of Defense. But they could never prove that Op-Center was getting a lion's share of satellite time. If they could, bureaucratic backlash would be severe.
Viens was on-line with Stoll at Op-Center and Mary Rose Whalley in Turkey to make certain the data coming from the Regional Op-Center was accurate. The visual images being channeled from the spy satellites weren't as detailed as those at the NRO: The mobile equipment provided just under half of the more than one thousand lines of resolution of the NRO monitors. But they were coming in fast and accurate, and intercepts of cell-phone conversations and faxes were equal to those that were being received by both the NRO and Op-Center.
After running the last of the tests, Stoll thanked Mary Rose and told her she was free to solo. The young woman thanked him, thanked Viens, and got off the secure downlink. Viens remained on his line.
Stoll took a bite of sesame bagel and washed it down with a swallow of herbal tea. "God, I love Monday mornings," Stoll said. "Back in the harness of discovery."
"That was pretty," Viens admitted.
Stoll said through cream cheese, "We build five or six of these things, pack 'em inside planes and boats, and there isn't a corner of the world we can't watch."
"You do that and you'll put me out of business faster than the Senate Intelligence Committee," Viens cracked.
Stoll looked at his friend's face on the monitor. The screen was the center one of three built into the wall beside Stoll's desk. "That's just a frosh dingbat's witchhunt," Stoll said. "Nobody's going to put you out of business,"
"You don't know this Senator Landwehr," Viens replied. "He's like a little dog with a very large bone. He's made it his personal crusade to put an end to forward funding."
Forward funding, Stoll thought. Of all the government sleights of hand, Stoll had to admit that that was the sneakiest. When money was earmarked for a specific purpose and those projects were back-burnered or altered, the funds were supposed to be given back. Three years before, two billion dollars had been given to the NRO to design, build, and launch a new series of spy satellites. Those projects were later canceled. But instead of being returned, all of the money was slipped into various other NRO accounts and disappeared. Op-Center, the CIA, and other government agencies also lied about their finances. They created small, so-called "black budgets," which were hidden in false line items of the budget and were thus concealed from public scrutiny. Those monies were used to finance relatively modest secret intelligence and military operations. They were also used to help finance Congressional campaigns, which was why Congress allowed them to exist. But the NRO had gone too far.
When the NRO's forward funding was discovered by Frederick Landwehr, a freshman senator who used to be an accountant, he immediately brought it to the attention of the Chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee. Congress acted swiftly to reclaim what was left of the money--with interest. And the interest included the heads of the responsible parties. Although Viens hadn't been involved in the parceling out of the money, he'd accepted budget increases for his satellite reconnaissance division knowing exactly where it came from.
"The press has to give space to a new face with a new cause," Stoll said, "I still think that when