“Dan,” she said, “we’re getting a high level of Internet traffic in Egypt, Pakistan, and Saudi Arabia referring to a nuclear attack.”
“How much weight do you put on it, Khasha?” asked Dan.
“We always get a bit of chatter like that, but in the last few days it’s escalated by quite a bit. It is a little worrisome.” What Khasha did not realize was that the “increased chatter” about nuclear weapons was just one of the many diversionary tactics that Vijay Mahendra had utilized to keep the Great Satan confused and floundering. What she was looking at was a complex ruse, set in place as one of Yousseff’s backups.
“Do you have any idea what the potential target could be?” asked Dan.
“No, not a clue,” replied Khasha. “The NSA has decreased the filtering somewhat, and put extra manpower to work on all Mid-East intercepts. The level of surveillance is increasing, but at this point we have nothing concrete.”
“Let’s get Rhodes in on this,” said Dan. He turned toward Rhodes’ desk, on the other side of the room, and raised his voice to be heard over the noise of the rest of the TTIC group. “Liam!” he shouted. When he got no response, he elevated his voice another notch. “Yo, Liam, are you with us?”
Rhodes abruptly swivelled toward Dan, his face blackening at the tone Dan was using. “Relax, Dan, for God’s sake,” he snapped. “I’m here. What is it?”
Dan smirked at Rhodes’ obvious frustration and gave Khasha a knowing look. It had become all too obvious to the rest of the crew that he reveled in having high-level people like Rahlson and Rhodes answering to him. Khasha narrowed her eyes and bit her tongue, waiting for her question to be addressed. She was looking forward to the day when someone stood up to Dan and told him a thing or two about leadership. But now wasn’t the time.
Finally Dan turned back to the business at hand. “Liam, we’re getting an elevation in chatter about a nuclear strike in the offing. Put that together with what Goldberg said — that it’s likely to be an attack against one of our ports. How many nukes have gone astray since the dissolution of the Soviet Empire?”
“Not as many as the conspiracy wackos talk about on the net,” responded Rhodes. “But there are concerns. General Leben of the Soviet Union stated on the record a couple of years ago that not all of their small nuclear weapons could be accounted for. Caspian Sea countries, like Georgia and Kazakhstan, were the homes of large military bases that we believe contained nukes of some description. The unraveling of the Soviet Union could potentially have put nukes in the hands of at least five or six countries. Some of those countries, like Georgia, are seriously unstable. Places like Pakistan have nukes, and there’s a powerful Islamic extremist contingent there. Iran definitely has a couple. The list really goes on and on.”
“What do you make of the higher level of chatter that we seem to be getting in a few Mid-East countries about nuclear weapons being used against the West?” asked Dan.
“I’d be worried. Definitely, when viewed in the context of Goldberg’s message.”
“Perhaps we should recommend to the President that we go to Threat Level Yellow around all American ports,” suggested Dan. He was fishing for advice, while trying to look as though he didn’t need to ask. It was a pretty common move from the TTIC director, who had never done anything to prepare for this type of position.
“It might be too early for that, but we should definitely be considering it at some point. If we get further clues and talk about this, then I think we should,” said Rhodes. “Definitely.”
Turbee arrived at work at eleven. Not eight, thought Dan. Not nine. Not even ten. But eleven. It was outrageous. The PDB had been dissected and discussed. The battle of Yarim-Dhar had been reviewed in detail. Big Jack was on edge. Three American soldiers dead at Zighan. Four American soldiers dead in Yarim-Dhar. Two severely wounded. Thousands of kilos of Semtex gone AWOL, and a growing concern about a possible nuclear strike by terrorists. And this propeller-head sleeps in. Sleeps in. Unbelievable, thought Dan. Fucking sleeps in.
“You missed all the briefings, Turbee,” he snapped. “This is a team. Your skills are needed here. If you don’t want to be a part of us, just let me know.”
“Oh, Dan, leave it alone,” came a slow, soft voice from the other side of the control room. It was Khasha.
An ally? thought Turbee. No way. That never happened. Not to Hamilton Turbee.
“Shush,” came Dan’s retort. “We’re all getting paid good money to be here. We have a developing crisis, and Mr. Turbee drags himself in here at eleven. That’s a little over the top, isn’t it?”
Khasha had never backed down from anyone. With her rapier-sharp intellect, she had never needed to. She didn’t even feel the need to raise her voice. “He works on his own clock, Dan. And he works hard. Maybe he’s actually on Pakistan time right now.”
“Look, sir, I was up most of the night concentrating on the Heckler and Koch thing,” added Turbee. He didn’t think this was a wise time to enlighten Dan about Lord Shatterer of Deathrot, who had been slaying people left and right while Turbee worked.
“Turbee, I know who’s here and who’s not. You left here last night before midnight. Blue Gene tells me when people come and go. You weren’t doing any such thing,” Dan responded, condescension dripping from his voice.
Turbee wanted to tell the man that he had hacked a little back door into the operating system and that he could access Blue Gene from pretty much anywhere on the planet if he wanted to. He could have been working all night from his apartment, and had actually done just that. But it was probably best that Dan not know about that either. So he demurred.
“What about the Heckler and Koch thing?” Dan finally asked, after an uncomfortable pause.
“OK. OK. It’s like this. OK. We start with the PSG-1’s. Definitely a rare gun. Less than 1,000 sold. Germany has several dozen, Israel has more than 100. We have…” He looked up to see Dan’s fingers drumming on his crescent-shaped desk. “OK. Ten were sold in the Sudan in the past year.”
“OK, now I’m interested,” said Dan. Turbee noticed some other heads perking up and starting to pay attention.
Proudly, he started to explain how the guns were initially sold by their German manufacturer to someone named “Mohammed,” which was pretty much like selling them to “John Smith” in the US. He described how he had hacked into the H&K servers to find out where the guns had gone. He related how he had reasoned that Mohammed wasn’t the real name he was looking for, so had started combing through the databases of hotels, property owners, aliases, and known associates — anyone who might have had an interest in obtaining such guns. He had ultimately discovered that the guns were acquired by one Musa Hilal, the leader of a terrorist group in northwest Darfur known as the “Janjawiid,” or “devils on horseback.” He had also discovered that this was a group that was, through Musa Hilal and its other leaders, affiliated with al-Qaeda.
That’ll show them, thought Turbee, drawing a deep breath. Another Madrid. Turbee, the weird little pale kid, solves another international crisis. He saw the entire group, thirty-some people, eyeing him closely. All that was missing was a drum roll and a “tah-daa.”
“That’s it?” asked an incredulous Dan.
“That’s it,” said Hamilton Turbee, tapping his pencil on this desk for greater emphasis. “That is it.” Tap tap tap. He couldn’t understand why Khasha’s head clunked down on her desktop.
“That’s real good, Hamilton, but everybody already knew that,” said Rahlson from across the room. “The Janjawiid are a well-known terrorist group in Darfur. They make the Washington Post and the London Times on a regular basis. They’re a surrogate for Khartoum, and are at the center of the ethnic cleansing campaign that’s being claimed by the Arabian factions there. Christ, Turbee, just read the newspapers,” he added. “There is no doubt, there never was any doubt, that the Janjawiid were involved. We all knew that. It was the Janjawiid that attacked the Americans in Yarim-Dhar two days ago. There was never any question.”