Dmitri’s features darkened. “How compromised might they be?”
“Vasily and Pyotr know most of everything. They know this facility. They know what we keep here.”
“Did they know about the plan to take the Mishin boys?”
Hearing a midthirties man referred to as a “boy” was startling. To hear the use of the plural in “boys” was troubling. “Did you know that the grandson would be visiting?” Len asked.
“I try to know as much as I can,” Dmitri said.
“So you knew all along that the boy would be a part of this?” In Len’s world — in the world of sanity and proportion — there was a sanctity to childhood that should never be breached.
“I did not choose the timing of the bitch’s betrayal. She alone chose that.” For years, Dmitri had refused to speak the name of Yelena Poltanov.
Len’s mind reeled. This was the problem with zealots. They got so wrapped up in emotion and principle that they forgot about the practical ramifications of what they did. Americans would tolerate the taking of an adult as a hostage to a larger cause — they would profess dismay and make threatening gestures — Daniel Pearl, anyone? — but they would ultimately shrug it away and tolerate it. To take a child, though, was to invoke the wrath of the self-righteous.
“This is a mistake, Dmitri. We have the San Francisco operation ready to launch in just days. And after that, the Los Angeles operation and the Washington operation.” Each focused on largely unprotected mass-transit systems. “Per your orders, I moved the explosives shipment from tomorrow to the next day. These little changes incur huge risks. Ours is a balancing act.”
Dmitri had never been one to take bad news well. His features hardened. “We cannot project weakness,” he said. “If we do that, then we lose all of the influence we have at the White House. They have to know that we say what we mean, and we mean what we say.”
Len raised his hands, a gesture of surrender. With the argument lost, it became all about coping with the reality.
“If it helps,” Dmitri said, “the Mishins will be here for only a few hours. Forty-eight at the most.”
“Where do they go after that?”
“Do you really want to know?”
Len intentionally answered before he had much time to think about his words. “No,” he said. “As long as I don’t have to worry about them and about the fallout, I don’t want to know.” He heaved a deep breath and turned a page in his mind. “We are forty-five strong now. At any given moment, we will have fifteen men on guard detail, and fifteen on operational detail, doing whatever needs to be done. That leaves fifteen to be sleeping. I am confident that we can provide coverage for the Mishins when they arrive.”
“I want everyone well-armed,” Dmitri said. “Rifles and pistols for every on-duty guard, pistols for everyone, all the time.”
“It is difficult showering with a pistol,” Len joked, but it landed dead on arrival. When he saw the deep concern in Dmitri’s face, he changed his approach. “Do you have information that I should know about?” he asked. “Information that I should share with my people?”
Dmirti took a long pull on his black cigarette, and then waved the smoke away after he’d exhaled. “You ask for trust, Len, yet you do not offer it in return. We have turned the corner in our struggle to hurt America, and those in power will soon wake up to the threat. It is the moment we have been waiting for, and the moment we have been training for. If we give our men the tools of strength, they will show strength. I want them to feel very, very strong.”
Len found himself nodding as he listened. He’d seen it before: Good soldiers became great soldiers when they were entrusted with live ammunition. When all was said and done, potential became reality when the choice was to live or to kill.
But in all of Len’s experience, these truisms only worked when the enemy was clearly identifiable, and the mission was clear. In this case, neither factor applied, and that worried him.
“I will make them feel as strong as I know how,” Len said. As for the rest, the clock would tick as it ticked, and he would learn what history wanted him to know.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Striker — real name Carl Oppenheimer — had spent a career as a pilot for the 160th Special Operations Air Regiment — the Night Stalkers — flying Special Forces operators into and out of some of the hottest LZs on the planet. He’d been shot down once that Jonathan knew of, and ultimately was forced to retire with a bum leg, thanks to a lucky 7.62 round that came through the floor of his Blackhawk while he was flaring to land in a place that he couldn’t even tell Jonathan about. The bullet took out three toes and just a tiny trace of his sanity.
In the intervening years, he’d either spent a lot of money or made a lot of money — Jonathan couldn’t figure out which, but it had to be one or the other — buying discarded hulks of helicopters and restoring them to their former glory. According to the buzz mill within the Community, he made good coin renting out his equipment to people who needed to fly fast and hard and didn’t want to leave a paper trail.
“You know this changes everything, right?” Boxers asked in a low whisper. He and Jonathan were huddled at Jonathan’s desk while the others talked among themselves around the fireplace.
Jonathan looked up from the satellite photos he’d been studying. “What are we talking about?”
“Our business,” Big Guy replied. “OpSec used to be king. We flew under the radar, no one knew who we were, and no one knew what we did. Now we’re just lifting the kimono and showing all the goods to anyone who wants to see.”
Over all the years that they’d worked together, Jonathan and Boxers had engaged in maybe a dozen serious conversations, and this was clearly one of them.
“Given the cast of characters, I think we have a fair amount of cover.”
“I’d have agreed if Wolverine had decided to come along.” He looked directly at Irene, who was hovering close. “It bugs me that you want to stay behind.”
Irene crossed her arms and shifted her weight to one foot. The comment made her uncomfortable. “If I could be there, I would,” she said. “I think our history proves that. And if this were going down in Des Moines or Bangor, I might well be all over it. But this is foreign soil, and I’m the director of the FBI. What you’re planning — what we’re planning — is an illegal act. If it goes bad and I’m there, it becomes an act of war. I swore my oath to the Constitution, not to you guys. I’m sorry.”
“Forgive me, Wolverine,” Boxers pressed, “but it feels like cowardice to me. Feels like a setup.”
Jonathan jumped in, even as he felt a swell of anger. “No,” he said. “Wolverine is too good a friend.”
“No one is a friend in official Washington.”
“Except those who have proven themselves,” Jonathan said. He shot an apologetic glance to Irene and she received it in kind. No one was more cynical than he, but there was no denying the number of times that Jonathan had saved Irene’s ass, just as she had saved his. She’d earned not only his respect, but the benefit of his doubt. “Does it make you more comfortable to think of the damage we could do if we were ever called to testify?” It was of a magnitude that would topple this government and others.
“What about the reporters?”
“We’ve had this discussion.”
“But I didn’t get the answer I wanted,” Boxers said. “On the one hand, they’re reporter scum, and on the other, they’ve never engaged an enemy before.”