Friday nodded.
"And my granddaughter?" Apu asked.
"She's with them," Friday said. He did not know if she was or not, of course. But he wanted Apu with them. The farmer had harbored the enemy cell. If they needed to forestall any action by India, Apu's confession would play very well on Pakistani TV.
Friday looked at the map. Herbert had told him that the cell was sticking to the mountain ledges. That meant that if the chopper started following the line of the range at eight thousand feet and flew up one side and then down the other they were sure to encounter the cell. Friday glanced down at the inset conic projection and smiled. The round-trip was less than two hundred miles.
He would have them. And he would have that do-nothing Herbert.
"Come on," Friday said to Nazir.
"Where are we going?" the officer asked.
"To catch a terrorist cell," Friday replied.
TWENTY-EIGHT
Paul Hood's office was just a few steps away from Op-Center's high-security conference room. Known as the Tank, the conference room was surrounded by walls of electronic waves that generated static for anyone trying to listen in with bugs or external dishes.
Hood entered after everyone was already there. The heavy door was operated by a button at the side of the large oval conference table. Hood pushed it when he sat down at the head of the table.
The small room was lit by fluorescent lights hung in banks over the conference table. On the wall across from Hood's chair the countdown clock was dark. When they had a crisis and a deadline, the clock flashed its ever-changing array of digital numbers.
The walls, floor, door, and ceiling of the Tank were all covered with sound-absorbing Acoustix. The mottled gray-and-black strips were each three inches wide and overlapped one another to make sure there were no gaps. Beneath them were two layers of cork, a foot of concrete, and then another layer of Acoustix. In the midst of the concrete, on all six sides of the room, was a pair of wire grids that generated vacillating audio waves. Electronically, nothing left the room without being utterly distorted. If any listening device did somehow manage to pick up a conversation from inside, the randomness of the changing modulation made reassembling the conversations impossible.
"Thank you all for coming," Hood said. He turned down the brightness on the computer monitor that was set in the table and began bringing up the files from his office. At the same time, Bugs Benet was busy raising Colonel August on the TAC-SAT. In order to make sure Striker stayed in the loop, August and Rodgers were taking turns sleeping en route to Turkey.
"No problem," Lowell Coffey said. He had been pouring water from a pitcher into a coffee machine on a table in the far corner. The percolator began to bubble and pop. "The roads were empty. I managed to sleep on the way. Anybody think to get doughnuts?"
"That was your job," Herbert pointed out. "You were the only one who wasn't here." He maneuvered his wheelchair into his place at Hood's right.
"I've got mid rats in my office if you're hungry," said Liz Gordon as she settled in to Hood's left.
"No, thanks." Coffey shuddered as he sat across from Hood. "I'll stick to the coffee."
"You've got official military midnight rations?" Herbert asked.
"A three-course packet," Liz said. "Dried apricots and pineapple, jerky, and cookies. A friend of mine at Langley gave them to me. I think you've worked with her. Captain McIver?"
"We worked on some black ops stuff together," Herbert said. He smiled. "Man, mid rats. I haven't had them in years. They always hit the spot in the wee small hours."
"That's because you were tired and not selective," said the admittedly dilettantish Coffey.
Hood's data finished loading a moment before Bugs Benet called. Hood sent the files to the other computer stations around the table. Liz and Coffey scanned the files as Hood's assistant informed him that he had Colonel Brett August ready to be patched through from the C-130 Hercules. Hood put the telephone on speaker and looked across the table.
"We're ready to go," Hood said to the others.
Everyone came to attention quickly.
"Colonel August, can you hear me?" Hood asked.
"As clear as if you were in the cabin with us, sir," the Striker commander replied.
"Good," Hood replied. "Bob, you've been talking to New Delhi. Would you please bring everyone up to speed?"
Herbert looked at his wheelchair computer monitor. "Twenty-one hours ago there was an attack on a market in Srinagar, Kashmir," Herbert said. He spoke loud enough for the speakerphone to pick up his voice. "A police station, a Hindu temple, and a busload of Hindu pilgrims were destroyed. With intel from the NRO and from your NSA contact who happened to be on-site, we have reason to believe that the attack on the station was the work of the Free Kashmir Militia, a militant organization based in Pakistan. However, we suspect that the attacks against the Hindu sites may have been organized by India itself. We believe that elements in the Special Frontier Force, the cabinet, and the military may be trying to win public support for a quick, decisive nuclear strike against Pakistan."
No one moved. The only sounds were the hum of the forced air coming through the overhead vents and the crackling of the coffee machine as it finished brewing.
"What about the Pakistani terrorists?" Coffey asked.
"At this moment the cell is desperately trying to cross the Himalayan foothills — we believe to Pakistan," Herbert replied. "They have a prisoner. She's an Indian woman who apparently coordinated SFF actions to make the attack on the Hindu sites look like the work of the Pakistani Muslims. It is imperative that they reach Pakistan and that their hostage be made to tell what she knows."
"To defuse the outraged Indian populace that will otherwise be screaming for Pakistani blood," Liz said.
"Correct," Herbert said. "So far, the first attempt to capture the Pakistanis failed. SFF commandos were sent into the mountains. They were all killed. We do not know what other pursuit options are being considered or whether the cell has contacted Pakistan. We don't know what rescue efforts Islamabad may be attempting to mount."
"They'd probably be chopper HAP searches," August said.
"Explain," Hood said.
"Hunt and peck," August told him. "The cell would not risk sending a radio beacon to Pakistan or suggesting a rendezvous point. That would be too easy for an Indian listening post at the line of control to pick off. Pakistan doesn't have the satellite resources to spot the cell so they would have to fly in and crisscross suspected routes of egress. And they'd use helicopters instead of jets, to stay below Indian radar."
"Good 'gets,' " Herbert said.
"Paul, there's something that's bothering me," Coffey said. "Do we know for certain that the NSA operative was an observer and not a participant? This action may have been planned a couple of weeks ago, timed to draw attention from their attempted coup in Washington."
Coffey had a point. The former head of the NSA, Jack Fenwick, had been working to replace President of the United States Michael Lawrence with the more militant Vice President Cotten. It was conceivable that Fenwick may have helped to orchestrate this crisis as a distraction from the anticipated resignation of President Lawrence.
"We believe that Friday is clean, though right now we have him quarantined with an Indian officer," Hood replied. "I suspect that if Friday were involved with this he would be trying to get out of the region and keep us out as well."
"Which could also mean he is involved," Liz pointed out.
"In what way?" Hood asked.
"If you're suggesting, as I think you are, that Striker try to help the cell get home, it would be in Mr. Friday's interest to stay close to them and make sure they do not succeed."