"Hell," Rachlin observed, "I never believed he wasn't calling the shots behind his hand the whole time."
"That's just it," Rodgers said. "Something big just might be run without the Kremlin. What we saw in Chechnya in 1994 was the beginning of a trend toward decentralization in Russia. It's a big country with eight time zones. Suppose someone finally woke up there and said, 'This is like a dinosaur. It needs a couple of brains to make the whole work'?"
The President regarded Rodgers. "Has someone, in fact, done this?"
Rodgers said, "Before the blast, Mr. President, we intercepted a bagel order sent from St. Petersburg to a shop in New York."
"A bagel order?" said Burkow. "Get real."
"That was my reaction," said Rodgers. "We noodled around with it, but it didn't make any sense until after the blast. Using the Midtown Tunnel as a point on a grid, one of our cryptologists figured out that it was a map of New York, with the tunnel as one of the highlights."
"Were the other points secondary targets?" asked Egenes. "After all, the World Trade Center bombers had alternate targets, including the Lincoln Tunnel."
"I don't think so," said Rodgers. "It looked to our analyst like stops in the bomb-making process. Now, Larry— you'll bear me out on this. For a couple of months now, we've been picking up microwave radiation from the Neva in St. Petersburg."
"It's really been cooking over there," Rachlin agreed.
"We thought the radiation was coming from a TV studio being built in the Hermitage," said Rodgers. "We now believe that the studio is a front for some kind of top-secret operation."
"A second 'brain' for the dinosaur," said Lincoln.
"Exactly," said Rodgers. "It was financed, apparently, using funds approved by Interior Minister Nikolai Dogin."
"The loser in the elections," said the President.
"The same," Rodgers said. "And there's one thing more. A British agent was killed trying to have a look at the place. So something is going on there. And whatever it is, whether it's a command center or military base, it's probably connected to the attack in New York through that bagel order."
"So," said Av Lincoln, "we have the Russian government, or some faction thereof, in league with an outlawed terrorist group and, quite possibly, with the Russian mafia. And they apparently control enough of the military so that they can make something major happen in Eastern Europe."
"That's right," said Rodgers.
Rachlin said, "God, how I'd love to grill that arrogant little Grozny rat personally when we have him."
"I guarantee we won't get a thing from him," Egenes said. "They wouldn't have told him anything, then let him hand himself over to us."
"That would be kind of dumb," Rachlin agreed. "They gave him to us just so we could took good, like we wielded a swift and terrible sword of justice."
"Let's not spit on that," the President said. "We all know that JFK had to compromise the U.S. military in Turkey to get Khrushchev's missiles out of Cuba. The fact that only half the deal came out made him look like a hero and Khrushchev a chump. So," he said, "let's assume that, through St. Petersburg, a government official ordered the attack in New York Could it have been President Zhanin?"
"I doubt it," said Secretary Lincoln. "He wants a relationship with the West, not war."
"Do we know that for sure?" Burkow said. "Speaking of Boris Yeltsin, we've been snowed before."
"Zhanin has nothing to gain," said Lincoln. "He ran against military expenditures. Besides, he and Grozny are natural-born enemies."
"What about Dogin?" the President asked. "Can this be his doing?"
"He's a likelier candidate," said Rodgers. "He paid for the place in St. Petersburg and probably owns the people in it."
"Is there any way we can talk to Zhanin about it?" asked Tobey.
"I wouldn't risk it," said Rodgers. "Even if he's out of the loop, chances are good that not everyone around him is trustworthy."
"So then what's your plan, Mike?" Burkow said testily. "From where I sit, one bomb has effectively put the United States on the sidelines. Christ, I remember when things like that used to galvanize people and get us into wars."
Rodgers said, "Steve, the bomb hasn't stopped us. From a strategic point of view, it may have helped."
"How?" asked Burkow.
"Whoever is behind this probably feels they don't have to watch us closely," Rodgers said. "Just like the Russians felt about Hitler after signing the Nonaggression Pact."
"They were wrong," said Lincoln. "He attacked them anyway."
"Exactly," said Rodgers. He looked at the President. "Sir, let's do the same. Let me send Striker to St. Petersburg. As promised, we don't do anything in Eastern Europe. In fact, we let Europe tremble a little at our isolationism."
"That'll certainly tie in with American sentiments these days," said Lincoln.
"Meanwhile," said Rodgers, "we let Striker take these people apart from the brain down."
The President looked at each man's face in turn. Rodgers felt the mood in the room shift.
"I like it," said Burkow. "A lot."
The President stopped at Rodgers's face. "Do it," he said. "Bring me the head of the Big Bad Wolf."
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Paul Hood was sitting in a lounge beside the hotel pool. He had his pager and cellular phone by his side, and his Panama hat pulled low so that he wouldn't be recognized. He didn't feel like chewing the fat with old constituents just now. Except for the conspicuously absent tan, he probably looked the part of the modern, self-absorbed, independent film producer.
The truth was, even with Sharon and the kids frolicking a few yards away, in the deep end of the pool, he felt melancholy and strangely alone. He had his Walkman on, listening to an all-news channel as he waited for the President's address to the nation. It had been a long time since he'd followed a breaking news story as a citizen and not a public official, and he didn't like it. He didn't like the sense of helplessness, at not being able to share his grief with the press, with other officials. He wanted to contribute to the healing or the sense of outrage or even the vengeance.
He was just a man on a rubber chair waiting for news like everyone else.
No, not quite like everyone else, he knew. He was waiting for Mike Rodgers to call. Even though the line wasn't secure, Rodgers would find a way to tell him something. Assuming there was something to be told.
As he waited, his thoughts returned to the bombing. The target didn't have to be the tunnel. It could just as well have been this hotel's lobby, with its Asian tourists and businesspeople, filmmakers from Italy, Spain, South America, and even Russia. Scare them away and damage the local economy, from limousine services to restaurants. When Hood was the Mayor of Los Angeles, he had participated in a number of seminars about terrorists. Though they'd all had their own methods and reasons for doing what they did, they also had one thing in common. They struck at places people had to use, whether it was a military command center or a means of transportation or an office building. That was how they brought governments to the bargaining table, despite public posturing to the contrary.
He also thought about Bob Herbert, who had lost his legs and his wife in a terrorist bombing. He couldn't imagine how this was affecting him.
A bleached-blond young waiter stopped by Hood's chair and asked him if he wanted a beverage. He ordered a club soda. When the waiter returned, he looked at Hood for a moment.
"You're him, aren't you?"
Hood unhooked his Walkman. "Excuse me?"