Sitting alone in his dark office, which was lit only by the glow of the computer monitor, Herbert was neither easygoing nor upbeat. He wasn’t only troubled by the fact that Paul Hood’s daughter was one of the United Nations hostages. It wasn’t only the knowledge that situations like this invariably ended in bloodshed. Sometimes it happened quickly, if the host nation or entity ousted the intruders before they could become entrenched. Sometimes it happened slowly, evolving from a standoff to a siege, which turned into an assault as soon as a plan could be formulated. On those rare occasions when a negotiated settlement could be reached, it was usually because the terrorists had only taken hostages to get attention for a cause. When they wanted money or the release of prisoners — which was most of the time — that was when things got messy.
What bothered him most were two things. First, the United Nations was the target. It had never been attacked in this way, and it did not have a record of taking a hard line with hostile agencies under any circumstances. Second, he was concerned about the E-mail he’d just received from Darrell McCaskey about the United Nations party roster. What the hell kind of an organization were those international innocents running?
McCaskey was at the Interpol office in Madrid. The former FBI agent had recently helped his friend Luis Garcia de la Vega break up the coup attempt and had stayed on to spend some time with his injured associate Maria Corneja. Security camera images of the United Nations assault had been sent to Interpol to see if any attacks in their files matched the modus operandi of this team. Interpol had also been sent a list of delegates and guests who attended the Security Council reception. A half hour before, McCaskey had forwarded that information to Herbert in Washington. All of the attendees were legitimate representatives of their nations though that did not, of course, make them diplomats. For over fifty years, innumerable spies, smugglers, assassins, and drug runners had been slipped in and out of the United States under the guise of being diplomats.
However, the United Nations had set a new personal worst for not running checks on two of the party guests. When they came to the UN just two days ago, they had listed biographical data that could not be corroborated in the files of any of the schools or businesses they cited. Either there hadn’t been time for their government to hack those files and insert the data, or the two didn’t expect to be in New York long enough to be found out. The question Herbert needed to answer was, who were they?
McCaskey had obtained their ID photos from the deputy secretary-general of Administration and Head of Personnel at the United Nations. When they were E-mailed over, the Op-Center intelligence chief ran the photographs through a database comprised of images of more than twenty thousand international terrorists, foreign agents, and smugglers.
The two attendees were in that file.
Herbert read what little personal history was available on the pair — their real history, not the fake ones they’d given the United Nations. He didn’t know anything about the people who had taken over the Security Council chamber, but he did know this: However bad those five terrorists were, these two could very well be worse.
Herbert had been informed by Striker that they were returning to Washington without General Rodgers or Colonel August. He didn’t know where August could have gone, but he knew that Rodgers was with Hood. With no time to waste, Herbert called Hood on his cell phone.
THIRTY
Not once in its long history has Cambodia known peace.
Prior to the fifteenth century, Cambodia was an expansive military power. Under the martial rule of the mighty Khmer emperors, the nation had conquered the entire Mekong River Valley, governing the lands that comprise modern-day Laos, the Malay Peninsula, and part of Siam. However, armies arose in unconquered sections of Siam and in the state of Annam in central Vietnam. Over the centuries that followed, these forces slowly pushed the Khmer armies back until the monarchy itself was threatened. In 1863, the desperate king of Cambodia agreed to the formation of a French protectorate over the country. A slow and steady arms buildup reclaimed lost lands, though the gains were forefeited when the Japanese occupied Indochina during World War II. Self-government was restored after the war, with Prince Norodom Sihanouk leading the country. Sihanouk was ousted in 1970 in a U.S.-backed military coup led by General Lon Nol. Sihanouk formed an exile government in Beijing while the Communist Khmer Rouge fought a civil war that overthrew Lon Nol in 1975. Sihanouk was restored to power as part of a shaky coalition government in what was now known as Democratic Kampuchea. Sihanouk’s prime minister was the rabidly anti-Communist Son Sann. Sann was a cold bastard. But Sihanouk and his government were soon replaced by the more moderate and ineffective Khieu Samphan, who had as his prime minster the ruthless and ambitious Pol Pot. Pol Pot was a Maoist who believed that education was a curse and that returning to the land could transform Cambodia into a utopia. Instead, under his cruel hand, Cambodia became synonymous with “the killing fields” as torture, genocide, forced labor, and famine took the lives of over two million people — one of every five Cambodians. Pol Pot’s rule lasted until 1979, when Vietnam invaded the nation. The Vietnamese seized control of Phnom Penh and established a Communist government led by Heng Samrin. But Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge still controlled vast areas of what was now called the People’s Republic of Kampuchea, and war continued to ravage the land. The Vietnamese withdrew in 1989 after sustained guerrilla warfare took a heavy toll on the occupation forces. Their withdrawal left new Prime Minister Hun Sen to struggle with groups that included the leftist Khmer Rouge, the rightist Khmer Bleu, the Sihanouk National Army loyal to the deposed prince, Lon Nol’s Khmer National Armed Forces, the Khmer Loeu, which was comprised of ethnic hill tribes, and Khmer Viet Minh, who were supported by Hanoi, and nearly a dozen others.
In 1991, with the nation’s economy and agriculture a shambles, the warring groups finally signed an accord that agreed to a cease-fire, widescale disarmament, and the presence of UN peacekeeping forces as well as UN-SUPERVISED elections. A new coalition with Hun Sen’s party was formed, which reestablished the monarchy and placed Sihanouk on the throne as king. Feeling that they were being forced to give up too much power, the Khmer Rouge resumed fighting. The battle lost some of its momentum in 1998 with the death of Pol Pot. However, other senior Khmer Rouge officers and cadres remained in the field and vowed to continue the war.
As a result of so many political and military entities vying for power, secret government police and rebel agents vied ferociously for intelligence and weapons. Their needs gave rise to an unprecedented underground network of spies, killers, and smugglers. Some of these worked for what they believed was the good of their homeland. Others worked only for themselves.
For nearly ten years, thirty-two-year-old Ty Sokha Sary and her thirty-nine-year-old husband Hang Sary had been counterterrorist operatives for the Khmer People’s National Liberation Armed Forces, the military component of the Khmer People’s National Liberation Front. The KPNLF had been formed in March 1979 by former prime minister Son Sann. Initially, their goal was to oust the Vietnamese from Cambodia. When that had been accomplished, the KPNLF turned to cleansing all foreign influence from the nation. Even though Son Sann was named to the Supreme National Council, which governed the nation under Sihanouk, the leader privately opposed the involvement of the United Nations. Sann was especially opposed to the involvement of Chinese, Japanese, and French soldiers. He did not believe there could be such a thing as a benevolent occupying army. Even if the soldiers were engaged in peacekeeping, their very presence corrupted the nation’s character and strength.