“I don’t dispute that. But if you can help James Brandt and the president avoid a catastrophe, no one will care that you told me about a classified operation. And believe me, Jim Brandt would go to bat for you. Now, what was it about the mission that makes you think the Middle East crisis is about more than Israel?”
“Something that at the time didn’t quite compute. Let me give you a little background. The conventional wisdom is that Shiite Iran and Sunni al-Qaeda won’t, and don’t, work together.”
Olivia shook her head. “That may be the media’s conventional wisdom, but not James Brandt’s.”
“Brandt’s right. They work together against their common enemy — the US. Are you familiar with the CIA’s program to track al-Qaeda operations in Iran?”
“Yes,” Olivia replied. “RIGOR, I think it was called. Established after the invasion of Afghanistan. Al-Qaeda operatives were fleeing from Afghanistan into Pakistan and Iran. Iran claimed that it was ‘detaining’ the al-Qaeda operatives. We had our suspicions about what that meant, so we began satellite, drone, and ground surveillance.”
“Right. The agency found that ‘detention’ actually meant ‘support.’ Turns out Shiite Iran had no problem providing assistance to Sunni al-Qaeda. In fact, intel from RIGOR showed that the Ansar Corps of Iran’s Quds Force was actually running al-Qaeda operations. They — Iran and al-Qaeda — were working joint operations.”
“When and where?”
“You name it,” Garin replied. “Iraq, Afghanistan, anywhere they found the enemy. Anyway, a week ago a nuclear facility in — you fill in the blanks — is compromised by al-Qaeda and Taliban fighters.”
“Rhymes with Baluchistan, I suspect.”
“You didn’t hear it from me. The intelligence services in that country are supposed to be on our side. Don’t get me wrong — lots of them have taken great risks to assist us. But there’s an element within the nation’s intelligence services sympathetic to al-Qaeda and the Taliban. That element assisted al-Qaeda in gaining access to a nuclear facility. Dangerous stuff. They could’ve gotten control of nuclear weapons — al-Qaeda’s holy grail.”
Olivia looked both perturbed and irritated. “That was a major threat. An off-the-charts threat. All I knew was that there was an attempt, not that they had actually gained access. Why didn’t I hear anything about it?”
“Because we neutralized it just as they were gaining access.”
“How? Why you? Why not the ISI or Pakistani military?”
“First, we weren’t sure of the allegiances of their military and intelligence services. This was a bet-the-farm situation. We couldn’t take any chances.
“Second, Omega was specifically created and designed to handle such circumstances. We are — were — not just trained for combat, but to dismantle and destroy WMD of every type imaginable, most often without the host country’s knowledge. We were airborne within two hours after RIGOR — more accurately, RIGOR’s successor program — even had a hint of a problem.
“As to how, what I can tell you is that al-Qaeda fighters had breached a nuclear facility in the unnamed country and had established control over a portion of it before my team arrived. It’s likely they would’ve gotten their hands on the nukes had we not intervened.”
It was Olivia’s turn to look down at the carpet. “Nuclear weapons in the possession of terrorists.” She shook her head. “I didn’t hear about any of this, Michael.”
“And you wouldn’t. Only a handful of people in the country knew anything about it — the president, SecDef, DNI, DCI. It’s not the kind of stuff that gets broadcast. Markets tanking and all of that. I’m pretty sure James Brandt knew about it but couldn’t share it with you. In fact, my guess is the reason the Oracle put you on my case is because he thinks there could be a connection between what happened in that unknown country and what the Russians and Iranians are up to.”
“He sometimes says that the people who call him a genius do so because they only see the end product. They don’t see all the plodding work that precedes it. The endless days, nights, and weekends sifting through mundane data…”
“The Thomas Edison quote. But I bet even Brandt didn’t expect that I’d have much information that would prove truly useful. He probably thought he was just making sure he wasn’t leaving any stones unturned.”
“He’s excruciatingly thorough.” Her tone indicated her disappointment about being in the dark about the situation at the Pakistani nuclear facility. Garin tried to soften the letdown.
“Olivia, Brandt couldn’t tell you. That’s not a reflection on you. That’s just the way things are. If he didn’t have the utmost confidence in you, he wouldn’t have assigned you the job of ferreting out the information from me.”
Olivia straightened and brushed back her impossible abundance of hair. “I’m a big girl. But thanks.” Her eyes locked on Garin. “Back to your operation. How did you stop them?”
“We destroyed the assault force and secured the facility. We fed real-time video of the dead Tangos to Langley. Some were al-Qaeda. But they ID’d at least one of the dead as Iranian Ansar Corps.”
“And what do you conclude from that?” Olivia asked.
“Nothing more than what we’ve just discussed. The Iranians and al-Qaeda work together whenever it’s in their mutual interests to do so,” Garin replied. “The Ansar Corps officer who was there isn’t what’s important. What’s important is what was on his laptop.”
“I know you’re intentionally leaving gaps in what you’re telling me, Michael, but I need you to be a bit more linear. You have an Iranian Ansar Corps officer’s laptop, and I assume it has certain information that leads you to believe that his country is planning something beyond, or in addition to, a strike in Israel.”
“I’m sorry. I sanitized the narrative a little. I’ll back up. We were in a firefight with these guys. It didn’t last very long — we went in hard, fast, and hot. About twenty of them retreated into a tunnel beneath the complex. They must’ve been working on the tunnel for quite a while — it wasn’t just a crawl space.
“Anyway, we advance and methodically take them down. After we’ve taken out the last one, we video them and examine them for intel. The Ansar Corps guy has a laptop in his backpack. I switch it on and begin examining the files. A few seconds later, one of my guys starts yelling that he’s found a timer. Turns out they’d wired the tunnel. Semtex. We had less than a minute to get clear. We’re scrambling, climbing over dead bodies, trying to get out. We barely made it. I lost the laptop in the process. A couple of my guys took some shrapnel, but everyone made it out alive.”
“What was on the laptop that makes you think the Russians and Iranians are planning something beyond an attack on Israel?”
“Photos.”
“Photos? Photos of what?”
“Jordan Manchester, Joseph Bauer, and Evan Dellinger.”
“Manchester, Bauer, and Dellinger,” Olivia repeated.
Garin could see a look of recognition washing over her face.
“Manchester and Bauer are missile defense at the Pentagon,” Olivia said. “I don’t think I know who Dellinger is.”
“He’s an expert on, among other things, EMP defense,”
Garin said.
“How did you know who they are?”
“Olivia, it’s my job to know.”
Olivia put a hand to her forehead. She understood instantly the connection that Garin had already drawn.
“Was there anything else in the file? Any text?”