Blackout (16 page)

Sunday, August 23, 10:30 a.m. EDT

Washington, D.C.

Scott wedged himself into the tiny corner of Evie Cline's cubicle that had been reserved for him. Khadi was pushed up against him, and Tara Walsh was on the other side of her. Virgil Hernandez and Joey Williamson stood on chairs, looking over the back and side walls respectively. Gooey, however, sat at his workstation tucked into a far corner of the room. Apparently he had found a way to monitor Evie's screen on his own computer and was listening to the conversation on the in-house communications.

This office is ridiculous,
Scott thought.
Jim would have never stood for this.
Jim Hicks, Scott's late boss and friend, had been as tough and hard-nosed as they came. He would fight for, and usually get, what he wanted and whatever he thought his team needed. His death three months ago during an operation in Turkey had been a huge blow to Scott and had thrown him into an identity crisis. When Scott inherited leadership of the team, he initially tried to emulate Jim's leadership style. But soon he found that rather than being a new hard-nosed Jim, he was just being a jerk.
Some people naturally have the hard-nosed gene; some people don't. Maybe if I just had a little more of it in me, we wouldn't all be crammed into this glorified closet!

“You know, Scott,” Hernandez said from over Scott's right shoulder, “if you'd be a little more hard-nosed with the higher-ups, maybe we wouldn't all be crammed into this—”

“Shut up! I know,” Scott replied angrily.

“You almost got it just then, although that made you sound a little more like a jerk,” Hernandez said.

Scott turned and glared at him. Then he said to Evie, “Okay, let's see—”

“Tara, are you able to see from there?” Khadi asked from right next to Scott. “Why don't we change places? I'm used to eyeballing the side of a monitor.”

“Really? Thanks,” Tara said as she and Khadi wedged past each other. Now that Tara was pressed up against Scott in the tiny space, Khadi turned to him and gave him a little grin.

Oh, great! Me and my big mouth! Now I'm going to have to deal with Khadi trying to put Tara and . . . What's that . . . ? Tara's hair smells incredible,
Scott thought as he leaned in closer for a deeper whiff.

“Should we get this—,” Tara said as she turned around to Scott, her face now inches away from his. “What are you doing?”

“Uh . . . I was thinking. . . . You know, processing through about how . . . about how we might be able to better utilize our office space,” Scott said, feeling the color rush to his face. “What do you think?”

“Oh, well, actually I do have a few thoughts on the subject,” Tara answered, leaning away just a touch. “But don't you think since everyone's here, we should see what Evie's found? Maybe we could meet up later and talk through the office layout.”

“Sure, you're exactly right. Evie, show us what you got.”

As Tara turned around, Khadi gave Scott a subtle thumbs-up. Quickly, her thumb was joined by thumbs belonging to Hernandez and Williamson. Even Evie's thumb showed her approval below Tara's sight line, and back at his station Gooey gave a barely audible “Woop, woop!”

Lovely, just lovely,
a thoroughly embarrassed Scott thought as Evie began her presentation.

“Okay, so a while back we decided that the weapons probably didn't go by plane, ship, or train out of the DPRK. The international community has the North Koreans so tightly monitored that it would be too big of a risk. So the only other option is truck.”

“Right, I remember that,” Scott encouraged.

“East is the ocean, and south is South Korea. So the only options are northeast into Russia and north or west into China. Russia didn't seem plausible because of the difficult terrain going up through the north part of the DPRK and into Primorsky and Khabarovsk. But Joey's still been following up that route, and he's come up empty. Am I right?”

“Empty as Stalin's cold heart,” Williamson confirmed.

“Interestingly antiquated metaphor, Joseph. Minor props,” Evie said appreciatively. “So the rest of us have followed the China route. Our hypothesis has been that China would probably have to know about what was being shipped through their country—there are too many checkpoints along the way, not including the two borders, to think otherwise. However, they would also want plausible deniability. So we figured there would be no rigging of the shipping manifests or load documents.”

Tara, her head filling Scott's senses with a coconutty piña colada scent, said, “Right. This way they could apologize, say that there were mistakes made—maybe execute a border guard or two—and they'd be golden.”

“Exactly. Now, comparing manifests from the North Korean border crossings with all of China's other border crossings was crazy hard, but Gooey created a filtering program that really sped up the process. Right, Goo?”

A click was heard on Evie's speakerphone as Gooey took his phone off mute. “Yep,” he said, then clicked back off.

However, Scott thought there was something in the background during that short moment. . . . “Gooey,” he called out, “are you playing Halo over there while we're meeting?”

“Uh, no, sir,” Gooey replied, clicking on and off.

“Let me rephrase. Gooey, are you playing any computer game while we are holding this all-important strategic meeting during which we might just come up with a plan that could save our entire nation?”

Click.
“Uh, maybe, sir.”
Click.

“Well, stop!”

Click.
“Uh, yes, sir.”
Click.

Crazy multitasking freak,
Scott thought, secretly wishing he too could divide his mind so effectively. “Go on, please, Evie.”

“Right,” Evie said, obviously enjoying every minute of this. “Gooey's filter left us with just over six hundred manifests for the last three months.”

“Why so few?” Khadi asked.

“First of all, North Korea is much more an importer than an exporter, both because of economy and because of the global political climate against them. Second, what they do send out primarily goes out by water or rail. And third, most of what they send into China by truck stays in China. The country is too big and too inhospitable to traverse by road unless you really had a fear of railroads or—”

Click.
“Siderodromophobia.”
Click.

“What?” Scott asked.

Click.
“Fear of railroads.”
Click.

“Don't be too impressed,” Virgil Hernandez said. “He just sits there with Google open waiting to look something up so that he can sound really smart.”

Click.
“. . .”
Click.

“Or . . . ,” Khadi said, prompting Evie to continue.

“Or really had something to hide,” she said with an appreciative nod toward Khadi. “We were able to rule out all but twenty-two of the manifests by following them to their destinations—mostly all down into Southeast Asia. The twenty-two open manifests were primarily from the western border of China. We set aside the six going into India and Kashmir because of our good relations with them. Then also set aside the five countries that only had one truck going in on the premise that whoever is masterminding this wants to deal with as few governments as possible.”

“Aren't you making a lot of assumptions in this?” Khadi asked.

“Definitely,” Evie answered. “We haven't ruled out those others, just set them aside while we follow one strain of hypotheses.”

“Fair enough,” Khadi said.

“So cutting to the chase, there were four trucks that have stood out from the rest,” Evie said, bringing a map of Asia up on her computer screen. “They all crossed out of China and into Tajikistan, then into Afghanistan, where they've now disappeared.”

“Are you sure about Tajikistan?” Tara asked. “Our relationship with them has been pretty solid lately. We've even got troops stationed there.”

“Honestly, that's the only big question—why Tajikistan? Then we got thinking about their history. Who are the Tajiks most closely related to?”

Click.
“Iran.”
Click.

“That's no fair, Gooey,” Evie complained. “You were in on that discussion. Quit stealing my thunder.”

Click.
“Sorry.”
Click.

Evie continued. “And what country is on the other side of Afghanistan from Tajikistan? Iran. You see, the Tajiks are Persian. They even speak Persian, although they call it Tajiki. The roots between the two countries are very strong, and they seem to be strengthening. Just a couple years ago, Tajikistan threw its support behind Iran's bid for membership into the Shanghai Cooperation Organization.”

“And remind me what the Shanghai Cooperative thingy is?” Scott said.

“The SCO is made up of China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan. And their whole reason for forming was to oppose American interference in Central Asia. So, as you can see, the Tajiks are certainly not our best friends.”

“So bring me up-to-date. What's the status of your search now?” Scott asked.

“Well, like I said, we'd lost the four trucks . . . until now,” Evie said.

Her words were followed by a clatter from across the room, followed by some rapid, heavy footsteps. Suddenly Gooey's oversize head popped up next to Williamson's.

“Say what?” he said, slightly out of breath.

Evie smiled. “I thought that might get you moving. I think that I just now might have found one of the trucks. And if I'm right, it shipped out from Bushehr, Iran, just six days ago.”

Scott was elated.
This gang is unbelievable! I've got to get word up the chain as soon as possible. If we're going to do anything to stop these shipments, it's going to take some serious international relations!

“How sure are you of this?” Scott demanded.

“Probably about 25 percent right now.”

That deflated Scott just a bit. But he knew that analyzing intelligence was a volatile business; one new piece of information could bump a percentage up to 100 or drop it to 0.

“Do everything you can to increase that. There's no way I can ask for a raid in international waters on a ship flying a different country's flag based on 25 percent,” Scott said as he started to squeeze himself out of the cubicle. “Joey, you keep the sweep going for other options. The rest of you join up with Evie.”

“Wait,” Evie called out to a rapidly departing Scott. “Don't you even want to know how I found it?”

“Write it in a memo,” Scott called back as he entered his office. He reached for the phone to call Stanley Porter, but it rang just before he picked it up.

“Ross,” he answered.

On the other end of the line he heard a sigh, then an angry voice. “Did you not get the telephone etiquette memo that was sent around?” Scott immediately recognized Secretary Dwayne Moss's voice.

“I believe I did get it and placed it in my very important—”

Ignoring Scott's words, Moss continued, “You answer the phone by department, division, title, and name. So your greeting should be what?”

“I'm sorry, sir. I will read the memo.”

“Your greeting should be . . . ,” Moss prompted him again.

“Department of Homeland Security, Special Operations Group Bravo, Director Scott Ross,” he answered, thinking that by the time he got that out, whatever threat they were being called to stop would have already occurred and now be in the cleanup stages.

“How . . . ,” Moss continued to push.

“. . . de-do?”

“. . . may I help you! How may I help you? Is that really too difficult for you, Ross?”

“It is a little long, sir, but maybe if I write myself a cheat sheet and keep it by the phone, I'll be okay,” Scott suggested, knowing that the next phone call he received would be answered with the same one-word greeting he'd always used.

“Listen, Ross, I don't need your sarcasm or your back talk! So knock it off!”

Scott kept silent.

“The reason I'm calling is that I've decided I want daily updates of all your work on this whole EMP thing. Each of your analysts will write up a detailed update of their day's activities, time allocation, and findings. Then you will collect them, summarize them, and have them in my in-box by 8:00 the next morning. Do you understand?”

Scott couldn't believe his ears. “But, sir, do you know how much of my evening that will suck up, let alone the time that will be taken away from the analysts doing what they're supposed to be doing?”

Moss's voice went shrill. “I am the United States secretary of Homeland Security! What the analysts are supposed to be doing is what I say they're supposed to be doing! This is not up for debate! I expect the first set of reports to be in my in-box tomorrow morning! Do I make myself clear?”