Critical Error (21 page)

“Professor Ilya Keilson, graduate of the Moscow Engineering Physics Institute. Hero of Socialist Labor, Order of Lenin and winner of the Stalin Prize. Born November 16th 1960. He worked until 1992 in Kremlyov which changed its name to Sarov in 1995 and is the center for Russia’s nuclear research program. His particular specialty is maximizing yield potential and detonation. His father was Klaus Fuchs born 29 December 1911…”

Ben held his hand up to stop Harry who was reciting all of the detail from memory.

“What use is he in Gaza?” asked Ben. “The weapons were moved to Israel months ago.”.

The Air Chief looked at Ben.

“This photo was amongst a number taken some time ago. It was only by accident that Harry here spotted it. Harry’s a Russian specialist and as such, doesn’t cover Gaza or the West bank. He only spotted it as he walked past a desk this morning and instantly recognized the face. I’m afraid this photo is about nine months old.”

Ben’s mouth went dry. Nine months ago was almost exactly when they believed the Palestinians had been given the bombs.

“So this guy, Keilsen, can take a bomb and improve its yield?”

“Yep,” replied Harry confidently.

“But only by so much. The mass material is key. There is a maximum. So for example, a 75kt device may be able to improve by say 20-30%, it’s unlikely you could get higher than that.”

Ben relaxed a little. Was a 100kt nuclear weapon really that much worse than a 75kt?

“He also specializes in trigger and detonation systems,” added Harry.

“And that means?”

“He can take a device and reconfigure the trigger or design an entirely new one.”

Ben’s heart almost stopped.

“Ben? Ben?!” The Air Chief rushed around the desk, as Ben’s face turned sheet white.

Ben held his hand up, he was still alive.

“If you wouldn’t mind excusing me, I have some calls to make,” he whispered in a tremble.

Sam arrived back to find Clark and his brother sound asleep on the sofas. The house remained, as per his instructions, in darkness. He grabbed a couple of blankets from a closet and placed them over the pair. Sam had purchased the house from a German diplomat who, at the end of his time in America, just wanted to take his clothes and leave. It meant that Sam was left with pretty much everything you would ever need. The German had, much to Sam’s amusement, even agreed to the realtor’s discount to cover the cost of removing unwanted goods. He not only got a fully furnished house, he got it for $30,000 less than an empty one.

Sam had spent less than two minutes deciding on the purchase three years earlier and since then, he had not stepped foot in the property and had no idea where anything was, let alone his own bedroom. He climbed the stairs, opened the first door and finding two twin beds, fell on the first one and was asleep by the time his head hit the pillow.

By the time Rebecca reached Edison, she reckoned she was 50 minutes behind whoever had killed the couple. She fished around in the bottom of her make-up bag and pulled out another federal badge. This time, she would be FBI but with no witnesses in the house who could speak, she kept a lower profile and canvassed the neighbors. She soon had the registration and description of the woman’s Ford Focus. Within five minutes, she left the scene and taking an educated guess, she headed South so as not to lose any valuable time as she worked through the leads.

Her first three calls were to
Sayanim
within America’s largest cell phone networks, Verizon, Cingular/ATT and Sprint and all were asked to investigate the same occurrence. Did any of their cell phones make two calls at specific times from two locations; Rebecca gave them the gps co-ordinates for the Howard Johnson in Newark and the house in Edison and the times of the shootings with a five minute window either side. Rebecca’s thinking was simple. Whoever had killed the couple were after the Senator. She did not believe for a second that the Senator had perpetrated such an atrocity. To be following the Senator the killer would have had to have followed him from Newark and whoever he was, he would have a boss or bosses to report to.

In the meantime, to keep the trail warm, she headed South, continuing on the previous direction from Newark to Edison. Without confirmation that this was the right direction, she held the speedo steady at fifty. She wasn’t going to widen the gap too much in the short term, just in case.

The
Sayanim
proved their worth again. What would have taken the federal agencies weeks to uncover was relayed to Rebecca a mere 17 minutes after her call. A Sprint prepaid cell had made two relatively short calls from both locations within the time frame. Being prepaid, there were no details as to ownership and unfortunately both calls were likewise received on prepaid cell phones. So Rebecca was no further forward in who she was chasing. However, the operator not only knew where the phone had been, they knew where it was heading, or at least the direction in which it was heading, due South.

Rebecca almost doubled her speed as she hung up the phone.

It was another two hours before she received the follow-up call. The prepaid cell had stopped moving and was located in and around the Georgetown area of Washington DC. Rebecca checked the satnav. She was only 32 miles away. Two hours of high speed driving had dramatically shrunk the gap between her and the target.

By the time Rebecca pulled into Q street, Sam had already dumped the sniper’s car. The sniper’s phone, which Rebecca was tracking, lay in bits alongside the sniper’s rotting corpse at the bottom of the pond. A phone call from the
Sayanim
confirmed the phone was no longer searching for signal, its last triangulation placed it within the grounds of Tudor Place. Rebecca had just parked on 31st NW and killed her lights as she caught a bizarre sight in her rear view mirror. It was approximately 2.30 am and a man jogged across the road behind her. It wasn’t a man merely running across a junction, it was a man who was jogging. Not only that, he was fully dressed. In Rebecca’s experience, men out at 2.30am did many things but jogging was definitely not one of them. Rebecca was a Mossad agent and one thing Mossad instilled from day one, there was no such thing as a coincidence. If it looked out of place, then it was more than likely that it was.

Rebecca waited a few seconds before exiting the car quietly and walking back towards the Q street and 31st NW crossover. She looked tentatively in the direction of the jogging man. She watched as he entered a house further up the street. She ducked back and, checking her sat nav, she worked out which number the house was. She checked her watch, 2.43 am. Cell phone companies worked 24 hours in the US but legal firms did not. However, it was already 8.43 am in Tel Aviv. She dialed Mossad’s head quarters and was quickly connected to one of the many hackers who ensured almost instant access to records from across the world. Ten minutes later, she had the details of the person who had purchased the house some three years earlier but that led nowhere. However, the coincidences were mounting. Not many homes hid their ownership. What were the chances that the house she was researching would be purchased by an anonymous entity? Like many other coincidences that night, the chances were remote. Rebecca considered calling Ben. She was 90% certain she had the Senator in her sights but wanted to be certain. She extracted another federal badge from her bag. This time it was a Secret Service identity in the name of Rebecca Mills., She walked along 31st NW and soon turned onto Avon Lane NW. A right turn at the end, took her down to Cambridge Place NW. She hopped over the fence and dropped noiselessly into the garden of the house four along from her target. It was a three storey white house facing the Senator’s hideout. Rebecca worked her way silently through the gardens before reaching the back-door of her target property. Her next problem was gaining access without alerting the house opposite. Another call to Mossad secured an unlisted number and after a quick and alarming call to the owners, the back door opened, as instructed, in darkness. Rebecca smiled at what a woman could achieve that few men could, even with years of practice - instant trust. She displayed her badge to the property owner and continued to explain her requirement to remain out of sight and in surveillance of their neighbors. Being Secret Service, she could of course divulge little other than to emphasize it was a matter of national security and that the property owners should remain quiet about the situation.

Rebecca was offered coffee and food but refused. It was imperative that the property owners went back to bed and continued their normal routine. Rebecca took up station in a small bedroom on the third floor which directly overlooked the Senator’s location. She sat down and watched. The property owners would leave for work in the morning as normal and should she need to leave, she was to simply pull the door behind her.

Sam woke up at 6.30 am to the sound of a toilet flushing. He surveyed the room and instantly knew his worst nightmare wasn’t a nightmare. He had lost his wife and child and was on the run with his brother.

He walked down to find his brother still lying on the sofa while Agent Clark was checking kitchen cupboards to see what had survived the three years. So far, just coffee and even then the choice was black or none at all.

“Coffee?” she offered as she turned to look at Sam in the doorway.

“Please,” he said, rubbing his shoulder. The muscles had stiffened while he slept. “Is he awake?” he asked as he dipped his head towards his brother.

“Not yet,” responded Clark, pouring three coffees.

Sam took two steaming mugs and headed towards his brother, kicking the sofa as he approached. “Come on, wake up!”

Senator Charles Baker sat bolt upright. “Wha, whoa, what’s happening?”

“Some bastards are trying to kill you. Now wake up!” demanded Sam almost smiling. His brother had always been a heavy sleeper who, when disturbed, woke up with a start.

After a few shakes of the head and a slug of Clark’s coffee, the Senator came back to life. Two more slugs and the full horror of what had happened the previous day began to hit him.

“Shit, what are we going to do?” he looked at Sam.

Sam checked his watch. 6.45 am. It was time to make the call he had been considering.

“I’m going to put a call into the Secretary of Defense.”

Both Clark and the Senator reacted, the Senator beating Clark by a micro second. “Wait a minute! Last night you said we couldn’t trust anybody!”

“I don’t but a man whose life I saved probably isn’t anybody. James Murphy is the single most honorable man I have ever met. I’m willing to bet my life he’s got nothing to do with this. Trust me.”

Clark was unconvinced. However, the Senator relaxed as he recalled the rescue of Pilot Colonel James Murphy. Murphy had been shot down over Iraq during the first Gulf War. Being the pilot of a tank busting A10 Warthog, the Iraqis had little sympathy for Murphy and had made his time with them particularly unpleasant. As it became apparent that Murphy would soon be moved to Baghdad and paraded in front of the world’s press either before or during a summary execution, a rescue operation had been initiated. Over 100 miles behind enemy lines, Sam Baker was one of two pararescuemen to join the Special Forces team. The Special Forces were in the first chopper while Sam and his colleague were in a second chopper which would hold off until the Special Forces team had found Murphy. They would then swoop in and pick him up. Everything went to plan, right up until the SAM missile took out the Special Forces helicopter. The press had leaked the operation and thanks to CNN, the Iraqis knew they were coming. As the Iraqis celebrated, the pilot of the second chopper began to turn back. Sam had other ideas and with a pistol to the pilot’s head, he forced him down, landing a few hundred yards from the makeshift camp. Sam jumped out and carried out the rescue mission. The confusion and chaos caused by the first helicopter’s crash had given him a diversion that he used to full advantage.

His pararescue colleague had to stay in the chopper to stop the coward pilot turning tail and leaving them behind. Five minutes after landing, a very beaten up but extremely grateful Colonel James Murphy was in the air and heading home. Funnily enough, the helicopter pilot who had sworn to both Sam and his colleague that they would be court-martialed was very quiet. Even when the President had awarded him the Silver Star, he had not taken the opportunity to complain to his ultimate Commander-in-Chief about Sam’s actions.

“OK, if you’re sure you can trust him,” said the Senator,

“I’m godfather to his first son and he sends me a card every birthday and Christmas. Trust me, he’s not in on this.”

Sam picked up the phone and dialed a number he had been given many years earlier. Murphy had given him the number if Sam ever needed
anything
and he had repeated ‘anything’ with conviction.

As the number dialed and began to ring, Sam posed a question.

“What do you know about James Lawson?” Before the Senator could respond, Sam was speaking into the phone.

“Mr Secretary?”

“Yes, I know it’s Jim, Mr Secretary.”

The Senator tried to listen into the call but James Lawson was all he could think about. James Lawson was the kingmaker. Nobody got anywhere without him. It was one of the biggest issues with his campaign to be president. Lawson was behind Russell. As desperate as he was to hear what the Secretary of Defense was saying, he was more desperate to know why Sam had mentioned his name.