October's Ghost (44 page)

“You sorry sack of shit.”

George looked up, his eyes red but dry. There were no more tears left in him. Hardly any emotion. Just a sobering realization that his life was poised on the edge of the drain and ready to slide in.

“You nearly got my partner killed ‘cause she had to save your ass,” Art bellowed. “And why? Why the fuck did you come looking?”

“I... I needed the story.” Sullivan swallowed hard. “I need something.”

Art spit out a disgusted breath. “Yeah, you need something, all right. You need a fucking lesson in life. Look around, huh. You see what you caused? What you caused because you ‘needed a story’? Bullshit! You’re a fucking crybaby who only has his booze to keep him company!”

“No more booze,” George said simply.

Art wondered if the claim was true. Probably not, despite the fact that the guy seemed stone-cold sober. “Wonderful first step, hotshot. Now try and fix all this.”

Sullivan looked to his left, leaning forward to see past the plain wooden dresser. The body of the man who had dragged him in the room lay against the doorframe. Beyond that, in the parking lot, were what looked like two more bodies. And farther still, leaning against the hood of an awkwardly parked car, was the woman who had saved his life.

“Tina,” Art said, calling the other agent in. He took what he hoped would be a final look at Sullivan, and he didn’t know what to feel about him right now. It couldn’t be pity; that would be too generous. Hate? For what, for being an idiot? Anger in part. But what else he should think of George Sullivan eluded him. Only distaste was prevalent in his mind at the moment. “Get him out of here.”

Art turned away as Mercer lifted and led Sullivan from the room. He took a few steps toward the bed and rolled the suspect over. The movement caused a grimace of pain. “Listen carefully, whoever you are, you are under arrest. You have the right to remain silent....” Art finished the Mirandizing of their suspect, then lifted him with a one hand grip of the man’s shirt to a sitting position against the headboard. There was another wince. “Now we’re gonna have to talk.”

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CONNECTIONS

General Walker finished relating what he had just been told a few minutes before. The story was met initially by silence from Marshal Kurchatov and Colonel Belyayev.

“You have just answered your own question, General Walker,” Kurchatov said. “I, too, would activate the Moscow ABM system if such a thing had been told to me.”

“Yes, but this appears to be an action taken not because of prudence, but because of mistrust,” Walker explained. “Your president’s tone was very provocative, I am told, and I say that not to challenge his motivation, but just as a point of concern.”

“Well, President Konovalenko, unfortunately, has more than just himself to answer to. And those who demand such satisfaction in times like this are not the most accommodating people.” Kurchatov smiled with the knowledge of one who had juggled both the political and military hats in his career, a process he knew was unfamiliar to CINCNORAD. “And distrust is their ally, not their enemy.”

“Your words are calming, Marshal. Possibly they can be for President Konovalenko as well.”

Gennadiy Timofeyevich would be feeling the pressure, Kurchatov knew, and he was well aware who from.
Yakovlev and Shergin
. The interior minister he could do nothing about, but Shergin was his subordinate and was at the end of the direct line temporarily connecting NORAD with the
Voyska PVO
. Neutering the commander of the Motherland’s air-defense forces, at least temporarily, would split him from that weasel of an ally of his. Yakovlev would then stand alone, without an inroad to the military. Gennadiy Timofeyevich could then eat him for breakfast.

“I will speak to my people, and then I will speak to the president,” Kurchatov said, thinking on what his words would be for the latter. “One of our missiles in Cuba, eh?”

“At least in part,” Walker expanded.

“Yes. The part that matters, apparently. It is not so hard to believe. I was but a young captain during that time. Things were very confused, and information was hoarded as if it were gold.” In these days as if bread, the marshal thought. “As I gained rank and experience, I learned that there are many impossible things that are actually realities cloaked in secrecy.” Kurchatov smiled knowingly. “Someday, possibly, I can tell you of such things.”

Walker returned the expression. “And I to you.”

“So such a thing as you tell it is not beyond my belief, but...” The pause was punctuated by concern. “Those who are not here, those who cannot see and feel that you are in no way trying to deceive us, well, to them such a happening could be seen as less than fact. Even as a threat.”

“That’s my concern,” Walker said straightforwardly.

Kurchatov nodded concurrence. “And mine. Let us try to calm any fears that may be developing. Colonel Belyayev.”

Kurchatov and Belyayev followed General Walker from their quarters to the force-monitoring console. A new duty officer was in the left seat and stood respectfully as the Russian defense minister took the seat to his right.

“This one?” Kurchatov asked, pointing to the handset lying in the unmarked cradle. A nod affirmed his question, and he picked it up. The pre-dialed sequence, routed through three secure voice communications switching centers, searched for a connection at
Voyska PVO
. After a first failure—which took less than a second—the switching computers tried again. Another failure.

“No connect,” a microchip reported in a disembodied male voice.

Kurchatov pulled the receiver away, looking at it in a reaction that was as natural as it was unproductive. Colonel Belyayev took the phone from him, pressed the cradle switch down, and waited for the connection again.

“No connect.”

“Something is wrong,” Belyayev said. His words were tinged with the barest amount of a question, and his eyes silently waited for CINCNORAD to answer.

The same result came from General Walker’s attempt. He picked up another phone and called NORAD’s communication center—its own switchboard. “I want an analysis on the direct line between the force-monitoring console and Russian Air Defense Headquarters...fast.”

Belyayev and Kurchatov alternately watched CINCNORAD and the displays, the tension obvious and growing. Everything so far had been as the Americans had said. Everything. Even the Cuban revelation, though unexpected, was not the thing to cause confident hearts to stir. But this. A malfunction at this time? In combination with all else? If this became known to the president’s enemies in Moscow... The defense minister isolated by a communications
failure
? That discovery could be very dangerous. Marshal Kurchatov hoped, simply, that the sarcasm in his thought would turn out to be baseless.

The phone buzzed, and Walker snatched it up. “Yes.” He listened for less than thirty seconds. “You’re certain?”

“General Walker?” Kurchatov said after CINCNORAD had hung up.

“The direct circuit has been disconnected. Cut at the source.”

The defense minister’s eyebrows arched to the center of his forehead.
It cannot be...
“Why would you do this? Why would you isolate us?”

Walker’s head shook. “Not us. Marshal. You. The link was severed at your end. In Moscow.”

The thick black lines of hair over Kurchatov’s eyes shot upward, ending the expression of anger. The emotion now was plain fear. “Dear God.”

*  *  *

Greg Drummond stood personally by the secure fax and took the pages as soon as they came out. He made a duplicate copy and was in his office a minute later. Mike Healy was waiting for him.

“Here,” the DDI said, handing the copy to his Operations counterpart.

“Sam Garrity?” Healy said skeptically before reading the word-for-word wiretap transcripts just sent from the Bureau. Drummond had given him only what he had learned from Gordon Jones’s quick call, namely that they had a suspect in the leak, and, the big twist, that the leak’s contact was also directing two men wanted in the killing of Francisco Portero—the keeper of the tape.

Drummond ignored the question and read through the conversation, picking out important details first. “
‘Off the director’s desk’
?
‘Scribbles’
? What the hell is he saying? There’s no way to get anything written off this floor. Security would have caught it in their sweep. Anything Anthony left on his desk would have gone in the burn bag.”

“Well, he got something,” the DDO said. “ ’Cause he knows about the missile. And so does his contact—whoever that is.”

“Gordy’s guys down in Miami are setting to take him real soon,” Drummond said with pleasure. Only nailing the man who’d caused his directorate to become suspect would bring greater joy.

Healy scanned farther down the transcript, his mind seizing on two passages. “Greg, look halfway down. You see that?”

“
‘This isn’t like before,’
”Drummond read.

“And then: ‘...
that guy a while back wasn’t just making it up’
.” Healy looked up. “You don’t think...”

Deputy Director, Intelligence, Greg Drummond, not a man prone to violent urges, knew exactly what he’d like done to the man filling his thoughts at the moment. “He had to know, Mike. The asshole had to.”

The DDO glanced back down. “You’re right. If this is accurate, then it’s the only way Garrity would have known.” His eyes looked right, to the wall that separated them from the DCI’s office.

“But how?” Drummond wondered aloud.

Healy thought for a moment, which was all the time he needed to make the decision. “I don’t know, but we sure as hell are going to find out. First step is to find out more on the man who brought the knowledge into the country.”

“Portero?”

“Exactly. We’re gonna check with our INS liaison in Florida and see just what he did when he came over.”

“Anthony won’t like us talking to
his
people,” Drummond countered, though the conviction behind his words was less than halfhearted.

“Fuck what he thinks. From where I see it, he is on assignment,” Healy said. “Deputy director is out of the country. That makes me acting director.”

The DDO had a few years service on the DDI, but Drummond didn’t mind the hierarchy one damn bit. Not for this. “Let’s do it, boss.”

“I’ll check with Florida,” Healy said. “And I assume you want to handle Garrity.”

“You assume correctly,” Drummond confirmed, nodding emphatically. “I’m going with the FBI team that’s going to pick him up. There are a few things I want to ask good old Sam.”

“Do it right, Greg. We need connections here to tie this all together.”

“We’ll get them,” the DDI said.
And him
, he added hopefully, referring to the man whose empty chair sat but a room away.

*  *  *

Three floors below the office of the deputy director, Intelligence, in a roughly square room with no windows and lighting that never dimmed, the first connections Mike Healy had desired were being made without him even knowing it. And those connections came in the form of ones and zeros.

DIOMEDES, the Science & Technology Directorate’s computer link to the world’s financial institutions, had been sorting through trillions of bits of binary code (ones and zeros), searching for links between accounts controlled by Coseros and those belonging to known criminal types, namely drug cartels or their fronts. The process was much like following a multigenerational family tree that branched out in all directions. Once a link to a certain account in bank
X
located in country
Y
was found, then an attempt was made to identify the owner of those funds. With the strict financial-security laws of some countries, this was not always a direct task. Other links had to be determined that might point to the ownership, and more links to verify those. It was a tedious, time-consuming exercise in electronic investigation, pseudo illegal, and quite suited to the twin Cray computers dedicated to Project DIOMEDES.

“Got a cross-link,” a technician announced, the data freezing on her screen. Her supervisor came over to see.

“Where?”

“Here,” she said, pointing to the display. “Coseros transferred seven hundred grand into this account in the Bern Central Bank. It’s another CFS account.” They were finding more and more offshore accounts belonging to the Cuban Freedom Society, though there was nothing patently illegal about that. Nothing that could be proved, that is. Yet. “Then look who transferred into the same account. Victor Feodr.”

“Feodr?” the supervisor said aloud. The name rang a bell, but not loudly. He had heard it before in his time with DIOMEDES, some years back, but exactly when he couldn’t...
Him?
“The Bulgarian?”

“The same one who the KGB used as a money funnel,” the technician reported.

“Who’s paying his bills now?”

She pointed lower on the screen. “An account controlled by the Russian Foreign Ministry. Usually used for diplomatic travel expenses.”

The supervisor scratched his head. “Any back transfers from those funds to Coseros?”

“Nope, but look at these.” She scrolled the information slowly. Account after account flowed upward from the bottom of the screen, all of them listed as “depositors” to the CFS account in Bern. “These accounts are all controlled by different agencies in over forty governments. Look. This one is controlled by a front for Israeli Intelligence.”

“Mossad?”

“Never get them to admit that. This one by the PRC. This one by an Iraqi with liaison duties to the UN. The list goes on, and on.”

“I still don’t get this. Nothing back-transferred to Coseros?”

The technician willed her supervisor to see the real discovery, but he didn’t put the obvious together. “We have been looking at the wrong bad guy. Coseros isn’t in the shit up to his elbows. The CFS is. He hasn’t been funding them. The whole fucking world has. For what reason I don’t know, but these are not just donations. Not from these folks.”

The supervisor looked down at the young lady who’d just proved that the best damn computers were worth diddly-squat without a human brain to look at what was spit out and cull the diamond from the coal. “Damn good work. I know some people who are going to be very happy with what you’ve found.”