First Team [First Team 01] Read online

  4. In Corrine’s experience, backed up by her review of the Agency’s records, most operations involving cooperation between the military and the Agency’s clandestine service were of relatively limited duration, ending when a specific goal was achieved. From what she had seen, the Joint Services Special Demands Project Office and its missions weren’t tied to specific operations. In this way, the model seemed to be the information side of the Agency, which provided intelligence to the military services on an ongoing basis. Not only could the goals change mid-mission—as they apparently had here—but the unit existed forever.

  5. There were no apparent audit controls, and in fact Special Demands seemed to have an almost unlimited budget, with access not only to the extensive resources of a specially created Army Special Forces Group, but a variety of other service assets as well. The man in charge of the military end of the operation—Colonel Van Buren—answered not to USSOCOM, but to the head of Special Demands. Unlike other Special Forces groups, his core unit was not assigned a specific geographical area. It appeared to consist of only one battalion—smaller than the normal three combat battalions and nearly another’s worth of support people— but even that wasn’t clear from the documents Corrine had reviewed. While there were some military constraints on him—for example, he had to draw his men from SF units—from what Corrine could gather he existed entirely in a bubble, with no interference—or guidance—from higher-ups.

  There was nothing, absolutely nothing, about the Kiro or current mission in the Agency’s own secret files.

  Which spoke volumes, in Corrine’s opinion. The president’s characterization of the unit as “cowboys” brushed the tip of the iceberg.

  This was exactly the sort of situation that had led to CIA assassin teams and unchecked, unlawful, and ultimately self-defeating operations in the 1960s. In some ways, the present situation was even worse—not only had technology improved tremendously in the past forty years, but the capabilities of the SF unit was far beyond anything available during the Vietnam War.

  If she was reading what she’d heard and seen at the meeting correctly, Special Demands short-circuited the normal CIA chain of command, with the field officer actually running the show. Ferguson was too young to have extensive experience, and the DDO was clearly overwhelmed with his other responsibilities to pay too much attention. The SF colonel seemed to have decent sense, but he was more Ferguson’s equal than his boss. Corrigan was just a staff lackey, treated as such.

  Not only did this stripped-down structure invite abuse, it encouraged mistakes. The Iranian ship was an international incident waiting to happen.

  It was also a mistaken lead. Granted, it was logical; the prisoner had a clear connection to the group thought to have purchased the ship, and there were satellite photos and other data showing that trains did follow a path that would make diversion possible. But the Iranian government had infiltrated the local branch of the Islamic group two months before, and there was no sign at all of their involvement. The ship wasn’t guarded by Iranian police or troops, and the funding conduits they normally used for “overseas education” did not include anything related to the ship.

  And if the May 10 message was correct, the ship couldn’t be the delivery vessel; it wouldn’t even be ready to sail by then. Admittedly, the message seemed like a red herring; it did no more than predict “disaster for Satan’s paradise.” Except that the language was similar to what Allah’s Fist had once used, it would seem no different than any dozen predictions the NSA and CIA routinely collected and dismissed.

  Corrine had also taken the time to bone up on radiation hazards. The issue was extremely complicated—considerably more tangled than Corrigan’s slides had shown. High-alpha waste such as the material believed stolen in transit was extremely dangerous, but only if pulverized and inhaled. That was why Corrigan had mentioned the need for explosives—the waste would have to be spread into the air by a large explosion. Gamma generators, by contrast, were not quite as dire. But they, too, had an effect, usually over time. Overall, the exact health hazard was difficult to estimate, even after exposure, except under very controlled conditions, when the exposure was recorded with the help of a film device worn on the body. A single gray—a dose equal to one joule of energy absorbed by one kilogram—would cause radiation sickness, which meant nausea, vomiting, and dizziness; that level of exposure could lead to death in a few days—or not at all. Much lower doses might not make a person sick immediately, but could cause or perhaps encourage cancer—the exact mechanism wasn’t fully understood.

  Part of the difficulty in assessing the risk came from the fact that data had to be collected sporadically, largely from accidents and errors. Corrine had read reports on three accidental nuclear-waste releases during the Cold War at the Soviet Union’s Chlyabinsk-65 plant. Stripping Soviet propaganda and correlating exposure levels, one of the studies found that 95 percent of the cleanup team at a tank explosion had been exposed to cancer-causing levels of gamma radiation in less than a day. That would be consistent with the effects of an explosion of a tractor trailer’s worth of strontium-90, the material mentioned in Corrigan’s report. In a less dire accident ten years later, 41,500 people at Lake Karachay were “minimally” and “briefly” exposed to cesium-137 and strontium-90 when the radioactive dust was swept up during a wind storm. According to the study, 4,800 received doses above 1.3 centisieverts, enough to increase cancer risks significantly.

  Leukemia, birth defects, lung cancer, stillbirths, sterility—the effects of even a mild exposure measured in curies, perhaps from a few hundred pounds of high-level waste, were definite yet unpredictable, a macabre lottery of death and illness, impossible to predict.

  That was the point. You couldn’t know exactly how bad it would be, and so you would fear the worst. You would be paralyzed by the ambiguity, terrorized by the possibility of death.

  Dirty death.

  The threat was real. But it was besides the point. She hadn’t been sent to assess it, just check on the Team.

  In Corrine’s opinion, the only sensible thing to do was to abolish Special Demands. Her case depended largely on this one operation, since it was the only one she knew of. Nonetheless, it made for a good set of exhibits for the prosecution.

  “So, Counselor, did you find anything interesting?”

  Corrine looked up, surprised to see Daniel Slott, the CIA’s deputy director of operations, standing near the door as she retrieved her things from the locker outside the library.

  “Always,” she said.

  Slott scratched the thick five o’clock shadow on his cheek. “Have you had dinner?” he asked.

  “Thank you, I’m not hungry,” said Corrine, pointedly glancing at Slott’s wedding ring.

  “I’m not trying to pick you up,” he said. “Just, if you need background, I can supply it.”

  “I don’t know that it’s necessary, thank you.”

  “Is there a problem I ought to know about?” said Slott.

  “You tell me,” said Corrine.

  “I don’t think there’s a problem at all.”

  “One thing that wasn’t clear to me,” she said, deciding to do a discovery interview before presenting her brief. “What exactly is the oversight procedure on Joint Services Special Demands Project Office?”

  “Usually we refer to it simply as the Team.”

  “Yes?”

  “I review everything.”

  “How is it that there are no specific findings prior to a mission?”

  “Not necessary,” he said. “As a matter of fact, the NSC specifically stated that Special Demands is under the direct supervision of an individual appointed by the president, which has been, is, me.”

  “The streamlined procedure was designed because it wasn’t intended to authorize this sort of operation,” she said. “Special Demands was intended to be used to develop weapons and other devices that might have applications for your agency and the Special Forces units. Wasn’t it?”


  “It wasn’t limited,” said Slott.

  Corrine, who had studied the NSC minutes and knew that was the only matter discussed, zipped her pocketbook and started toward the door. Slott followed.

  “Listen, we’ve got an important operation running here—it’s proof the system works,” he said.

  Corrine didn’t bother answering.

  “It’s not like I can go out and start World War III,” added Slott.

  “Mr. Ferguson can,” said Corrine. “There are no holds on him.”

  “Of course there are.”

  “Name one.”

  “Me. Van Buren. The people in the field.”

  Corrine remained unimpressed.

  “Ferguson is one of our best people. I trust him completely.”

  Slott reached out and grabbed her arm. She jerked back, adrenaline rising; she’d flatten him if she had to.

  “We shouldn’t be enemies here,” Slott said, letting go. “I’m sorry.”

  “We’re not enemies, that I know of,” she told him, walking away.

  ~ * ~

  9

  BANDAR ‘ABBÃS, IRAN

  The tracks leading to two of the three railroad yards Ferg wanted to look at were ripped up and missing in spots, and when the radiation detector didn’t pick up any readings nearby, Ferg decided not to bother with them. The third was located about thirty-five miles northeast of Bandar ‘Abbas, in a town that wouldn’t have seemed terribly out of place in middle America—once you adjusted for the veils, beards, and minarets.

  The rail spur skirted the town; the siding Ferg was interested in sat in a valley at the eastern edge, linking with a large complex of buildings and steel warehouses. Most of the buildings looked dilapidated, but there were two in the center of the complex in good repair.

  There were also at least a dozen armed guards.

  “What do you think?” Ferg asked Keveh.

  The Iranian shook his head. He had no idea what they did inside.

  “Why don’t we drive in and see what happens?” Ferg asked.

  “They may shoot us.”

  “There is that,” said Ferg.

  They drove past the road leading to the site, then up around another set of roads that brought them near but not to the train tracks. Ferg and Keveh got out, leaving Conners and the other Iranian with the car. Ferg walked down the siding toward the gated rail entrance to the facility. There were a pair of guards inside the fence about two hundred yards from him; it was impossible to tell whether they were paying mention or not. A boxcar sat on the tracks near one of the dilapidated buildings; there was a tanker car beyond it.

  “What if I’m a foreign investor who wants to buy some of the old buildings?” Ferguson suggested to Keveh.

  “Very suspicious.” Keveh squinted and shielded his eyes from the rising morning sun.

  “Yeah, but will it get me in?”

  “Better if I say I’m from the Revolutionary Council at Bandar,” said the Iranian.

  “Who am I?”

  “A foreign expert on railroads—on steel,” said Keveh. “A Russian. Better from Russia—they won’t be interested.”

  “I like that. I always wanted to play with trains.”

  ~ * ~

  A

  n hour later, Ferguson and Keveh drove inside the complex, watched but not stopped by the guards. They’d left the others outside, watching as best they could from the road near the town.

  As Keveh circled around toward the two train cars, Ferguson slid out his radiation tester. The tester could record sixteen data points or levels for reference in both REM and Rads, and could detect energy levels down to 1 nR/hr, the low end of normal background radiation. Its isotope identification mode tracked a variety of isotopes stored in its memory, and it could record and retain up to thirty-two bits. (Depending on the type of radiation, REMs and Rads were considered essentially the same measure, indicating how much energy was being absorbed and potential biological damage done. At high alpha levels, however, the Rad measurement was more useful. A REM was equal to .01 sievert.) He had a larger device in his pack that could record becquerels and curies for a hundred data points; this used a gas tube and was bulky, and its precision wasn’t really necessary. (In fact, the difference in measurements were mostly a matter of math. One becquerel represented the disintegration of one nucleus per second. While standards varied wildly, a waste tank might generate one hundred curies, which was 3,700 billion becquerels. The effects of exposure would vary depending on time and distance as well as the nature of the exposure, but a person working in a uranium mine would be “allowed” a safe exposure to 3.7 becquerels per liter of air a month.)

  Ferg took the first level as they got out of the car; it was flat. He walked to the tanker, holding the device on the metal skin. The needle didn’t budge, even on its most sensitive setting.

  He went to the boxcar—empty—then along the track, stooping at a connection as if he were truly inspecting it. The rail line was very old and not used much, but undoubtedly in good enough shape to handle cars. The building at the left beyond the boxcar had a rail running into it.

  “Company,” said Keveh. A small Gator-style ATV with two guards had appeared from around the corner of one of the sheds and was heading their way.

  “Keep ‘em busy,” said Ferg.

  “What?”

  “I have to take a leak,” he said, trotting toward the building.

  He pretended to check left and right, then stood next to the side and held out his counter.

  Nothing. Ferg pretended to concentrate as Keveh called to him. He held up his hand and waved, as if intent on finding a spot to do his business.

  A single window stood at the side of the building near the corner. Ferg glanced back, saw that the guards weren’t following, and walked toward it. He couldn’t see through the dirt on the window, so he walked past, feigning interest in the trucks as he turned the corner of the building.

  There were several windows there, the first with a face in it. The face glared at him, its eyes furrowing into its head above a stubby beard. Ferg waved, and held up the radiation meter, as if it were something the face ought to be familiar with. The frown only deepened.

  Ferguson moved on to the next window, leaning over and looking through the dirt.

  It was some sort of warehouse for DVDs, or maybe a manufacturing operation. There were several piles of boxes near the floor, a woman smiling. He couldn’t read the writing. He pushed his head closer, put his hand up to cut off the glare.

  There were different covers, but they all had young women on them.

  Good work, he thought to himself; I’ve busted a DVD-pirating operation.

  Ferg headed back. As he turned the corner he saw that the guards had become a little more threatening—they had their pistols out. Keveh, his face red, was talking nonstop to one of them, who was shaking his head.

  Ferguson shoved his meter in his pocket and walked toward them. He couldn’t understand the particulars, but the gist was fairly clear—the guards didn’t like the fact that they were nosing around. Ferg gave them a long blast in Russian as he approached, asking if they were filming porn inside and, if so, could they take some walk-ons. Fortunately, neither man had a clue what he was saying.

  “Counterfeiting DVDs,” he said, in English, to Keveh, encasing the explanation in a sentence of more Russian nonsense.

  Keveh gave him a look that didn’t need to be translated. Then the guard issued his own command, gesturing with the gun.

  “Guess it’s time to leave,” Ferguson said to Keveh. He took a step back in the direction they had come.

  A warning shot in the dirt nearby stopped him.

  “Okay,” he said, turning around. “Sprechen sie Deutsch? Parla Italiano? Speak En-glishy?”

  The guard’s only answer was to raise the barrel of his gun so that the next shot had a reasonable chance of hitting him in the throat.

  ~ * ~

  10

  WASHINGTON, D.C.<
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  Corrine stopped at a deli on her way back to the office, grabbing a half hero for lunch and dinner; she was so hungry she ate most of it while driving back. Teri had gone home already, leaving three prioritized piles of letters and other matters to review on her desk. Corrine ignored them as well as the full queue of e-mail on her computer, concentrating instead on writing a memo to the president about Special Demands. She pounded the keys in a rapid flow of logic, producing over twenty pages in little more than two hours. She was just about to hit the spellcheck when she heard someone knock on the outer door. Figuring it was one of the Secret Service people discreetly checking to see if the light had been left on accidentally, she yelled out that she was fine and went back to poring over the screen, sorting out contractions and typos.