Investigations by Gable and his assistants failed to turn up any suspicious activity. Gable did not smile. He could not. The situation was too serious. But he was gratified. The reporter and many of his colleagues were very concerned about the president’s state of mind. By tomorrow afternoon, the rest of the nation would also be concerned.
Events that were about to unfold a world away and in Washington had been very carefully orchestrated. Events that would be misinterpreted by everyone except the third and most important leader of their team: the vice president. The president would insist that Azerbaijan had attacked an Iranian oil rig. He would recommend staying out of the conflict because it was a local issue. As Iran built up its forces in the region, the vice president would publicly” urge a different tack. He would say that he did not trust Iran and would strongly advise building up an American military presence in the Caspian. Fenwick would back up the vice president. He would report that during his meetings with the Iranians, they had spoken vaguely of events that were on the horizon. He would say that they asked the United States to do nothing while they strengthened their hold on oil reserves in the region. The Iranians would deny that, of course. But no one in America would believe them.
The disagreement between the president and vice president would cause a very public rift. And when the Harpooner’s Iranian cohorts were found dead with photographs and other evidence of sabotage on their bodies–murdered by the Harpooner himself–the vice president and Fenwick would be vindicated. Reporters would then openly discuss the president’s questionable judgment. Washington would be abuzz with rumors that the president was unstable. Senators like Barbara Fox would have no choice but to support a motion to impeachment. Sex scandals were one thing. Mental illness was something much different. There would be calls for Lawrence to step down. For the good of the nation, Lawrence would have no choice but to resign. Vice president Gotten would become president. He would ask Jack Fenwick to become his new vice president. Congress would quickly endorse his selection. Meanwhile, the American military would move into the Caspian. They would help the Azerbaijanis protect their rigs. In the heat of rising tensions.
President Gotten would remain strong. And then something else would happen. Something that would demand an American response so firm, so devastating, that religious fanatics would never again attack a target under American protection. In the end. Gable told himself, the career of a president was worth that sacrifice.
Baku, Azerbaijan Tuesday, 6:15 a.m.
When forty-seven-year-old Ron Friday first arrived in Baku, he felt as though he had been dropped into medieval times. It was not a question of architecture. Embassy row was in a very modern section of the city.
The modern buildings could have been lifted whole from Washington, D.C.” or London, or Tokyo, or any other modern metropolis. But Baku was not like those cities where he had spent so much time. Once you moved past the embassies and business center of Baku, there was a pronounced sense of age. Many of the buildings had been standing when Columbus reached the Americas. No, the architecture was not what made Baku seem so old, so feudal. It was a sense of entropy among the people. Azerbaijan had been ruled from the outside for so long, now that the people were free and independent, they seemed unmotivated, directionless. If it were not for petrodollars, they would probably slip deep into the Third World. At least, that was Friday’s impression. Fortunately, when the former Army Ranger and his people were finished with what they were doing here, Azerbaijan would not be quite so independent. Friday entered his seven-story apartment building. The ten-year-old brick building was located two blocks from the embassy. He made his way up the marble stairs. Friday lived on the top floor, but he did not like being in elevators. Even when he was with the other embassy workers who lived here, he took the stairs. Elevators were too confining, and they left him vulnerable. Friday walked toward his apartment. He could not believe that he had been here nearly six months. It seemed much longer, and he was glad his tenure was coming to an end. Not because Deputy Ambassador Williamson didn’t need him. To the contrary, Friday had proven valuable to the diplomat, especially in her efforts to moderate Azerbaijani claims on Caspian oil. Friday’s years as an attorney for a large international oil company served him well in that capacity. But Friday’s real boss would need him elsewhere, in some other trouble spot.
He would see to it that Friday was transferred. To India or Pakistan, perhaps. That was where Friday really wanted to go. There were oil issues to be dealt with there, in the Arabian Sea and on the border between the Great Indian Desert in the Rajasthan province of India and the Thar Desert in Pakistan. But more than that, the Indian subcontinent was the place where the next big war would begin, perhaps triggered by a nuclear exchange. Friday wanted to be in there, helping to manipulate the politics of the region. It had been a dream of his ever since he was in college. Since the day when he had first gone to work for the National Security Agency. Friday put the key in the door and listened. He heard the cat cry. Her mewing was a normal welcome.
That was a very good indication that no one was waiting for him inside.
Friday had been recruited by the NSA when he was in law school. One of his professors, Vincent Van Heusen, had been an OSS operative during World War II. After the war. Van Heusen had helped draft the National Security Act of 1947, the legislation that led to the founding of the Central Intelligence Agency. Professor Van Heusen saw in Friday some of the same qualities he himself had possessed as a young man. Among those was independence. Friday had learned that growing up in the Michigan woods where he attended a one-room schoolhouse and went hunting with his father every weekend–not only with a rifle but with a longbow. After graduating from NYU, Friday spent time at the NSA as a trainee. When he went to work for the oil industry a year later, he was also working as a spy. In addition to making contacts in Europe, the Middle East, and the Caspian, Friday was given the names of CIA operatives working in those countries. From time to time, he was asked to watch them–to spy on the spies, to make certain that they were working only for the United States. Friday finally left the private sector five years ago, bored with working for the oil industry. They had become more concerned with international profits than with the vitality of America and its economy.
But that was not why he quit. He left the private sector out of patriotism. He wanted to work for the NSA full-time. He had watched as intelligence operations went to hell overseas. Electronic espionage had replaced hands-on human surveillance. The result was much less efficient mass intelligence gathering. To Friday, that was like getting meat from a slaughterhouse instead of hunting it down. The food didn’t taste as good when it was mass produced The experience was less satisfying. And over time, the hunter grew soft. Friday had no intention of growing soft. So when his Washington contact told him that Jack Penwick wanted to talk to him, Friday was eager to meet. Friday went to see him at the Off the Record bar at the Hay-Adams Hotel. It was during the week of the president’s inauguration, so the bar was jammed, and the men were barely noticed. It was then that Fenwick suggested a plan so bold that Friday thought it was a joke. Or a test of some kind. Then Friday agreed to meet with some of the other members of the group. And he believed. Oh, how he believed. They sent him here and, through contacts in Iran, he was put in touch with the Harpooner. Iran did not realize they were going to be double crossed That once they had an excuse to move into the Caspian Sea, a new American president would move against them. And the Harpooner? He did not care. Friday and the Harpooner had worked closely organizing the attack against Battat and the program of disinformation to the CIA. Friday was still dressed in yesterday’s clothes. In case anyone saw him, that would support the story he would tell them. It was just one of the many stories he had perfected over the years to cover meetings he had to make with operatives. Or targets.
Friday was glad the Harpooner had put one of his other men inside the hospital as backup. They had hoped that Friday would be able to get both Moore and Thomas while they were outside. But the way the ambulance was parked he did not have a clear shot at Thomas. Friday hoped the Iranian assassin had been able to get the other man. It would have been easier, of course, if Friday could have taken all three men out in the embassy. But that might have exposed him. The embassy was not that large, and someone might have seen them. And there were security cameras everywhere. This way had been cleaner, easier. After firing the shot, Friday had dropped the rifle the Harpooner had given to him. It was a G3, a Heckler & Koch model, Iranian manufacture. He had others at his disposal if he needed them. Friday had tossed the weapon in a shallow pond near the hospital. He knew the local police would search the area for clues and would probably find it. He wanted it to be traced back to Teheran. Friday and his people wanted to make very sure that the world knew Iran had assassinated two officials of the United States embassy. The Iranians would disavow that, of course, but America would not believe the Iranians. The NSA would see to that. The Iranians who were working with the Harpooner had made cell phone calls to one another during the past few days. They had discussed the attack on the oil rig and described the two pylons that had to be destroyed: