“Azerbaijan wouldn’t stand a chance against either nation individually,” the president pointed out.
“Why unite them?” Even as he said it, the president knew why. To win allies.
“How much of our oil do we get from that region?” the president asked.
“We’re up to seventeen percent this year with a projection of twenty percent next year,” Gable informed him.
“We’re getting much better prices from Baku than we are from the Middle East. That was guaranteed by the trade agreement we signed with Baku in March 1993. And they’ve been very good about upholding their end of the agreement.”
“Shit,” the president said.
“What about the other members of the Commonwealth of Independent States?” he asked.
“Where will they stand if two of their members go to war?”
“I took the liberty of having my staff put in calls to all of our ambassadors before I came over here,” the vice president said.
“We’re in the process of ascertaining exactly where everyone stands. But a preliminary guess is that it will pretty much be split. Five or six of the poorer, smaller republics will side with Azerbaijan in the hopes of forming a new union with a share of the oil money. The other half will go with Russia for pretty much the same reason.”
“So we risk a wider war as well,” the president said.
“But this is more than just the possibility of us losing oil and watching a war erupt,” Fenwick pointed out.
“It’s Iran and the Russian black market getting their hands on petrodollars that scares me.” The president shook his head.
“I’m going to have to bring the joint chiefs in on this.” The vice president nodded.
“We’re going to have to move quickly. It’s midmorning in the region.
Things are going to happen very quickly. If they get ahead of us–”
“I know,” the president said. He was suddenly energized, ready to deal with the situation. He looked at his watch and then at Gable.
“Red, would you notify the joint chiefs to be here at three? Also, get the press secretary out of bed. I want him here as well.” He looked at the vice president.
“We’ll need to alert the thirty-ninth Wing at Incirlik and the naval resources in the region.”
“That would be the Constellation in the North Arabian Sea and the Ronald Reagan in the Persian Gulf, sir,” Fenwick said.
“I’ll put them on alert,” the vice president said. He excused himself and went to the president’s private study. It was a small room that adjoined the Oval Office on the western side. That was also where the president’s private lavatory and dining parlor were located.
“We’ll also have to brief NATO command,” the president told Gable.
“I don’t want them holding us up if we decide to act. And we’re going to need a complete chemical and biological workup of the Azerbaijani military. See how far they’ll go if we don’t join in.”
“I already have that, sir,” Fenwick said.
“They’ve got deep reserves of anthrax as well as methyl cyanide and acetonitrile on the chemical side. All have surface-to surface missile delivery systems. Most of the reserves are stored in or near the NK.
We’re watching to see if any of them are moved.” The president nodded as his intercom beeped. It was his deputy executive secretary Charlotte Parker.
“Mr. President,” said Parker, “Paul Hood would like to see you. He says it’s very important.” Fenwick did not appear to react. He turned to Gable and began talking softly as he pointed to data on his notepad.
Are they talking about the Caspian or about Hood?
the president wondered. Lawrence thought for a moment. If Hood were the one who had lost his way-either intentionally or because of external pressures-this would be the time and the place to find out.
“Tell him to come in,” said the president.
Saint Petersburg, Russia Tuesday, 9:56 am.
“We have the Harpooner’s location!” Korsov shouted. Orlov looked up as Korsov rushed into his office. The young intelligence officer was followed by Boris Grosky, who looked less glum than Orlov had ever seen him. He did not look happy, but he did not look miserable. Korsov was holding several papers in his hands.
“Where is he?” Orlov asked. Korsov slapped a computer printout on Orlov’s desk. There was a map and an arrow pointing to a building.
Another arrow pointed to a street several blocks away.
“The signal originated at a hotel in Baku,” Korsov said.
“From there it went to Suleyman Ragimov Kuchasi. It’s an avenue that runs parallel to Bakihanov Kuchasi, the location of the hotel.”
“Was he calling someone with a cell phone?” Orlov asked.
“We don’t believe so,” Grosky said.
“We’ve been monitoring police broadcasts from the area to find out more about the oil rig explosion. While we were listening, we heard about a van explosion on Suleyman Ragimov. The blast is being investigated now.”
“It doesn’t sound like a coincidence,” Korsov added.
“No, it doesn’t,” Orlov agreed.
“Let’s assume the Harpooner was behind that,” Korsov said.
“He might want to see it from his hotel room–”
“That might not be necessary, as long as he could hear it,” Orlov said.
“No. The Harpooner would be worried about security if he were staying in a hotel room. Do we have any way of fine-tuning the location of the signal?”
“No,” Korsov said.
“It was too brief, and our equipment is not sensitive enough to determine height in increments under two hundred feet.”
“Can we get a diagram of the hotel?” Orlov asked.
“I have that,” Korsov said. He pulled a page from the pile he was holding and laid it beside the map. It showed a ten-story hotel.
“Natasha is trying to break into the reservations list,” Grosky said. He was referring to the Op-Center’s twenty-three-year-old computer genius Natasha Revsky.
“If she can get in, she will give us the names of all single male occupants.”
“Get single females as well,” Orlov said.
“The Harpooner has been known to adopt a variety of disguises.” Grosky nodded.
“You feel very confident about this?” Orlov asked. Korsov had been leaning over the desk. Now he stood like a soldier, his chest puffed.
“Completely,” he replied.
“All right,” Orlov said.
“Leave the hotel diagram with me. This was very good work. Thank you both.” As Grosky and Korsov left, Orlov picked up the phone. He wanted to talk to Odette about the hotel and then get her on site. Hopefully, the American would be strong enough to go with her. The Harpooner was not a man to tackle alone.
Baku. Azerbaijan Tuesday, 10:07 a.m.
Odette Kolker was cleaning up the breakfast plates when the phone beeped. It was the apartment phone, not her cell phone. That meant it was not General Orlov who was calling. She allowed her answering machine to pick up. It was Captain Kilar. The commander of her police unit had not been in when she phoned the duty sergeant to let him know that she would be out sick. Kilar was calling to tell her that she was a good and hardworking officer, and he wanted her to get well. He said that she should take whatever time she needed to recuperate. Odette felt bad about that. She was hardworking. And though the Baku Municipal Police Department paid relatively well–twenty thousand manats, the equivalent of eight thousand American dollars–they did not pay overtime. However, the work Odette did was not always for the BMP and the people of Baku.
The time she spent at her computer or on the street was often for General Orlov. Baku was a staging area for many of’the arms dealers and terrorists who worked in Russia and the former Soviet republics.
Checking on visa applications, customs activity, and passenger lists for boats, planes, and trains enabled her to keep track of many of these people. After putting away the few dishes, Odette turned and looked back at her guest. The American had fallen asleep and was breathing evenly.
She had placed a cool washcloth on his head and he was perspiring less than when she had brought him home. She had seen the bruises on his throat. They were consistent with choke marks. Obviously, the incident in the hospital was not the first time someone had tried to kill him.
There was also a tiny red spot on his neck. A puncture wound, it looked like. She wondered if this illness were the result of his having been injected with a virus. The KGB and other Eastern European intelligence services used to do that quite a bit, typically with lethal viruses or poison. The toxin would be placed inside microscopic pellets. The pellets were sugar-coated metal spheres with numerous holes in their surface. These would be injected by an umbrella tip, pen point, or some other sharp object. It would take the body anywhere from several minutes to an hour or two to eat through the sugar coating. That would give the assassin time to get away. If this man had been injected, he probably was not supposed to die by the virus. He had been used to draw his colleagues out into the open. The hospital ambush had been well organized. Just like the ambush that killed her husband in Chechnya, she thought. Her husband, her lover, her mentor, her dearest friend. They all perished when Viktor died on a cold, dark, and lonely mountainside.