Mary Totten had slept on the flight from London, after a fashion, or at least rested—after a fashion. Now, three hours from Bahrain, she came to, pushed up the blind on the window next to her, saw endless cloud and a lightening sky.
“Jeez, you can really sleep on these things! That’s amazing!” Bill Caddis was pushing his face, eyeglasses first, toward hers. She pulled back. He still didn’t smell too good.
“I didn’t really sleep.”
“You were snoring! Sure coulda fooled me.” He laughed a stupid, hurtful laugh because he didn’t know that he was being hurtful.
He had a laptop in front of him, the screen bright with a report on the electrical facility at Ambur, and she said, “Isn’t that classified?”
“The Tamurlane place.”
“Ambur?”
“Ambur, Tamur, whatever. Yeah. Multiple-feed electrical production. Hydro, coal-fired, and a nuclear breeder. All built by ABB, according to this guy.” ABB was a multinational construction firm with a US headquarters.
She winced. “Which guy is that, Bill?”
“Closed source. Must be from a NOC. Good writer.” She winced again. A NOC was a Non Official Cover, a covert operator who was off the books—and the only NOC who wrote reports about Ambur was the same Persian Rug who couldn’t meet her in Bahrain. Bill was rattling on. “Anyway, it says that he got all this stuff on the plant from the ABB office in Bahrain. All the SCADA stuff, protocols, programs. I could turn the lights out all over India from here.”
“Bill, the lights are out all over India. What’s SCADA?”
“Oh, well, you know.”
“Pretend I don’t know.” She was watching a flight attendant who might have access to a coffee pot.
He wrinkled his nose up so far that his glasses moved up. He pushed them into place with a grubby finger. “SCADA stands for—wow, long time since I actually looked that up—there it is: Supervisory Control And Data Acquisition. That’s a long way of saying it’s an automated system that allows the operator to control electrical power grids or sewage or water pressure or any systems over distance.”
“Like the Indian power company?”
“Like any power company. They got SCADA systems, you bet. Probably hundreds, all wired to even more complex supervisory systems. At the other end of the whole mess are RTUs.” She looked blank. “Remote terminal units. Things like valves and switches that get turned on and off by the SCADA system.”
Mary was willing the flight attendant to look her way. “Why did you say you could turn the lights out from here?”
“Oh. Yeah, well, the problem with really sophisticated SCADA systems is that the more sophisticated and digital you build them, the more vulnerable they are. So if I know all the passwords and stuff for a SCADA system, I can hack in and run the thing—literally turn off the lights.”
“With a computer somewhere else.”
“Well, yeah.”
“But you have to make contact with the other computer.”
He tittered. Anybody can do that, his tittering said. Hurtful again. Irritated, she said, “Bill, an airplane is a public place, and we don’t put classified stuff on our laptops. Wipe it.”
He turned his eyeglasses on her. He shrugged. He hit a key. “Satisfied?”
“I want everything classified on that computer wiped. Now.”
He shrugged again and hit keys. He wiped his nose on his sleeve. “I was through with it anyhow.”
Chris Donitz could see Soleck waiting for him by the van before his plane rolled out, and he knew the news wouldn’t be good. The Trincomalee tower had been frosty all the way down, asking him his weapons status and advising him that no more flights would be authorized. He taxied to the line of waiting F-18s and S-3s, with one Tomcat at the end of line, and started his post-flight, shutting his engines down after a look at their status, and finding that they were about to go overdue for maintenance. Then he popped the canopy.
“They won’t let us get any more gas,” Soleck shouted.
Donitz was still doing his post-flight notes on a kneeboard, his engines still giving off visible waves, even in the steaming heat. He had bags under his eyes and an angry red mark across the bridge of his nose from too many hours in an oxygen mask.
“What the fuck?” he called down to Soleck.
“I got on to Fifth Fleet; we’re good there. I cleared us with their customs guys. I got a radio from an expat that can raise the Fort Klock. But the Sri Lankan fuels guy here at the field says we can’t have any more gas unless we pay for it, and the tower says it won’t clear any more planes for flights without orders from Colombo.”
Donitz shrugged. “Colombo?”
“The capital of Sri Lanka?” Soleck waved an arm toward the east. “Where these guys get their orders?”
Donitz shook his head hard, as if to clear it. “Yeah,” he grunted, feeling ignorant. Then he levered himself out of his seat and climbed down from the cockpit to the wing and jumped heavily to the ground. Among the hundreds of things they didn’t have were crew ladders to make getting in and out of their planes less acrobatic. Donitz was short, too short to take the drop from the wing lightly.
“Tell me some good news.”
“I got a bunch of stuff from Fifth Fleet. They’re sending a plane out with more pilots and a maintenance section and a bunch of stuff to keep us flying. Rose Craik’s going to talk to the Sri Lankans and get us permission to fly.”
Donitz brightened for a moment, then frowned. “She coming out?”
“Yeah.” Soleck sounded happy.
“She’s an O-5. She’ll take command.” Donitz started for the van they used as an office, a rental that Soleck had arranged on his own credit card. Donitz couldn’t decide whether someone else taking command was a good thing or a bad thing.
“What do you want to do about the fuel? We’ve got enough in the air to keep 105 and 203 on CAP until Commander Craik gets here, but those guys—”
Donitz could see them, trapped in their seats for an extra three hours, nowhere to piss. The only other option was to leave the carrier naked. “Tell them to stay on CAP. I’ll try and talk to the guy in charge here.” His next crew rest was getting farther and farther away. So much for getting sleep. He grunted. “Hey, Soleck.”
“Sir?”
“Good job.”
Mike Dukas had had three hours’ sleep and was in his office early. The night at Fifth Fleet HQ had been gritty insanity, everybody going nuts between lack of information and the urge to action, between go-slow messages from Washington on the one hand and testosterone on the other. The staff had been left to do nothing and go nuts.
He had called Special Agent Rattner at home at six-thirty and then, leaving Leslie still asleep, he had driven to the office, stopping to pick up a box of a dozen at the Bahrain Dunkin’ Donuts, with two extra-large black coffees. If Rattner didn’t want one, Dukas would drink both. He got to the office first, looked at the night’s message traffic—everything was about India, and the duty officer, Greenbaum, had flagged it all urgent and important. He’d have to have another talk with Greenbaum.
Rattner was in his late fifties, big, a little paunchy, experienced but therefore sometimes careless. His head was a little down now when he came in, bullish, but he started by trying to be so cheerful that Dukas wanted to hit him. Dukas didn’t like cheerful at best, least of all in the morning.
Dukas did the amenities with the donuts and the coffee—Rattner took the coffee, as it turned out—and said without introduction, “I couldn’t find you yesterday. All hell broke loose, and I couldn’t find you. No good.”
“I was on a case.”
“This case take you to the Jockey Club?”
“No, as a matter of fact, lunch took me to the Jockey Club. I’m not allowed to eat lunch?”
Dukas pointed a piece of jelly donut at him. “Don’t be a smartass. I’m new here; you’re a very experienced agent; but you were out of line yesterday. Don’t give me shit.”
Rattner started to say something, shrugged.
“Say it. Come on, let’s get it on the table.”
“I’ve got five weeks to go. I don’t give a shit what you think of me.”
“I’m your boss; it matters what I think of you as a matter of principle. You don’t believe in principle, you shouldn’t be in NCIS. Look, Rattner, the shit hit the fan yesterday; I needed an experienced man here, you’re not here! Greenbaum can’t run this office alone. Five weeks, five days, five minutes, you work for me, I expect you to be here.”
“Forget it.”
Dukas grunted. “We’ll get along better if you never say to me, ‘Forget it.’ I don’t forget. Will you for Christ’s sake admit that you were out of line not to tell us where you were going yesterday?”
“How could I know the fleet exercise was going to go to hell?”
Dukas stared at him. It was a cop look, but Rattner was also a cop, therefore probably immune to the look. Still, he shrugged. Dukas said, “Will you please for Christ’s sake admit you were out of line?”
“Okay, I was out of line. Now what?”
“Now let’s have another donut. Don’t do it again, okay? I need you. You may not need me, but I need you.” He looked into the donut box. “What I need you for right now is this new task the admiral just gave me.” There was one donut left. “Somebody took more than his half.”
“It was you. I counted.”
Dukas shoved the box over. “Pilchard’s got a leaker who spilled his guts to somebody in Washington about the Jefferson. The White House is on his ass because he didn’t inform them so they could spin it—this in the face of very clear rules about how he’s supposed to report and who to. So he wants the leaker. Big time.”
“They had a leaker, they thought, a few months ago. Nothing came of it.”
“This time, something’s going to come of it. You’re going to make something come of it. Pilchard’s flag captain has a list of people who knew early on about the Jefferson. It’s a pretty long list. You get over there and pick it up—no fax, no e-mail on this one. And on your way back pick up some more donuts.” Dukas wiggled his eyebrows up and down. “See why I need you in the office?”
The sun was early-morning high and the day was already hot. They sprawled in the shade of the aircraft and ate MREs and made jokes about going home, leaving dear old India, how they’d miss it all! Harry signaled Alan with his eyes and walked him off into the shade of one of the private aircraft, a high-wing monoplane that had come out of the old Soviet Union in the seventies. They sat under it, shading their eyes against the glare. Harry told Alan what he knew about the Jefferson.
Alan couldn’t bring himself to ask about Rafe. Instead, he said, “Who’s in command?” he said.
“Last I heard, some captain was commanding the BG from the missile cruiser.”
That was bad; it meant that Rafe was at least badly injured, maybe dead.
Harry looked at him, understanding everything. “Your friend Rafehausen’s pretty smashed up, but alive the last I heard. But everything’s fluid—they got no comms; they can’t launch or receive; they’re sitting out in the ocean without the one weapon that makes them worth a shit, aircraft. Pilchard’s shitting bricks trying to figure out whether India’s planning to attack the carrier. Fifth Fleet ASW is going nuts thinking that one sub could take out maybe the CV and the cruiser both. The last I heard, the President was on the phone trying to find somebody in India who’d tell him he could go to bed because India was really a peaceful nation that flew a plane into one of his toys by mistake.”
“You know a lot, Harry.”
“Of course I know a lot. This is big-time fuckup time, Charlie. This is the day that the diplomats earn their stripes. People are talking about war. Late news I got in the air had some of the cavemen in the Congress talking about nukes. US Secretary of Defense was waving his dick around and telling everybody to see how big it is. White House was saying just the opposite—make peace, not war. Pilchard just keeps shaking his head and telling people to deal with what they got, not what dicked-up people in Washington are afraid of.”
“You were with Pilchard?”
“Oh, yeah. So was Dukas. Just before I left, so was Rose—she’s in the middle of the diplomatic side of it. The Jeff left eleven aircraft airborne and no place to go, and a smart young kid named Soleck got them all to Trincomalee by doling out gas by the teaspoon. Now they’re on the ground, and the Sri Lankans want them out, out, out, and it looks like your wife is going to have to go down there and make some sense out of it.”
Alan was frowning. “Back up a sec—you were with Pilchard?”
“Yeah, yeah.”
“Harry—you’re a civilian. What the hell were you doing with the CO of Fifth Fleet?”
Harry took off his sunglasses and looked at Alan and puffed his cheeks and blew out the air in little puffing pops. “I knew we’d get to this point. This is the hard part.” He put the sunglasses back on and tipped his head back. “I have to make a confession, Father. You do absolutions?”
“Friendship means never having to say ‘You’re absolved.’ Confess, already.”
Harry, the coolest man Alan knew, was actually embarrassed. “I’m an Agency NOC,” he said. He waited. “You know what a NOC is, don’t you?”
“You?”
Harry shrugged. “Deep cover the last eight years.”
“Jesus Christ, Harry, I knew you had contacts at the Agency, but—Kind of risky, living in Bahrain and being in your business, isn’t it?” What he meant was, You never told me, your best friend, and I’m in the business, and Harry knew of course that that was what he meant.
Harry shrugged again. “Somebody tried to blow me up once. Djalik had to shoot a guy another time. No, my cover works, Al—I confuse them, big entrepreneur, honcho of a heavy security operation, but I’m a Muslim and I’m to them an African. Plus I pass on some decent stuff to a guy in Saudi and a guy in Pakistan, which the Agency has already vetted for me, so the word in some circles is that O’Neill is a spy for Islam, and the word generally is that he isn’t one of them and he isn’t one of us, he’s just O’Neill—big, money-grubbing Muslim nigger.” He plucked a stem of grass, bit it. “Okay, am I absolved?”
“You’re telling me this for a reason, right?”
Harry nodded. “I’ve been given an assignment in India. A big layout at a place called Ambur. It got hit by part of what-ever’s going on here, and it’s a secret nuke storage site. That’s why I was with Pilchard.”
Alan looked at him. “You mean you’re not flying back to Bahrain.”
Harry nodded.
“So none of us is flying back to Bahrain.”
“You’re to call Admiral Pilchard when we’re through talking.”
Alan stared at him. He frowned. “You mean, you’ve been given an assignment by the Agency, and I’m going to be given an assignment by Pilchard.”
“I don’t know what you’re going to be given.”
Neither of them was smiling now.
Alan said, “You should have told me.”
“Is that the way you’d want your assets to behave—they out themselves to their friends?” Harry’s voice rose. “Is that the code now, you only blow your cover to your best friends and family members and the people you sleep with?”
Alan slumped down beside him. “I’m sorry, man. Shit, of course.” Alan laughed. “‘I thought an exception would be made in my case.’ You know that joke? Jesus, I’m sorry.”
“Hurt your feelings, huh?”
“Yes, if you have to ask.” Both men laughed. Alan clapped his hand on Harry’s shoulder. “Okay, your secret’s safe with me, Sidney. How do I call Pilchard?”
Harry pointed at his plane. “He’ll want everything you know. I don’t think he’s made a decision about what you do next.”
They stood up, pulling their grass-wetted clothes away from their skin. Harry said, “Sidney?”
“Riley.” He laughed and put his arm over Harry’s shoulders, and they walked toward the jet.