4
CIA BUILDING 24-442, VIRGINIA —LATER THAT DAY
To get into the Cube, Corrine Alston had to run a gamut of security checks, then stand in a small booth that looked a little like a stainless-steel shower stall that checked for high-tech transmitting devices or bugs. Corrine swore she could feel her skin tingle as she stood in the device, and when she came out her ears were ringing.
Her guide walked her down the hall of the unpretentious building, which was housed in a corner of an industrial complex not far from the Beltway in Virginia. They were on the ground floor, but the elevator they entered went in only one direction—down. When it stopped, they walked down another hall, past several locked doors, then to a stairwell guarded by two Special Forces soldiers in civilian clothes. This stairwell led down to the operations floor, where a secure conference room and a somewhat smaller operations room used to communicate with SF units and officers in the field was located.
Corrine’s ID and thumbprint were scanned at the top of the stairs. She was then waved ahead without her guide, who lacked the extremely limited clearance needed to descend the steps.
After such a variety of high-tech precautions, the room itself was remarkably plain. There was a whiteboard at the front, an old-fashioned projector, and a small computer projector. A laptop sat on one of the two tables; the man in charge of the briefing used it to project slides onto the whiteboard. The only person in the room that Corrine recognized was Daniel Slott, the deputy director of operations for the CIA. He sat with his arms folded on his lap at one corner of the first table, his gray-speckled goatee shimmering with the reflected light from the computer slide projector.
Slott introduced Corrine to the others, stating her title and adding that she had just returned from interviewing the prisoner at Guantanamo. He gave no explanation for her presence. Though his tones were politic and soothing, the audience would have had to be deaf, dumb, and blind not to realize he resented her being there.
“Just to give a little background on how serious the matter is,” said Slott, turning to Jack Corrigan, “could you please review the slides on reactor waste.”
“Sure thing,” said Corrigan.
Slott had told him they’d be spoon-feeding a guest from the White House, and so he had dusted off his full set of PowerPoint slides on the waste at Buzuluk. He liked the second slide especially—it showed a pile of reactor rod assemblies on the ground that reminded him of the Tinker Toys he’d had as a youth—except that these were glowing on a clandestinely exposed gamma-ray-sensitive film.
Corrigan quickly went through the background on the experimental reactors built by the Russians and moved on to the waste material stored at the site. A typical reactor fuel load would consist of anywhere from ten to nearly two hundred fuel elements or assemblies; in general these were rods (usually though not always clad in zirconium) that contained uranium oxide pellets. A high percentage of the uranium in these pellets—3 to 4 percent, similar to the amount in Western commercial operations—were 235U. Once inserted in the reactor, they were made to undergo a chain reaction that produced a number of by-products, including weapons-grade plutonium.
Not all of the reactors were configured as the ones indicated in his slides, Corrigan hastened to tell Corrine, but this footnote led to another slide indicating how dangerous plutonium was as waste—ten-millionths of a gram would cause cancer if inhaled.
Corrigan clicked into another series of slides on the waste by-products that had resulted from the experiments and reactor production. He especially liked the strontium-90 slide, since it illustrated how strontium could replace calcium in bones. The slides explained that the fuel assemblies themselves became potent radiation emitters, as the cobalt, iron, manganese, and nickel in the rods as well as the stainless steel interacted and transformed during the process. He touched briefly on the difference between alpha waves, which to be honest Corrigan himself didn’t totally understand.
Alpha radiation—actually a helium atom—was easily stopped in the environment, though once in the body it could do very serious damage because it tended to ionize or remove electrons from other elements. Beta radiation in high doses could cause burns; it was emitted during radioactive decay, and, like alpha radiation, was usually a threat once a substance containing it entered the body. Gamma radiation was a problem on a different order—its high-energy, shortwavelength energy penetrated just about anything, even several feet of concrete. Though often compared to X-rays, in general, gamma radiation occupied a different part of the energy spectrum.
The effect of the different radiation-producing materials varied greatly, depending not only on the type of radiation emitted but how the radiation was “received” by the body. Massive external doses could kill immediately, but effects of smaller doses over time were more complex. Strontium in the body, for example, would replace calcium in the bone. There it could cause bone tumors and leukemia. Irradiated iodine might cause thyroid cancer, and on and on, as the slides indicated, documenting radiation amounts and the damage likely at various distances and exposures.
Ferguson had seen these slides several weeks before, and so he turned his attention to Miss Alston, the president’s personal counsel and unofficial babysitter. According to Slott, the secretary of state had gone ballistic when he found out they snatched Kiro without running the notion by him or the Russians, and obviously Miss Alston was the result.
Corrine was good-looking—Slott’s briefing there hadn’t done her much justice—but that only made Ferguson resent her presence even more. She was obviously just another broad who’d slept her way to the top. She came complete with one of those riches-to-riches princess stories the media loved—parents in the movie biz, who dumped their daughter East to GW and then Columbia Law while she was still a teenager, mixing a little righty and lefty influence together. Among the other things the media liked to report on was the marathon she’d run at eighteen.
Ferg lost interest in her as the analysts took over and reviewed the most pertinent intercepts and satellite data. Using Kiro’s information as a lead, the NSA had helped them locate a tanker currently being refitted in Bandar’Abbe9781429969390_img_257.gifs, Iran. The ship was designed to transport ethylene, which meant it had a large tentlike structure covering the main deck—the perfect place to put dirty nuclear waste.
At 89.9 meters long, the ship had held 2960 cubic meters of fuel before entering dry dock for refitting. Drawing from 2.5 to 3.5 meters, it was designed to navigate on inland waterways as well as the ocean—which meant it could sail upriver to its target. Explosives were stored near the ship, another vital ingredient for a dirty bomb, since the material would have to be spread out over a wide area. The analysts were sure this had to be the dirty-bomb ship—if indeed there was one.
“You want to talk to us about the ship, Ferg?” said Slott.
“Straight operation,” he said. “We go in, we observe, we blow it up.”
Colonel Van Buren, sitting next to him, rolled his eyes. He knew Ferguson was just busting balls—they’d discussed the operation at great length over a scrambled phone as he flew to the States for the briefing. Van Buren had plans for a fullscale assault—two borrowed SEALs units along with his entire Special Forces Army Group, Stealth fighters, and a pair of AC-130 gunships. But he and Ferg had agreed that the initial operation would consist of only a small force. The Team, led by Ferg, would be deposited on shore by the SEALs so they could reconnoiter with the help of local agents. The larger operation would have to wait for hard evidence.
But Van Buren knew Ferguson couldn’t resist tweaking noses. He had obviously already taken a dislike to Ms. Alston. The colonel watched her hackles rise; she had no reason to take the CIA officer lightly.
“You can’t blow it up if it’s loaded with radioactive. waste,” said Corrine.
Ferguson leaned over to give her a condescending smile. “Why not?”
“Because of the collateral damage,” she said. “The whole ship—a tanker—filled with radioactive waste?”
“It wouldn’t all be waste,” said Corrigan. “There’d be a lot of explosives to spread it around.”
“Why should we care?” said Ferg, bothered by the know-it-all tone in her voice. Did she seriously think he hadn’t considered the consequences of the operation or his actions?
“It is a legitimate concern,” said Slott. “But I don’t think Bob is serious about blowing it up. As for the composition of the waste—”
“Hey, shit happens,” said Ferguson, sliding back in his seat.
“Ferg and the Team will check the situation out,” said Van Buren, realizing he had to save Ferguson from himself. “Very small group, the way we usually operate. We scout it, then we do what’s appropriate. We’ll have several options. I have a plan already.”
“Van’s right,” said Ferguson.
“According to the analysts, it’s possible that they’re staging the waste from a different site, or that this is only one part of the operation,” said Slott. “If the waste were already at the ship, we think we’d have picked up some readings from different sensors we’ve had in the waterway. We have got some other targets to look at outside of the port before we look at the ship.”
“That’s one reason we want the native,” said Ferguson. “I know that’s a risk,” he added, looking at Slott. The DDO had put considerable energy into rebuilding the humint network in Iran, and Ferguson’s proposal would jeopardize it.
“It is a risk,” agreed Slott. “But then so is the rest of the plan.”
Corrine watched Ferguson as he discussed the situation with Slott; it appeared they would jeopardize if not burn at least one native agent, and they were debating whether to take him out with the Team or not.
What a macho bozo, she thought; he probably would blow up the ship if he had the chance and call it an accident. The president’s fears were on the mark—these idiots were cowboys.
And she still hadn’t figured out exactly how Special Demands operated. Though it was obviously under the deputy director of operations and therefore part of the operations directorate, it didn’t belong to any of the “normal” operation desks or areas and seemed to have unusual access to resources, both within the Agency and the military. Corrine hadn’t had a chance yet to look at the executive order or the NSC paperwork explaining it, let alone go over to CIA headquarters and research the files to get some perspective on Special Demands. That would require some time to negotiate the protocols, and would probably require working in a “safe”—an ultrasecure area where she would be literally locked in with material.
She’d get on that as soon as the meeting was over.
“You have a time frame?” Slott asked Ferguson.
“Van needs another day or two to pull the rest of the elements together,” Ferg said. “Forty-eight hours from now we can go; we’ll have details for you twelve to eighteen beyond that. Swordfish is already in the Gulf. They’ll be ready to go by the time we fly in. Yada yada yada.”
“I’d like to hear the details if you don’t mind,” said Corrine. “What’s Swordfish?”
A smile spread over Ferguson’s face, and he leaned back farther in the chair, his head now draped against the hard back. He waited for Slott—it would have to be Slott—to tell Miss Alston that operational details would be restricted to an absolute need-to-know basis, since even an inadvertent comment could put many people in danger.
But instead of telling her to mind her own business, Slott patiently explained that Swordfish was an in-house term for a submarine adapted for Special Operations. Several were prepositioned around the world; they carried a pair of Advanced SEAL Delivery Vehicles, basically minisubs that could be used to deposit Ferguson and his SF squad near the port.
“What happens if there is waste on the ship?” Corrine asked, stubbornly returning to the point that bothered her the most. “Will you blow it up?”
“Should we?” said Ferguson.
“No, absolutely not.”
“Well that settles it. We won’t.”
“What will you do?” Corrine asked Slott.
“That would be an upper-level decision,” the DDO told her. “At the moment, our main concern is just figuring out what’s going on.”
“You can’t just blow it up,” she insisted.
“Why the hell not?” said Ferguson.
“Because it’ll be radioactive.”
“And?”
“Civilians will die.”
“Better them than us,” said Ferg.
“We’re not going to just blow it up. It’s not our call. Stop egging her on, Ferg,” said Van.
“Is there a definite connection between this ship and the May 10 message?” asked Corrine.
“What May 10 message?” asked Ferguson.
“The one predicting an attack. Because if so, this can’t be part of the operation. It would take weeks for a ship to get from Iran to an American port.”
Ferguson knew about the message, of course, but considered it a red herring; the NSA was always forwarding intercepts, fueling rumors and endless speculation. “It’s irrelevant,” he said, getting up. “Are we through?”
Slott nodded. The others got up as well.
“She bothers me,” Ferguson told Van in the hallway.
“Gee, and here I thought you were in love.” He started walking up the steps. “You can’t just piss people off. You have to play by the rules.”
“I do play by the rules.”
“Whose? Yours?”
“Rules are rules.” They reached the elevator level. Ferguson nodded at the security people, then punched the button for the elevator. “She’s gonna be a pain in the ass.”
“They’re just concerned about the prisoner. She’ll be gone in a week.”
“Don’t count on it,” said Ferguson, getting into the elevator. “Want to have lunch?” he asked Van Buren.
“Can’t. Got to go see an old friend.”
“I’ll talk to you before I fly back.” Ferguson saw Corrine approaching as the doors closed. “I’m going to drive out to the shooting range this afternoon,” he added loudly. “If I pretend I’m shooting at innocent children, I’m bound to do pretty damn well.”
“Jesus, Ferg,” said Van Buren, after the doors closed.