"Delusions of reference is actually a mild form of delusions of
persecution, in which innocent remarks are deemed to be critical. That
doesn't seem to apply here. But I can't be as quick to rule out
persecution delusions."
"Why not?" Hood asked.
"Because the sufferer will go to great pains to conceal them," she said.
"He or she believes that others are trying to stop them or hurt them in
some way. They often imagine a conspiracy of some kind. If the
president fears that people are out to get him, he won't want to confide
in anyone."
"But the stress might come out in little bursts," Rodgers said.
"Exactly," Gordon told him.
"Crying, withdrawal, distraction, temper--all of the things Paul
described."
"He seemed to want to trust me," Hood said.
"That's true and also characteristic of the illness," Gordon said.
"Delusions of persecution is a form of para noia. But as a sage once
said, "Sometimes even paranoids have enemies."
"Is there something we should do?" Hood asked.
"The First Lady's feelings notwithstanding, we have to do something if
the president can't continue to function under these circumstances."
"Whatever is going on sounds like it's in an advanced-early stage,"
Gordon said.
"The effects are unlikely to be permanent." Hood's phone beeped.
"If there is a conspiracy, and you can expose it quickly," Gordon went
on, "there is every reason to believe the president can stay on the job
after a short rest. Whatever has happened probably wouldn't have any
effects, long-term or short." Hood nodded as he answered the phone.
"Yes?"
"Paul, it's Bob," said Herbert.
"What's up?"
"A major situation," he said.
"I just got a call from the CIA suit who relayed Tom Moore's request to
me from Baku. Moore and the CIA guy from Moscow, Pat Thomas, were just
wasted. They were taking David Battat to the hospital--the guy the
Harpooner attacked during the stakeout. Moore was tagged by a sniper
outside the hospital, and Thomas had his throat cut in the lobby."
"By who?" Hood asked.
"We don't know."
"No one saw him?" Hood asked.
"Apparently not," Herbert replied.
"Or if they did, they didn't see him again."
"Where is Battat?"
"He's still at the hospital, which is why the suit called me," Herbert
said.
"The embassy called for police protection, but we don't know whether
they've been compromised or not. The CIA is out of people, and they're
afraid Battat will be next, and soon. We don't have anyone in Baku, but
I thought--"
"Orlov," Hood said urgently.
"I'll call him now."
Khachmas, Azerbaijan Tuesday, 4:44 a.m.
Maurice Charles did not like to repeat himself. If he arrived someplace
by car, he liked to leave by bus or rail. If he went west by air, he
liked to go east by car or bus. If he wore a hat in the morning, he
took it off in the afternoon. Or else he wore a different one or dyed
his hair. If he destroyed a car with a pipe bomb, he attacked the next
target with C-4. If he had done surveillance along a coastline, he
retreated inland for a short time. Repetition was the means by which
entrepreneurs in any field were undone. Patterns enabled lesser
thinkers to anticipate you. The only exceptions were densely populated
cities where he might be seen. If he found a relatively obscure route
through a place like that, he would use it more than once. The risk of
being spotted and identified was greater than the risk of refusing an
out-of-the-way road or tunnel. Because Charles had surveyed the Caspian
oil drilling site by plane, he decided to return to it by boat. The
American and possibly Russian satellites would be looking for an
aircraft by now. He and his team would take the motor yacht, which
would have a different name on its side than it had the day before. One
of the team members had made those arrangements in Baku. It would be
waiting for them in Khachmas, a coastal town some fifty miles north of
Baku. A freelance crew had been hired in Baku and sailed up with one of
Charles's Iranian sailors. Not only was Khachmas closer to their target,
it was unlikely that anyone would recognize them or the vessel. After a
short sleep, which was all he needed, Charles and his comrades had
climbed into a van that was parked behind the shack. Their gear was
already on board, and they drove from Gobustan back toward Baku. They
traveled along roads that were utterly deserted at this time of night.
Though Charles did not drive, he did not sleep. He sat in the backseat
with a.45 in his lap. If anyone approached the van for any reason, he
wanted to be awake. The van arrived in sleepy Khachmas shortly before
4:30. They had driven the seventy miles nonstop. No one had approached
them. The Rachel--now the Saint Elmo--was waiting in a slip at a
ramshackle marina. The berth was close to shore. The hired crew had
been dismissed. They had departed in their own boat, a fishing vessel,
which had accompanied the motor yacht north. Wearing night-vision
goggles, Charles stood watch while the equipment was transferred from
the van to the Saint Elmo. When all the gear was on board, one of the
team members drove off in the van. The vehicle would be painted locally
and driven to another city. Finally, the motor yacht set off. The trip
to the target would take fifty minutes. The sun would just be coming up
when they arrived. That was important. Working at sea, Charles did not
like to use artificial lights. They were too easy to spot in the dark
and reflected on the water. He also didn't like to work during bright
daylight when the wet suits glistened. Early dawn was best. There would
be just enough time to get the job done and depart without being seen.
Then he would leave Azerbaijan and do nothing but enjoy life for a month
or two. Savor the international ramifications of what he had
accomplished. Cherish the fact, as he always did, that no world leader,
no army, no business, had a greater impact on international events than
he did.
Saint Petersburg, Russia Tuesday, 4:47 a.m.
After the fall of the Soviet Union, many officials in Moscow were afraid
of the Ministerstvo Bezopasnosti Ruskii, or MBR, the Security Ministry
of Russia. They were even more afraid than when the intelligence agency
had been known as the KGB and was routinely tapping their phone lines
and opening their mail. The officials feared that leaders of the former
Soviet intelligence group would either support ousted Communists in an
effort to recapture power or attempt to seize power themselves. Because
of this, the Kremlin's new regime had created an autonomous intelligence
agency outside of Moscow, away from the immediate reach of the MBR. They
based it in Saint Petersburg. And, following the adage of hiding in
plain sight, they located the Op Center in one of the most visited
places in Russia: the Hermitage. The Hermitage was built by Catherine
the Great as a retreat. Th
e towering, white, neoclassical building was
formally known as the Winter Palace. It was a place where Catherine
could enjoy the gems and great old masters paintings, drawings, and
sculptures she had collected. She literally acquired them at a rate of
one every other day from 1762 to 1772. When Catherine first opened her
home to the patrician public, her only comments were that visitors
should be joyful. However, she added, they "shall not try to damage,
break, or gnaw at anything."
The Hermitage remained a repository of the imperial collection until
1917. After the Russian Revolution, the Hermitage was opened to all the
people. Its collection was expanded to include an from other schools as
well as modern art. It currently houses over 8,000 paintings, 40,000
etchings, and 500,000 illustrations. Today, it is second only to the
Louvre in Paris in terms of the size of its collection. The Russian
Op-Center was constructed underneath a fully operational television
studio. Though the broadcast facility had been built as a cover for the
construction of the intelligence center, satellite dishes beamed famed
Hermitage programs around the world. Most of the time, however, the
highly advanced uplinks allowed the Op Center to interface with
satellites for both domestic and international electronic
communications. The comings and goings of museum staff and tourists
helped to disguise the presence of Op-Center personnel. Also, the
Kremlin had decided that in the event of war or revolution, no one would
bomb the Hermitage. Even if an enemy had no use for art as an aesthetic
possession, paintings and sculptures were always as negotiable as
currency. It was still dark when the fifty-three-year-old Orlov arrived
at the museum. Because the Hermitage was still closed, he entered
through an inconspicuous studio door on the northeastern side of the
museum. As he did, he gazed north across the dark Neva River. Directly
across the water were the stately Academy of Sciences and Museum of
Anthropology. Nearby was the Frunze Naval College. In addition to
training cadets, the college housed the dozen soldiers of the center's
special operations force, Molot, which meant Hammer. There was a guard
seated behind a desk inside the TV studio. Orlov acknowledged him as he
passed. The elderly guard stood and saluted. The general reached a door
and used the keypad to enter. Once inside, he made his way through the
dark reception area and down a short flight of stairs. At the far end,
he punched the new day's four-digit code on a keypad, and the door
popped open. The next day's number was always given to Orlov by the
center's security chief at the end of each workday. When Orlov shut the
door behind him, the overhead lighting snapped on automatically. There
was another, longer set of stairs. He walked down where a second keypad
gained him access to the Op-Center. The facility consisted of a very
long corridor with offices to the left and right. Orlov's office was at
the end, literally at the shores of the Neva. There were times when he
could hear barges passing overhead. Ordinarily, Orlov did not arrive
until nine o'clock. There was a skeletal night staff, and they were
surprised to see the general. He greeted them without stopping. When he
entered his small, wood-paneled office, he shut the door and walked over
to his desk. The desk faced the door. On the walls were framed
photographs Orlov had taken from space. There were no photographs of
the general himself. Though he was proud of his accomplishments, he
didn't enjoy looking at the past. All he saw was how short he fell of
his goals. How he had hoped to walk on the moon and command a manned
mission to Mars. How he had dreamed of seeing the cosmonaut corps grow
and prosper. Perhaps if he had used his celebrity more constructively,
more aggressively, he could have helped make that happen. Perhaps if he
had spoken out against the war in Afghanistan. That struggle drained the
nation's resources and pride and hastened the union's downfall. There
were no photographs of himself because General Orlov preferred to look
ahead. The future held no regrets, only promise. There was a voice mail
from Paul Hood. The message did not say very much. Only that the
matter was urgent. Orlov sat down and booted his computer. As he opened
his secure phone list and auto-dialed Hood, he thought back to how the
American Op-Center had helped him prevent a cabal of right-wing Russian
officials from overthrowing the government. The counterattack had cost
Hood one of his top field operatives. Lieutenant Colonel Charles
Squires. Since then, the two Op-Centers had occasionally exchanged
information. But they had never become fully integrated partners, which
was something both Hood and Orlov had wanted. Unfortunately, like many
of the progressive dreams Orlov had, the bureaucrats had not been ready
for this. Distrust between the nations was still too deep. The phone
beeped once. Hood answered.
"Paul, it's Sergei," Orlov said. Op-Center's translator was on standby.
It only took her a moment to get on the line.
"General, I need your trust, and I need it fast," Hood said. His urgent
tone left no room for discussion.
"Of course," Orlov said.
"Our team searching for the Harpooner suffered a catastrophic hit at a
hospital in Baku," Hood informed him.
"It happened a little over an hour ago. Two of our men were killed. The
first was taken down by a sniper outside the hospital. The second had
his throat cut inside the lobby. The last man is a patient. His name
is David Battat, and he is ill with a fever of some kind." Orlov took a
moment to write the name down.
"The police are at the hospital, but we don't know who the killer is,"
Hood said.
"He or she may still be in the hospital."
"The killer could be a police officer," Orlov pointed out.
"Exactly," Hood said.
"General, do you have anyone in Baku?"
"Yes, we do," Orlov said without hesitation.
"In what room is Mr. Battat located?"
"He's in one fifty-seven," Hood said.
"I will send someone at once," Orlov said.
"Tell no one." Hood gave him his word. Orlov hung up. The three most
powerful Russian intelligence groups had their own personnel. These
groups were the MBR;
the military's Glavnoye Razvedyvatelnoye Upravlenie, or GRU, the Main
Intelligence Directorate; and the Ministerstvo Vnutrennikh Del, or MVD,
the Ministry of Internal Affairs. The Russian Op-Center did not have
the financial resources to maintain its own network of intelligence and
counterintelligence personnel, so it was necessary to share people with
other relatively small Russian agencies. These were administered by the
Sisteme Objedinennovo Utschotya Dannych o Protivniki, or SOUD, the
Interlinked System for Recognizing Enemies.
SOUD also provided personnel for the Sluzhba Vneshney Razvedki, or SVR,
the Foreign Intelligence Service; the Federal'naya Sluzhba Bezopasnosti,
or FSB, the Feder
al Security Service; the Federal'naya Sluzhba
Kontr-razvedky, or FSK, the Federal Counterintelligence Service; and the
Federal'naya Sluzhba Okhrani, or FSO, the Federal Protective Service.
Orlov quickly accessed the SOUD files. He input the highest-priority
code. Red Thirteen. This meant that the request was not only coming
from a senior official-level thirteen--but involved a case of immediate
national emergency: the apprehension of the Harpooner. The Red Thirteen
code gave Orlov the names, locations, and telephone numbers of field
personnel around the world. Even if the operatives were involved in
other situations, he would be authorized to commandeer them. Orlov went
to the file for Baku, Azerbaijan. He found what he was looking for. He
hesitated. General Orlov was about to ask a deep-cover operative to try
to help an American spy. If the Americans were planning an operation in
Baku, this would be the quickest way to expose and neutralize Russian
intelligence resources. But to believe that, Orlov would have to
believe that Paul Hood would betray him. Orlov made the call.
Washington, D.C. Monday, 9:00 p.m.
Paul Hood was angry when he hung up with Orlov. Hood was angry at the
system, at the intelligence community, and at himself. The dead men
were not his people. The man at risk was not his operative. But they
had failed, and the Harpooner had succeeded, partly because of the way
spies did business. The Harpooner commanded a team. Most American
agents worked as part of a team. Theoretically, that should give the
operatives a support system. In practice, it forced them to operate
within a bureaucracy. A bureaucracy with rules of conduct and