Hell's Corner (36 page)
“How did you get onto us?” asked Chapman.
“Easy. We followed Friedman and saw you following her.”
“Why follow your own agent?” asked Stone.
“Because she’s extremely valuable and we take care of our people.”
“I saw her looking at us when you snatched us. She didn’t seem surprised.”
“When we spotted you, we phoned her, filled her in.”
“So she didn’t know until then?” asked Stone.
“What’s it to you?” barked Weaver.
“So what is the real deal with Fuat Turkekul?” asked Chapman. “He’s not going after bin Laden, is he?”
“How long have you suspected him of being a traitor?” said Stone.
Weaver looked surprised, Chapman shocked, but McElroy nodded thoughtfully. “I thought you might work it out.”
“It took me long enough,” noted Stone. “Too long, in fact.”
“He came to us with much promise,” said McElroy. “So much promise, in fact, that Adelphia here, one of our best, was assigned to work with him before we transitioned him principally to Friedman’s handling.”
Adelphia nodded. “That was one of the reasons I had to go away, Oliver,” she said. “To work with Fuat.”
“On what exactly?” asked Chapman.
Weaver laughed ruefully. “He came and sold us a real bill of goods. First, he could take us to bin Laden. Then, we had a mole in our midst. And he would help us track it down.”
“But it turned out he was the mole?” said Stone.
“A Trojan horse, more like it,” noted McElroy. “He came to us in disguise, as it were. And now he has unleashed a virus amongst us.”
“A virus? How?” asked Chapman.
“We let him in the door,” lamented Weaver. “And he brought other elements with him. Unknown elements.”
McElroy added, “Our only recourse now is to let him think we trust him, are working with him and then follow it up to his other connections. Not the preferred way to go about it, but we have few options.”
“That’s why he wasn’t doing much?” said Stone.
Weaver nodded. “That’s right. Fuat takes everything very slowly. Wanted to move to D.C. Lot of prep time, build his network, and the next thing we know things are going to hell.”
“The incident in the park?” asked Chapman. “That’s him?”
“Undoubtedly,” said Weaver. “We think it was just a prelude to something much bigger.”
“And Friedman? What’s her role?” asked Stone.
“She’s one of our deep cover agents. A lobbyist and lawyer by day with a plethora of international clients, many of them fronts by our government and our allies. That allows her to travel widely. She sees and reports back. Her Middle Eastern language skills are spot-on. She spent many years there for the CIA and later in joint assignments with NIC. She has solid contacts in the region. She was a logical choice for the assignment with Fuat, to supplement what Adelphia was doing.”
“How do you explain that connection? Lobbyist and academic?”
“Easily enough. Friedman represents several organizations in the Middle East that have relationships with Turkekul. Officially they are working on a number of initiatives to strengthen trade relations between Pakistan and the U.S.”
“And the phone call she made while in the park?”
“To another agent who provided her cover when the FBI made inquiries,” answered Weaver.
“When did you begin to suspect Turkekul?” asked Chapman.
McElroy fidgeted with his tie. “Far too late, of course. He was quite good. Friedman suspected something first, and we followed up on those suspicions and confirmed them. And she did so at great personal risk to herself I might add.”
“But you’re saying he doesn’t know you suspect him?” said Stone.
“He is too wily an operative not to suspect. But we have given him no reason to really suspect, if you understand me. We have given him rope. We have covered for him on several occasions, as you are well aware.”
“What do you think his plan is?”
“Nanobot residue in a bomb?” said Weaver. “Scares the hell out of me, and it should you too. I know you talked with the president about something at Camp David. It was about that, wasn’t it?”
“Among other things. The president explained to me about the biological and chemical potential. But he didn’t really get into details. Can it also make the bomb more powerful, for example?”
McElroy said, “No, it’s still a traditional explosive. We believe it
is simply a way to deliver biological and chemical weapons on a far more prodigious scale than ever possible before.”
“How can these nanobot things do that?” asked Chapman. “And keep in mind I basically failed science at university.”
McElroy nodded at Weaver. “I will leave the essentials to my colleague here.”
Weaver cleared his throat. “Nanobots are the next generation of nanorobotics. They occur at the molecular level and have a lot of potential uses, beneficial ones, including the delivery of drugs into the body. It’s thought that one day soon nanobots can be released into cancer patients and be programmed to attack and destroy cancer cells, leaving healthy cells unharmed. The possibilities are endless, really.”
“And the biological weapon delivery systems?” asked Stone. “A terrorist can put anthrax in a bomb right now. So why does this nanotechnology angle make it more dangerous?”
“At the molecular level anything is possible, Stone,” said Weaver with a trace of irritation. “You can basically build something one atom at a time, outside the normal configurations.”
“Meaning the normal configurations that we have systems set up to
detect
,” said Stone.
“Point well taken, Oliver,” said McElroy. “That really is the entire heart of the matter. Detection. If they can change it so we can’t ferret it out, that gives the other side an enormous advantage over us. In fact, an insurmountable one.”
“The other side? Meaning the Russians?” said Stone.
“How about the Chinese?” said Chapman. “They have more money than anyone. And their science is not too shabby.”
“The Kashtan submachine gun. And talking a weird language,” Stone reminded her. “Points at Moscow, not Beijing.”
“And we have very good reason to believe that the Chinese are not involved in this,” said McElroy. “Principally because they don’t have to resort to such tactics to be a superpower. Economically they already are. These days it’s not necessarily how large your military is, but how big your bank account is, and the Chinese wallet is fatter than anyone’s. The Russians, on the other hand, are not in the same position.”
“And the incident in the park was a way of testing the delivery system?” asked Chapman.
“We believe so, yes,” said Weaver. “The nanobots were scattered everywhere. There were no bio-or chemical weapons grafted or grown onto them. We’ve confirmed that. At least the ones we know about. But if there had been? Catastrophic.”
Chapman said slowly, “So the nanobots are a way to actually grow or build bio-or chemical weapons, at a microscopic level and in an undetectable configuration? Load them onto a bomb and set them off?”
“That’s right,” said McElroy. “And if done properly, conventional security forces would be powerless to stop them. So we’re hoping that Fuat makes a mistake and leads us to whomever he’s working with. And soon. It is not enough to arrest him. We need the others. And he’s the only source we have to get there.”
“We’re trying to get Friedman to put some pressure on him. Hence her meeting with him tonight. A meeting you guys almost blew to hell,” Weaver pointed out.
Ignoring this, Stone said, “How did Turkekul get hooked up with the Russians?”
“In your meeting with him he told you that he lived for a time in Afghanistan?” said McElroy.
“That’s right.”
“The timing of him being there was interesting.”
“Let me guess. Late seventies, early eighties. When the Russians were trying to destroy the Afghan freedom fighters?”
“That’s right. Fuat I’m sure on the surface pretended to be on the side of the Afghan freedom fighters.”
“But he was in the Russians’ back pocket,” said Stone.
“Of course we think that now,” said Weaver. “When he first approached us we thought he was shooting straight. If we knew his loyalties were with Moscow he’d be in jail right now. But we didn’t know.”
“So our discovery of the Russian gun in Pennsylvania didn’t come as a surprise?” said Stone.
“No, it was simply more confirmation of what we already knew,” replied Weaver.
“But why have a practice run in the park of all places?” said Chapman. “It allowed us to analyze the debris and discover these nano-things.”
“I believe it shows they have great confidence in their technology,” answered Weaver. “Arrogant bastards. The Cold War never really ended.”
“That may be their undoing, of course. At least we can hope that is the case,” noted McElroy. “At least it provided us with an opportunity to turn the tables.”
“So you think Turkekul was there to detonate the bomb remotely?” asked Stone. “After he left the park?”
“He was scheduled to meet with Friedman, that’s why they left together,” said McElroy.
“Which would have been nice to know before,” said Stone.
“Need to know, Stone,” growled Weaver.
“Right,” Stone snapped back. “I’m getting really tired of hearing that justification for keeping us in the dark.”
McElroy said, “To answer your question, Oliver, yes, we do think he remotely detonated it. The excuse of meeting with Friedman there was the perfect cover. She was very surprised when he didn’t initiate contact while she was sitting on the bench.”
Weaver focused on Stone and Chapman. “And what we don’t need are you two screwing all of this up.”
“If you had told us about it, we wouldn’t have come anywhere near it,” Stone said reasonably.
“You didn’t require reading in, until now. And I’m not thrilled about it. So from now on keep clear. Got it?”
McElroy rose, supporting himself with the tabletop. “I think they do indeed
get it,
Director.”
“One more question,” said Stone. The two men looked at him expectantly. “The president knows about the nanobot angle. But does he know that you suspect Turkekul is a traitor?”
McElroy and Weaver exchanged a quick glance.
“Are you keeping it from the president because you let a spy this deeply in the game before realizing it?” Stone was gazing directly at Weaver. “Because if so, that could really come back to bite you in the ass.”
The NIC director flushed. “If I were you, I’d just keep that absurd opinion to yourself. I’ve never understood why you were brought into this in the first place. You’ve been out of the field for over thirty years, and quite frankly, it shows. To repeat, you are ordered to keep the hell away from Fuat Turkekul. Understood?”
McElroy responded. “As I noted before, Director, I’m sure that Agent Stone understands the situation perfectly.”
McElroy looked directly at Stone and gave him a quick wink.
They were dropped off at Chapman’s car. As she drove Stone home she said, “Well, at least things are explained now. The Russians are on the prowl once more. Oh goody.”
“Why the gunfire?” Stone said abruptly.
“What?”
Stone closed his eyes.
“Tents,” he said.
“Tents? What the bloody hell are you talking about? Are you planning on going camping?”
“White tents. All on one side.”
This same observation had earlier led him to the government building being the origin of the shots and not the Hay-Adams Hotel. But could there be another reason?
“Stone?” said Chapman. “What are you talking about?”
He didn’t answer.
T
HE NEXT MORNING,
after receiving a phone call, Stone and Chapman met with Agent Ashburn at the FBI’s mobile command unit. The woman looked excited as she ushered them in.
“We think we know how the tree was poisoned,” she announced as she pointed them to the coffee pot and cups set up on one table near the door.
They sat with their coffees and watched as the screen came on.
“What are we looking at?” asked Stone.
Ashburn paused the video. “This is from the DHS video taken of Lafayette Park. The time stamp shows it’s from three weeks before the bombing.”
“What made you look at the DHS tape?” Chapman asked.
“We look at everything at the FBI,” she replied smugly. But then she added in a more humble tone, “And we were basically getting zip everywhere else. So we looked at this and it has an angle that is really interesting.” She hit the play button and the screen once more came to life.
As Stone watched, it was as though he were only feet away from the park; the images were so clear, so close, every pixel vivid and stark. He leaned in as the woman hobbled into view. She was dressed in layers of filthy, ragged clothes, her face and hands blackened with the grime from living on the streets. Her hair was a mess of curls and jagged lumps that hung down past her neck.
“A vagrant,” observed Chapman.
“Homeless, yes,” said Ashburn. “At least in appearance. But watch what she does.”
The woman slowly made her way across the park, even as Stone
saw the uniformed Secret Service officers converging on her. The park was a public space, and technically open to everyone. But it was also across from the White House and visited by many tourists, and steps were employed to keep it safe and presentable. Stone had seen the Secret Service remove other homeless people from the park who were either too disturbing in appearance or too aggressive in their manner. The agents were unfailingly respectful and discreet. He’d even seen some of them buy the less fortunate folks food and coffee after escorting them away.