I Minus 72 (8 page)

Looking at the pile of paperwork, Sam said,
“What are specific intelligence requests about? What were we trying
to find out?”

Grant thought she sounded a little
frustrated, so, leaning back in his chair he explained. “These were
requests for information that could be about any one of many
things.” Before continuing, he paused and crossed his legs,
thinking for a moment how to put this. “For this network, all
requests were about information that could be provided through the
Soviet Ministry of Defense. That was the information DIA wanted,
anything regarding the Soviet military—troop movements, ship
movements, munitions shipments, especially missiles, nuclear
warheads, truck mounted or other portable launchers . . . that kind
of stuff. DIA had only passing interest in anything political.
Certainly not enough interest to request a special operation to
discover it. All the political stuff was left to the CIA—that’s
their charter. At DIA we wanted any information that would help us
if we were to ever get into a shooting war with the Soviets. Or,
better yet, help us prevent it. Even any information that would
help our allies.”

Sam interrupted. “But what about this case?”
She was leaning forward now, with her elbows on the table.
Obviously interested in details.

Grant continued. “That was where Koslowski
came in. His job at the Ministry of Defense’s Office of Logistics
gave him visibility to a lot of the Soviet’s Eastern European
military information. As he spent more time in place, he brought in
people in other departments and other locations who were willing to
provide information. Some would provide anything interesting they
came across; others were occasionally tasked for specific
information. Over time, Koslowski controlled dozens of people
employed in the Soviet dominated Ministry of Defense. The
list.”

“Okay, I can see why that list is so secret.
The name of the person killing all the others might be on it and if
that’s true, that person could be trying to kill everyone on
Koslowski’s list,” Sam said.

Grant nodded, impressed with how intuitive
Sam was. “Or, I suppose, since many of those people might still be
in sensitive jobs, the current Russian intelligence group could be
systematically eliminating what they still consider a threat. It
could even be someone from the old Soviet intelligence operation
who is out for revenge. There are way too many possibilities, and
we have only a short time to solve it.”

Grant continued, “What I can’t figure out,
though, is why the President-elect is on the list. He was never
part of the network. And another thing complicating this is that
Koslowski has been retired a few years now. They tell me that the
guy he turned the network over to is one of the people who’ve been
killed. In fact, as far as we can tell, he was the first. Much of
the rest of the network is still providing information, so someone
else obviously picked up the reins. We don’t know his name or the
names of any people the new person may have recruited . . . or even
how many,” Grant sounded frustrated as he stood up and started
pacing around the room.

“Was the President-elect involved in any of
the operations? Would he have known Koslowski?” Sam followed Grant
with her eyes.

“No,” Thurmond replied. “He was an
administrative officer, supervising the files and other paperwork
in the DIA spaces in the Pentagon. I hardly knew him. I recall him
being bright and ambitious and asking a lot of questions, most of
which, for security reasons, I didn’t answer. But he was strictly
an eight-to-five guy. I just don’t get it.”

“Well, it seems to me we might find a way to
get started by going through all these files, looking for clues,”
Sam suggested.

Grant snorted. “Yeah, and in about half an
hour I would be going stark raving mad. Look, I gotta get outta the
office. How about this as a start? You stay here and go through all
the files and I’ll try to see the President-elect to find out what
he knows.”

“Thanks,” Sam said with a slight frown.
“What’ll I be looking for?”

“Anything that might show who was involved.
Any mention of other names or reports that mention people who might
be growing suspicious of any of the submitters, and so on. You’ll
know it when you see it. If you have any doubt, set it aside and
I’ll look at it when I get back.”

“What if I miss something important?” Sam
sounded worried.

Grant chuckled. “Don’t worry about it. I
just can’t believe the solution will be in one single piece of
information, anyway. My guess is that it’ll be several little clues
that we put together or follow down a path. If you miss one at this
early research stage, we’ll have time to come back around to it.
Now get your nose into those files. And start with those cases that
involved Koslowski. I’m convinced this whole thing revolves around
his network somehow.”

“Yes, sir . . . I mean, Grant.” Sam sighed
as she picked up the first of the many, many file folders on the
table. And there were so many more in boxes stacked in a corner.
She wondered if this might be an impossible task. And, no matter
what Grant said, she was worried that she’d miss the one important
clue in the files.

Grant picked up his new flip-open cell phone
and headed outside the apartment building to call the number he was
given for General Wheeler. After Wheeler answered, Grant reminded
him that he was on an open phone and then brought him up to speed
without mentioning details.

“Sir, the subject was located and the
information obtained. But, you’re the only person besides me who
knows that. I’d like to keep it to just the two of us for a
while.”

Then he asked if the General could get him
an appointment today with the President-elect.

Wheeler responded with, “Good work. I’ll
tell the President-elect’s office it’s urgent. How much time do you
need? And, yeah, I’ll cover your ass for a while on the other
issue. But, I can’t keep it just to the two of us very long.”
Wheeler actually chuckled as he said the last part. “Not a good
business to lie to the DNI.”

Thurmond smiled, “Well, I could use as much
time with the President-elect as I can get, but I can cover most of
what I need in twenty minutes, half an hour at the most.”

Ten minutes later Grant’s phone rang—it was
General Wheeler.

“You got fifteen minutes at noon—sharp,
while he’s eating lunch. I’d get there ten minutes early in case
his other meeting ends a little early. Don’t count on it, though.
They usually run late. Good luck.”

“Thanks, General. Uh, have you heard
anything from the DNI or Garcia at CIA?”

“Not a word.”

“Good. I’ll talk with you soon,” Grant said
as he closed his phone.

Grant arrived half an hour early and as he
sat in the outer office waiting for his time with the
President-elect, his cell phone rang. It was Sam.

“Grant, I think I may have stumbled onto
something. I’m on the secure line.”

Grant replied, “Don’t say anything more. My
cell phone isn’t secure. They must have a secure phone here. I’ll
see if I can use it and call you right back.”

Grant asked the assistant sitting outside
the office if they had a secure phone he could use and was led
inside to a red phone on the President-elect’s desk.

“Keep it short, though,” she said. “He’ll be
back momentarily.”

Grant called Sam. Without preamble he said,
“Okay, what do you have?”

“Well, I was reading through the tenth or
eleventh file and I saw a notation that a list of names for a
network in Eastern Europe had been permanently removed. That must
have been the list you destroyed. It was a Koslowski file. You were
right—the clue was in the Koslowski files. This has to have
something to do with him.” She sounded excited.

Grant was quiet for a moment as he thought
about what Sam had said. “Damn. I remember something about that. It
was nearly twenty years ago. That list was inadvertently left in a
file folder that one of our guys reviewed. He was looking for
matches between the list and people filing intelligence reports. I
was back in town for a review and had the list in my office safe.
He borrowed the list from me and when he didn’t return it within
the hour, I asked him where it was. He said something about
probably leaving it in the file folder he had returned to admin.
Wasn’t really a big deal because everyone in admin was cleared, but
I didn’t want any list of people I controlled lying around, even if
was only a partial list. I went to pick it up and the admin officer
pulled it out and gave it to me. He must have inserted the note
about it being removed. Is there a name on the note?”

Sam was so excited she almost shouted.
“Grant, it‘s signed, LTJG T.R. Mason.”

“Bingo! Okay, thanks. Great work. Gotta go .
. . I’ll call you on the way back.” Sam was working out great, he
thought, a big help.

Even though he sat in the President-elect’s
office while using the secure phone, he was startled when a voice
behind him said: “Colonel, it’s good to see you again. You haven’t
changed too much; hair a little grayer, less of it.” Mason
chuckled.

Thurmond stood up and moved from behind the
President-elect’s desk. “It’s good to see you, too, sir. Thanks for
making time for me.” They both smiled as they shook hands.

“I assume this is about the subject that
brought you back on active duty?” Mason asked.

“Yes, sir. I just need a few minutes of your
time.”

The President-elect sat down and motioned
for Grant to do the same. “Time is something I have very little of
these days. I’m really sorry, but I can only spare you fifteen
minutes, one of which we’ve already used up. By the way, hope you
don’t mind my eating a sandwich while we talk. The only time I have
to eat during the day is to squeeze meals in between meetings.
Wonder if it will get any better when I’m President?”

Grant, not wanting to waste any more time,
leaned forward, placed his hands on his knees and got right to it.
“Sir, I just received some information that may help us keep this
short. During the time when you were admin officer for the DIA
department, I picked up a list of names from you that had
inadvertently been left in a file folder. The person in my group
who reviewed the list used it as a bookmark and forgot to remove it
when he returned the folder to admin. After I picked it up, you
made a notation in the file folder saying the list had been
permanently removed.”

“Yeah, it makes sense that I would. It was
standard procedure. I can’t say that I remember the actual
incident, though. Hmmm. Wait a minute, I do remember something
about that. It was highly unusual for anyone to permanently remove
anything from the file folders. Our process was to count every page
both when a folder was checked out and when it was returned. Any
differences would be noted on the inside front of the file folder.
I can’t recall if there was any notation of the folder containing
an extra page when it was returned. Do you remember who checked the
folder back in? Was it me? Each folder should have a list of the
names of both the person who checked it out and in and the admin
duty officer who gave it to them and then received it back from
them.”

“Sir, I don’t have a clue who checked it in.
I have the file now, though, so I can look to see if anything was
noted. I’ll do that as soon as I get back.”

“Colonel, you should know that, uh, there
were times when the files were merely looked through to see if we
could spot any pages out of order and every page wasn’t always
counted. That was strictly against policy, but, in the rush of
things, it happened sometimes. That may have happened in this case.
Damn, I sure hope I wasn’t the one who checked it back in,” Mason
said shaking his head slightly.

“Sir, the important thing now is that we may
know why your name was on that piece of paper they found near one
of the bodies. We have to assume that someone on that list knew you
saw his name. Did you ever tell anyone about the list?” Grant
asked.

“Oh, possibly. Since it was an unusual
occurrence I may have talked about it at a staff meeting. If so,
probably fifteen people, both civilian and military, heard about
it. I don’t know. They were all cleared, though, and they were just
administrative types. I think I used it as an example of what can
happen if we didn’t follow procedures.”

“Sir, I may ask you later
to help us put together the list of people who were at that staff
meeting. Right now I’ll see if I can get the minutes of all the
staff meetings during your tour. I’ll let you know if I need
anything further. I’m going to attempt to compile a list of all the
people who might have heard or seen that list. We’ll have to check
on the current whereabouts of each of them. It’s possible that we
might have had a mole who fed the list of names back to the
Soviets. If that’s the case, your name would probably have been
mentioned. Thanks for your time today and if you think of anything
that might help,
anything
, no matter how
insignificant you think it is, please call me.”

“I will, Colonel, you can count on it.” the
President-elect said earnestly, then returned to eating his
sandwich.

Grant took that as a signal the meeting was
over, so he stood up, said goodbye and left.

I minus 48

Moscow

Drugs, the Eastern European thought. That’s
the key. Not like the old days when you had to torture information
out of people. He didn’t mind the killing, but torture was
distasteful to him. All the screaming and blood and then having to
dispose of the bodies to keep others from knowing they were
tortured before they died. And it took too long, sometimes days.
Today you just gave ’em a shot and seconds later they’re
blabbering, answering everything you ask. You can even add a
substance that keeps them from remembering anything about the
incident. He was so accurate at mixing drugs now that they wouldn’t
even miss the time. But Koslowski had to die anyway. No one who had
seen his name could live. Now he had six new people he hadn’t known
about before his visit to Krakow. They might have seen his name and
would also have to die over the next few weeks. It surprised him to
find that some of them now lived in Russia and all but one of those
in Moscow, his home for now.