He hesitated, shifting back and forth in the glare of the projector. “Sir, what we’ve done so far is…”
“Legal?”
“All due respect, I was going to say
“But?”
“While we don’t know specifically who Smith’s working for, it stands to reason that it’s someone on our side…”
“Are you making a recommendation or just stating the obvious?” Drake said.
Brandon stood a little straighter for the first time in their relationship. Defiance?
“In a way, this could have a silver lining for us, sir. The Iranians have been cautious up until now. An American virus hunter poking around could force their hand and give us corroboration of what Khamenei is doing.”
“So you think we should throw a year of meticulous planning out the window and rely on two foreign nationals and an army doctor with no apparent orders?”
Brandon didn’t back down. “I think we have to consider op—”
“The Iranians continue their nuclear weapons program,” Drake said, cutting him off, “and we slap them on the wrist. Now their country is destabilizing and could very easily fall into the hands of Farrokh, who has the confidence of the Iranian scientific community. What do we do? We stand by. And that’s what we’ll still be doing when they have nuclear warheads that can reach our shores and OPEC is controlled from Tehran.”
Gazenga’s resolve began to waver and he moved out of the beam of the projector in an obvious attempt to hide the fact. “If we—”
“That’ll be all, Brandon,” Dave Collen said.
“But…Yes, sir. Thank you.”
Drake reflected on how quickly and violently the world was changing as the young man hustled through the door. Russia and China were more easily controlled than people suspected — both countries had large, sophisticated bureaucracies, populations with predictable long-term goals, and an arsenal of economic and military weapons that remained inferior to America’s. Iran was different.
In direct opposition to Castilla’s policy of noninterference, Drake had been waging a silent war against the Iranians. The two nuclear scientists recently killed by car bombs and the Stuxnet computer worm that had damaged their centrifuges were all off-the-books agency operations. But he was just delaying the inevitable. The threat posed by the Islamic Republic needed to be made clear and, more important, the American military’s ability to deal with that threat had to be demonstrated. This time there would be no endless street skirmishes, no corrupt local politicians, no buried IEDs. Iran would be quickly and completely obliterated from the air.
The Muslim world had begun to mistake America’s obsession with preventing civilian casualties for weakness. It was a misconception that would be quickly dispelled as the world stood by and watched Iran’s few survivors scramble to eke out an existence in a land literally returned to the Stone Age.
Worldwide order would be restored and a clear message would be sent to the Pakistanis, the Afghans, and all the others: If you keep your fundamentalists under control, America will stay on the sidelines. But if you let them become a threat, you will be next.
All he needed was a catalyst, and Caleb Bahame’s parasite was perfect. Even by biological weapon standards, it was so visceral and terrifying that virtually every government on the planet would turn their backs on a country that used it.
If he allowed Smith and his team to confirm the parasite’s existence and learn of the Iranians’ interest as Gazenga was suggesting, their plan would be stillborn. The politicians would move in, rattling empty sabers while Iran issued denial after denial. Castilla and the UN would debate, demand more evidence, make pointless resolutions. And the war-weary, financially strapped American people would resist a call to arms over yet another unseen and unproven WMD program.
No, in order for the United States to regain the determination to retaliate with overwhelming force, the threat couldn’t exist solely in the mouths of newscasters and government spokesmen. The Iranians would have to be allowed to
“Larry?” Collen said, breaking the silence in the still, shadowy office. “What are we going to do? We didn’t anticipate any of these complications. And Brandon’s starting to waver.”
Drake let out a long breath as he forced himself back into the present. Gazenga’s knowledge of central Africa had been critical to their operation thus far, but it had always been understood that he’d eventually have to be dealt with — that he wouldn’t have the courage to go as far as was necessary. Losing him now, though, would be a minor disaster.
“I take it you’ve been learning fast, Dave?”
“Everything I can. But my level of expertise is nowhere near his. And neither are my contacts on the ground.”
Drake nodded his understanding. “We’re going to have to move up the timetable and go to full surveillance on him. I want it in place by tonight. Maybe he’ll show more backbone than we expect.”
“And Smith?”
“For now, we’ll just track him — see if he tips his hand as to how much he knows and who he’s working for. The moment it looks like they’re going to come up with anything useful, though, they’re going to have to disappear.”
Brandon Gazenga smiled blankly at the people moving through the hallway, trying to keep his gait natural as he slipped into his office and closed the door behind him.
How the hell had he gotten himself into this?
It was a depressingly easy question to answer. Drake had come to him personally and he’d swooned at the personal attention from the DCI. Given a chance to advance his career and play with the big boys, he’d just closed his eyes and jumped.
A world that seemed so black-and-white in college turned hopelessly gray inside the walls of CIA headquarters. A little spin here, a little data selection there, and you could make a report say anything you wanted. But now things had been turned completely upside down. There was no doubt in his mind that Drake was going to eventually want Smith and his people dead. Of course the CIA’s involvement would be as indirect as it always was — a quick cash payment to an intermediary, a passing along of information to bandits in the area, maybe a word to one of Bahame’s people. It was a cardinal rule that he had learned well over the past year: deniability must always be maintained.
But
The entire operation was an incredibly delicate balancing act — let the Iranians go far enough for the evidence to be irrefutable, but not so far that they would be in a position to actually deploy the parasite.
As his vision cleared, though, Gazenga began to see just how subjective that balance point was. How far were Drake and Collen willing to allow Iran to run? How much risk were they willing to take that this could spin out of control?
“Welcome to the big leagues,” he said to the empty office.
It was funny how different the reality was from the fantasy. Who would have ever thought he’d want nothing more than to join his brothers running the family restaurant chain? That standing elbow-deep in spiced beef and dishwater would be something he dreamed about?
Gazenga walked unsteadily to his desk and sat in the leather chair his father had presented him as a graduation gift. This was getting way too big for him to handle. He needed to talk to someone who knew what the hell they were doing. Someone he could trust.
24
