'Let's concentrate on possible targets in the region and reasons for hitting those targets.'
'The Nagorno-Karabakh and Iran are our biggest concerns,' Williamson said.
'The people in NK have voted themselves an independent republic, while Azerbaijan and Armenia are both fighting to claim it. The whole region will probably explode when Azerbaijan gets enough money to buy more advanced weapons for its military. That would be bad enough for both nations, but with Iran just fifteen miles to the south, it could end up being quite an explosion. As for Iran, even without the NK situation, Teheran and Baku have been gnawing at each other for years over access to everything from offshore oil to Caspian sturgeon and caviar. When the Soviet Union watched over the Caspian, they took what they wanted. And not only are there problems, but the problems overlap,' Williamson added.
'Sloppy drilling by Azerbaijan has caused a quarter-inch-thick oil film in parts of the sea where Iran fishes for sturgeon. The pollution is killing the fish.'
'What is the oil situation, exactly?' Thomas asked.
'There are four major oil fields,' Williamson said.
'Azeri, Chirag, Guneshli, and Azerbaijan. Azerbaijan and the Western Consortium members that underwrite the drilling are convinced that international law protects their exclusive rights to the sites. But their claim is based on boundaries that are defined by fishing rights, which both Iran and Russia insist do not apply. So far, the arguments have all been diplomatic.'
'But if someone perpetrated a new action somewhere,' Thomas said, 'such as an embassy explosion or an assassination--' 'There could be a disastrous chain reaction reaching into a half-dozen surrounding nations, affecting oil supplies worldwide, and drawing the United States into a major foreign war,' Williamson said.
Moore added sarcastically, 'That's why we like to be kept informed about covert actions in our backward little outpost.'
Thomas shook his head.
'Mea culpa. Now, can we all agree to look ahead instead of back?'
Moore regarded him for a moment, then nodded.
'So,' Williamson said, looking down at her notes.
'As I understand this, there are two possible scenarios.
First, that the individual who attacked Mr. Battat was not the Harpooner, in which case we may have nothing more than a drug smuggler or gunrunner on our hands.
One who managed to get the drop on Mr. Battat and then slip away.'
'Correct,' said Thomas.
'What are the chances of that?' Williamson asked.
'They're unlikely,' Thomas said.
'We know that the Harpooner is in the region. An official from the Department of State Bureau of Intelligence and Research was on a Turkish Airlines flight from London to Moscow and made a tentative ID of the Harpooner. He tried to follow the target but lost him.'
'You're saying an INR guy and the world's most wanted terrorist just happened to be on the same flight?' Moore said.
'I can't speak for the Harpooner, only for the DOS official,' Thomas replied.
'But we're finding that more and more terrorists and spies take the diplomatic routes.
They try to pick up intel from laptops and phone calls.
DOS has issued several alerts about that. Maybe it was a coincidence; maybe there was a diskette or phone number the Harpooner wanted to try and steal when the official went to the rest room. I don't know.'
'The official was able to identify the Harpooner based on what?' Williamson asked.
'The only known photograph,' Thomas told him.
'It was a good picture, reliable,' Moore assured her.
'We were notified and did some checking,' Thomas went on.
'It fit with some intel we had picked up independently.
The passenger was traveling under an assumed name with a fake British passport. We checked taxi records, found that he had been picked up at the Kensington Hilton in London. He'd only been there for one night, where he met with several people who, according to the concierge, looked and sounded Middle Eastern. We tried to track the individual in Moscow, but no one saw him leave the terminal. So we checked flights to other areas. Someone matching his description had shown a Russian passport in the name of Gardner and flown to Baku.'
'It is the Harpooner's boat,' Deputy Ambassador Williamson said suddenly.
'It has to be.'
The others looked at her.
'You've heard of it?' Thomas asked.
'Yes. I went to college,' Williamson said.
'Gardner is the captain of the Rachel in Moby-Dick. It's one of the ships that was chasing the elusive white whale. She failed to capture him, I might add.'
Thomas regarded Battat unhappily.
