'The Harpooner,' Thomas said.
'Dammit. Of course. He planted that for us to find.'
'Now, there's a smart terrorist,' Moore said.
'If you recognize the allusion, you would have thought it a joke and wouldn't have bothered to pursue. If you thought it was real, then the Harpooner knew just where you'd be looking for him. And he would be there, waiting to stop you.'
'But the boat was real,' Battat said.
'I saw the name--' 'A name that was put there to hold your attention for a while,' Thomas said.
'Shit. We fell for that one, big time.'
'Which brings us to the second and suddenly very likely scenario,' Williamson said.
'If the Harpooner has been in Baku, there are two things we need to find out pretty damn quick. First, what he wanted and second, where he is now. Is that about right?'
Thomas nodded.
Moore rose.
'I'm betting he's no longer using the Russian passport. I'll get into the hotel computers and check the names of the guests against our passport registry database. See if any new names pop up.'
'He may also be working with people here, in which case he may not be staying at a hotel,' Thomas said.
'I'll give you a list of known or suspected foreign cells,' Moore told him.
'You and Mr. Battat can crosscheck those with people the Harpooner might have worked with before.'
Battat said he would do that.
'There's one other thing we should try,' Thomas said.
'We pretty much tapped out our Moscow-based sources on this before Mr. Battat came down. It wasn't very productive, but that was all we had time for. What about other governments in the region?'
'We haven't made any significant intelligence inroads with any of them,' the deputy ambassador admitted.
'We don't have the personnel to nurse the relationships, and a lot of the republics, including Azerbaijan, have had their resources strained with internal problems.
Everyone is busy spying on each other, especially on Chechnya.'
'Why there?' Battat asked.
'Because despite the coalition government that exists on paper, Chechnya is really controlled by Islamic militias intent on destabilizing and bringing down the other republics, including Russia,' she said.
'I'm hoping that the initiative the president announced last night in Washington will remedy that.'
'What initiative?' Battat asked.
'An intelligence cooperative with the United Nations,' Moore told him.
'He announced it last night in Washington.'
Battat rolled his eyes.
'You know, there is one place we might be able to try,' Thomas said.
'A couple of years ago I remember hearing that the National Crisis Management Center was involved with a Russian group based in Saint Petersburg.'
'A Russian crisis management group,' Moore said.
'Yeah, I remember hearing about that.'
'I can call Washington and have them contact Op Center Moore said.
'See if they still have a relationship with the Russians.'
'When you do, have them contact Bob Herbert over there,' Thomas suggested.
'He's the head of intelligence--a really capable guy from what I hear. I understand that the new guy running the place. General Rodgers, is something of a hard-ass.'
'He's not running Op-Center,' the deputy ambassador said.
'Who is?' asked Thomas.
'Paul Hood,' said the deputy ambassador.
'We got a directory update this morning. He withdrew his resignation.'
Moore snickered.
'I'll bet he won't be involved in the UN intelligence program.'
'Regardless,' Thomas said, 'have them contact Herbert.
The Harpooner may try to slip out of the region by heading north, into Scandanavia. If he does, the Russians may be able to help us up there.'
