'Sure,' Herbert replied. Hood took a moment to calm down. His anger surprised him. Hood had never had an affair, but for some reason, Herbert's comment made him feel guilty about Sharon.
'What else did Fenwick have to say?' Hood asked.
'That he doesn't know a damn thing about any UN initiative,' Herbert said.
'He didn't get any calls about it and didn't read about it in the paper. He told me he was sent to New York to help the Iranians with the situation involving the Harpooner and possible Azerbaijani terrorists in the Caspian. And there could be some truth to that,' Herbert pointed out.
'If the CIA was compromised over there, the Iranians might need to turn to someone else for help. Someone that could get them signal intelligence capacity ASAP.'
'Were the Iranians working with the CIA on this?'
'I'm trying to find that out,' Herbert said.
'You know those Company guys. They don't like to share. But think about it. Op-Center's worked with other governments, some of them hostile. We'd get in bed with Teheran if all we were going to do was snuggle a little.' That was true. Hood had to admit.
'And Fenwick was at the mission,' Herbert continued.
'That much is pretty clear.'
'It's about the only thing that is,' Hood replied.
'Bob, you said that Fenwick was sent to New York. Did he say who sent him?'
'Yes,' Herbert replied, 'and I don't think you're going to like this. Fenwick says the president was the one who sent him.'
'Triple-0?' Hood asked. Triple-0 was oral orders only. They were given when an official didn't want to leave a paper trail to or from a potentially explosive situation.
'Triple-0,' Herbert told him.
'Jesus,' Hood said.
'Look--someone else would have to have been in this Iranian loop.'
'Sure,' Herbert agreed.
'The veep, probably. The chief of staff--'
'Call Vice President Cotten's office,' Hood said.
'Find out what he has to say. I'll be there as soon as possible.'
'I'll call out for pizza,' Herbert told him. Hood hung up and concentrated on getting himself through the maddening rush-hour traffic. At the moment, it was a welcome diversion.
Gobustan, Azerbaijan Tuesday, 1:22 a.m.
The other men had gone to sleep on threadbare bedrolls they had bought secondhand in Baku. But Maurice Charles was still awake, still sitting at the wooden table in the shepherd's shack. Though he never had trouble sleeping before a mission, he did have trouble waiting for other people to do things. Things on which the mission depended. Until then, he would not--could not--rest. When the phone finally beeped, he felt a nearly electric shock. This was it. The last unfinished business before H-hour. Charles went to the equipment table. Beside the Stellar Photo Judge 7 was a Zed-4 unit, which had been developed by the KGB in 1992. The secure phone system was the size and general shape of an ordinary hardcover book. The small, flat receiver fit neatly into the side. It was a remarkable improvement over the point to-point radios Charles had used when he was first starting out. Those had a range of two and one-half miles. The Zed-4 utilized a series of satellite links to pick up cellular transmissions from around the world. A series of internal audio enhancers and boosters virtually eliminated breakup and lost signals. The Zed-4 was also quite secure. Most secure-phone calls, including the United States Tac-Sat units, were encrypted with a 155-digit number. In order to crack the code, eavesdroppers had to factor that into its two component prime numbers. Even using sophisticated computers like the Cray 916, that could take weeks. The CIA had managed to cut that time into days by stealing computer time from personal computers. In 1997, the agency began using Internet servers to piggyback the numbers into home computer systems. Small amounts of memory were appropriated to work on the problem without the user being aware of it. Networked throughout a system of millions of PCS, the CIA was able to add gigabytes of computation power to the problem. It also created a problem for counter programmers since it was not possible to shut down the Cia's so-called Stealth Field System. Thus, the Zed-4 was created using a complex encryption code of 309 digits. Even the SFS lacked sufficient power to break that code in a timely fashion. Charles answered on the third ring.
'B-sharp,' he said. That was the receiver code name.
'C-natural,' said the caller.
'Go ahead,' said Charles.
'I'm across the street from the target,' said the caller.
'They're bringing him out the side door.'
'No ambulance?'
'No,' said the caller.
'Who's with him?' Charles asked.
'Two men,' said the caller.
'Neither of them in uniform.' Charles smiled. Americans were so predictable. If there were more than one operative, they invariably went to the user's manual.
'How to Be a Soldier or Spy,' Rule Fifty-three: Put the man above the mission. That thinking went at least as
