Jesus, Herbert thought. That's who Hank Lewis was. Jack Fenwick's replacement at the National Security Agency.
Lewis had just signed off on the NSA's participation in the Striker mission. Herbert should have known the name right away. But he forgave himself. He had a mission headed into a hot zone that had just become hotter. His brain was on autopilot.
'You don't have to explain. I know what the workload is like over there,' Herbert assured him.
'I assume you're calling about the State Department update on Kashmir?'
'I haven't seen that report yet,' Lewis admitted.
'But I did receive a call from Ron Friday, the man who's supposed to meet your Striker team. He told me what you probably read. That an hour ago there were three powerful bomb blasts in a bazaar in Srinagar.'
Three?' Herbert replied.
'The State Department says there were two explosions.'
'Mr. Friday was within visual range of ground zero,' Lewis informed him.
'He said there were simultaneous explosions in both the police station and in the Hindu temple.
They were followed by a third blast onboard a bus full of Hindu pilgrims.'
Hearing the event described, Herbert flashed back to the embassy bombing in Beirut. The moment of the explosion was not what stayed with him. That was like running a car into a wall, a full-body hit.
What he remembered, vividly, was the sickness of coming to beneath the rubble and realizing in a sickening instant exactly what had happened.
'Was your man hurt?' Herbert asked.
'Incredibly, no,' Lewis said.
'Mr. Friday said the explosions would have been worse except that high-impact concussive devices were employed. That minimized the damage radius.' 'He was lucky,' Herbert said. Hi Con explosives tended to produce a big percussive center, nominal shock waves, and very little collateral damage.
'So why is Friday so sure the first two hits were separate blasts? The second one could have been an oil or propane tank exploding. There are often secondary pops in attacks of this kind.'
'Mr. Friday was very specific about the explosions being simultaneous, not successive,' Lewis replied.
'After the attack he also found two very similar but separate debris trails leading from the buildings. That suggests identical devices in different locations.'
'Possibly,' Herbert said.
An expression from Herbert's childhood came floating back: He who smelt it dealt it. Op-Center's intelligence chief briefly wondered if Friday might have been responsible for the blasts. However, Herbert could not think of a reason for Friday to have done that. And he had not become cynical enough to look for a reason. Not yet, anyway.
'Let's say there were three blasts,' Herbert said.
'What do your nerve endings tell you about all this?'
'My immediate thought, of course, is that the Pakistans are turning up the heat by attacking religious targets,' Lewis replied.
'But we don't have enough intel to back that up.'
'And if the idea was to hit at the Hindus directly, why would they strike the police station as well?' Herbert asked.
'To cripple their pursuit capabilities, I would imagine,' Lewis suggested.
'Maybe,' Herbert replied.
Everything Lewis said made sense. Which meant one of two things.
Either he was right or the obvious answer was what the perpetrators wanted investigators to believe.
'Your Strikers won't be arriving for another twenty-two hours and change,' Lewis said.
'I'm going to have Mr. Friday go back to the target area and see what he can learn.
Are there any resources you can call on?' 'Yes,' Herbert said.
'India's Intelligence Bureau and the Defense Ministry helped us to organize the Striker mission.
I'll see what they know and get back to you.'
'Thanks,' Lewis said.
'By the way, I'm looking forward to working with you. I've followed your career ever since you went over to Germany to take on those neo-Nazis. I trust men who get out from behind their desk. It means they put job and country before personal security.'
'Either that or it means they're crazy,' Herbert said.
'But thanks. Stay in touch.' Lewis said he would. Herbert hung up.
It was refreshing to talk to someone in the covert community who was actually willing to share information. Intelligence chiefs were notoriously secretive. If they controlled information they could control people and institutions. Herbert refused to play that game.
