While it was good for job security it was bad for national security.
And as Jack Fenwick had demonstrated, a secretive intelligence chief could also control a president.
But though Ron Friday was a seasoned field operative, Herbert was not quite as willing to bet the ranch on his report.
Herbert only believed in people he had worked with himself.
Herbert phoned Paul Hood to brief him on the new development.
Hood asked to be conferenced on the call to Mike Rodgers whenever that took place. Then Herbert put in a call to the Indian Intelligence Bureau. Sujit Rani, the deputy director of internal activities, told Herbert pretty much what he expected to hear: that the IIB was investigating the explosions but did not have any additional information. The notion that there had been three explosions, not two, was something the IIB had heard and was looking into. That information vindicated Ron Friday somewhat in Herbert's eyes. Herbert's contact at the Defense Ministry told him basically the same thing. Fortunately, there was time before Striker reached India.
They would be able to abort the mission if necessary.
Herbert went into the Kashmir files. He wanted to check on other recent terrorist strikes in the region. Maybe he could find clues, a pattern, something that would help to explain this new attack.
Something about it did not sit right. If Pakistan were really looking to turn up the heat in Kashmir they probably would have struck at a place that had intense religious meaning, like the shrine at Pahalgam.
Not only was that the most revered site in the region but the terrorists would not have had to worry about security. The Hindus trusted completely in their sacred trinity. If it was the will of Vishnu the preserver then they would not be harmed. If they died violently then Shiva the destroyer would avenge them. And if they were worthy, Brahma the creator would reincarnate them.
No. Bob Herbert's gut was telling him that the Hindu temple, the bus, and the police station were struck for some other reason. He just did not know what that reason was.
But he would.
CHAPTER TWELVE.
C-130 Cabin Wednesday, 10:13 a. m.
When he first joined Striker, Corporal Ishi Honda discovered that there was not a lot of downtime on the ground.
There was a great deal of drilling, especially for him. Honda had joined the team late, replacing Private Johnny Pucketl who had been wounded on the mission to North Korea. It was necessary for Honda, then a twenty-two- year-old private, to get up to speed.
Once he got there Honda never let up. His mother used to tell him he was fated never to rest. She ascribed it to the different halves of his soul. Ishi's maternal grandfather had been a civilian cook at Wheeler Field. He died trying to get home to his family during the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Ishi's paternal grandfather had been a high-ranking officer on the staff of Rear Admiral Takajiro Onishi, chief of staff of the Eleventh Air Fleet. Onishi was the architect of the Japanese attack. Ishi's parents were actors who met and fell in love on a show tour without knowing anything about the other's background. They often debated whether knowing that would have made a difference. His father said it absolutely would not have. With a little shake of her head, her eyes downturned, his mother said it might have made a difference.
Ishi had no answers and maybe that was why he could not stop pushing himself. Pan of him believed that if he ever stopped moving he would inevitably look at that question, whether or not a piece of information would have kept him from being born. And he did not want to do that because the question had no answer. Honda did not like problems without solutions.
What he did like was living the life of a Striker. It not only taxed him mentally, it challenged him physically.
From the time he was recruited to join the elite unit there were long daily runs, obstacle courses, hand-to-hand combat, arms practice, survival training, and maneuvers. The field work was always tougher for Honda than for the others. In addition to his survival gear he had to carry the TAC-SAT equipment. There were also tactical and political sessions and language classes. Colonel August had insisted that the Strikers learn at least two languages each in the likely event that those skills would one day be required. At least Honda had an advantage there. Because his father was Japanese, Honda already had a leg up on one of the languages he had been assigned. He selected Mandarin Chinese as the other. Sondra Devon the had chosen Cantonese as one of her languages. It was fascinating to Honda that the languages shared identical written characters. Yet the spoken languages were entirely different. While he and Devon the could read the same texts they could not communicate verbally.
Though the time the Strikers spent on the ground was rewarding, Honda had learned that their time in the air was anything but. They rarely took short trips and the long journeys could be extremely dull. That was why he had come up with constructive ways of filling his time.
Wherever they were going, Honda arranged to patch his personal computer into the data files of both Stephen Viens at the National Reconnaissance Office and those of Op Center computer chief. Matt Stoll. The NRO was the group that managed most of America's spy satellites. Because Viens was an old college chum of Stoll's, he had been extremely helpful in getting information for Op-Center when more established groups like military intelligence, the CIA, and the NSA were fighting for satellite time. Viens was later accused of forward-funding two billion dollars of NRO money into a variety of black ops projects. He was vindicated with Op-Center's help and recently returned to duty.
Before Striker headed to any territory, Viens set aside satellite time to do all the photographic recon that Colonel August needed. That imaging was considered of primary importance and was sent on the mission in Colonel August's files. Meanwhile, Stoll spent as much time as possible collecting electronic intelligence from the region. Police departments and the military did not share everything they knew, even with allies. In many foreign countries, especially Russia, China, and Israel, American operatives were often watched without their knowledge by foreign operatives. It was up to Op-Center to pick up whatever information they could and protect themselves accordingly. They did this by diverging from the agreed-upon routes and time schedules, using 'dispensable' team members to mislead tails, or occasionally subduing whoever was following them. A host nation could not complain if the person they had sent to spy on an ally was later found bound and gagged in a hotel closet.
The ELINT Stoll had gathered was composed of everything from fax messages and e-mail to phone numbers and radio frequencies. Everything that came to or went from official sources or known resistance and opposition forces.
