Operations Center. They were receiving more and more false alarms. Dobbs punched in his password so he could access the real identity of Red Coyote. A second later, the name
Arthur Higgins appeared on the screen. That’s a first for him, Dobbs thought. No need to get excited yet. He probably hit it by mistake.
Dobbs looked through the Plexiglas and watched the operator for the United States work to verify the alarm. The home phone number for Red Coyote came up on the screen along with several others.
Dobbs tapped in a keystroke so he could listen to the operator handle the situation.
Their system told them that the alarm was coming from his estate, but no one was answering. He listened to the phone ring.
After about thirty seconds, Dobbs started to get nervous. The file on Red Coyote said that he had around-the- clock security. Someone should have been answering the phone.
A second later, a frantic voice did.
Director Stansfield was sitting at his desk reading a report on the mental stability of
North Korea’s leadership. Because of the recent flurry of assassinations his regular work was suffering. He didn’t like falling behind, there were too many potential problems just over the horizon. As director of the Agency, Stansfield saw it as his job to know and understand who the players were in each country that had an adversarial relationship with the United States. When things turned sour, he wanted to be able to predict the behavior of the men he was up against. The phone rang and Stansfield removed his spectacles, rubbed his eyes, and then picked it up. “Hello.”
“Thomas, it’s Charlie. We’ve got a major problem! Someone just grabbed Arthur
Higgins!” Stansfield sat up straight. “How long ago?”
“His personal alarm went off about four minutes ago. We called his estate and one of the security guards verified that they’d been hit.”
“I’m on my way down.” Stansfield hung up the phone and headed for the door. When he reached the outer room, his bodyguard looked up from behind a desk and Stansfield said, “Come on, we’re going downstairs.”
The director continued into the hallway and shoved his ID card into the slot next to the elevator. Five seconds later, the doors opened and they stepped in. While the elevator descended, Stansfield battled to suppress the hope that Arthur had been killed. He hoped
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so for two reasons. The first, which embarrassed him, was personal. Arthur had ignored
Stansfield’s warnings to cease his activities in the intelligence community. He was a growing security risk and a thorn in Stansfield’s side. The second reason was purely professional. If Arthur was dead, he couldn’t be interrogated. He had more damaging secrets in his head than any other person in the Agency.
Arthur had conducted unofficial operations that no one else knew about, and his knowledge of official CIA operations was thorough. If he was taken alive and interrogated, the Agency would be compromised at every level. The damage would be unimaginable. The elevator opened and Stansfield approached the door to the Operations
Center. He placed his hand on a scanner, and a second later the door opened. Charlie
Dobbs was standing with his watch officers conferring on the crisis.
Stansfield approached. “Give me the rundown.”
“We’re tracking his homing signal right now.” Dobbs pointed at the big screen in the front of the room. A detailed map of the Chesapeake was on the screen and a slow—
moving red dot. “It appears they’ve got him on board a boat and are making a run for the open sea.”
“Do we know how it happened?”
“We’ve talked to the guard who was running the control room inside Arthur’s house.
He says Arthur stepped outside to smoke a cigar, and then they came over the wall. He isn’t sure how many of them there were because they shot his cameras out. Two of the guards are dead, and there is no sign of Arthur.”
“What procedures have we put into effect?”
“We’ve scrambled two Cobra gunships out of Quantico and an AWAC was on patrol when the whole thing went down. The AWAC has confirmed our bogie and has classified it as a small watercraft moving at a speed of sixty-two knots. I have also notified the
Coast Guard, and they are moving to set up a picket at the south end of the Bay.”
“How long will it take for the choppers to intercept?”
“If there is no course change, they should intercept in about ten minutes.” They all looked at the big board and watched the moving red dot. “I also activated two of our security details. I’m sending one to the estate to investigate, and the other will be airborne within the next two minutes. I’m sending them after the boat.”
Stansfield shook his head. “Charlie, do whatever it takes to get him back.” Stroble peered over the top of the windscreen, his night-vision goggles helping slightly, but not much. The stars and moon were blocked out by the thick clouds, and the water was black.
He kept the boat just to the west of the channel markers. The Chesapeake was notorious for unmarked sandbars, and now would not be a good time to run aground on one.
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Hackett came out from the small cabin and announced that the charges were set. He kept his night-vision
