Acts of War

selected and stage-managed, defeat could be made into triumph.

'What would I be saying up there?' Martha asked.

'The truth,' Hood said, 'which is what makes this very sweet. You would tell the committee that yes, we've occasionally and for very short periods monopolized the NRO for national security. You'd tell them that Stephen Viens is a hero who helped us protect human rights and lives. Senator Landwehr won't be able to attack us for telling the truth. If we get him and Senator Fox behind us, and portray Viens as a patriot, that robs the committee of some of its power to grandstand. Then it'll just be a matter of the NRO giving the money back, which is pretty boring stuff. Not even CNN will give it much coverage.'

Martha sat still for a moment, then said, 'I'll think about it.'

Hood wanted to say, 'You'll do it.' But Martha was a thorny woman who also had to be handled with care. He said, 'Can you let me know by this afternoon?'

She nodded, then left.

Stoll regarded Hood. 'Thanks, Chief. I really mean that.'

Hood drained the last cold drop from his mug. 'Your friend screwed up over there, Matt. But if you can't go to bat for a good man who's been a loyal ally, then what the hell good are you?'

Stoll made a zero with his thumb and index finger, thanked Hood again, then left.

Alone again, Hood pressed his palms into his eyes. He had been a big-city mayor and a banker. When his father was his age, forty-three, he was a CPA struggling to keep his own small accounting firm afloat. How did Frank Hood's son come to this place in life where careers could live or die, where people could live or die, based on decisions he made here?

He knew the answer, of course. He loved government and he believed in the system. And he did it because he believed that he could make these decisions compassionately and intelligently.

But Lord, he thought, it's difficult.

With that, the self-pity ended. Rising with his mug, Hood left the office to start on his next cup of coffee.

EIGHT

Monday, 3:53 p.m.,

Sanliurfa, Turkey

Mary Rose Mohalley finished running the last of the local systems checks. The software for the ALQ-157 infrared jammer was on-line and functioning. So was the hardware of the three-foot-by-two-foot-by-two-foot X- poser, which was designed to detect the residue of nitroglycerin, C-4, Semtex, TNT, and other explosives. Then she checked to make sure the ROC's batteries and solar panels were working at full capacity. They were. Two dozen batteries were dedicated to the ROC's internal systems. Another four batteries were devoted to powering the van's engine when, unlike now, gasoline wasn't readily available. The latter four batteries consisted of a pair of low-rate- energy storage batteries and two high-rate-energy flywheel batteries. Together the four batteries provided a total of eight hundred extra miles of travel capacity without recharging. All of the nickel metal-hydride batteries were stored in two fifty-eight-by-fourteen-inch compartments that were built into the raised floor. The solar panels that powered the van's air-conditioning and water were also working perfectly.

The twenty-nine-year-old got up. She had intended to go out and stretch, maybe catch a few minutes of sun, when Mike Rodgers spoke.

'Mary Rose, would you mind getting Matt's OLM program up and running before you do anything else?'

The young woman's shoes squeaked as she stopped suddenly on the smooth, black rubberized floor covering. Rodgers hadn't turned around or he would have seen her shoulders slump.

'No, I wouldn't mind at all,' Mary Rose replied lightly. She plopped back down. Back at Op-Center, psychologist Liz Gordon had warned her that the only rays she'd get working with Mike Rodgers were whatever low-level radiation leaked from her computer monitor.

After giving his associate her assignment, Rodgers arched his back and stretched in silence. Then he continued going through his own checklist.

There it was, Mary Rose grumbled to herself. General Rodgers just took his break.

She looked at the screen and began moving the mouse around. The OLM was Matt Stoll's On-Line Mole. Though they had both been eager to try it, the OLM was part of the second wave of software installations. It was scheduled to be up and running by four p.m. However, with General Rodgers, a request was as imperative as a command.

The young woman rubbed her tired eyes, but that didn't make them feel any better. She was still jet-lagged from the flight over, and the fatigue went deep. Thanks to her doctorate in advanced computer applications, she had the luxury of using tireless machines to help her exhausted human brain. But she wondered how many bad deals American statesmen had made in this part of the world because they were just too tired to think clearly.

Then again, General Rodgers doesn't seem to feel it, she told herself. If anything, he appeared invigorated. He sat with his back to her, facing a wall of monitors that displayed satellite views of the region as well as information that ranged from levels of microwave radiation to local smog and allergen levels. Large rises in microwave levels indicated an increase in cellular communications, which was often a forerunner to military activity in a region. A higher smog or pollen count told them what kind of efficiency levels they could expect from soldiers. Mary Rose had been astonished to learn from Op-Center's chief medical officer, Jerry Wheeler, that antihistamines weren't deeply stockpiled by many of the world's armies. However sophisticated a nation's weapons were, they'd be useless in the hands of itchy-eyed warriors.

No, General Rodgers didn't feel the exhaustion. Mary Rose could tell that he was happily immersed in studying his data. That was why they hadn't had a break since their early, fifteen-minute lunch. He was lost in this first glimpse at wars of the near future. Wars that wouldn't be fought between great armies, but by small bands against small bands, and by satellites against computers and communications centers. Enemies of tomorrow would not be battalions, but groups of terrorists who used chemical and biological weapons against civilian targets, killing and vanishing. Then it would be up to teams like the ROC crew to plan a swift and surgical response. Find a way to get as close to the enemy brain as possible and lobotomize it, using an elite unit like Op-Center's Striker or a missile hit or a booby-trapped car or telephone or electric shaver. Hope that with the head gone, the hands and feet would no longer function.

Unlike many 'old soldiers' who longed for the old Ways, Mary Rose knew that the forty-something Rodgers relished this new challenge. He enjoyed new ideas and new ways almost as much as he enjoyed his bottomless supply of old aphorisms. As he'd told her with boyish enthusiasm when they'd settled into their seats early this morning, 'Samuel Johnson once said, 'The world is not yet exhausted; let me see something tomorrow which I never saw before.' I'm looking forward to this, Mary Rose.'

Getting Matt's OLM up and running took just over fifteen minutes. When she'd loaded it and run the diagnostics, Rodgers asked her to break into the Turkish Security Forces computer file. He wanted to learn more about Colonel Nejat Seden, the man who was being sent to work with them. He said that Seden was undoubtedly being sent to watch them as well, though Rodgers had expected that. That was how what he called the 'watch out' worked. It was the nitrogen cycle of spying. Rodgers himself was watching the Turks as well as the Syrians; the Israelis were probably watching them both, while the CIA watched the Israelis. Rodgers said it was only fitting that the Turks would watch them.

But Mary Rose suspected that more than politics was behind his request. The general also liked to know the caliber of the individual with whom he'd be spending his time. Sitting beside him on the C-141A that had brought them to Turkey, she'd discovered one quality above all about General Mike Rodgers. He didn't enjoy being surrounded by people, even enemies, who weren't as committed to their jobs as he was to his.

Mary Rose wriggled uncomfortably in her seat as she typed commands into the computer. Because chairs with wheels made a familiar and distinctive sound, the seats in the ROC were bolted to the floor. As Op-Center's Yale-educated Chief Engineer Harlan Bellock had said during the design phase, 'Casters would be a tip-off to snoops. It would be very odd to hear the sounds of office furniture coming from an archaeologist's van, you know.'

Mary Rose understood. But that didn't make the aluminum chairs any more comfortable. She also felt