didn’t want to provoke it again. Ferguson, though, ate two helpings, then eyed what was left on Conners’s plate.
“All yours,” said Conners.
“Better not,” said Ferg. “Might make me fart.”
“At least.”
Ferg pulled up his shirt and retrieved the plastic envelope containing the satellite photos and diagrams of the dry-dock area. He penciled in the guard post he’d seen, shading the two spots where searchlights covered the perimeter. The security was concentrated around the roadway, probably intended more for its deterrence value than anything else. It was possible that there were cameras or high-tech detectors scattered around the yard; there was no way to tell for sure until they were inside.
He expected there would be more guards. The situation didn’t look promising.
“Maybe everybody’s so afraid of getting their hands chopped off for stealing that they don’t steal,” said Conners. “Or maybe this isn’t the boat.”
“Yeah,” said Ferg. He pulled the area diagram to the top of his small stack. The two lots directly across from the dockyard warehoused construction materials, which arrived from an area to the south and were moved via flatcars. One of the photos showed items being taken off by crane in the eastern portion of the yard. There were two long sheds at the extreme western end, and what looked like train rails buried in the pavement running to the fence separating the dock area. If material were being brought down to be placed in the ship, it could come into the warehouse area, be stored in one of those two buildings — or any of the others for that matter — then moved across by flatcar and switcher engine simply by taking the fence section away.
“You’re assuming they’re not breaking the waste into smaller containers somewhere else,” said Conners.
“They may be,” said Ferg. “But this would be an obvious place, and since the sat boys haven’t seen it anywhere else, looking here makes sense.”
“I guess. Didn’t move the needle on the rad meter when we drove past.”
“Yeah,” said Ferg. “But we can’t totally rely on that. Maybe it’s shielded.”
Conners, starting to sense a bust, said nothing.
“Easy to get into the warehouse area,” Ferguson told him. He jabbed at the diagram. “We can walk right up this road. Guards are here and here. They have nothing on this side because of the water. So we come around here, look for radiation, check the sheds out, then go over to the shipyard.”
“Going to take nearly an hour,” said Conners. “That’s about a mile and a half you’re talking just to get into the site. Hour at least on each of the buildings, then we have to get around that fence. Going to be a long night.”
“Yeah.” Ferg leaned back against the bed. “You tired, Dad?”
Conners shrugged. “Not really.”
Keveh knocked on the door, then came in, holding a small ceramic teapot and three cups. He put the pot down and settled across from them.
“You have milk for that?” Conners asked.
The Iranian looked at him as if milk were the most ridiculous thing you could put in tea.
“Cream or something like that?” Conners asked.
Keveh shook his head.
“Be tough,” Ferg joked. He took a sip. The liquid tasted like a cross between Earl Grey and 30w motor oil.
“I was thinking we’d take a drive through the countryside,” Ferg told his host. “Couple of things I want to look at.”
Keveh nodded. Ferg unfolded his map of the port area and gave him a general idea of where they were going. Keveh nodded.
“When’s a good time?” asked Ferg.
The Iranian shrugged. “Now.”
“Well, let’s go then.”
“Scuff your shoes first,” said Keveh, pointing down. “Those will stand out if we get out of the car. Nothing’s new here.”
8
After hours of staring at the computer screen, the glare from the overhead fluorescents began to feel like sharp fingernails scratching at Corrine’s eyes. She hadn’t had more than a few hours’ sleep for the past four or five days, and between the fatigue, coffee buzz, and all the data she’d been trying to assimilate, she felt like she was back in law school, cramming for a final. She punched the keys to kill the file and stood up, looking at her watch.
It was 6:05 P.M.; she’d missed lunch and dinner. Corrine got up from the desk, remembering that there was a package of Fig Newtons in her pocketbook, which because of security requirements she wasn’t allowed to bring into the reference area. She also wasn’t allowed to wear her shoes — instead, she had a pair of ill-fitting cardboard slippers that made her feel as if he she were a patient at a hospital with a library.
That’s what they called it, with a little sign on the door. They even had a little old lady with bluish hair to help you.
As counsel to the congressional Intelligence Committee, Corrine had been briefed on a number of clandestine operations, including two or three that featured cooperation between Special Forces and the CIA. The history of such operations extended to the Kennedy presidency; while they had been severely curtailed in the wake of the Vietnam War, they had gradually come back into favor and in fact enjoyed some success in Afghanistan during the war on terror. But the Joint Services Special Demands Project Office and “the Team” were unique in several ways:
1. Missions were authorized and conducted without any paperwork whatsoever — no findings, no bureaucratic review, no audit, no log, no mention anywhere in the extensive operations files. Whereas a typical — if there were such a thing — CIA mission would stem from an NSC finding, Special Demands specifically didn’t need such findings, and in fact none were in the records, which meant there had been none. Nor were there any records of direct executive orders from the president authorizing specific Special Demands programs or missions.
2. Missions were not authorized or reviewed at any level below or above DDO; there was apparently no way for anyone outside of the extremely small group of people involved even to know about them.
3. The Team apparently combined collection and paramilitary functions — it collected intelligence, then immediately acted on it. While this, of course, had happened throughout the CIA’s history, and in fact started during the OSS days, the line here seemed deliberately fused, with the same mission gathering intelligence, then immediately acting on it.
4. In Corrine’s experience, backed up by her review of the Agency’s records, most operations involving cooperation between the military and the Agency’s clandestine service were of relatively limited duration, ending when a specific goal was achieved. From what she had seen, the Joint Services Special Demands Project Office and its missions weren’t tied to specific operations. In this way, the model seemed to be the information side of the Agency, which provided intelligence to the military services on an ongoing basis. Not only could the goals change mid-mission — as they apparently had here — but the unit existed forever.
5. There were no apparent audit controls, and in fact Special Demands seemed to have an almost unlimited budget, with access not only to the extensive resources of a specially created Army Special Forces Group, but a variety of other service assets as well. The man in charge of the military end of the operation — Colonel Van Buren — answered
