Pinnacle Event (21 page)

WASHINGTON, DC

“What do you mean they lost him?” Winston Burrell's voice boomed over the videoconference speaker in Dugout's high-tech man cave. “How the fuck could they lose one guy when they had intelligence agents from half the nations in the world in and outside the hotel?”

“I don't know. Neither does Bowman,” Dugout explained. “They know he was at the dinner and returned to the hotel, made the call, slept, then disappeared. Never checked out of his room at the hotel. Hong Kong Police say he hasn't flown out of the city or crossed into Macau or Mainland China, at least not under the name Johann Potgeiter. My search of their databases shows the same thing.”

“This guy is now our one lead at the moment to whoever bought the bombs,” Burrell said. “It's great we have a lead finally, but not so great that you have no fucking idea where he is. You have to find him.”

“Well, I did trace the call. It was not really to somebody in LA, so it does not mean that there may be somebody in LA with a bomb.”

“It doesn't mean there isn't, either,” Burrell replied. “Where did the call go?”

“The 310 number was a bouncer, it switched the call to a mobile with a 236 area code number: Vancouver. And it was actually moving around downtown Vancouver when it took the call. Since then, it's been off,” Dugout explained. “I don't know where it is.”

“Fucking find Potgeiter. Either in Hong Kong or in Vancouver, if that's where he's going. Does al Qaeda have a cell in Vancouver? Didn't they do something up there during the Millennium rollover?”

“We think that's where he's going, based on our transcript of his conversation and the guy on the 236 end saying ‘Come to me,'” Dug answered. “I'll look into any AQ cells in BC, but I doubt it.”

“Well, this just means we were right to extend from the air and seaports to the land crossings,” Burrell seemed to be talking to himself, reassuring himself that his decision to all but close the borders with Canada and Mexico was the right call. “Of course Ottawa and Mexico City are going batshit. Violation of NAFTA, blah, blah.”

“I don't think it's going to be sustainable for long. GM won't be able to assemble cars or trucks. They ship parts back and forth, to and from plants on both sides of the Canadian border. Same with the maquiladoras, the factories just over the border into Mexico,” Dugout said.

“I know. Half the Cabinet is waiting in the Roosevelt Room to complain,” Burrell admitted. “We're going to have to deploy National Guard troops to augment Homeland Security doing the inspections. And after I get battered by the Cabinet, I have to go see a gaggle of Allied ambassadors who are complaining that containers are backing up already in Rotterdam, Tokyo, and everywhere else. I know it's not sustainable to search everything coming in to the U.S., but that's what the Homeland Security Secretary announced last night and that's what we're doing until you find the bombs. So find them, before the entire world economy dies of constipation.” Burrell clicked off at his end.

Dugout swiveled in his chair to look for guidance from his boss, Grace Scanlon, who had been sitting off camera listening to the video call. “So, I am very glad that when I replaced Bowman, I did not inherit the care and feeding of the National Security Advisor. Very glad that Burrell chose to give that job to you. And you get all those meals at his Club,” she said smiling at Dugout.

“You know that not a single person in the world thinks that the Homeland Security Secretary decided on her own to conduct a ten-day Border Control Exercise nine days before the election,” Dugout observed. “Every media outlet thinks there is some threat that they won't admit to.”

“I think it was the White House that leaked the story that there may be al Qaeda hit teams coming to poison water supplies,” Grace Scanlon said. “That's better than people guessing that it's actually nukes we're looking for.”

“The media will figure that out fast enough,” Dugout countered. “They've deployed all of the Nuclear Emergency Support Teams. They're using Geiger counters at all the ports, airports, land crossings.”

Director Scanlon walked to the window and looked down on the river. “The Republicans are loving it. Shows that we need a hard-line President. Strong on defense. Tough on terrorism.”

“They will love it even more if all the Democrats in the cities realize that the urban areas might be nuked and flee to the countryside without voting,” Dugout said, walking up to the window and standing next to her. “That's my fear, millions of people clogging roads and falling all over each other to get out of Dodge. That could be next.”

“There's something wrong with this. Something we're missing. I know you and Burrell don't buy the Taiwan idea. I'm not there yet, let's wait to see what happens in Taipei when we confront them.”

“Winston is convinced it's al Qaeda,” Dugout noted.

“Maybe he's right.” She looked straight at Dugout. “If a nation state bought themselves a ready-made nuclear arsenal, why would they be operating out of Canada? Only a terrorist group would be up there, getting stuff ready to come down here.”

“I know, Ray and Mbali are going to get on a Cathay Pacific flight to Vancouver because they think Johann Potgeiter is en route there,” Dugout said. “I think that's largely because they don't know what else to do. Don't just stand there, fly on.”

“The new Dynamic Duo,” Grace laughed. “They must make an odd-looking couple. Meanwhile, keep running Minerva, have the software find the correlations that humans can't see. It's there somewhere. Who hired the off-duty cops in Vienna to follow Ray, the hit team in Cape Town, the car bomber in Jaffa? Who paid for the heist near Pretoria? How did they get the tritium out of the country? When the bombs left Madagascar, where did they go and how? You have a lot of leads there, Duggie. Run them down. You have to give the Bowman some arrows.”

Dugout began with the audio recording of Johann Potgeiter making the call from the hotel room in Hong Kong. Dug checked the time the call was made, precisely. Then he examined the record of the mobile telephone tower closest to the hotel and checked what calls were made from the area of the hotel at the exact time of the recording. There was a German mobile calling Los Angeles.

Next, he checked on the telephone number in Los Angeles. Then he began to trace the movement of the German mobile phone. He pulled up the name of the owner of the German mobile from a database in Frankfurt and then he checked airline reservations for flights booked in that same name. There was one, originating in China, going to Korea, and then to Vancouver. The passenger had also booked a rental car for Vancouver.

As he kept monitoring the phone owner's movements, Dugout started the process of hacking into the video surveillance system of the Vancouver airport and the Canadian immigrations system. Then he hacked into the Hertz reservation system and then into an SUV through its GPS navigation system. He was ready to see where it would be driven.

 

28

WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 2

RAWALPINDI, PAKISTAN

“I am not your errand boy,” the General said to the gardener inside his walled yard. The villa was modern, but in a South Asian motif, like a small version of a Bengal palace, complete with turrets and cupolas. The large garden in the back, on the other hand, was pure England, a bit of Britain that a colonial master would have loved during the days of the Raj.

The gardener, who had been on his knees in the dirt, stood and dusted himself off. “No, General, you are not and I am not the gardener. I am the man who pays you in cash every month. For that tidy sum, my head office thinks they have the right occasionally to ask a question on their schedule, not yours.”

“Mohammad, we are both intelligence officers. You know as well as I do that I put myself at risk when I have to ask them a specific question at a specific time. It's too obvious,” the General protested. “If al Qaeda doesn't figure it out, my colleagues at ISI will.”

“Nonetheless, you did ask, didn't you?” the gardener queried.

“Yes, after the Americans announced their border inspection operation. Then it seemed logical to ask, ‘Are you guys trying to slip something into the home of the Far Enemy before their election? Did you get your hands on some WMD?' I told them we would not like to be surprised by something like that. No more 9/11s. The last one has cost us dearly.”

“And?” the gardener asked.

“They laughed. They wished they had capability in North America. They wished they had some WMD, even sarin, or ricin.”

“And you don't just take their word for it, do you, General?” the gardener asked.

“If they were planning to do something crazy like that in the next few days, they would all have gone to ground. Instead, they are in their villas in Quetta, in the Swat Valley,” the General reassured the Arab pretending to be his gardener.

“General, if you think the Americans went running around like rabid dogs after 9/11, what do you think they will do if one of their cities goes up in a mushroom cloud, or two, or three?” The gardener moved closer to the General. “And what will happen if they think that the bombs that went off might have come from your arsenal of nuclears? They will team up the Indians and turn your country into an incinerated wasteland.”

“We have our nuclears well hidden now, well secured,” the General insisted. “But I know what you are saying. We do not want it to happen. So I squeezed them. I told them we have to know who recently got the bomb.”

“And they told you what?” the gardener asked.

“Hezbollah. They think the Iranians gave them nuclears,” the General said, proudly, puffing out his chest. “There. That kind of information justifies your money. In fact, I think I shall be asking for more.”

“Where, when, who? Details, General, details that can be traced, acted on, corroborated,” the gardener asked.

“Well, you cannot be expecting to get that kind of information. That work you must do yourself. But now you know where to look. Now, I must get back to say the prayers with my sons. Be gone.”

 

29

THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 3

VANCOUVER INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT

SEA ISLAND, RICHMOND

BRITISH COLUMBIA, CANADA

“I reserved an SUV,” he said in English with a slight German accent.

“Yes, Mr. Baidermann, I have the reservation here,” the Hertz man replied. “We have a Yukon for you, in space 87, just through those doors. I'll just need your driver's license and credit card.”

Not even my passport, he thought. The Canadian immigration officer had also been friendly, unsuspicious. To her he was what he seemed, a German businessman arriving from Seoul on KAL, visiting for a week, staying at the Four Seasons downtown.

The Yukon SUV was very large, he thought, but he was told that it would fit in well here and it would do well in the snow. They all seemed to drive big cars here. Canada had so much gas and oil, with even more untapped in the arctic reaches. As he sat in the parking garage, he turned on the navigation system and entered his destination near Whistler. The town was apparently a ski resort that had been expanded to host an Olympics.

He would need to stop at a caf
é
for coffee to help him stay awake. It had been a tiring trip, crossing from Hong Kong into China proper at Lo Wu, walking across the covered bridge, waiting in the concrete block passport control buildings on each side, then taking the taxi to Shenzhen. The hotel he used there was best described as a businessman's lodging. It was not as clean as he would have liked. Then, that night, he had flown to Shanghai and changed planes for Seoul.

The Incheon Airport had been sparkling and the hotel there was a place where he could relax, however briefly. Then the flight to Canada, which seemed short by comparison with the long flights he had known from Europe to Asia. He knew before he told the old man about the Israelis that the news would upset him. He should have guessed that he would summon him, but he might have done that anyway. He wanted Johann's company. He didn't like being alone with just the guards, waiting, waiting for the bombs to get in place.

It would happen soon enough. There would be chaos and disorder. Then there would be a new order and new opportunities. They were ready to take advantage of those new opportunities, ready to shape the world that emerged. The traffic thinned out after he left Vancouver and headed north. It was a beautiful region, with pine trees and mountains, and deep fjords like those in Norway. Now, in early November, it was cool, brisk.

The navigation system talked him toward the ski lodge, on a side road outside of Whistler. The pine trees and firs were thicker along the road. Finally, he saw the small wooden sign that he had been told about, pointing to the dirt road.
THE WILSONS,
it read.
PRIVATE ROAD.
When the road took a sharp left, he came upon the men in the truck, blocking the path.

“He's been expecting you,” one man said, after looking at the passport. “I'll radio ahead.” The other man backed the truck up to let him pass. Three minutes farther down the bumpy road, the trees gave way to a wide green lawn, and the large ski lodge on the hill.

His passport was checked again by men outside of the lodge. They all seemed to be Canadians, or Americans. It was hard for him to tell the difference. “Just go up the stairs. He's in the Great Room at the top.”

The stairs were wide and opened into a lofted space that filled the entire second floor of the log cabin–motif building. At first, he didn't see the old man in the vastness of the room. Then, he spotted him sleeping in a large wooden chair by the fireplace. As he walked toward the fire, the old man stirred and looked up. “You are finally here.” They embraced. “It is good to have you here, good to have you here. The weapons have been mated with the tritium. After all of our work, not long now.”