Pinnacle Event (22 page)

 

30

FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 4

RCMP DIVISION E HEADQUARTERS

GREEN TIMBERS PARK

SURREY, BRITISH COLUMBIA

Raymond Bowman was always impatient, but especially now with the clock running down and the election only four days away. He had arrived at the meeting site early and they had put him and Mbali in a Visitors Office, offered him tea, and showed him how to work the television remote. The Deputy Commissioner would be with them shortly, they had reassured him.

“The Canadians and Americans are very close, part of the Five Eyes, so I assume they know everything you know?” Mbali asked Bowman.

“You are fixated on the fact that South Africa is not part of that club. Yes, we and the Canadians are as close as anybody is. We share a lot,” he said, “but not everything, not with anybody, not with them, or the Brits, or certainly not with the Israelis.”

“So, what have they already been told?” she asked.

“Not much, that's why we are here,” he said. “We have not told them that the guys we're looking for may have some nuclear weapons with them. And we certainly are not going to tell them that Dugout hacked their government computers and their phone company's servers. We are going to let them discover that Potgeiter's here and where he's hanging out.”

“You're confident that they'll do that, in time?”

“Yeah, they're good,” he said. “And we will lead them as to where to look if we have to.”

“Then what?”

“Then we tell them we have to act immediately. They won't be able to, so we say, no problem, we just happen to have a JSOC team en route in a bunch of Black Hawks,” he said smiling at her.

“Jay Sock?”

“Delta Force?”

“Oh, those guys. In Canada?” she asked.

“Flying in from Washington State. They're trained in dealing with nuclear weapons. No Canadians are. If we're right and there are nukes in Whistler, the Mounties will very gladly yield the job over to us. JSOC will hit the house and grab the bombs and it will all be over,
inshallah,
” he said.

“When did you become an Arab?” she asked.

“It's a long story” he replied. “For when this is over and we are drinking beers somewhere.”

Mbali checked the time and then turned on CNN to hear the press conference that Dugout had texted them about. Winston Burrell lifted his corpulent frame up to the podium in the White House press briefing room. Standing next to him was the well-coifed, stylish Secretary of Homeland Security. She was not looking pleased. Mbali turned up the volume.

“The Secretary has just briefed the President on Operation Rock Wall, a no-notice border control surge, which concluded this morning,” Burrell began.

“Concluded?” Mbali asked Bowman.

“The President had asked the Secretary earlier this year to conduct surprise exercises involving emergency management, disaster recovery, and other functions falling within the purview of her Department. We believe it is essential that all first responders and enforcement officers be able to mount major operations on a moment's notice. Rock Wall was such an exercise. No one but the Secretary knew when it was coming. It demonstrated our ability to ramp up security and inspection of cargo bound for the U.S. whenever necessary. It was a success. And now it's over,” Burrell read from a script in front of him.

“Does that mean they already found the bombs somewhere else?” Mbali asked Bowman.

“It means the heat was too much on the President,” Bowman replied. “They were hurting the economy badly with the customs inspections and the backups at the borders and ports. And the media were beginning to speculate that there was something they were looking for, something that they weren't telling the public about.”

“Dr. Burrell,
The Washington Post
quoted senior White House national security sources as saying that Rock Wall was really looking for an al Qaeda operation to poison water supplies. Is that true?” the CNN reporter blurted out before Burrell was finished.

Burrell scowled at him, but answered. “I just said it was an exercise. If you had let me finish I was going to tell you more about it, but let me just spike any rumors right here and now. We have no intelligence about any al Qaeda plot to poison the water supply or do anything else in the homeland. Isn't that right, Madam Secretary?”

“Don't think about a blue elephant,” Bowman chuckled.

The Secretary of Homeland Security looked surprised to be called on, but moved to the microphone on the podium as Burrell shifted somewhat to the side. “We have no such information, nothing to indicate that al Qaeda was planning to poison the water supply,” she said and then added, “I'd like to know how these rumors start. It does no good to have these false stories going about.” She did not look at Burrell as she said it.

“Madam Secretary, why did you choose to have this first surprise exercise so close to the election?” the ABC reporter asked her.

“At the Department of Homeland Security, we operate twenty-four seven, every day and night of the year. We have to be ready at any time,” she vamped.

“But were you aware of the damage it would do to the economy of the United States and its partners?” the NBC reporter called out.

The Secretary looked at Burrell, who took a half step away from the podium. “Any economic effect is entirely temporary and I am sure will be recouped shortly,” she replied. “The economic cost of not being ready would be higher than anything we could cause by an exercise.”

“Can you confirm that teams from the nuclear labs, NEST units, were involved in the operation?” The
Washington Post
reporter yelled out.

“While most of the exercise was carried out by my Department, led by CBP, Coast Guard, and ICE, this was a whole of government exercise, involving the National Guard in several states, the Navy, other DOD assets, and elements from other departments including Justice, Energy, Transportation, and the Intelligence Community,” she replied.

“So, just to be clear,” the
New York Times
correspondent asked. “You, Madam Secretary, by yourself, chose the timing for this exercise?”

“That's what the statement said,” the Secretary replied.

“Thank you all,” Winston Burrell added. “Thank you very much. That's all we have time for now. Thank you.” He escorted the Secretary off the platform and they moved together quickly to the door into the secure sanctuary of the West Wing, where reporters could not follow. They ignored the questions yelled at them as they left.

“Totally threw her under the bus,” Bowman observed to Mbali. “He does that.”

Mbali shook her head in confusion. “So they have given up looking just because of long lines at the borders?”

“No, they have canceled the overt part of the operation because the true story was about to leak out and they didn't want to panic everybody,” Ray explained. “Now Burrell will leak a story saying that the Secretary overreacted to intelligence about al Qaeda and the water supply, which turned out to be inaccurate upon further analysis.”

“And I thought South African bureaucracy and politics were bad,” she said.

“They were never going to find the warheads with the overt searches. No terrorist group was ever going to put its nuclear warhead in a truck or boat or plane bound for the U.S. in a way that it was going to get inspected,” Ray said aloud, looking out the window at the forest that surrounded the gleaming new headquarters of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police in British Columbia. “But now that they think we have stopped looking, they might move the bombs. I wonder how much the Mounties spent on this palace?”

“Less than a billion dollars Canadian,” Deputy Commissioner Lyle Deveaux answered as he walked through the door. “Nine hundred ninety-six million and not a penny more. That's our story and we're sticking to it. Welcome.”

Deveaux was in uniform and was followed by a small gaggle of others. He introduced another Mountie in charge of the Border Integrity Unit, a man in a different uniform from something called the Canadian Border Services Agency, and men in suits from the Canadian Security Intelligence Service and the Canadian Communications Security Establishment. They sat in a circle on the couch and stuffed chairs while tea was served on RCMP china.

“I got a call from Privy Council in Ottawa, very high up, this morning, asking me to convene this group and meet with you, to give you all the help you need. Frankly, Mr. Bowman, that's all I know, other than you work somehow for the White House and you, miss, run a security service for the South African President. Can you tell us more, so we can try to help you?”

“We need to find this man,” Ray Bowman began by passing around a set of pictures. “His true name is Johann Potgeiter, he was South African and is now an Austrian citizen. We believe he came here recently, to the Vancouver area, possibly from China, or elsewhere in Asia, probably under a different name. He is likely meeting with several people here who could be involved in smuggling nuclear material into the United States, or elsewhere.”

Bowman was sure that the Canadians would find Potgeiter quickly, but if they did not, he would reveal more to them. For now, he did not want them to know the United States had hacked into Canadian networks. Their cooperation would slow or dry up if they knew that. There was a brief silence while the men examined the photos. “If that's all you wanted, you should have said that, instead of tying up the border in knots for a week,” the man from Canadian Border Service said.

“Eric, let's be civil now,” Commissioner Deveaux scolded.

“No, he's right,” Ray admitted. “I had nothing to do with the border screwup, but I am sorry it happened.”

“If you will excuse me for a few moments, I will see if this man entered through a legal point of entry,” the Border Service man said. “May I borrow this picture?” The Communications Security Establishment civilian left with him.

“Well, while they are doing that, why don't we show you around the new palace,” Deveaux offered. “Eric will meet up with us in the Command Ops Room.”

After a brief walk around what a billion Canadian dollars can buy in the way of a police station, they entered on to the Command Balcony of the Operations Room, which stretched below them the length of a hockey rink. Maps and live images appeared on giant screens on the far wall of the Center and officers and civilians sat in banks at consoles below.

“He's been here for less than twenty-four hours,” the Border Services commander announced as he rejoined the group. “Landed in Vancouver on a legitimate German passport from Seoul on a KAL flight. Here, we can call up the video,” he said picking up a control.

“That was fast,” Mbali whispered to Bowman.

The windows into the Operation Center suddenly turned a milky white, an opaque barrier created electronically. The largest screen on the Command Balcony came on and showed a video clip of Johann Potgeiter responding to questions from the CBSA officer in a booth at the airport.

“Wolfe Baidermann, is the name on the passport,” the Border Services commander explained.

The video then switched to a scene of Herr Baidermann walking down a narrow corridor toward the exit from the Customs and Immigration Control zone. The video then froze the frame and a number popped up: 49 171 891 3636.

“That turns out to be a German mobile number, registered in Munich to a Wolfe Baidermann,” the Communications Security Establishment man explained. “We pick up active mobiles on people when they enter the country.”

“How hard would it be to track where that mobile is now,” Mbali asked.

“We could do that for you,” Ray answered, thinking of calling Dugout.

“No need,” the Communications Security man replied. “Already done. Exigent circumstances. Warrant to follow. He's in Whistler, the ski area, looks like he's in one of the big private lodges just outside of town.”

“Do you have a SWAT unit available quickly?” Ray asked the Commissioner. “If not, I can get one here fast.”

“SWAT is a very un-Canadian sounding name,” Deveaux replied. “I have an Emergency Response Team, but its French language designation is more informative. We call it the
Groupe Tactique d'Intervention.
” He pulled up an image on the screen. It showed ninjas in black body armor with automatic weapons, the title RCMP ERT, and the slogan, “You don't need a red uniform, cool hat, and horse to kick ass.”

“Do they have training in handling nuclear materials?” Ray said.

“Limited, but, yes, they do. We will need a warrant for this, however,” the Commissioner explained. “So, if you two could prepare a statement in writing, we will find a judge.”

“You could have just asked us to find this guy in the first place,” the Border Service officer said.

“Eric,” Deveaux snapped.

“Would have saved a lot of time and money. We don't all wear red suits and ride horses, you know.”

“I am sorry,” Ray Bowman nodded. “I am sure you can handle it all very well by yourselves, but I do need to be in on the interrogations.”

“I am sure we can work something out. But you are right that we are quite capable ourselves. In fact, I think we will get the helicopter assault unit on this one, too,” Deveaux offered. “May give us some greater element of surprise. Besides, we need to justify ERTs having the helos in the first place”

 

31

SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 5

GILLIOT JUNCTION

NORTH OF TEL AVIV, ISRAEL

It was supposed to be his day off, but he never had one.

He did, however, insist on going in late on Saturday, first having a late breakfast with his wife at the country club across from the office. It was a little tradition, just the two of them, a time to discuss things without the children, or now the grandchildren, around. Sometimes they just sat quietly, smiling at each other, eating, sipping the cheap Champagne, glad that they had made it this far.