Redback (37 page)

'When you and our now-departed friend took that trip to Nuevo Laredo and met with our business
consultants, you apparently also had a meal with a couple - a man and his girlfriend - from
California.'

Jesse-Jay pulled a thinking face. That trip had been six months ago, and he and Micah had met a
dozen or more contacts in Mexico over a week. 'Would that be the, ah, equipment or the game
consultants?'

'The game people,' the Colonel replied.

Nuevo Laredo? Fourth day: breakfast in the hotel with Micah; lunch in the hamburger joint with
Micah and the American computer dude, his Korean girlfriend and the towel-head; dinner at the green
cantina place with them all again, and the Mexican whores, ah - and the hippies. 'Yes, I remember
them.'

'They are the informers,' the Colonel said as his cell phone began vibrating around the table. He
clicked open the message and turned the device so that Jesse-Jay could read it. 'This is where they
informed from, just last week. They are still there, in Mexico, awaiting a CIA response. I would
like very much for you to ensure they never speak to anyone; ever again.'

'That would be my pleasure, Colonel,' Jesse-Jay grinned.

'Excuse me young man.' The request came from a blue-haired lady fronting a little clique of
similarly-coiffed elderly women wearing matching pink leisure suits. It would have been scary if
they hadn't all been smiling, And it seemed the 'young man' was a comparative reference to their own
advanced years, because they weren't talking to Jesse-Jay.

'Yes, my dear,' the Colonel said graciously. 'How may I be of assistance?'

'My girlfriends and I saw you on the TV, Wednesday night, on the talking head show on CNN.'

'And how did I look?'

'You looked fabulous,' said one of the other women.

'That would be on account of my thoroughly good looks and my inordinate charm.'

'Anyways,' the ringleader continued as the rest of them chuckled, 'we dropped by to thank you for
being vigilant on our behalf. And for bringing up the questionable tactics of our government and
military leaders in sending young Americans into foreign situations they've got no place going.'

'Why thank you. I do pride myself on asking the tough questions, ladies,' the Colonel smiled.

'We still can't believe those boys got sent to that Pacific hell-hole to save them folks that had
already been rescued, Governor. How truly embarrassing, and how sad we had to lose yet more of our
young'uns in the process.'

'Well obviously, I was shocked by that whole debacle myself,' the Colonel said. 'That's why I
could not let the issue be swept under that proverbial old floor rug.'

'I have also been charged with telling you,' the woman continued, 'that all us girls in our
retirement condo just adore you, Mr Gantry sir.'

'Well now, I thank you again, and I do humbly request, ladies, that you call me George.'

The White House, Washington DC
Sunday 8 pm

President Brock thumbed through the pages of the dossier on his lap, not paying any
particular attention to their actual content until he arrived at the stack of photographs: of a
woman; a very beautiful wo… oh, naked woman. He pretended not to react for a moment, just in
case someone had slipped them into the file to see if he was paying attention. Like that time some
joker included the picture of Marilyn Manson amongst the guest mugshots for the State Dinner for the
Nation's Governors.

'That's her Mr President.' It was Harry Corbin, Nate van Louden's Chief of Staff, speaking; and
pointing at the photos.

'And who is she again?' When four of the other six people in the Oval Office glanced his way, he
realised he'd probably tuned out for a bit too long. Well damn it, he was tired. 'I mean exactly,'
he added, hoping the request for clarification would cover the lapse.

'Ilia Dushenko is her real name, Mr President,' van Louden explained. He took the track, well
worn by everyone in the room, of explaining the situation differently the second time so Garner
Brock never knew that
they
knew he'd missed it the first time.

'My niece Hilary, who was lucky enough
not
to have been on that train, said this woman
claimed to be a Madame Ilia de Chevalier, the French Trade Minister's wife. She did this in order to
seduce my nephew Justin into, ah, into unwittingly carrying the detonator.'

Brock, looking up from the photos when van Louden hesitated, noticed the man was all choked up.
He gestured to his Chief of Staff, Rob Martin, to fetch the Defense Secretary some water.

In the meantime Harry Corbin filled in. 'When Justin's body, or what was left of it, was found, a
part of the device was still attached to his wrist. It was a bracelet, one this terrorist gave him
as a gift.'

'I'm surprised they found anything of the poor young man at all,' Arlen Conte said. 'Wasn't he at
the very centre of the blast?'

'Yes he was, Mr Vice President,' said Brenda Janeway, Executive Assistant Director of the
National Security Branch. 'But there's a curious thing about suicide bombers,' she glanced at van
Louden, 'not that I'm implying your nephew was any such thing, Nate. But, it is a peculiarity of
these kinds of incidents, that those closest to the point of detonation, for instance the person
actually carrying or wearing the bomb, often remain remarkably intact. They are dead for sure, but
not completely obliterated as you might expect.'

President Brock liked to watch Brenda Janeway as she talked the talk; and as he chanted the
abbreviation of her 10-mile long job title in his head: the EAD of the FBI's NSB; the EAD of the
FBI's…

'For example, in the attack on the US Embassy in Guyana last year,' Janeway was saying, 'the
bomber's head was found on a nearby second-storey window ledge. Sorry Nate.'

Van Louden waved it off. He'd seen worse in the last week than Brenda Janeway could ever get
descriptive about.

'But Justin wasn't wearing the bomb,' Aiden Bonney clarified. 'No, of course not,' she said. 'But
the detonator was a close-proximity device. He had to be within range - and he was directly above it
I gather - for it to even work.'

'What's the significance of these?' Brock asked, tapping the tattoos on the terrorist woman's
bare buttocks; because he could.

'This Dushenko is a Russian-Spanish militant who changes affiliations like most normal women
change shoes,' van Louden said, feeling able to talk again.

'And, unlike a terrorist constrained by a single ideology, she's more of your anarchist,
mercenary
femme fatale
.

'Over the last two decades she's been known to cast her lot in with the Basque group, ETA, the
Chechens, various factions in Germany and Greece, the NRA in Russia, and now - it seems - Atarsa
Kára. She claimed the Luxembourg train in the name of the Brigade d'Etoile d'Euro. French
Intelligence has already linked this small but lethal group to other new semi-autonomous AK units
rumoured to be operating in Greece, Algeria, Morocco, Sweden and the UK.'

'Sweden and England?' the Vice President exclaimed. 'What on earth is going on out there in the
world? Since when do these European and non-religious organisations work in cahoots with the Islamic
ones? Or is the whole world taking arms against us?'

'Atarsa Kára, from all accounts, is not your usual militant Islamic group,' Secretary
Bonney said. 'Their brand of Islam is a strange one, and they have declared themselves as holding no
association with other
Jihad
organisations. As a consequence they have in fact been denounced
as infidels by the likes of al-Qaeda.'

'Good grief, imagine what it must be like not having al-Qaeda on your side,' President Brock
said.

'Indeed,' Janeway said as everyone laughed.

'So Brenda, what's the latest on the situation in Texas?' Bonney asked.

'The tattoo?' the President repeated.

'Oh sorry sir,' van Louden said. 'Ilia Dushenko's body art is a visual representation of the code
name given by the otherwise-anonymous woman who rang the French authorities on behalf of the Brigade
d'Etoile d'Euro. Now luckily, the Frogs recognised her immediately from Justin's cell phone photos
alone; but even if they hadn't, this tattoo might have at least given away her involvement in the
plot.

'You see Dushenko, or the woman who put her hand up for the bombing, called herself Caryatid. So
the European authorities would eventually have connected the two and searched their databases for
any known female terrorist, criminal or even lap dancer, tattooed with Greek statues. And so, a
circle of identification was accidentally completed, ironically by the woman who started drawing it,
and through the instrument she chose to use.'

Brock blinked. 'I don't get it.'

'That type of Greek statue, in the tattoo, is called a caryatid, Mr President,' Martin explained.
'They're support columns, you know, like those big statues of women that hold up the veranda roof of
the Parthenon in Athens. And that's Athens Greece, sir; not Athens, Georgia or Ohio.'

'Oh,' Brock said, none the wiser. He peered closely at the tattoo and then flipped back through
the photos. 'Well, I feel I need to say this, so that there is no question hanging here in the room.
Nate, you are not ever to think that, because of your relationship to young, ah your nephew, that
you - or in fact he - is in any way to blame for this tragedy. The boy was obviously used. And just
look at her, I mean honestly, which one of us would not have been tempted by such a beauty?'

The President looked up at the EAD of the FBI's NSB. 'Sorry Brenda. That probably sounded crass.
Not my intention. And naturally the, ah, reference to being tempted, well it doesn't include you.
But, Harry did describe her as a
femme fatale
, and she'd certainly qualify, in my book, as a
Hata Mari.'

For an interminable moment, until they were rescued by a knock on the door and the entrance of
Deputy Secretary of State, Adam Lyall, there was no eye contact made in the Oval Office. Lyall
apologised for his tardiness, and the President took the opportunity to confirm with his personal
secretary that coffee was on the way.

'I'm glad you're still here, Mr Vice President,' Lyall said, taking a seat next to Arlen Conte on
one of the couches. 'My staff just re-confirmed your attendance at the SETSA meeting this
weekend.'

Obviously taken aback, Conte said, 'But Adam, they've had an assassination down there in Sydney.
I was sure the summit would be cancelled. I mean, good heavens, even their Prime Minister was
wounded.'

'Don't you worry about Bob Harvey, he's made of Teflon,' the President declared, and then
frowned. 'Or, Kevlar. And the man's got balls.'

'I'm sure, had the Prime Minister been the one killed, the Australians might have considered
cancelling SETSA,' Lyall said. 'But he wasn't, and apparently he's already trying to get out of bed.
I seriously doubt any government would cancel a summit of this magnitude, only a few days before
dignitaries start arriving. Harvey has, however, already tripled the security arrangements.'

'Besides, cancelling would be giving in to the damn terrorists,' van Louden said, getting up to
stretch his legs. 'And right now, none of us should be seen to be doing that.'

'Well, we wouldn't cancel unless, God forbid, the President himself was assassinated. Or you, Mr
Vice President,' Bonney stated. 'In fact, if we're being honest, I doubt we'd even put off a Rose
Garden photo-op for the winners of the World Series, if
our
Attorney-General was killed.'

Conte sighed, 'I guess I was just hoping I didn't have to go.'

'Someone has to, Arlen,' Brock stressed. 'We can't let our Aussie friends down, especially when
they're having a moment like this one. I'd go myself of course, but I can't because diabolical
things are happening here that need my attention.'

'You can't go anyway, Mr President,' Rob Martin said. 'Our geographic position in the world only
qualifies us for SETSA representation, not full membership.'

'Thanks to Hawaii we are entitled to be a SETSA associate,' Bonney said. 'But, as Rob said, being
an associate does not qualify us for Head of State invitation status. Custom and common sense,
however, dictates we send our next available highest ranking dignitary to make sure our interests
are visible and vocal.'

Brock frowned. 'So Arlen gets to go because he hails from Hawaii?'

'No Garner,' Conte sighed inaudibly. 'I get to go because I'm the Vice President.'

The President smiled at his own little joke.

'Can I ask you about Texas now, Brenda?' Secretary Bonney asked.

'Yes, please,' Janeway said, but looked at the President as she replied. 'As of Friday, the
separate though linked investigations into the Dallas and Fort Hood incidents have come under the
joint command of the FBI's Agent Kerry Townsend, and Homeland Security's Paul Grainger. Under the
authority of my National Security Branch, everything - and there is already a truck load of intel -
is now going through their command post at Fort Hood in Killeen.

'The moment it was suspected, and unhappily verified, that these twin attacks were the actions of
our very own home-grown, non-Islamic, corn-fed American terrorists it was like everyone involved in
the investigation got steely-eyed instead of horrified. I swear, gentlemen, Operation Nighthawk took
on a completely different tone.

'We've got every federal, state and local law enforcement agency working on the same page. Even
the CIA is sitting down with us, and not skulking around the corridors pretending they know more
than they do.

'All of us are angry as hell about this being a domestic crime and not an international plot;
which is obviously a perverse reaction. But the greatest miracle so far is that there have been no
turf disputes at all; not about jurisdiction, the chain of command, or even the quality of the
coffee.