The Persona Protocol - By Andy McDermott Page 0,50
had just entered the control room.
Bianca didn’t recognise him. ‘Who’s that?’ she quietly asked Tony as the tall, thin man in an expensive suit shook hands with Morgan.
‘Alan Sternberg,’ he replied. Her blank look prompted him to elaborate. ‘The National Security Adviser.’
‘I thought that was Harper?’
‘He’s the Director of National Intelligence.’
‘Ah, I see.’ A beat. ‘No, I don’t. What’s the difference?’
‘Political, mostly. The DNI has to be approved by Congress, so there’s always a lot of horse trading to get someone both sides agree on. The National Security Adviser doesn’t need approval, though. The President can appoint anyone he wants. And Sternberg just so happens to be the President’s old friend – and campaign manager.’
‘So who’s the top dog?’
‘In theory, Harper, as he’s got congressional authority. In practice . . . well, being the President’s golf buddy gives you a lot of sway.’
Another tall man entered the Bullpen. This one Bianca recognised: Harper. He seemed discomfited to find Sternberg already there, but quickly covered it and marched over to join him and Morgan. ‘Do they have different agendas, then?’ she asked.
Tony chuckled. ‘Oh yeah. Harper came from the Department of Defense, which controls the NSA, NRO, DIA and half a dozen other three-letter intelligence acronyms. But Sternberg is ex-CIA – and the CIA isn’t controlled by the Pentagon. It’s probably fair to say they hate each other almost as much as al-Qaeda.’
‘The CIA and the Pentagon, or Sternberg and Harper?’
‘Yes to both.’ A wry smile. ‘The Pentagon would love to take full control of the CIA – and the other independent agencies like STS, for that matter. It’s not likely to happen, though. Certainly not while Sternberg has the President’s ear.’
Harper and Sternberg concluded their chilly greetings, then had a brief exchange with Morgan before the black man turned to address his audience. ‘All right, everyone.’ The murmur of conversation ended. ‘As most of you know, we discovered on the mission in Pakistan that Malik Syed had been in direct contact with one of Muqaddim al-Rais’s lieutenants. At that meeting, Syed heard that al-Rais was planning something big. He didn’t know what – he wasn’t told anything more than a code name. But after using PERSONA to obtain information from Syed, we discovered that code name: Operation Lamplighter.’
Bianca had been groggy from her early wake-up call, but the name of Muqaddim al-Rais caught her full attention. She didn’t need to be a spy to know the name of the world’s most wanted terrorist. Any residual sleepiness was now gone. She listened intently as Morgan continued.
‘We passed that code name to other agencies in the USIC to see if anything came up. Last night, something did. NSA got an ECHELON hit on Operation Lamplighter from this man.’ He indicated a grainy photo, blown up to fill a block of the screens behind him. ‘His name is Ruslan Pavel Zykov. He’s a Russian arms dealer.’
Bianca stared at the image. It had been taken using a telephoto lens, looking down from on high at the subject as he climbed into the back of an SUV. The group of beefy men shielding him suggested that he preferred to be in public view as little as possible. He appeared to be in his forties, with bristling black hair and a broad, pugnacious face, a chunky gold necklace around his neck.
‘The code name came up in a phone conversation between Zykov and a man called Hadrami, whom we strongly believe has a direct connection to al-Rais,’ said Tony, moving to stand beside Morgan. ‘The full transcript is in your file packets, but to summarise: Zykov is acting as a middleman between Hadrami’s client – presumably al-Rais – and an unknown party, who has possession of something vital to Operation Lamplighter. Whatever it is, a price has been agreed to buy it. Seven million US dollars.’
That produced a stir around the room. ‘So it’s more than a crate of RPGs, then,’ said Holly Jo.
‘It looks that way,’ Morgan replied. ‘For that kind of money, we’re talking high-end anti-aircraft systems, NBC materials, armoured vehicles or gunships – the works.’
‘NBC?’ Bianca whispered to Levon, whose workstation she was standing beside.
‘Whatever it is,’ Morgan went on, ‘if al-Rais wants it, it’s not to make the world a better place. Now, other agencies will be working on this from their own angles, but since it was STS that learned about Lamplighter