Acts of war

"Help... me."

The copilot raised his weapon. He looked to the left and to the right. The pilot walked in front of him, his weapon pointed up.

The pilot turned. "Cover me," he said as they neared the car.

The copilot stopped, tucked the stock of his weapon against his shoulder, and aimed the gun at the driver. The pilot continued to walk ahead, slowing as he neared the vehicle. He peered into the back and then walked sideways, moving around the car and bending to make sure no one was hiding beneath it. He checked the blown tires and then returned to the driver's side.

The bearded man looked up at him.

"Who are you?" the pilot asked.

The man tried to speak. His voice was a whisper.

The pilot leaned closer. "Say it again."

The driver swallowed. He raised his bloody hand. And then with one swift and fluid motion he reached behind the pilot's neck and pulled his forehead hard into the top edge of the open window.

The pilot was blocking the copilot's fire. As he shifted to shoot, a man rose from the sand behind him. He had been lying beneath it, his gun at his side; the Turk never saw the burst of gunfire that ended his life. As soon as he went down, Walid released the pilot. The Turk staggered back and fell. Sand was still falling from Mahmoud's shirt and trousers as he shot the pilot.

Ibrahim rose from the sand on the other side of the car. He had been waiting there in case the helicopter had landed on that side. The other Syrians climbed from the trunks of the three cars.

Walid opened the door and got out. He untied the leather thong around his upper arm and removed the packet of goat's blood that was under his sleeve. He threw it into the car, then retrieved the pistol that had been under his right thigh. He tucked it into his belt.

Walid jogged toward the helicopter. "We lost no one," he shouted proudly. "The extra men we brought---not needed. You planned well, Mahmoud."

"Al-fi shukr," Mahmoud replied as he vigorously brushed sand from his hair. "Thank you very much."

Ibrahim ran after Walid. Except for the former Syrian Air Force pilot, Ibrahim was the only one with any knowledge of helicopters.

"I feared---" said Ibrahim, angrily spitting sand. "I feared the rotors might uncover us."

"Then I would have shot the Turks," Walid said as he opened the pilot's-side door. Before he got in, he put his hand over the switch to turn off the radio.

Ibrahim went around to the copilot's door. As the other men came running over, he prepared to close down the helicopter's tracking beacon. When Walid nodded, he and Ibrahim shut the switches simultaneously. At Mardin, the Turks would assume the helicopter had suddenly lost power and gone down. Rescue efforts would be centered on the flight path.

"The Turks are not what bothers me," Ibrahim said. "We planned every detail of this operation. I repaired helicopters and you flew them. Yet neither one of us anticipated that."

"There is always the unexpected," Walid pointed out as he climbed into the cockpit.

"That's true," Ibrahim said. "But this was our area of expertise."

"Which is why we overlooked it," Walid snapped. "This was a warning. We are told, 'Nor do We punish a nation until We have sent forth an apostle to forewarn them.' We have been forewarned."

Ibrahim reflected on Walid's words as the other men ran over. Three of them embraced the others and wished them well. Then they returned to the cars to drive them back to Syria. With a helicopter gunship at their back, the Syrian, guards would let them through without any questions. Nor would they help investigators from Damascus or Ankara, for fear of reprisals.

"Now we don't look back," Walid said to the three men in the helicopter. "We look ahead. Backup aircraft will be here in less than ten minutes." Walid glanced over his shoulder. "Are you ready?"

Mahmoud had waited for the other man, Hasan, their radio operator, to get in. Extra containers of fuel were loaded from the car, along with a backpack, which was handled gingerly. It was studded from the inside out with nails. When Ibrahim had settled into his seat with the backpack nestled between his feet, Mahmoud climbed ,aboard.

"We're ready," Mahmoud said, shutting the door.

Without a word Walid checked his instruments and throttled up, and the helicopter was airborne.

Ibrahim watched the desert sink away. The road became lace, patches of asphalt covered with patterns of sand, and the carnage below became even more impersonal. He turned his face to the sun. It burned through the windshield, dwarfing the efforts of the air-conditioner to keep them cool.

As we will burn through the Turks for attempting to keep our own fires from burning, Ibrahim thought.

Walid was right. They'd made a miscalculation; just one. And they'd still managed to achieve their goal. Now they must look ahead to the next, much bigger target. To an adventure that would be celebrated throughout the Kurdish world. To an act which would force the world to pay long-overdue attention to their plight.

To the beginning of the end of the world order as it stood.

SEVEN

Monday, 7:56 a.m., Washington, D. C.

"I'm unhappy about it too, Matt," Paul Hood said as he finished his first Op-Center cup of coffee. "Stephen Viens has been a good friend of ours and I'd like to help him."

"Then let's," Stoll said. He sat on the couch to the left of the door, nervously moving his knee up and down. "Cripes, we're secret agents. Let's abduct the guy and give him a new identity."

Hood frowned. "I'm open to serious suggestions."

Stoll continued to look at Hood instead of at Political and Economics Officer Martha Mackall. She sat to his left on the couch. Her arms were crossed and she wore an unsympathetic expression.

"Awright, I don't know what we can do," Stoll admitted. "But the bloodhounds on the Hill won't get to work for another ninety minutes or so. We can do something by then. Maybe we can put together a list of the missions Stephen's assisted us on. Or we can bring in people whose lives he's saved. Jesus, that's got to count for something."

"Not unless those lives add up to a hell of a lot of votes," Hood said.

Martha crossed her long legs. "Matt, I appreciate your loyalty. But forward funding is a super-hot topic these days. Stephen Viens got caught taking money from one project and putting it into another."

"Because he knew that project was needed for national security," Stoll said. "It's not like the guy got rich off what he was doing."

"Irrelevant," said Martha. "He broke the rules."

"They were stupid rules."

"Also irrelevant," she said. "Frankly, the best we can hope for is that no one on the committee decides to investigate Op-Center because we've had improper access to NRO assets."

"Preferred access," Hood corrected her.

"Right," said Martha. "Let's see if Larry Rachlin calls it that when his CIA guys testify that we got ten times as much satellite time as they did. And what do you think'll happen if the Congressional Intelligence Oversight Committee decides to go through our finances? We didn't always rebate the NRO for that time because it wasn't in our budget."

"We've logged all of that debt and put it into next year's budget," Hood said.

"Congress'll still say we're living beyond our means," Martha told him. "They'll come looking to see how and why."

"There!" Stoll said, clapping his hands together. "That threat is all the more reason to line up behind Stephen from the get-go. One bureau is a target. Two is a unified front. It's power. If we go to bat for the NRO, Congress may think again about taking us on. Especially if there's the hint of a threat that national security is going to suffer."

Martha looked at Hood. "Frankly, Paul, some of those representatives would love to roll up their sleeves and overhaul all of national security. You know what I've been hearing from my friends in Congress ever since Mike Rodgers saved Japan from that North Korean nuke? Some have been saying, 'Why should we pay to protect Japan from terrorism?' The rest've been saying, 'Nice job, but how come you didn't know about the plot before it got so far?' Same with the tunnel bombing in New York. We found the perpetrator, but what the bottom-liners on the Hill wanted to know is why didn't our intelligence resources know it was going to happen and stop it. No, Matt. We're too close to sinking ourselves to start rocking the boat."

"I'm not asking you to rock anything," Stoll said. "Just throw the guy a life preserver."

"We may need it ourselves," Martha replied.

Stoll raised his hands as if he were going to protest, then let them drop. "So is this the best we can do for a good and loyal friend? Leave him twisting in the .wind? Hell, Paul, is that what would happen to me or Martha or any from Op-Center who got into trouble?"

"You should know me better than that," Hood said.

"Anyway, that's different," Martha said.

"Why?" Stoll asked. "Because we get a paycheck from this place instead of from another place?"

"No," Martha replied coolly. "Because the people running Op-Center would have to approve whatever you did that got you in trouble. If we okayed it and it was wrong, then we'd take the heat with you. We'd deserve to."

Stoll looked from Martha back to Hood. "Excuse me, Paul, but Martha's here because Lowell's out of town. You wanted a legal opinion and she's given you one. Now I'm asking for a moral judgment."

"Are you saying that obeying the law is immoral?" Martha demanded, her large brown eyes flashing.

"Not at all," Stoll said. "I pick my words pretty carefully. What I said was that you gave a legal opinion."

"My moral opinion would be the same," Martha huffed. "That man did wrong. We didn't. If we go to the mat for him, some headline-grabber's going to take a magnifying glass to our operation next. Why should we risk that?"

Stoll said, "Because it's the right thing to do. I thought we're all supposed to be brothers and sisters here in the intelligence community. And I don't really think it will raise any red flags if Paul or especially you, as a black woman---"

"African-American," she said firmly.

"---were to go to the Congressional investigators and tell them that Viens's good deeds outweigh the bad call he made with the forward funding. Christ, it's not like he pocketed any of the money himself. It all went into the NRO coffers."

"Unfortunately for him," said Martha, "the national debt rose a little because of what he did. And the taxpayer got hit for the interest. I figure Jane Citizen is in the hole for about eighty million dollars because of his creative bookkeeping."

"He used the money to do his job better," Stoll said through his teeth. "He served Jane Citizen."

Hood looked at the empty mug as he gently tapped its side. His wife only allowed matched coffee cups in the house. This mug was his, an old L.A. Rams mug given to him by quarterback Roman Gabriel during an Old-Timers Day tribute at Los Angeles City Hall.

Op-Center was his too. His to look after and protect. His to make work. Stephen Viens had helped make that happen. He'd helped Op-Center save lives and protect nations. Now Viens needed help.

The question was, did Hood have the right to risk the futures of people who reported directly to him, people who might be hurt by backlash and cutbacks, to help someone who didn't?

As though reading his boss's mind, Stoll said mournfully, "I guess Op-Center policy is to look out for people who have to give us their loyalty instead of one who gave it freely."

Hood said, "This issue isn't as absolute as either of you make it, and you both know it."

Martha wiggled her foot. That was an indication that she was pissed off but wasn't going to get into a spitting contest. Martha got pissed off a lot at Hood and others in government who did anything that might jeopardize her own career. Still, ambition didn't necessarily make her wrong.

"Who's our best friend on the committee investigating this?" Hood asked Martha.

"That depends," she said, still irritated. "Do you consider Senator Fox our friend?"

Senator Barbara Fox had led the charge to gut the budget for Op-Center. She'd done an about-face when Hood, on business in Germany, had found the man who had murdered the senator's daughter decades before.

"For the moment Senator Fox is our friend," Hood said. "But like Matt said, one is a target while two is power. If we have to go in there swinging, who else've we got?"

"No one," Martha said. "Five of the other eight committee members are up for re-election, and Chairman Landwehr is on a crusade. They'll do whatever it takes to look good. Meaning protect the taxpayer by punishing the squanderer. The two senators who aren't up for re-election are Boyd and Griffith. And they're tight with Larry Rachlin."

Hood frowned. CIA Director Rachlin was not a friend of Op-Center. He perceived the crisis management group as having stolen a great deal of his overseas thunder---and with only seventy-eight full-time employees. Barbara Fox was the only one they could even hope to count on. And there was no telling which way she'd go if the other members of the SIC and the press leaned on her. It might toughen her or cause her to back-paddle.

"You've both made strong cases," Hood said, "but there's one thing we can't ignore. We're in this whether we want to be or not. It makes sense to me that we take the offensive."

Matt brightened. Martha shook her foot and drummed her fingers on the armrest.

"Martha, how well do you know Senator Landwehr?"

"Not very. We've bumped into one another at a couple of dinners, a few parties. He's quiet, conservative, like it says in the papers. Why?"

"If there are any subpoenas," Hood said, "they'll probably go to me, to Mike Rodgers, and to Matt. But if you get in there first, we can spin this our way."

"Me?" she said. "As in 'They won't dare to attack a black woman?' "

"No," Hood replied. "You're the only one of us who was in the loop but didn't deal directly with the NRO. You don't have friends there. That makes you qualified in the eyes of the committee. Equally as important, it makes you the least-biased high-ranking official in the eyes of the public."

Martha's foot stopped wiggling and her fingers stopped tapping. Hood knew she was interested. She was a woman in her late forties who didn't want to stay at Op-Center forever. Voluntary, impassioned testimony would give her valuable national exposure. That would be her motivation for taking the stand. Hood's was that while their cause was just, Congressional hearings were also high drama. If the exits, entrances, and players were carefully selected and stage-managed, defeat could be made into triumph.

"What would I be saying up there?" Martha asked.

"The truth," Hood said, "which is what makes this very sweet. You would tell the committee that yes, we've occasionally and for very short periods monopolized the NRO for national security. You'd tell them that Stephen Viens is a hero who helped us protect human rights and lives. Senator Landwehr won't be able to attack us for telling the truth. If we get him and Senator Fox behind us, and portray Viens as a patriot, that robs the committee of some of its power to grandstand. Then it'll just be a matter of the NRO giving the money back, which is pretty boring stuff. Not even CNN will give it much coverage."

Martha sat still for a moment, then said, "I'll think about it."

Hood wanted to say, "You'll do it." But Martha was a thorny woman who also had to be handled with care. He said, "Can you let me know by this afternoon?"

She nodded, then left.

Stoll regarded Hood. "Thanks, Chief. I really mean that."

Hood drained the last cold drop from his mug. "Your friend screwed up over there, Matt. But if you can't go to bat for a good man who's been a loyal ally, then what the hell good are you?"

Stoll made a zero with his thumb and index finger, thanked Hood again, then left.

Alone again, Hood pressed his palms into his eyes. He had been a big-city mayor and a banker. When his father was his age, forty-three, he was a CPA struggling to keep his own small accounting firm afloat. How did Frank Hood's son come to this place in life where careers could live or die, where people could live or die, based on decisions he made here?

He knew the answer, of course. He loved government and he believed in the system. And he did it because he believed that he could make these decisions compassionately and intelligently.

But Lord, he thought, it's difficult.

With that, the self-pity ended. Rising with his mug, Hood left the office to start on his next cup of coffee.

EIGHT

Monday, 3:53 p.m., Sanliurfa, Turkey