Close Quarters

CHAPTER SEVEN

Stony Man Farm, Virginia

Harold Brognola and Barbara Price sat in the Operations Center of the Annex.

They’d been reviewing the intelligence provided by Stony Man repeatedly for the past twelve hours without a break. Word had just come in from Lyons that Able Team had left and would reach Iraq within the next sixteen hours. There hadn’t been any word from Phoenix Force but Kurtzman had been working with Russell without ceasing, and he’d promised to have something very soon.

“It feels like we’re being played, Hal,” Price finally said. “Almost as if someone knows our every move.”

“I’ll admit that this has me stumped, as well,” Brognola replied. “I’m also very troubled by what Phoenix Force found in South America. That’s the second piece of high-tech equipment being used by the IRGC we’ve stumbled on in the past twenty-four hours.”

“Don’t you get the feeling that perhaps we’ve been duped, that the IRGC knew how we would respond?”

Brognola scratched at the two-day growth on his chin. “I don’t know that I buy they knew exactly what we’d do in a situation like this, although I’ll agree they seem to have predicted our response pretty well thus far. No, there’s something more sinister at the heart of this thing. I just can’t put my finger on it.”

Price managed a smile. “Don’t beat yourself up, Hal. We’re all tired. We’ve been working around the clock. How about some coffee?”

“No way,” Brognola said, raising a hand. “I don’t think I can take another cup of that battery acid that Bear slurps all day.”

“And here I thought you enjoyed my coffee,” said Kurtzman, wheeling into the room. He headed directly to the central access terminal recessed in the table. An LCD monitor rose with the push of a button from out of the tabletop and exposed a keyboard beneath it.

“I completed my analysis of the device that Phoenix found,” Kurtzman said as he pecked furiously at the keys. A moment later the massive HD screen at the end of the conference room flickered to life and a picture of the device appeared. “This is the closest approximation Akira could come up with based on my secondhand descriptions and the digital photos of what was left that he sent to us.”

Akira Tokaido was a member of the Stony Man cyberteam led by Kurtzman. His exploits in the world of software engineering and programming were legendary. He specialized in programs designed to run on sensitive electronic devices, programs that handled everything from flashing EPROM to enabling secure and encrypted traffic on communications equipment. In recent years, he’d become significantly advanced with data-based graphics and 3D rendering engines. It was one of his programs that had obviously reconstructed the device displayed in front of them now.

“Looks like a coffee urn,” Brognola remarked.

“That’s exactly what our boys thought until they took a closer look,” Kurtzman said. “In fact, though, this thing is a highly advanced homing beacon. Certainly nothing you’d find as standard equipment in Tehran, even among their intelligence people. No…this thing is very high-tech.”

“Source of origin?” Price asked.

“We ran it through every recognition program we could think of, but no hits. I walked Brad Russell through disassembling the thing one piece at a time over our high-res video feed. Most of the guts were still intact—it had obviously been built to withstand heat.”

“Sounds like maybe whoever planted it didn’t know that,” Brognola said.

Kurtzman nodded. “Exactly. Otherwise they wouldn’t

have left it to be found.”

“Unless they wanted us to find it,” Price said.

“You’re sounding a little paranoid, Barb, if you’ll forgive me saying so.”

“Um, Bear…probably should leave that where it’s at right now,” Brognola said helpfully.

Kurtzman looked at Price, who didn’t meet his glance, shrugged it off and continued. “So since none of the internal parts had identifying marks, I finally decided to take my best guess. There’s little doubt this thing came out of China.”

“What makes you think so?” Price asked.

“We had Russell overnight a package with two of the chip boards inside,” Kurtzman said. “Based on a materials analysis, quantitative architecture of the electronics and a few other telltale signs, we have a strong enough amount of evidence to draw a conclusion it originated in China—at least the parts we examined.”

“That’s interesting,” Brognola said. “After careful analysis in Florida, Gadgets swore up and down that the watch found on Harland’s person was indisputably made in Switzerland.”

“So the IRGC is obtaining high-tech equipment from all over Europe and Asia?” Kurtzman said.

“It would appear that way,” Price replied. “And I think I just may have a theory as to what’s going on.”

“I’d be happy to entertain any notions at this point, Barb,” Brognola said. “Go on.”

“What’s the most important resource for any terrorist organization?”

Kurtzman clapped his hands together. “Even I know that. Money!”

Price smiled. “Exactly. Without ready cash, terrorists have a very difficult time getting cooperation. They need it for weapons, equipment, clothing and training. They can’t use credit cards, obviously, so they need currency and they need large quantities.”

“Okay,” Brognola interjected. “I still don’t see what you’re getting at.”

“Well, we’re pretty certain they don’t know much about the equipment they’re using,” Price said. “That kind of unfamiliarity makes me think their decisions to use it were improvised.”

“So…you don’t think they intended to use it but in a pinch they would?”

“Right.” Price snapped her fingers. “Just like that, they have this equipment but they use it in unnatural ways. My guess is that they’re actually stockpiling high-tech equipment to sell on the black market.”

“Terrorists smuggling high-tech equipment into foreign countries for cash,” Kurtzman said. “I can see that.”

“Me, too,” Brognola said. “Very lucrative and carries a low risk, since it’s obviously been rendered untraceable except by the most advanced methods of analysis.”

“It also provides them with a source of local cash wherever they are,” Price added. “Consider this for a moment. The IRGC sends a group of their elite members into the heart of an impoverished nation. They need cash to train a terrorist group, whether it’s Hezbollah or not, and that means they need money. Money for weapons or smuggling operations or whatever.

“Now suppose that things start to heat up, so they need to put the focus on something else to prevent their smuggling operations from being exposed. So they nab a group of American Peace Corps volunteers, rig up some cockamamie story that they pass along through U.S. political channels and then disappear into thin air while we scramble around the world chasing phantoms.”

“Okay, but what about Farzad Hemmati and his story?” Brognola asked.

“I think Hemmati’s legit,” Price said. “But I also happen to think that he’s as intent on keeping the eyes off their smuggling operations as the IRGC contingent in South America.”

“So if these two things are still related and this is all about high-tech smuggling,” Kurtzman said, “how do you expect to stop them?”

“I’m glad you asked, my friend,” Price said. “In a country like Paraguay, there aren’t many who could afford this type of equipment. You need to go right to the source of the cash, and that source can usually be found with conglomerate corporations that are in the high-tech business. Most of those are technical futures traders and finance corporations willing to bankroll such goods and not ask too many questions.”

“It’s a heck of a good place to start,” Brognola agreed. “Nice thinking, Barb!”

“I can start digging into those right away,” Kurtzman said.

“I’ll work with you to get a profile,” Price said. “Even among the majority of the lot, I think we’ll only find a likely few.”

“What about the volunteers, though?” Brognola said. “If there’s any chance they’re still alive, the President is going to ask us to do everything we can to save them.”

“I couldn’t agree more. And I fully intend to make sure that we do everything to meet those ends,” Price said. “Although we have nowhere for Phoenix Force to start looking, so this is the next best thing. I’m hoping maybe we can get Encizo to work the angles posing as an inside trader, perhaps even a local confidence guy.”