Power Grab

“Good catch,” Brognola said. “This was no ordinary terrorist bombing,” he explained. “Aaron?”

Kurtzman nodded and addressed the assembled operatives. “From the point of view of a terrorist,” he said, “the hardest part about perpetrating a successful bombing is not finding the materials to make a device. It is not even planting the device, in most cases. It is detonating the device at a time when the explosion will do more than just property damage. In other words, the hard part is figuring out how to kill the most people.”

“Timers,” Tokaido chimed in as if on cue, “are imprecise. If the bombers are going to be long gone before the bomb explodes, they can’t control the conditions at detonation. In Iraq especially, our military have become adept at dealing with one of the ways terrorists circumvent this problem, by using wireless phones to detonate roadside bombs when their spotters see victims in range. Signals of that type can be jammed, and specific locations can be hardened permanently against such technology.”

Schwarz nodded knowingly. Price knew that he had been on hand assisting Kurtzman and his team for the past few days, in anticipation of the problem they were now forced to confront directly.

“But what if,” Kurtzman said, picking up the narrative again, “terrorists developed a ‘smart’ bomb, a bomb that can ‘learn’ over time by sampling its environment and determining the optimum conditions for detonation?”

“You’d have the ultimate terrorist weapon,” Schwarz interjected. “A bomb that you can set, leave behind and trust to figure out for itself how to murder the most people.”

“Exactly,” Brognola said. “And that is just what we’re dealing with.”

It was Price’s turn to address the operatives. She keyed in several more images that were timed to display as she spoke. “Our intelligence and surveillance networks have known for some time that Iran was sponsoring, with just enough plausible deniability to stop world governments from intervening, the production of terrorist bombs and other weapons for use in hot spots like Iraq and Afghanistan. It seems, however, that they’re not satisfied with making things worse. A team of Iranian scientists, whose location we have not yet been able to determine, has developed and has been producing, for six months now, these smart terror bombs.”

“The bombs are shielded against explosives’ detection methods using specially sealed canisters prepared and then cleansed prior to deployment,” Tokaido said at Price’s nod. Pictures of a briefcase-size weapon containing three inset spheres appeared on the plasma screens. “Central Intelligence Agency operatives have recovered at least two of these devices from potential terror sites abroad, and it was thanks to the CIA that we received the initial hard data that confirmed what our data network sweeps have been turning up as chatter for several months now.”

“Each bomb,” Kurtzman said, “has electromagnetic, heat, motion and sound detectors, among other sensors, all of it connected to a powerful microcomputer that is devoted solely to figuring out when the most victims will be within range of its payload.”

“It’s that payload, Calvin,” Brognola said, “that is the reason for the hazmat response.”

James nodded grimly.

“The bombs,” Tokaido said, pointing at schematics that appeared on the screens as Price called them up, “contain three sealed bouncing betty spheres. They’re extremely innovative. The plastic explosives are shaped breakaway charges that produce deadly shrapnel, and they’re interlaced with a low-level nerve gas, a chemical-warfare agent that ensures the blast radius has an effective kill zone of close to a hundred percent.”

“Bloody hell,” McCarter said softly.

“And then some,” Brognola acknowledged. “The blast radius, fortunately, is only about a hundred yards, but it was enough to demolish a good portion of the shopping mall you see here.” The image on the secondary screens returned to the video footage of the upstate mall.

“How many dead in that attack?” Blancanales asked.

“Fortunately, only the terrorists,” Brognola said. “There were some wounded among the responding police, but no fatalities. Our assets locally have interviewed law enforcement and the one witness we have, a security guard who seems to be the luckiest bastard in a polyester uniform for miles. In his debriefing, he said that two men who had apparently broken in after hours attacked him and tried to stab him to death. Apparently he used a knife of his own to cut his way out of the situation and flee.”

“Three cheers for American ingenuity,” McCarter said.

Brognola ignored that. “Something about the attack made our security guard think terrorists instead of burglars, probably because New Yorkers in general are understandably nervous about that kind of thing. He called the cops, the cops sent in SWAT and a gun battle ensued. It was anything but one-sided.”

“How so, Hal?” Blancanales asked.

“The terrorists were fielding fully automatic weapons,” Brognola said. “The locals say the last of them was trying to surrender when the bomb exploded. The three shooters were the only ones within the blast zone, thankfully, and the locals were smart enough to pull out before they got too much exposure to the toxin. Apparently somebody on hand was worried about conventional chemical weapons or perhaps even a dirty nuke of some kind. Whatever their fears, they got out of the way, and that’s what saved them.”

“If we’re going up against these bombs,” James said, “are we looking at dealing with chemical warfare?”

“The toxin used has a very short chemical half-life, to misuse the terminology,” Schwarz explained. “Clear the blast zone and wait ten minutes, and there’s no danger. That’s the only thing working in our favor here.”

“What does a new superbomb created in Iran have to do with a Turkmen terror network?” Carl Lyons interjected. “Please tell me the answer isn’t what I think it is.”

“Sorry.” Brognola shook his head. “It is. The bomb used in the attack was, according to our analysis after the fact, the very same bomb the Iranians have developed. Once intelligence services identified the three dead terrorists, the Man gave us the go-ahead to move on this.”

“So we’re hitting Iran?” McCarter asked.

“Unfortunately,” Brognola sighed, “nothing is ever that simple.” He waited while Price cued up several more images: pictures of men dressed in formal suits, as well as one man in paramilitary garb.

“This,” Brognola said of the latter, “is Nikolo Ovan. He’s essentially a warlord. His ultranationalist party has swept to power in the last year and seized control of Turkmenistan, militarizing it and terrorizing the Turkmen people. Ovan fancies himself the next Stalin or something. He’s motivated, intelligent, and very, very brutal. His leadership of Turkmenistan threatens the stability of the entire region.”

“Recent discoveries of new, more extensive deposits of natural gas,” Price said, causing a map of Turkmenistan and its neighbors to display on the screens, “have made Turkmenistan more economically powerful than it has ever been. Our intelligence sources tell us Ovan is negotiating with his neighbors, particularly Iran, to build a pipeline to them and trade in sales of the gas.”

“I take it he doesn’t want Euros,” Hawkins said.

“No,” Brognola said. “Ovan wants weapons, specifically weapons of mass destruction. He’s been able to purchase enough of them to get them into the hands of the terrorist network he’s building. Bad as that is, it could become much, much worse. The CIA tells us that Ovan wants to negotiate a steady supply of these bombs. That, coupled with the buying power a pipeline deal would give him, would make Ovan a real player on the world stage. We can’t allow that.”

“Ovan hates the West,” Price said. “He’s a socialist who sees everything about the Western, capitalist world as evil incarnate. His state-controlled television station broadcasts a steady stream of invective and propaganda against the Western world in general and the United States specifically. We know he’s been in talks with several dictators of minor countries to see whom he can bring aboard his terror network, too.”

“Make no mistake,” Brognola said, “Ovan is in this for the long term. He’s not just some kill-crazy tin-pot dictator, the type that rises and falls over the course of a summer. He has real plans for something like long-term domination of his region and ultimately the world through terror and violence. If he’s allowed to implement them, he’ll be that much more difficult to stop.”

“So we’re hitting Ovan?” Lyons asked impatiently.

“Again, it’s not that simple.” Brognola shook his head. “The two men you see here with Ovan,” he went on, indicating the men in suits, “are candidates for the presidency of Iran.”

“This,” Price said, causing one of the pictures to glow brighter, “is Khalil Khan. He’s the moderate candidate. A series of increasingly turbulent uprisings has prompted calls for yet another election in Iran. The hard-line incumbent, Mohammad-Hossein Magham, is doing everything he can to squelch the press, including attempting to cut off access in Iran to certain social networking sites on the internet, blocking all but Iranian-controlled news media in the country and threatening those news outlets that don’t side with him or who dare even to report on the dissidents. Our CIA assets in Iran report that Khalil Khan has a very good chance of winning, if he lives to see election day…and if Ovan doesn’t influence the election otherwise.”

“It’s almost a repeat of the Ahmadinejad-Mousavi election,” Brognola said. “Khan’s a pro-Western moderate who wants to bring his country into the modern world and improve its human rights record. Magham’s a dictator who’d just as soon crush the dissidents and run the country like a prison camp, but he’s sensitive to world attention and media coverage. He doesn’t just want to run the country—he wants people to acknowledge that he’s right to run the country.”

“Enter Ovan again,” Price said. “We have covert intel that says Ovan’s terror network is led by two men. These are his sons, half brothers Karbuly and Ebrahim Ghemenizov.”

The secondary screens displayed images of a large, bearded man with wild eyes and a thin, balding, sallow man whose eyes shared the other’s slightly unstable look. “We have reason to believe Karbuly is heading up the domestic terror network that directed the actions of the three dead terrorists in New York,” Price said. “There are unconfirmed reports that Karbuly has been spotted at multiple locations here in the Northeast United States. We think the botched attack, in which the terrorists either set their bomb incorrectly or perhaps used a defective weapon, was the opening salvo in Ovan’s long-range plans to hurt the West as he jockeys to better his economic and strategic position worldwide. From the terrorist chatter we’ve intercepted, we also think he’s trying to show the Iranians just what he can bring to the table. They hate us, too, remember, and if he can show the hard-line Iranian government that he’s a real force to be reckoned with, they’ll be eager to cut a deal with him.”

“Ebrahim Ghemenizov is half Iranian by birth,” Brognola said, “and the CIA places him in Tehran. Their people believe that Ovan, through Ebrahim, has been behind several terrorist attacks on supporters of Magham.”

“But Magham’s the hard-liner,” James said. “Why would Ovan hurt the candidate who’s more likely to sell him the weapons?”

“It’s true that Khan would put a stop to the weapons program,” Price said, “or at least we hope he would. Magham is behind the program. But he’s also working in complicity with Ovan to help stage the attacks on his own supporters. The idea is to create, and spread through the media, the idea that Khan’s followers are violent murderers who cannot be trusted. So far the tactic is working. Those few polls we can get that aren’t skewed by Magham’s government show that, while he’s still running behind Khan, the moderates’ lead has diminished since the attacks began.”

“On the world stage, meanwhile,” Brognola said, sounding especially weary, “the Man is worried that we can’t simply hit Ovan and cut this off at the source, because all of the evidence we have is covert intelligence. We can’t afford to point to any more satellite photos of WMD factories that turn out to be anything but…and we can’t afford to move against Turkmenistan in an official capacity, not even as a black operation, unless we can turn public opinion against Ovan and show the world he’s got his hands in the terror attacks in Iran. If his involvement is exposed, the Iranians will scream bloody murder about the interference, and Magham’s fate will be sealed. That’s especially true if his own involvement in the plot is outed.”

“So what are we doing?” Lyons asked.

“A WMD-equipped Ovan would be a nightmare for us all,” Brognola said. “His terror network, at this point, quite possibly rivals al Qaeda. But more years of hard-line rule under Magham does no one any favors, either. We need to expose the terror link in Iran and do what we can to ensure an honest victory for Khan, while putting a stop to Ovan’s terror network and removing him from power.”

“Oh, is that all?” McCarter snorted, half grinning. Brognola rolled his eyes fractionally but ignored the comment.

“Gadgets, working with Aaron, Akira and our friends at the CIA who provided the sample bombs,” Brognola said, “have performed extensive analysis on the bombs, and there’s a vulnerability we can exploit. The devices have a unique electromagnetic signature that changes as they go active and increases as they reach their full sensor capabilities.”

“The signature is difficult to pin down among the background noise of the electromagnetic spectrum,” Schwarz said, “but it can be detected.”

“The Pentagon has, overnight, retasked its Warlock network of surveillance satellites,” Brognola said. “They’re going to provide us with the detection we need to home in on each terrorist attack site. Able Team, using this intelligence, will intercept the cells before they can carry out the series of attacks we believe to be imminent.”

“That’s where this come in,” Tokaido said, holding up the handmade device.