Covert One 5 - The Lazarus Vendetta (27 page)

“Bearding the lioness in her den?” Peter murmured. “Not very
subtle even for you, is it, Jon?”

Smith grinned at him over the phone. “I'll leave subtlety to you Brits,
Peter. Sometimes you've just got to fix bayonets and launch a good
old-fashioned frontal assault.” Then, as he listened to the voice on the
other end, his grin slowly faded. “I see,” he said quietly. “And
when was that?”

He hung up.

“Trouble?” Peter asked.

“Maybe.” Smith frowned. “Kit Pierson
is already on her way back to Washington
for certain urgent and unspecified consultations. She's catching an executive
jet out of Albuquerque
a little later this afternoon.”

“So the bird is on the wing, eh? Interesting timing, isn't it?”
Peter said with a sudden gleam in his eye. “I begin to suspect that Ms.
Pierson just received a rather disturbing call from the local police.”

“You're probably right,” Smith agreed, remembering the nervous
looks he had gotten from the policeman who had passed him up the chain to
Zarate. The desk sergeant must have tipped off the FBI that an Army lieutenant
colonel named Jonathan Smith was digging into an incident the Bureau was trying
to bury. He glanced at the Englishman. "Are you up for

a quick trip to D.C.? I know it's outside your
current area of operations, but I could sure use some help. Kit Pierson is the
one solid lead I've got and I don't plan to just watch her walk away."

“Count me in,” Peter replied with a slow, predatory grin. “I
wouldn't miss this for the world.”

The White House

“I understand you very well, Mr. Speaker,” President Samuel Adam
Castilla growled into the phone. He looked up and saw Charles Ouray, his chief
of staff, poke his head into the Oval Office. Castilla
motioned him inside with a wave and then turned back to the phone. “Now
it's time for you to understand me. I will not be stampeded into any executive
action I think unwise. Not by the CIA or the FBI. Not by the Senate. And not by you. Is that clear? Very well,
then. Good day to you, sir.”

Castilla hung up, resisting the urge to slam the phone down in its cradle.
He rubbed a big hand over his weary face. “They say Andrew Jackson once
threatened to horsewhip a fellow off the White House grounds. I used to think
that was just Old Hickory on a wild-eyed tear, letting his famous temper get
the better of him. But now I'm mighty tempted to follow his example.”

“Are you receiving more helpful advice from Congress?” Ouray asked
drily, nodding toward the phone.

The president grimaced. “That was the Speaker of the House,” he
said. “Graciously suggesting that I immediately sign an
executive order naming the Lazarus Movement a terrorist organization.”

“Or?”

“Or the House and Senate will enact legislation on their own
initiative,” Castilla finished.

Ouray raised an eyebrow. “By a veto-proof
majority?”

The president shrugged. “Maybe. Maybe not. Either way, we lose. Politically.
Diplomatically. You name it.”

His chief of staff nodded soberly. “I guess it doesn't matter much
whether an anti-Lazarus bill ever really becomes law. If it passes the
Congress, our increasingly shaky international alliances will take another
serious hit.”

“Too true, Charlie,” Castilla said, sighing. “Most people
around the world will see a law like that as more proof that we're
overreacting, turning paranoid and panicked. Oh, I suppose a few of our
friends, the ones worried by those bombs in Chicago
and Tokyo,
might cheer quietly, but most folks will only think we're making matters worse.
That we're pushing an otherwise peaceful group toward violence—or that we're
covering up our own crimes.”

“It's a terrible situation,” Ouray agreed.

“Yes, it is.” Castilla sighed. “And it's about to get much
worse.” Feeling trapped behind his desk, he stood up and crossed over to
the windows. For a short time he stared out across the South Lawn, noting the
squads of heavily armed guards in helmets and body armor now patrolling openly
around the grounds. After the Lazarus Movement attack in Tokyo, the Secret Service had insisted on
tightening security around the White House.

He looked back over his shoulder at Ouray. “Before the Speaker dropped
his little legislative ultimatum on me, I had another call—this one from
Ambassador Nichols at the UN.”

The White House chief of staff frowned. “Is something up inside the Security
Council?”

Castilla nodded. “Nichols just got wind of a resolution some of the
nonaligned countries on the Council are going to propose. Basically, they're
going to demand that we open all of our nanotech research facilities—both
public and private —to full international inspection, including an examination
of all their proprietary processes. They say it's the only way they can be sure
that we're not running a secret nanotech weapons program. And Nichols says he
thinks the nonaligned bloc has enough Council votes lined up for passage.”

Ouray grimaced. “We can't allow that to go through.”

“No, we can't,” Castilla agreed heavily. “It's basically a
license to steal every nanotech development we've made. Our companies and
universities have spent billions on this research. I can't let all of that work
go down the drain.”

“Can we persuade one of the other permanent members to veto this resolution
for us?” Ouray asked.

Castilla shrugged. “Nichols says Russia
and China
are ready to stick it to us. They want to know how far we've gone in
nanoteclmology. We'll be lucky if the French decide to abstain. That leaves
just the British. And I'm not sure how far the prime minister can go right now
to give us political cover. His control over Parliament is tenuous at
best.”

“Then we'll have to veto it ourselves,” Ouray realized. His jaw
tightened. “And that will look bad. Really bad.”

Castilla nodded grimly. “I can't imagine anything more likely to
confirm the world's worst fears about what we're doing. If we veto a Security
Council resolution on nanotech, we'll immediately lend credibility to the
Lazarus Movement's most outrageous claims.”

Kirtland Air Force Base, Albuquerque,
New Mexico

Still driving his rented Mustang, Smith pulled away from the Truman Gate
guardhouse and headed south through the sprawling air base, passing Little
League baseball fields crowded with teams and cheering par-

ents on the right. It was near the end of the
season, and the local championships were in full swing.

Following the directions the Air Force security police had given him, he
made his way through the maze of streets and buildings and arrived at a small
parking lot near the flight line. Peter Howell's white Buick LeSabre pulled in
next to him.

Smith climbed out of the Mustang and slung his laptop and a small travel bag
over one shoulder. He tossed the keys onto the front seat and left the door
unlocked. He saw Peter following his example. After they were gone, one of Fred
Klein's occasional couriers would arrange for the safe return of the two rental
cars.

Commercial passenger aircraft in bright colors thundered low overhead,
taking off and landing at precisely regulated intervals. Kirtland shared its
runways with Albuquerque's
international airport. Heat waves shimmered out on the concrete, and the sharp
tang of jet fuel hung in the hot air.

A large C-17 Globemaster transport in pale gray U.S. Air Force camouflage
sat on the tarmac with its engines already spooling over. Jon and Peter walked
toward the waiting jet.

The loadmaster, a senior Air Force noncom with a square, hard face and
permanently furrowed brows, came to meet them. “Is one of you guys
Lieutenant Colonel Jonathan Smith?” he asked after looking down at the
clipboard in his hand to make sure he got the name and rank right.

“That's me, Sergeant,” Jon told him. “And this is Mr.
Howell.”

“Then if you'll both follow me, sir,” the loadmaster said, after a
long, dubious look at Smith's civilian clothes. “We've only got a
five-minute window for takeoff, and Major Harris says he ain't disposed to lose
his spot and wind up sitting in line behind a goddamned bunch of airborne buses
full of tourists.”

Smith hid a rueful grin. He strongly suspected the C-17 pilot had said
considerably more than that on hearing that he was making an unscheduled
cross-country flight—solely to ferry one Army light colonel and a

foreign-born civilian to the Washington, D.C.,
metropolitan area. Once again, Fred Klein had waved Covert-One's magic wand,
this time working through contacts inside the Pentagon's bureaucracy. He and
Peter followed the C-17 crewman into the aircraft's cavernous cargo bay and
then up onto the flight deck.

The pilot and co-pilot were waiting for them in the cockpit, already running
through their last preflight checklist. Both had active heads-up displays,
HUDs, fixed in front of them. On the control console below the windshield four
large multi-function computer displays flashed through a variety of modes,
showing the status of the engines, hydraulics, avionics, and other controls.

Major Harris, the pilot, turned his head when they came in. “Are you
gentlemen ready to go?” he asked through gritted teeth, emphasizing the word
“gentlemen” to make plain that was not the word he would have
preferred to use.

Smith nodded apologetically. “We're set, Major,” he said.
“And I'm sorry about the short notice. If it's any consolation, this is a
genuinely critical mission —not just a glorified VIP jaunt.”

Slightly mollified, Harris jerked a thumb at the two observer seats right
behind him. “Well, strap yourselves in.” He leaned across to his
co-pilot. “Let's get this crate moving, Sam. We're on the clock now.”

The two Air Force officers busied themselves with the controls and brought
the big plane rumbling out onto the apron, taxiing slowlv toward the main
runway. The roar of the C-17's four turbofan engines grew even louder as Harris
pushed the throttles forward with his left hand.

After Jon and Peter buckled themselves in, the loadmaster handed them each a
helmet with a built-in radio headset. “Air-to-ground transmissions are
pretty much it as far as in-flight entertainment goes,” he told them,
raising his voice over the howl of the engines.

“What? You mean there are no stewardesses, champagne, or caviar?”
Peter asked with a horrified look.

Almost against his will, the C-17 crewman grinned back. “No,
sir. Just me and my coffee, I'm afraid.”

“Fresh-brewed, I trust?” the Englishman asked.

“Nope. Instant decaf,” the Air Force
sergeant replied, smiling even more broadly. He vanished, heading for his own
seat down in the aircraft's cavernous cargo bay.

“Good lord! The sacrifices I make for queen and country,” Peter
murmured with a quick wink at Smith.

The jet swung through a sharp turn, lining up with the long main runway.
Ahead, a Southwest Airlines 737 lifted off and banked north. “Air Force
Charlie One-Seven, you are cleared for immediate takeoff,” the tower air
traffic controller's voice crackled suddenly through Smith's radio earphones.

“Roger, Tower,” Harris replied. “Charlie One-Seven is rolling
now.” He shoved the four engine throttles all the way forward.

The C-17 accelerated down the runway, gaining speed fast. Jon felt himself
pressed back against the padding of his seat. Less than a minute later, they
were airborne, climbing steeply over the patchwork of houses, freeways, and
parks of Albuquerque.

■

They were flying at thirty-seven thousand feet somewhere over West Texas when the co-pilot leaned back and tapped Smith
on the knee. “There's a secure transmission for you, Colonel,” he
said. “I'll switch it to your headset.”

Smith nodded his thanks.

“I have a situation update, Colonel,” Fred Klein's familiar voice
said. “Your target is also aloft and heading east for Andrews Air Force
Base. She's approximately four hundred miles ahead of your aircraft now.”

Jon worked that out in his head. The C-17 had a cruise speed of roughly five
hundred knots, which meant Kit Pierson's FBI executive jet

would touch down at Andrews at least forty-five
minutes before he and Peter could hope to arrive there. He frowned. “Any chance of delaying her? Maybe have the FAA put her
plane in a parking orbit until we can get down?”

“Alas, no,” Klein said crisply. “Not without tipping our hand
entirely. Arranging this flight was tricky enough.”

“Damn it.”

“The situation may not be as dire as you think,” Klein told him.
“She has a confirmed meeting at the Hoover Building
first and there's an official car standing by to take her straight there.
Whatever else she plans isn't likely to take place until later, which should
give you time to pick up her trail in D.C.”

Smith thought about that. The head of Covert-One was probably right, he
decided. Although he was pretty sure that Kit Pierson's real purpose in
returning to Washington
went far beyond simply delivering a personal high-level briefing for her Bureau
superiors, she was going to have to play the game as though it were.

“What about the vehicles and gear I requested?” he asked.

“They'll be waiting for you,” Klein promised. His voice sharpened.
“But I still have some very serious misgivings about involving Howell so
closely with this operation, Colonel. He's a bright fellow . . . maybe too
bright, and his fundamental loyalties lie outside this country.”

Smith glanced at Peter. The Englishman was staring out the cockpit side
windows, seemingly wrapped up in watching the vast panorama of drifting cloud
masses and seemingly endless flat brown countryside over which they were
flying. “You'll have to trust me on this one,” he told Klein softly.
“Back when you signed me on to this show, you told me you needed
mavericks, self-starters who didn't quite fit into everybody else's neat little
tables of organization. People who were willing to buck the system for results,
remember?”