Dead Man's Rule (30 page)

“Finally, we put the powder into weapons. How would you like to deliver it? Bombs? Aerosol containers? Aerial dispersion tanks?”

Dr. Umarov was a hired gun and a non-Chechen. Elbek did not entirely trust him and did not want to tell him more than was absolutely necessary. “We will have a decision for you by the time the powder is ready. When will that be?”

The scientist made some mental calculations. “Two weeks,” he replied with a touch of pride. “Maybe even less.”

C
HAPTER
S
IXTEEN

T
WO
W
EEKS

“I don’t like it,” said Noelle as she looked out through the living-room window.

An unmarked blue government sedan was parked on the street in front of their house. In it sat two men who did nothing except watch the streets and occasionally speak into a radio or cell phone. The car had been outside the house every day that week, but never in the same place. Occasionally one or both of the men would get out and stroll around the outside of the house, though they always remained within sight of each other.

At least once a day, they would come inside to check the phone lines for bugs and look through the house. If one of the Corbins tried to strike up a conversation, the men would be polite and friendly but uniformly unwilling to let slip the tiniest scrap of information about exactly what they were watching for.

“I know what you mean,” replied Ben. “I appreciate the protection, but I’d like to know what they’re protecting us from.”

“Is there any way you can make them tell us? I mean, do we have any legal right to know?”

Ben shook his head. “I checked. The only way we can get information out of the FBI or CIA is to negotiate, and we’re fresh out of bargaining chips.”

Later that day, the phone rang in Ben’s office as he was putting together an exhibit list for the upcoming
Circuit Dynamics
trial.

“Hello. Ben Corbin.”

“Hello, Ben. It’s Agent Ignatev with the CIA. We need your help with a small matter.”

“What matter is that?”

“Dr. Ivanovsky’s condition has improved to the point where we can ask him questions.”

“I had
heard
he was doing better,” Ben said with a slight note of sarcasm. He had not been allowed to see or speak to his client for “security reasons.”

“He is. In fact, I’d like you to visit him with me and Agent Kamenev.”

“I’d be happy to, but how does that help you?”

There was a brief pause. “Well, we’d also like you to try to convince him to talk to us. We’re having some, ah, difficulty with him.”

Ben laughed. “Somehow I’m not surprised. I can help you—or try to, anyway—but only if you help me first.”

“How?” Agent Ignatev asked, suspicion in his voice.

“I’ll need you to tell me what’s going on and who these Chechens are.”

“We told you, that’s classified.”

“Yes, you did. And I’m telling you that I can’t help you until you give me some more information. I’m sure you’ve done a background check on me and I’m sure it’s clean. So why not tell me? I can keep a secret.”

“I don’t doubt that you can, but I’m not in a position to make that call. Let me talk to some people and get back to you.”

“I’ll wait to hear from you.” If push came to shove, Ben would help them whether they briefed him or not. But he was going to push as hard as he could in the meantime. He was sick of other people deciding how much he needed to know—and deciding wrong. “Remember,” he said before the CIA agent could hang up, “I already know about Variant D and the CIA’s connection. There’s been nothing stopping me from going to the press with that information, but I haven’t done it.”

“I thought I told you that everything about this investigation is classified,” Agent Ignatev said sharply. “Besides, all you have is Dr. Ivanovsky’s story. We haven’t confirmed any of it.”

“Precisely,” replied Ben. “Information that I got from former
Soviet
government officials can’t possibly be classified information belonging to the
American
government, can it? Look, my only point is that I’ve kept this secret so far, even though I don’t have an obligation to do so.”

“We’ll call you back.”

Twenty minutes later, Ben’s phone rang again. “Hello. Ben Corbin.”

“Hello, Mr. Corbin,” a deep, gravelly voice said. “This is Deputy Director for Intelligence Bill Alexander at the Central Intelligence Agency. I understand that you’re insisting on access to classified information before you’ll assist us in investigating this matter. Is that correct?”

“Yes.”

“In light of your close personal connection to this operation, I have authorized the disclosure of certain information to you, provided that you obligate yourself to keep it strictly confidential.”

“Of course.”

“Agent Gomez and Agent Ignatev will brief you at the FBI’s offices.”

“I’m on my way,” said Ben. “Thanks.”

“One other thing, Mr. Corbin. We’ll need you to also agree that any information about this matter, no matter how you obtained it, will be treated as confidential.”

Ben smiled—his bluff had worked. “Not a problem.”

Elbek walked into the meeting room and surveyed his men. They sat at tables or stood in small groups, talking and laughing. Their conversation was excited and celebratory, but also nervous and uncertain—like soldiers who have won one battle but know they’ll have to fight another soon. He smiled inwardly. It was a pleasure to command veterans who could anticipate the course of an operation and were ready to carry out his orders almost before he gave them.

The men saw him and quickly became silent.

“Gentlemen, as you know, we have tasted victory this week. The first stage of our mission is complete. Allah has now given us the weapon with which to strike down our enemies. In two weeks, that weapon will be ready to use.” The men glanced at each other, nodding and murmuring in approval.

“But we have also tasted defeat,” Elbek continued. “We lost Shamil, Umar, and Mamed. They are in Paradise, but we who remain are diminished. We are also endangered—the interrogation building is compromised, and the prisoner was rescued by the enemy. We cannot tell how much they know or guess about us and our plans.

“In two weeks, none of this will matter. But for now we are vulnerable, and they are searching for us with all their strength. We must make that search as difficult as possible. Here is what we will do . . .”

“Before we get started, I’m going to give you one last chance to bail out,” Agent Gomez told Ben. “Having classified information will subject you to a lot of rules and regulations that can be a real pain to follow. What I tell you today will probably give you headaches down the road.”

“I’d love to have headaches
down the road
,” Ben replied. “That’s the point.”

“Fair enough,” said Agent Gomez with a smile. “Our best guess is that we’re dealing with the Vainakh Guard. They’re a fairly new group and they operate out of the mountains of southern Chechnya. To our knowledge, this is their first confirmed operation in the US. It’s a very disturbing development.”

“So what are they?” asked Ben. “Criminals? Terrorists?”

“Both, we think. Unfortunately, we don’t know much about them. There’s a fair amount of smuggling and arms trading that goes on in that area, and we think they may be involved in it. The Russians also blame them for several attacks on convoys and patrols in the Argun Valley, though these appear to be mainly defensive strikes intended primarily to keep authorities away from their bases and smuggling routes.”

“‘Arms trading,’” Ben repeated. “Do you think that’s what they’re doing in Chicago—picking up a new weapon to sell?”

“Could be,” said Agent Gomez.

“But they could also use it?”

“It’s possible, and I can’t think of a group I’d less like to have a weapon like Dr. Ivanovsky described to you. The Vainakh Guard is a new kind of terrorist group, and they’re potentially much more dangerous than traditional groups like Hamas or al-Qaeda. Imagine . . .” He searched for the right analogy. “Imagine an inner-city gang: streetwise and tough, but loosely organized and not very well trained. That’s Hamas. They recruit religious fanatics and teach them how to make crude bombs, handle outdated assault rifles, do some basic hand-to-hand fighting, and stuff like that. They’re kids, really—half-trained, wild-eyed kids.

“Al-Qaeda is on another level. They proved on 9/11 that they’re capable of organizing an operation beyond anything Hamas can do. But they’re still basically religious fanatics with minimal training.

“Now imagine a professional army. That’s the Vainakh Guard. Most of them are former
Spetsnaz
commandos. They’re the cream of the crop from the old Red Army, specialists in carrying out guerrilla operations and assassinations in Western societies. They have a decentralized but highly efficient command structure that makes them really tough to infiltrate. Also, any member who’s been identified by law enforcement either vanishes or is immediately cut off from the group. They’ve been giving the Russians fits for years now, though they’ve kept a low profile and haven’t tried any major operations.”

“What kinds of things have they done?” asked Ben. He shifted uncomfortably in his seat, despite the fact that it was well cushioned.

Agent Gomez looked down at the file spread in front of him. “Other than what I already described, it’s been mostly little stuff—small-scale infiltration of military facilities, breaches of government and business-security systems, and attacks on soft targets in secondary urban centers.”

“Soft targets?”

“Targets with light security: shopping centers, train stations, office buildings—that sort of thing. There may be more incidents that we don’t know about. These were minor attacks, and they might not all have been picked up as terrorist incidents. Here in the US, a lot of what they do might be classified as vandalism or petty crime.”

“So they could have been doing the same thing here for a while, but it just slipped under the radar screen—is that what you mean about this being their first confirmed operation here?” Ben asked.

Agent Gomez nodded.

Ben frowned. “Why would a group like this be into such petty stuff? And if they are, why are they such a threat?”

“Because we do not think they are ‘into petty stuff,’” Agent Ignatev interjected, leaning forward and speaking in precise, clipped tones. “We think they have been testing our defenses—seeing how security systems react to certain kinds of incidents, which threats we spot and which ones we miss, how quickly we respond, and so on.”

“In which case there’s probably a major attack coming, right?” Ben looked at the two agents, hoping they would disagree with him.

“That is why we need to speak to Dr. Ivanovsky as soon as possible,” replied Agent Ignatev.