Mission Compromised (64 page)

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The White House
Washington, D.C.
Wednesday, 8 March 1995
0210 Hours, Local

 

The White House watch chief called Dr. Simon Harrod at home and woke him up. “Sorry to bother you, sir, but this seems urgent,” he said when the National Security Advisor answered.

“Sir, on the monitoring of Lieutenant Colonel Newman's house, there was a telephone call that came about fifteen to twenty minutes ago. The caller didn't identify himself, but according to what was said, and the way that Mrs. Newman answered the phone, it had to be from Lieutenant Colonel Newman.”

The watch chief could hear a rustling sound on the other end of the telephone, as if Harrod was jumping out of bed and trying to focus more clearly on the call.

“What'd he say?” Harrod asked.

“I transferred the recording to a disk and have it in the MIDI player. Do you want me to play it for you?”

“No, I want you to whistle ‘Dixie' for me—you idiot, of course I want to hear it. Play the blasted thing!”

The watch chief played the recording twice for Harrod, and when it ended the second time, Harrod said, “Put the recording and the disk in the safe. Give it to me in the morning. Meanwhile, patch me through to the UN command center. Have them get General Komulakov on the line. Tell them it's urgent and to reach him at home or with whatever woman he's sleeping with tonight. I'll wait… but don't take your sweet time.”

“I'm on it, sir.” He pushed the speed dial on the telephone console and got the comm desk at the UN. When he identified the caller and
asked for General Komulakov, he was told that the general was airborne.

“Stand by, please,” the watch chief told the UN communications coordinator. Then he picked up the line where Harrod was waiting. “He's on a plane, Dr. Harrod. Shall I try and reach him there?”

“Well, what do you think I mean when I say the call is urgent?” Harrod said sarcastically.

“Please hold, Dr. Harrod.” The watch chief then got back on the line with the UN. “Dr. Harrod says this is a matter of extreme urgency, and he must talk to the general now. Please patch us through.”

After a moment of hesitation at the other end, the voice at the UN came back and said, “The general will call Dr. Harrod right back. Please give me his number.” The watch chief gave the number and the man at the UN, in turn, gave an encryption password for the EncryptionLok-3 that the general would be using to call Harrod back.

The watch chief explained the situation to Harrod and read to him the list of code ciphers for the EncryptionLok-3.

 

 

Across town in his Georgetown residence, Harrod had just hung up the phone after jotting down and entering the encryption code into his EncryptionLok-3. He waited only forty seconds before the phone rang again. It was Komulakov, who explained, “I didn't want to take a chance that my communications were being recorded at the Command Center and didn't want our conversations to be part of the archive. What did you want, Simon?”

“Where are you?” Harrod asked.

“I'm on my way to the Middle East. I should be in Damascus in another five hours.”

“Well, that's good, because we've got a problem. It's Newman—he's alive!”

“I knew it!” Komulakov said. “I've been fairly certain of it since yesterday. I'm sorry I haven't called you to tell you, but we weren't quite positive ourselves. It seems he's a regular cat with nine lives. He survived the aircraft destruction, and the parachute fall that apparently killed his pilots, and then an attack by two of Iraq's MI-27 HINDs in which he somehow managed to bring them down instead of letting them kill him. Now, I'll just have to find him and I'll take care of him myself.”

“He just called his wife, for crying out loud! He's on to something. He all but told her their house was bugged… told her about an accomplice of his for her to call… and said he'd call back.”

“Interesting. I had no idea he was so inventive. How deep do you think this thing goes?” the general asked Harrod.

“I'll tell you what I think,” Harrod snarled, “I think this thing's totally out of control. If this guy ever makes it back, he knows enough to create a real tsunami. We can't afford that. You need to make sure that he doesn't survive any more ‘hardships' or—”

“Are you threatening me, Dr. Harrod? It seems to me that you are the nervous one. I haven't done anything that is in violation of any protocol. And unless you have been careless and allowed Newman to make some discoveries that could compromise you, you should be all right as well. Now simmer down. When is Newman supposed to call again?”

“He didn't say an exact time,” Harrod replied.

Komulakov continued, “I think it's because he's on the run and has to make arrangements however he can. If he uses his EncryptionLok-3 to frustrate any attempts by the local constabulary to trace or eavesdrop on any calls he makes to you, the UN command center, or to the
Search and Rescue center at Incirlik, we could locate him instantly—if I had the locator number for his EncryptionLok-3 unit.”

Once again the National Security Advisor was astounded about the things that Komulakov knew about the U.S. command and control system. The knowledge that the newest EncryptionLok-3 devices had an internal “Locator-Command Destruct” feature was known to only a handful of people in the U.S. government. Most of the people
using
them didn't even know it. And now here was a Russian general, albeit one assigned to the UN, telling him things that even most American generals weren't cleared to know.

Still, Harrod knew immediately what Komulakov had in mind. Knowing the locator serial number could give him the ability to track the unit, and locate its user by the GPS internal software. The rest would be like shooting fish in a barrel. “I'll call the Sit Room and get that locator code. Call me back in fifteen minutes,” Harrod said as he hung up.

The watch chief was still chafing from the chewing out that Harrod had given him just minutes earlier and had just locked the recording and its copy in the safe when Harrod called back with additional instructions. Harrod thought he could hear some sullenness in the man's voice, but he couldn't have cared less. He told him to get the codes for the encryption device.

“Dr. Harrod, I don't know where those records are kept. I think that's a function of the National Security Agency when they distributed them.”

“Then use your blasted phone and get somebody out of bed. This is a matter of national security, and I need some answers right now! Now call me back when you have something besides excuses.”

Twelve minutes later, Harrod's phone rang. “Dr. Harrod, the reason that we can't find a locator number for Colonel Newman's EncryptionLok-3 is that we didn't issue him the one he has. He was part of the ISEG, and they took care of that matter through the UN communications office.”

Even Harrod could think of nothing to say. He hung up the phone. He sat on the edge of his bed and lit a cigar while he waited for Komulakov to call him back. When he did, Harrod explained the situation.

The general said, “Good. That's even better. I won't have to work through third parties to stay on top of this. I'll take care of it. I'll radio back to the command center to have them assign somebody to sit on Newman's EncryptionLok-3 and monitor any activity at all. That way, when it's activated, we'll know immediately.”

Harrod flicked the ash off his cigar. “General, Colonel Newman must not survive his next near-death experience.”

Pipeline Pumping Station Oasis

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Khutaylah, Iraq
Wednesday, 8 March 1995
1315 Hours, Local

 

As Habib's truck pulled into the small city of Khutaylah, just twelve kilometers from the Syrian border, Newman tried to look inconspicuous sitting between the father and son as if he belonged here as much as they did. He thought he blended pretty well at a glance, but he was afraid he wouldn't pass anything like a detailed inspection.

The three men climbed out of the battered vehicle and walked across the dusty road to the shade of a small tea stall where Habib
ordered some food and tea. While they were waiting to be served, Samir looked around, studying the faces. “I don't see anything out of the ordinary,” he told Newman. Then he left for a while. He came back about the time they were served their meal and he sat down. Samir leaned forward, put his elbows on the table, and leaned over close to Newman's least damaged ear.

“My brother-in-law runs the bank here. They are closing in a few minutes for the midday meal and will reopen at 2:30 P.M. I have told him that you want to make an international call, and I paid him for any line charges. He is waiting in his office. I will go with you and knock on the window—he will unlock the back door and let us in. You can use his private office while he goes to eat.”

Habib stayed to drink his tea while his son and Newman walked about five hundred meters around the corner to the local bank. Samir knocked twice on the side door of the one-story brick building. Beside the portal was a small metal sign in Arabic and English:
AL BURHATH REGIONAL BANK OF IRAQ.
Inside, a curtain was pulled back, then the door was unlocked and they entered the cool interior. The man who had let them in simply nodded at them and left by the door they had entered. He locked the door from the outside.

Samir was certain that no one observed them going in. After showing Newman the phone in his brother-in-law's office and reminding the Marine, “We only have ten minutes,” he went to wait and keep a watch on the front and side doors in the small lobby. Newman plugged the telephone handset cord into the EncryptionLok-3, keyed in an encryption password, and pushed the “Standby” button on the face of the device. When he got a dial tone, he dialed the overseas code and the number for the White House.

It rang only once. “Signal,” said a male voice into his one good ear.

“Please go EncryptionLok-3 secure on algorithm Alpha, Tango, November, Seven, Niner, Two,” Newman said immediately.

“Roger,” said the White House signal operator.

Newman pushed the “On” button on his EncryptionLok-3 and heard the metallic
ping
as the two devices, ten thousand miles apart, synchronized their electronic encryption software.

“How may I help you sir?” said the operator.

“This is Lieutenant Colonel Newman of the Special Projects Office. I need to talk to Dr. Harrod, the National Security Advisor.”

“Please wait one, sir.”

There was a forty-five-second pause in which Newman heard nothing and then Harrod's familiar voice came booming over the circuit.

“Newman. Am I glad to hear from you—even if it is only 5:15 in the morning. Are you all right? Where are you?”

“I'm in Iraq, about to enter Syria, trying to get back to Turkey.”
It's great to hear another American voice, even if it is Harrod.
“The MD-80 took a SAM and went down. Only the pilot and I survived, but she died of her injuries. I'm fairly certain that ISET Echo got wiped out as well. I'm concerned that the QRF may be searching for me at my last reported location and I'm not there.”

“Don't worry about the QRF, I'll take care of that situation,” said Harrod.
They're already dead, pal, whether you know it or not.
“Why don't you just stay put where you are? I'll contact the Air Force at Incirlik and have them work out an S and R plan to get you out of there. Where are you?”

Newman ignored the last question and said instead, “I don't want to wait here. It's too dangerous, Dr. Harrod. I'm concerned that our
mission has been compromised somewhere—maybe it's our comms with Turkey, perhaps even in New York at the UN.”

“Why do you think that,” asked the National Security Advisor.
Oh, great. This guy has figured it out already.…

“Because the ISET in Tikrit was ambushed,” Newman said, “because the Iraqis seemed to know that the MD-80 wasn't a UN flight and shot it down out of hand, because right after I talked to some F-16s flying air cover after the shoot-down, two Iraqi HINDs showed up to take me out. That's too much coincidence and enough to convince me that the Iraqis know more than they should. Maybe we have a leak somewhere at the UN, at Incirlik… or even at the White House.”

“Now don't get paranoid on me, Newman,” said Harrod.
Gotta calm this guy down; gotta keep him on the line long enough to get a fix on his location.…

“Look, Dr. Harrod, I think I can get myself out of here OK. I've got some help. Don't pass on to General Komulakov that we've talked, just in case the leak is at the UN command center. But please call my wife and let her know that I'm all right.”

“Of course,” said the National Security Advisor. “Uh… where are you headed? Perhaps we can get you some help if we know where to meet you.”

“I'll call you again as soon as possible.” Newman could hear someone knocking at the side door through which they had entered the bank. He saw Samir walk past the office door to let him know his time was up. “I've got to go. Please call my wife. Out here,” Newman said as he hung up the phone. He disconnected the EncryptionLok-3 and slipped it into the pocket of the trousers he wore beneath the thobe just as Samir unlocked the door and admitted his brother-in-law.