Senate Cloakroom Cabal (34 page)

The networks and cable news had many different guesses as to what came first: the Germans, Carmayans, or Rogers. That showed how little homework any of the media had done. The FDA's only statement was that it would not be making one because the product and the treatments were outside the United States.

Lassiter called, knowing I would be going directly to the Pentagon. CNN had interviewed Travis, and she had a tape of it. The CNN reporter had tried to tie the German drug to Rogers, but Travis only had knowledge that a German pharmaceutical company was behind the clinic outside Frankfurt. He knew nothing about Rogers Pharmaceuticals in the States.

Lassiter said there had been several requests to interview me. Basically, they wanted to know why I had been in Carmaya. She had turned them all down.

Most media reports assumed that Rogers was involved in the German clinic. Travis had not reported that. However, no reports went so far as to say Rogers was manufacturing and shipping Tutoxtamen to Germany. They assumed that the recently constructed offshore facility, which had been attacked by unknown assailants—unknown to the media at least— was, in all likelihood, a processing plant. Some suspected terrorism, but hadn't a clue about who was behind it. One talking head on Fox wondered why anyone would deliberately want to destroy a drug that every cancer patient could use.

Ro called me at 8:15, asking that I go to the Pentagon's north gate. “Bring your diplomatic papers, if you still—”

“They're in my work bag.”

“Good. I talked to Dad. Things are looking up for Sherman.”

“That's great. Some TV reporter quoted your dad. He wouldn't go on camera.”

“I haven't been watching. Michael and I were in here before 7:00 on other matters.”

“We're media hounds in our house. Jerry's been expertly exercising the remote.”

I heard her chuckle. “Dad, Major DeMarco, and Chief Driscoll will be in the communications bunker and hooked up to the Pentagon. Driscoll worked the satellite pictures down to the day after Dad arrived in Carmaya.”

“We know your Dad's not the mole.”

“He said his plane stopped at Bridgetown, Barbados, and then flew on to Carmaya. I know he and Johnny would have never thought about being covert.”

“I'm sure,” I said. “Let me extrapolate, though. Suppose the pharmas had found the Rogers island by following your father. That was no more than a week before they attacked.”

“Coincidently, the day your paper broke the German story,” she acknowledged.

“If they had tracked Rufus, they had their own jet and would have landed in Barbados too. We need flight plans of planes taking that same route as your Dad on that same day. The jet might also have had to refuel.

“Is that something you can get from the FAA?” Ro asked. “Somebody from that plane . . . we need Driscoll to interview all Rogers employees, and somebody should talk to the wounded who have already returned to New Jersey. Maybe somebody making like a tourist visited that heretofore uninhabited archipelago, known for its excellent SCUBA diving, a few days before the attack.”

“I see why you're so good at what you do. You're saying someone went out to C-2?”

“Yes, and that tells me they most likely rented a boat.” My brain was racing, searching for other options. “Another job for the Marines,” I said. “Maybe the major could ask Harley about contacting the New Jersey returnees.”

“I'll suggest that to him,” she answered quickly.

I thought I heard a soft edge of excitement in Ro's voice.

80

R
o and a Marine lieutenant colonel met me at the Pentagon's north entrance. My driver's license, the diplomatic papers from Carmaya, and my high-level assistance moved me briskly through security. We walked around the outer ring made up of five seventy-two–degree turns. We were ushered through a door by the officer. Gavin, Michael, a male two-star Marine general, a female bird colonel, and a man and woman in civilian clothes stood to greet us.

“Senator Dalton, Ms. Wolfe, welcome,” the general said, indicating two chairs between Crawford and Michael. Ro indicated I sit next to Crawford. The general sat in the middle across from us. The colonel and two civilians were to his right, the lieutenant colonel to his left.

“There's coffee and some hot water for tea,” he said. His nameplate read
Towers
. “Senator, Ms. Wolfe, please meet Colonel Sholander from my staff; Ted Schmitt, FBI counterterrorism; and Cynthia Wright, CIA analyst.” We all nodded to each other. “Senator Crawford and Major DeMarco have been in continued contact with me or Colonel Sholander. To say the least, this is a very unusual set of circumstances. However, with a mixture of intelligences we are beginning . . .”

I had a feeling he was going to ramble over stuff we already knew. I speculated that if the two Senators had not been in the thick of this, the incident would not have been taking up any of the DOD's precious time. State would have treated it as a diplomatic issue.

“. . . the most disturbing circumstance is that AMOP, a contractor to DOD, is alleged to have been involved. The FBI has new information.” The general looked at Agent Schmitt.

“Thank you, General.” Schmitt then addressed us. “None of the six insurgents is an American citizen. Interpol has identified two of the dead as being eastern Europeans. Both were known as highly trained mercenaries used for this type of mission. The Carmayan police provided us with photos, fingerprints, and DNA of the perpetrators. Of the two still alive, we have positively ID'd only one.”

Colonel Sholander spoke next. “Both of those wounded men remain under Marine guard and will be moved to Gitmo when they are able to travel. Interrogation will begin as soon as we secure interpreters.”

General Towers followed. “The president of AMOP came in earlier this morning. He is still undergoing heavy questioning. I was with them before coming here. He swears AMOP did not hire out to anyone, and he emphatically stated that they do not use foreign personnel. They claim all of their people are former American Special Forces operatives from the various branches, now making ten times what they made when they were in the service.”

I noticed a bit of disgust in his tone. This type of minutia could go on forever. It's important to the FBI, DIA, CIA, and the Marines, but not to what we needed right now. I took a breath and jumped in.

“Excuse me, General Towers. For the sake of brevity, can we assume AMOP's clean, that there is no DOD complicity, and that these mercenaries were hired and armed by an outside group?”

There was considerable shuffling in chairs, but not from our side of the table. A look on the three faces opposite me showed disdain for my interruption, but none answered. I asked, “Who has the ability, the knowledge, and the experience to be able to put well-equipped, combat-ready men on Carmaya, replete with a recent satellite photo of the island? Not of C-1, but C-2.”

Now I saw furrowed brows.

“We,” and I indicated my side of the table, “are extremely interested in knowing who was behind the assault. It is of the utmost importance we know who did this.”

Agent Schmitt answered. “We have no leads.”

“The six were delivered to C-2 after dark, and no one knows how?”

“We assume by boat, but we don't know that,” Schmitt said flatly.

“We saw the rafts. Where did they come from?”

I looked at Crawford, who nodded and said, “As you know, General, the DOD's antiterrorism agents, Maloney and Trautman, are making a final re-creation on this matter today. They will be submitting their findings to you, but I'll give you a preview of what will be in their report because some things need immediate attention. The insurgents were dropped off from a mother ship, type undetermined as of now.

“Their equipment included explosives with timing devices. Here's how Maloney and Trautman unofficially have restructured the assault team's intent, collected from items the insurgents brought with them. Their plan was stealth—secure the compound and isolate all the residents away from what was going to be blown up, and then set their explosives and timers.

“Four would evacuate the island immediately upon completing those objectives, join the mother ship, and power out of there, leaving two men and one raft on the island. Those two would remain to ensure everything went as planned, which included guarding their prisoners. Maloney guesstimated that the timers would have been set to go off around three hours after the mother ship had departed.”

Everyone across the table was taking notes.

“It is assumed that the mother ship might then have docked in the Carmayan harbor or gone on to nearby Trinidad or South America. On C-2, the explosives would have been placed at each of the five levels of the processing plant, one each in the smaller buildings, and two in the main building. This design came from the marked up satellite maps we found in one of the rafts.

“This is the linchpin. One raft contained two wet suits, tanks, and fins. When it was close to time for the explosives to blow, they would make a rapid departure in this raft. By the time all the bombs had detonated, they would certainly have been in the cove or farther out.

“We figured they were to row as close to the main island as they felt was safe. They'd alert the mother ship, assuming she had been docked in the Carmayan marina, and scuttle the raft, sinking everything. Then they'd board the mother ship, and no one in the marina or on shore would be the wiser.” He sat back.

“Harley Rogers,” Ro said, “literally and figuratively blew their plan to smithereens, but at the same time brought tragedy to his own people. When C-2 security was alerted to infiltrators, Chief Driscoll put his technology to work. Once he determined the intruders were up to no good, he activated his remote sensors, which set off intermittent bursts of ground fire.”

Crawford again. “The invaders withdrew, regrouped, and retrieved heavier weaponry they'd brought as backup and attacked, firing rocket grenades and machine guns. There were hundreds of bullet holes in the buildings.”

“General,” Ro said, “I believe it's time to contact C-2.”

The general was not in command at the moment, Ro was,
I thought. He picked up a black handset and spoke quietly, then hung up. His demeanor had softened considerably.

“That must be a multimillion-dollar operation they have down there,” General Towers commented, “to have two-way video capabilities, robotics . . . they'll be coming up on that screen.” He indicated a twenty-foot wide, white screen sliding down into place at one end of the table. Some flashes streaked across it, and then the picture locked in, and there sat Major DeMarco and Chief Driscoll in a two-shot side-by-side.

I glanced at Ro, who was staring at the screen.

“Major DeMarco,” the general demanded forcefully.

“Yes sir, General, you're coming in five-by-five.”

The camera aimed at us was elevated and at the foot of the table. There was a monitor to show us what it captured of us. Michael and Ro backed up their chairs so that Crawford and I would be clearly in the picture.

Towers spoke. “You know everyone except the two to your left: CIA analyst Wright and FBI Special Agent Schmitt.”

“Thank you, sir. Governor McAllister will be with us momentarily.”

Ro spoke, “Major DeMarco, Senator Dalton.”

“Senator.”

As hard as I tried, I couldn't detect anything personal in their salutations.

“Do you have something on boats for us?”

There was a stirring by the government folks.

“Yes ma'am.” The major looked off camera. “Oh, Governor McAllister has arrived.”

The picture on the screen widened to include Rufus sliding in next to Major DeMarco.

“Ro, you there?” Rufus asked.

“We're all on camera.”

“Oh yeah, I see that. Hey, Laura, you were right on the nose about me being tailed.”

That created a startled rustling around the table.

“I'm all ears, Rufus.”

He laughed. “More brains, if you ask me. Anyhow, a private jet came in about five minutes after us. They must have picked us up in San Juan. We landed in Bridgetown, Barbados, for passengers and fuel. We now know a private jet had landed ahead of us in Barbados and had followed us out by about eight minutes to Carmaya.

“They must have had somebody on the ground, because Johnny and I hit the tarmac and boarded a passenger van waiting on us. As soon as our bags were on board, three minutes tops, we were headed to the marina, where we hopped on Harley's launch and took right off.

“Somehow they tracked us. We've learned that one of the couples working for Harley on C-2 had been taking a walk along the bluff above the north cove, where folks there like to swim. Two men dressed in slacks, short-sleeved shirts, and city shoes came up from the dock. They were cordial and wondered about the fishing and diving, and said they didn't realize people lived on the island.

“Fortunately, Harley had trained his people well, and they told the men they were working for an oceanic research company on potential food supplies for human consumption. The men thought that to be a wonderful project and moved on. The couple didn't see them again. It was about two hours to dark. Chief Driscoll will tell you about the harbor.”

“Good morning.”

We all replied in kind.

“The harbor master says two men rented a powerboat built for speed and brought it back at dusk. It went out empty and came back empty. He figured they were out joyriding. They stayed at the Hilton. We're checking with retailers to see where they spent any money.”

I saw a look of satisfaction on General Towers's face. He may not have wanted to become involved in this low priority operation, but he appeared to appreciate what he was hearing. His comrades around the table seemed to feel the same. “Rufus, Chief Driscoll, that's excellent. What about their jet?”