Top Hook (12 page)

She sighed too loud and too long, the sigh a child makes when given housework.

Dukas put a hand on her shoulder. “It's too early to go sniffing around Shreed. If you do, you could screw everything—okay? Leave it for a while.”

She gave him a crooked grin. “'Trust me'?”

“Yeah, trust me.”

She shrugged. “Okay.”

“
Promise?”

She swung toward the door. “Oh,
puh-leeze
!”

By eight, Emma Pasternak already looked frazzled, even seedy, but her day was only starting. She threw her suit jacket on a couch, ran her hand through her already messy hair, and collapsed into her desk chair. Bashing a laptop into submission, she began to make phone calls from the list in her scheduler. The first one was to the investigator she had hired for Rose's case.

“Hey,” she said. She didn't wait for a response. “This is Pasternak. I got something for you; I want it followed up priority. Yeah, yeah, I know you got other work; push it back in the queue. What I got is a name, I want everything on it, I mean everything—go back to birth records, schools, the whole nine yards. Okay? Name: George Shreed. He's now at CIA, pretty high up. What we're gonna do is get all the shit that's fit to print and hit him with it—scare him to a near-death experience. If he caves, I think we're golden. Okay? Go for it.”

When Rafe sent the word that the brief for the admiral was finally a go, Alan threw his notes into a presentable briefing in a rush. He dragged the new officer, Soleck, into his preparations, because it was obvious that Soleck could find his way around a computer, and he was still so new that he didn't have the sense to stay out of Alan's way.

Most of the squadron commanders and a sizeable portion of the flag staff were at the brief. The admiral glanced
at him several times while other officers delivered readiness reports, his face unreadable. When his time came, Alan went to the front, squared his shoulders, and went for it.

“Good evening, Admiral. I'm going to cover the capabilities of the MARI system and how it can act as a force multiplier for the BG.”

“Go ahead, Commander Craik.”

“Inverse Synthetic Aperture Radar was fitted on all of the S-3bs in the late nineteen-eighties. That allowed us to do long-distance recognition of targets and greatly aided over-the-horizon targeting. MARI, or Multiple Axis Radar Imaging, uses the latest developments in computer-image modeling to allow several ISAR systems to link and provide a sharper, 3-D image. With multiple-axis imaging and a lot of new software, we can get a synthetic-aperture picture of a stable object, like a surface-to-air missile site, a hangar, or a tank.”

“How fine is the resolution?” the flag captain said. He didn't sound hostile, at least.

“The contractors say one meter, but I don't think it's there yet, sir. Just before we left Pax River, we got an across-the-board software upgrade that ought to improve both processing time and resolution. I'll be able to tell you more when we've implemented it.”

“Have you flown it?”

“Once, sir.”

“What's your reaction?”

“It still drops link too often to be considered reliable. I'm not a computer expert, but I think the volume of data exceeds the bandwidth available.” Alan glanced at Soleck, who nodded. Soleck had the confidence of a puppy—a newbie who hadn't even flown with the system yet.

Admiral Kessler nodded at him but didn't smile. “I appreciate the straight talk. However, I'm not ready to let your aircraft go over Bosnia. Seems like a high risk in terms of aircrew while you're not sure of the technical side.” The admiral looked around at Rafe for his opinion.

“Sorry, Al, but I've got to concur.” Rafe looked apologetic. He knew as well as Alan that what the det needed was real-world action.

Alan tried to be persuasive. “Sir, when it works, it's a powerful tool. We'd be able to detect SAM sites, even when they were in passive mode. With the ESM suite, we can catch a radar when it's on and then track it even when it's off.”

That got the attention of the F-18 skippers.

“And pass targeting?” one of them said.

“Down to the meter.”

But the admiral wouldn't have it. “Then I suggest you get the link fully functional and find your bandwidth.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Give it your full attention, Craik. Do you understand me?”

It wasn't said with hostility, but the tone carried some nuance. Behind the admiral, Maggiulli gave a slight nod. Meaning,
Cut the NCIS crap and spike the rumors about you and your wife and get with the program!

“Any other business? Okay, folks, have a good evening.” The admiral rose and slipped away, and the rest of the officers stood at attention until he was gone and then moved around Alan and out into the passageway. Alan left the computer to Soleck and followed Rafe, who stopped in the p'way and gave him a slight smile.

“That the late Mister Soleck?”

“He knows computers.”

“But not calendars, apparently.”

“Rafe, I got a whole detachment of guys here to fly real-world. Everybody else will be racking up air medals while we drill holes in the water. We can
help
.”

“Get the link fixed, Al.” Rafe gave a small shrug. “Maybe we can have coffee after.”

“I've got a flight.”

Alan stepped through the bulkhead at frame 81 and turned toward the ready room, to find Soleck jabbering at the female intelligence officer from the EA-6B squadron. When he saw Alan, he waved at the woman, picked up the laptop that had held the brief, and followed.

“That Mary Rennig sure is cute,” he said, bright as a new dime.

“Soleck, do you always say every word that comes into your head? Ensign Rennig is an officer in the US Navy.”

“Oh—right, sir! Sorry. Anyway, she got me all these great recognition cards!” Soleck held out a complete set of ship and aircraft recognition cards as they ducked through the ready room door, Soleck still talking. “So I'm going to correlate all the recognition cards with the simulator. Chief Navarro says the recognition library on the simulator is ‘sparse' and I'm going to input a bunch of new ships.”

“Mister Soleck, are you telling me that you are going to add data to a simulator?”

“Well, yes, sir. I mean, all the stuff on how to do it's in the manual.”

“How do you know what the radar returns from a ship will look like?”

“Well—Jeez, sir, it's—”

Alan remembered a phrase from high school geometry—
intuitively obvious.
Could Soleck possibly be so good
that blue-skying radar images was intuitively obvious?

“Better show me before you put them up.” Alan felt like patting him on the head.

While Alan Craik was dealing with Soleck, and Emma Pasternak was talking to her investigator, Mike Dukas was having an outdoor meeting with Harry O'Neill at the Metro Center subway entrance. Without shaking hands, he said, “Sorry to interrupt your day, Harry.” He hadn't explained anything on the telephone.

“Make it quick, m'man, I got a meeting with some rich Arabs.”

“This isn't about Rose. Something else has come up. I want you to cover for Al Craik on a meeting with a contact.”

O'Neill smiled. “I only do that stuff for money now, Mike.”

Dukas dug out a crumpled dollar bill and held it out. “I need somebody to cover your best friend.”

“Mike, you've got an entire organization behind you!”

“And no budget, and, more to the point, no faith that I can keep it just between some stranger and me and not have it wander off to ONI or, God help us, the Agency.” He hunched his shoulders. “Why do you think we're meeting out here like a couple of spooks, for Christ's sake?” He sketched out what had happened to Alan in Trieste, then said that the woman wanted a second meeting in Naples. “Naples NCIS is strung out to begin with, and with his carrier in port, they'll be running around like jumping beans. You know how to do it. You're available.”

“Mike, I'm a CEO.”

“Nobody's perfect. Come on, he saved your life!”

O'Neill looked at the dollar bill, still in Dukas's hand. “The pay isn't very good.”

“It isn't pay; it's an honorarium.”

O'Neill laughed. He curled Dukas's fingers back around the bill. “My contribution to the NCIS coffee fund. What do you want me to do?”

Dukas laid it out—finding a route in Naples, arranging the meeting, looking for counter-surveillance and bad guys.

O'Neill glanced at his watch. “But make it clear I'm a contract employee, right? Fax me a contract in Nairobi; I want cover if it goes bad.” He held out his hand. “Only for Alan and Rose, man.” He strode away.

George Shreed was sitting in the office of Clyde Partlow. His grief was now taking the form of a kind of psychological sadism, turned against anybody he happened to be with—at the moment, Partlow. On some organizational charts, Partlow was his boss and on others his equal. Right now, Shreed was having sadistic fun making Partlow sweat.

The subject was China. They had just come from a briefing on the deteriorating situation along the Kashmir border and Shreed had murmured to Partlow that they needed to talk “because of the China thing.” References like that always scared Partlow—”the China thing” sounded like dragons, or maybe Doctor Fu Manchu's exploding mushrooms.

“The Chinks won't say boo!” Partlow was saying now. He waved an empty pipe. A tall man going a little to fat, he favored suspenders and bright shirts and a boyish haircut—what Shreed called his
Stover at Yale
look. “The buildup is just saber-rattling.”

Shreed didn't at all care what Partlow believed; what he was trying to do was set up his own Chinese operation. The India-Pakistan confrontation was looking more and more like an opportunity for him, but he had to make sure that the Chinese were really into it and that they would go over the edge into a confrontation with the United States if they were pushed hard enough. And the way to push was to goose the White House into sweating about China while goosing the Chinese to sweat about the US. “I think we should be prepared for a Chinese insertion into the India-Pakistan thing, and I think—only a suggestion—that we should float an operation past the National Security Council to see where they stand.”

Partlow winced. “Where they stand is they don't want to get sucked into anything!”

“I think the Agency could gain back a lot of ground by being right about China this time, Clyde. If we float an idea now, at least they'll remember afterward that we said the Chinks would go all the way on this one.”

“They
won't
go all the way!” Partlow had a nasal voice that often sounded like a whine, less often like a whinny. “Will they?”

“Well, we probably ought to point out that the Taiwanese will think it's a fine time to do something really stupid. If the Chinese are involved in the west, maybe ready to use nukes—”

“Oh, my God—!”

“The least we can do is suggest that an American battle group off Taiwan would remind Taipei to withdraw their head from their ass.”

“George, an American battle group off Taiwan would
provoke
the Chinese!”

“Not if they're involved with India and Pakistan.”

They went round and round, but, as he knew he would, Shreed succeeded in planting in Partlow's head the idea that he had better cover his ass by floating some possibilities at the White House. The whole business so upset Partlow that he excused himself and went off to the men's room.

During his absence, Shreed, who had a better bladder, stood up and looked over Partlow's desk, searching for useful items. He found what he was looking for next to the photo of Partlow's wife: a trophy memo pad from the Director of National Security. It wasn't to use, but only to show off—special paper, embossed seal, eyes-only classification. Shreed had always refused one as slightly tacky, but now he had a use for exactly that thing.

He reached across the desk and tore off two sheets, surprised again to find that he was trembling.
Losing my nerve
, he thought. It was a kind of inward joke to hide from himself the fact that he was frightened all the time now.

When Partlow came back, Shreed was sitting again in the visitor's chair. Partlow looked scrubbed and pink. “I don't like this, George,” he said.

“It's a golden opportunity. Should we or should we not cook up an ops plan to penetrate the highest echelons of the Chinese Communist Party and the People's Army to find out if they'll shoot when a US ship is in their sights?”

“Oh, George!” Partlow said. This time he was whining.

Dukas, back from the meeting with O'Neill and trying to pull together the ideas that had been aired in Rose's motel room, came down the corridor of NCIS headquarters from an office where he'd borrowed a
telephone. He'd made a lot of calls and set a lot of things in motion, but he didn't feel that he knew a thing. Now, rounding the doorway into the small office where his typing table stood, he went to the prissy black guy's desk.

“Phone is not available,” the guy said. He put his hand on the telephone to show it was his.

“You Triffler?” Dukas said.

“Yeah.”

“You're my new assistant.” Dukas smiled. “You're sitting at my new desk. Please take your hand off my new telephone.” He jerked his head toward the typing table. “Move.”

“My effing A!”

“Yeah, life is hard.” Dukas dropped a folder in front of the man. “Your first job—a lieutenant-commander named Rose Siciliano. Do the paperwork—make a budget, read my report, do a tentative walk-the-cat-back for a September fifteen Overview Assessment. Get on it, because it needs to be done today.”