Alexander’s secretary knocked and poked her head in. “Sir, the Turkish-”
“Reschedule him, Gloria.”
“You’re booked until eleven thirty this evening, Mr. President. I-”
“Then tell him midnight!”
“Yes sir,” she said, immediately withdrawing and closing the door.
“I’m afraid there’s another complication,” Kennedy said when they were alone again.
“Another complication? You’ve got to be kidding me.”
“We have mounting evidence of Russian involvement.”
“Krupin? Why would he get mixed up in something like this? He has personal control over the world’s second largest nuclear arsenal-something he reminds me about every time we talk. He doesn’t need to steal fissile material from the Pakistanis.”
“Our people have done a full analysis of the decoy fuel canisters they found in the warhead. They’ve also been in touch with the Pakistani engineers examining the five other compromised weapons. All the containers appear identical. The metals originated in China, but evidence is strong that they were manufactured in a Russian facility. One controlled by the government.”
“And how was that determined?”
“Microscopic pollen and industrial soot found in the welds.”
“That’s all you have?”
“No, sir. The man who attacked Scott Coleman appears to be a former Russian soldier who disappeared over a decade ago.”
“Can I assume you have him in custody?”
“That would be an incorrect assumption.”
“Then you’re going off prints and DNA?”
“I’m afraid not, sir. Scott identified him from a photo.”
“So you have a clear photo of the man?”
“We had to digitally enhance it to account for age and plastic surgery.”
He just stared over the Resolute Desk at her. “And let me guess. Craig Bailer is the man who examined the nuke.”
“That’s correct, sir.”
“To summarize, then, we have a guy who used to work on cars in your motor pool saying that some dust in a Pakistani warhead looks Russian.”
“Sir, Eric has PhDs in-”
Alexander held up a hand, silencing her. “Please, Irene. I’m the one who approved the funding for his little playhouse out there in Virginia. But what do you want me to do, mass our military on the Russian border? Imagine this with me for a moment. Eric Bailer testifying to the UN about Siberian pollen while spitting tobacco into an empty beer can. Then, to corroborate his story, you pull out a picture of a Russian agent that you admit you Photoshopped the hell out of.”
“I understand your position-”
“Do you? Do you really?”
“The intel is solid, sir.”
“That’s what scares the shit out of me, Irene. I know you wouldn’t bring this to me if you didn’t believe in it.”
He pushed his chair back and folded his arms across his chest. “Krupin’s a card-carrying sociopath, and he’s backed himself into a corner. His economy’s cratering and he’s not going to be able to keep his people distracted with pointless military adventures for much longer. He knows that better than anybody. And he also knows that if he ever loses his grip on power, someone’s going to either throw him in prison or put a bullet in the back of his head.”
Alexander was exactly right about his Russian counterpart. Most Americans worried about Russian strength, but the real thing to fear was its weakness. Russia had lost its empire and was now being further punished by low energy prices and economic sanctions. Krupin, despite his posturing in Russia’s state-controlled media, was a desperate man. So much so that the CIA had actually quietly helped him over the past few years. Such was the tangled web that made up her world. While having a ruthless dictator running roughshod over Eastern Europe was less than ideal, a power vacuum was the surest way to chaos.
“How does getting involved in something like this help him, Irene? What’s his play?”
“We can only speculate at this point, Mr. President.”
“Then do it.”
“As you say, his grip on power is slipping, and the reason for that is almost entirely economic.”
“But how does giving ISIS the ability to nuke Chicago improve his position?”
“I’m not sure Chicago is the goal. There’s no question that ISIS wants to draw the U.S. into a fight, but their primary goals are regional. Given this kind of capability, we think it’s likely that their strategy would be to strike within the confines the Middle East.”
“So Krupin nukes Riyadh, Tehran, Tel Aviv, and God knows what else. He denies any involvement and then sits back while ISIS rolls across the world’s main energy-producing region.”
“That would certainly accomplish his goals. Oil prices would go to hundreds of dollars a barrel and the major world economies would be shaken to their foundation. Russia would become both extremely wealthy and extremely powerful because of its reserves. But I wonder if he would need to go that far? He wants high prices, but the kind of destruction you’re talking about could blow back on him. Particularly with respect to his oligarchs, who have diverse interests all over the world.”
“Then what?”
“We’re still working on that problem, sir. The Middle East is so fragile right now, it wouldn’t take a great deal to tip it. If a few of the more established governments fell, it’s likely that we would see a domino effect.”
“Like the Arab Spring.”
“Yes, sir. But on a much more disruptive scale.”
“What do we do, Irene? Have you created some kind of action plan?”
“Mitch is working on tracking the material.”
“Working on it how?”
“He’s posing as an American ISIS recruit.”
“Has he found anything?”
“We aren’t certain.”
“What do you mean, you’re not certain?”
“We don’t actually know where he is at this moment. We assume in ISIS-controlled Iraq, but we haven’t been able to verify that.”
“Are you certain he’s even alive?”
She picked up the tea mug and let the ceramic warm her hands. “Certain? No, sir. But we have every reason to believe he is.”
“Why?”
“Because he always has been before.”
CHAPTER 37
AL-SHIRQAT
IRAQ
RAPP tried to curl into a more comfortable position on the worn mattress, but finally had to admit that there was no hope. Between the burns on his back and the damage Maslick had done, he’d probably be better off trying to sleep standing up.
Not that it was just the pain keeping him awake. It was also thoughts of Pakistan and his failure there. That fissile material was in the wild because he’d allowed himself to lose focus and be lured to South Africa. The question now was what he was going to do about it.
Options were limited. The most obvious was to convince the Iraqi general to put him back on his team. Unfortunately, that was easier said than done. Rapp would have to prove his physical abilities in front of witnesses, and the only way he could think to do that was to find the biggest, meanest son of a bitch in town and pick a fight with him.
As plans went, though, it was complete crap. For all he knew, Eric Jesem couldn’t fight his way out of a paper bag. Winning could easily blow his cover and end with him enjoying a starring role in the next ISIS execution video. A lot of risk for not much hope of reward.
His second option was to figure out a way to contact Kennedy. Maybe she had some intel that could help him. Hell, maybe he could just bring down a wrath-of-God bombing raid on the city and flatten everything taller than a curb. The problems with that plan were even worse. With the U.S. military jamming, there was no way to get a line out and he had no way of knowing if the fissile material was even within a thousand miles of Al-Shirqat.
In the other room, Laleh murmured something in her sleep. He’d left her on the floor near the kitchen with a wool blanket and a full stomach. She’d answered a few of his questions but turned out to be the master of the reluctant one-word response.