Nimec shrugged. “Hard to tell at this stage,” he said.
The room was quiet for a moment. Gordian drank some coffee.
“Okay, Pete, supposing we go along with your assessment for now, and put aside homegrown terrorists as the culprits,” he said. “What about militant Islamic fundamentalists?”
“All of them, you mean?”
Gordian looked at him. “I wasn’t trying to be funny.”
“Neither was I. It’s just that things aren’t always very straightforward when it comes to our enemies in the Arab world. On the one hand, they’re more likely to be interested in causing mass destruction for its own sake. Their hatred of America makes no distinction between its government and its citizens,” Nimec said. “On the other hand, we in this room really must draw a distinction between state-sponsored terrorism and acts committed by extremist fringe groups, or by lone wolves with nebulous ties to both. The line between them isn’t always clear, but it exists. And it may be very relevant in this instance.”
“As I’m sure you’ll explain,” Gordian said, still regarding him steadily.
“In my opinion, the World Trade Center bombing fits more or less into the third category,” he said. “There’s never been any conclusive proof that would link the conspirators to a foreign government. Ramzi Yousef, the so-called mastermind of the plot, was an incredible bungler. His bomb was supposed to cause the largest of the Twin Towers to crack up and fall into the other, which didn’t happen. It was also supposed to release a poisonous cloud of cyanide gas. Obviously that didn’t happen either, since the sodium cyanide he’d impregnated it with vaporized in the heat of the blast… something any high school chemistry student with a B grade average would have foreseen. Two years later, Yousef sets his Manila hotel room on fire while making liquid explosives and takes off for Pakistan to avoid arrest, leaving behind a computer whose hard drive is full of incriminating data files. If this fool was an agent of a hostile Middle Eastern nation, his superiors must have been quite desperate for a henchman.”
“Okay, so he was a regular Shemp. I’ve got no problem with what you’re saying,” Scull said. “But while we’re doing Terrorism 101, I think we ought to mention the guys that knocked Pan Am 103 out of the air.”
“Scull’s right, we should,” Nimec said. “Even at this early stage, it seems to me there are at least superficial comparisons to be made. Both were efficient, well-financed, and bloodthirsty operations. And, God help humanity, the men who did the work were slick professionals.”
“We know that the Pan Am 103 disaster was underwritten by Libya,” Gordian said. “What you’re suggesting, then, is that last night’s attack has the earmarks of state-supported terrorism.”
“I’m not at all ready to go that far. But it certainly meets several of the criteria,” Nimec said. He smoothed a hand over his bristle of close-cropped hair. “The question is, who’d want to do the deed?”
“I think I see what Pete means,” Nordstrum said. “All the usual suspects have been quiescent for some time now, though for different reasons. The Khatami government in Iran’s trying to impress the European Union with a more moderate posture than its predecessors. Ditto for Iraq, where Saddam’s been hoping to achieve an easing of Gulf War sanctions by acting like the boy next door. We know the Syrians are engaged in back channel peace talks with Israel… offhand, I can’t see that any Moslem regime would want to rock the apple cart right now.”
“I didn’t hear you mention Khadafy in that list of the born again,” Scull said.
Nimec was shaking his head. “He’ll always have fangs, but there’s no benefit to him in stirring up trouble at a time when the rest of his Arab brothers are reaching out across the water. He’s not going to risk isolating himself.”
The five of them were silent awhile. Gordian rose from the table, went to the credenza, topped off his coffee, and sat back down. He stared into his cup without drinking for several more seconds, then looked up at the others.
“I may as well be the first to say what’s on everybody’s mind,” he said at last. “It’s conceivable that it could be Russia. Or factions within the Russian government, anyway. Starinov has any number of political opponents who would like to see him get egg on his face… and who’d have access to money, materials, and highly proficient operatives.”
He noticed that Megan’s eyes had narrowed in thought.
“Meg?” he said.
“It’s just that the whole thing isn’t coming together for me. Nobody’s claimed responsibility for the bombing—”
“And it could be nobody ever will, if I may interject,” Nimec said. “The trend for the past decade has been for terrorist groups to avoid drawing attention to themselves, the idea being to keep their enemies guessing, and jumping at shadows.”
“I’m aware of that,” Megan said. “But in this instance the act would have been committed with very specific aims in mind — namely a chilling of relations between our two countries, and the weakening of Starinov’s prestige and authority within his own government. Seems to me, there’d be no sense in it unless the finger of blame very clearly pointed in his direction. Furthermore, why would Starinov have engineered the strike, unless he wanted to bring about his own downfall? Like I said, it doesn’t gel. There’s no damn logic to it.”
“Not apparently, and not yet,” Nimec said. “But our players might have a subtle strategy that we just aren’t grasping at this juncture.”
“I agree,” Nordstrum said. “It may feel like forever since the bombing, but the fact is it’s barely been twelve hours. We have to wait for more information, see how everything develops—”
“And do what in the meantime? Sit on our hands?” Scull said. “Gord, listen to me. Can you imagine the negative impact on our plans for the ground station if the blast is pinned on Starinov? I’m the one in Russia. I’ve got a close-up view of what’s going on politically. And I can tell you, there are a lot of people in high positions who’d love for our Yankee asses to ride on out of here on horseback.”
“Jesus, Scull,” Megan said. “Hundreds of innocent people were killed last night, we’ve been discussing a situation that could destabilize an entire region, and you’re—”
“What? Being up front about why I’m talking to my videophone at midnight Kaliningrad time and trying to figure out the big picture? If we aren’t concerned about our interests in Russia, who’s gonna be? And how come Gord called this coffee klatch in the first place?”
Nordstrum sighed and rubbed his eyelids. “Obviously we all know why we’re here, Scull. But I think Megan was trying to add some perspective to the—”
“Wait,” Gordian said, holding up his hand. “I’m sure that none of us have had much sleep, and everybody’s frazzled. But some extremely important issues have been raised, and I’m glad we didn’t postpone this discussion. Somebody, I think it was Julius Caesar, once said that the art of life is more like the wrestler’s art than the dancer’s, and what I’ve always thought he meant was that you’ve got to meet the unexpected head-on, grapple with it, rather than try to tiptoe around it. That’s the reason we developed the Sword project.” He paused for comment, received none, and turned toward Nimec. “Pete, I want Max Blackburn to assemble a team that will gather information about who may have been responsible for the bombing. He’s to spare no expense.”
Nimec nodded. There was a look Gordian occasionally got in his eyes, a tight, hard focus, that always evoked a mental image of someone holding a magnifying glass into the sunlight to set a leaf on fire. A look that made whoever it was turned upon feel as if he were being bathed in combustible heat. It was a look that he was giving Nimec right now.