“Richard?” she said with a warm smile. “I was surprised when I got the message you were coming. Wie geht’s?”
“Hanging in there,” Larkin replied as she bolted the door and led the way inside. His head filled with the aroma of gun oil and blued-steel that came from crates stacked against the walls of the apartment. He set the gym bag on a table and pushed it toward her.
“If you would,” she said, handing Larkin the baby. “He cries if I put him down.”
She unzipped the bag, removed the money, and put it in a drawer. Then she made a phone call, whispering just a few words in German before hanging up.
“He’s coming soon,” she said. “I’ll make some coffee.” She went into the kitchen, leaving Larkin holding the child, its tiny fist clenched tightly around a bullet.
Later that morning, after meeting with Larkin, a middle-aged man with sad eyes and a wispy mustache crossed the border into East Berlin and spent some time working with a colleague in the cable room of the Libyan People’s Bureau on Unter Den Linden.
That evening, the woman went to Kufurstendamm, the hub of West Berlin’s notorious nightlife. As always, it was crowded with tourists, prostitutes, and off-duty military personnel. She stood near the entrance to La Belle Club, her foot tapping to the beat of the rock music that boomed from within. It was 12:21 A.M. when she spotted a young, sensitive-looking American soldier hesitating to enter the disco.
“Go ahead. It’s a great club. You’ll love it,” she said. “My husband’s in the band.”
“It’s that obvious I’m new, huh?” the soldier replied with an embarrassed smile.
“No, you just looked a little uncertain.”
“Thanks,” he said, turning toward the entrance.
“Oh, could you do me a favor?” she asked, holding out a rumpled gym bag. “My husband sweats so much when he plays. He forgot his towels and change of clothes.”
“You want me to give that to him?”
“If you would,” she replied, gesturing to the baby sleeping peacefully in a canvas carrier slung across her chest. “The music will wake him if I—”
“Sure, no problem,” the congenial fellow agreed, taking the bag. “Heavy,” he said, somewhat surprised.
“The water. A big Thermos of it,” she explained shrewdly. “They take a break about one. Oh, how silly of me,” she said as if she had forgotten. “My husband is the drummer.”
“The drummer,” the soldier repeated with a smile, backing his way into the entrance.
The woman waved and hurried off.
The shy soldier went to a table, ordered a beer, and set the gym bag on the floor behind his chair.
Inside it, amid a few soiled towels, a cheap wind-up alarm clock lay ticking. The plastic lens that covered the face had been removed and a thin, pliable wire affixed with airplane glue to each of the hands. The insulation had been stripped from the tips, exposing about a quarter-inch of copper; one of these prongs had been bent slightly downward to ensure contact would be made when they coincided. As beer flowed and dancers gyrated, the minute hand slowly brought the tips of the two wires closer and closer together.
It was exactly 1:04 A.M. when the young soldier waved the waitress over again.
“Think this set’s ever going to end?”
“I sure hope so,” she said, leaning over so he could hear her above the music.
His eyes darted shyly to the swell of her breasts, the smooth skin almost brushing his cheek. He was hoping fervently it would and was fantasizing how it might feel when the clock hands moved to within a few ticks of coinciding, and an impatient purple-green spark jumped across the gap between the contacts.
The 9-volt charge surged through the wire and tripped the detonator, which was plugged into a 15-pound chunk of C-4 plastique called Semtex. It was part of a 20-ton shipment of the deadly explosive that one of the renegade CIA agents had procured for Qaddafi. RDX, the main ingredient of the off-white putty, was unmatched in destructive potential save for nuclear weapons.
It erupted in a thunderous explosion.
The music and blinding strobes masked the sound and flash of the blast, but the torn bodies hurtling through the air like dolls left no doubt as to what had happened. Within seconds, La Belle Club was a roaring inferno filled with screaming people.
Scores were injured.
Two American soldiers were killed.
8
The next morning, an entourage of civilian and military advisers assembled at Camp David, the presidential retreat in Maryland’s Blue Ridge Mountains.
The president had spent the weekend relaxing. He was dressed casually when he joined them in the library, where, despite the crackle of hand-split logs, a damp chill prevailed.
“Intercepted a few hours ago,” Lancaster said, handing him a red folder marked KEYHOLE TOP-SECRET TALENT, the code name given intelligence collected by KH-11 spy satellites. It contained a cable that read:
WE HAVE SOMETHING PLANNED THAT WILL MAKE YOU HAPPY.
“When am I going to get one of these that will make me happy?” the president asked, settling in his chair. “I thought we had castiron coverage on these people?”
“We do, sir,” Kiley replied. “Repositioning that KH-11 really paid off.”
“Not for those two soldiers, it didn’t!” the president snapped in a rare display of acrimony.
“My apologies, sir,” Kiley said, stung by the reply. “I meant we can prove that cable was sent from the People’s Bureau in East Berlin to Qaddafi in Tripoli.”
The president’s posture softened, his head tilting slightly, re-considering his remarks.
“As was this one,” Lancaster said, exhaling a haughty cloud of smoke as he handed him a second cable. Like the others present, the NSA wasn’t aware of CIA’s involvement in the bombing and believed the cables to be genuine.
AT 1:05 AM AN EVENT OCCURRED.
YOU WILL BE PLEASED WITH THE RESULT.
“That’s the exact time the disco was bombed, sir,” Kiley said incriminatingly.
“Do we have any proof that Qaddafi gave the order?” the president asked.
“I’d say it’s implicit, sir,” Kiley replied.
“In other words, Bill, we don’t have irrefutable evidence that Qaddafi was behind this.”
Kiley’s lips tightened in a thin red line. “No, sir.”
“Be advised,” the chairman of the Joint Chiefs said, “the La Belle Club is a hangout for black servicemen. Libya has never targeted minorities. Pick off a cable going in the other direction — an order from Qaddafi saying, ‘Bomb a disco tonight’—then come talk to me.”
“Dammit,” Kiley snapped. “Why do you people always need a Pearl Harbor as an excuse to go to work?”
“Mr. President,” the secretary of state began in his ponderous cadence, “we’ve tried diplomacy, public condemnation, a show of military strength. None have worked. It’s time for military action.”
“We have an interservice strike force on alert,” the defense secretary chimed in. “It can be launched on short notice to drop a few hot ones right in Qaddafi’s lap.”
“Not from any of my aircraft,” the CJC retorted. “Not without a smoking gun.”
“You already have one,” Kiley said emotionally. “Hundreds of them. Two hundred and fifty-three marines! A navy diver murdered in cold blood! A man in a wheelchair thrown into the sea! Innocent travelers gunned down in airports! Blown out of planes! College professors, journalists, one of my own people kidnapped and tortured by these animals! Two soldiers blown to bits in a nightclub! How many more? The wrong guns are doing all the smoking! And I’m damned sick of it!”