"Is this Hill?" McKenzie asked.
"Yes."
"Is your shithead aide, Lugar, there? The one who uses Loki as his call sign?"
Hill remained silent.
"Listen, Hill, I know your people are trying to get in here. We spot anybody and you're going to have a hell of a lot more problems than us. You got that?"
"Is this McKenzie?" Lowcraft asked.
McKenzie smiled. "So you've been talking to my friend Captain Thorpe, have you?"
There was no answer.
"Not very bright, General, but not a great disclosure either. How's Thorpe doing? What's he up to?"
"He's back at Barksdale debriefing our people," Lowcraft said.
"Oh, I don't think so," McKenzie said. "That's not the way Thorpe works. He's around here somewhere. Of course, he's not the threat he once was."
"McKenzie, why are you doing this? I've got your service jacket here. You've served your country for twenty-two years. Why have you turned against it now?"
"I've turned against the Pentagon and assholes like your friend Hill, General, not my country. I'm doing my duty to my country here. Protecting them from people like Hill."
"Chief McKenzie, I—"
"You think what I'm doing is wrong?" McKenzie yelled into the radio. "I'll show you people doing wrong things." He reached into his pocket and pulled out a CD. He handed it to Drake. "Send that to the sons-of-bitches."
Drake took the CD and slid it into the communication computer. He transmitted the data on high-frequency burst to the War Room as McKenzie spoke. "You've got some digitized data coming in, General. I suggest you view it."
In the War Room, Lowcraft turned his chair to face the front of the room. The front display cleared and then an out-of-focus image appeared. It showed a beach with some trucks parked.
Just as Lowcraft was getting ready to ask his technician to clean the image up, it cleared and he could see four military-style trucks parked on the sand. The camera panned and a tank came into view. Lowcraft immediately recognized the make; there was only one country in the world that made that tank and it had never been exported.
"What is this?" Lowcraft asked.
"Don't act stupid," McKenzie hissed. "Those are Israeli-made Merkava tanks. Your friend Hill knows exactly what this is."
One of the tanks turned on its searchlight and a hovercraft appeared on the water, sliding up onto the beach. Men began taking barrels off the hovercraft and loading them onto trucks. The camera zoomed in on one of the barrels and Lowcraft could see the markings on the side.
"Oh, shit," he muttered to himself.
McKenzie's voice came over the speaker. "I shot this digitized video while working for our government, General. As you can tell from the scene, those are Israelis receiving a shipment of plutonium. What you can't tell is that the people doing the shipping are CIA."
Lowcraft turned to Hill. "Maybe you can shed some light on this. We aborted that Lebanon SO/NEST team but you didn't tell me any of this."
McKenzie's voice boomed out again. "This was my last mission for our government. We had received information that there was going to be a transfer of weapons-grade plutonium along the coast in southern Lebanon. This information was correct. Unfortunately this was a case of the left hand not knowing what the right was doing, no pun intended." McKenzie gave a strange laugh.
"When we called for an air and ground strike on the exchange to get the plutonium back under positive control, the strike was canceled by Mister Hill's aide and we were ordered to abort," McKenzie said. "Then we got attacked by the CIA guards and the Israelis. I didn't let the debriefers know I had the video when I got back because I knew it would disappear and I'd have Agency dinks knocking at my door. So don't give me any crap. You people are the criminals!"
"So enough bullshit!" McKenzie exploded. "You do what you were told to do. I want the money moving. Now!" He cut off the connection.
General Lowcraft was rubbing his forehead. "This thing keeps getting worse and worse."
Hill had been thinking about something McKenzie mentioned. "If Thorpe was with him on that mission into southern Lebanon, maybe Thorpe's not on our side."
"Sir," Colonel Hurst said. "I've got Thorpe's file and I've also contacted the NEST headquarters. Thorpe's team was directed to check out security at nuclear weapons storage sites this weekend by direct request from the Pentagon." Hurst looked up from the papers in his hand. "The request was initiated by Professor Thomas Kilten."
Lowcraft took the orders and looked at them, then he threw them down. "Kilten may have wanted this team in the area for some reason, but Thorpe's on our side."
"How do you know that?" Hill demanded.
"Because his son's there," Lowcraft snapped. He glared at Hill. "Of course, there are those of us who would sell out our own children if there was something to be gained." He poked a finger at Hill's chest. "How are you going to feel when it's you who is being sacrificed?"
"Sir, there's more," Hurst said. "I've run a check on the Omega Missile LCC crew. Major Parker just came back to the Air Force after being seconded to a CIA unit called Red Flyer."
Lowcraft turned to Hill with eyebrows raised. "What's Red Flyer? That was part of Kilten's request."
"You don't have a need to know," Hill replied. "Suffice it to say it's part of that hammer I hold over the heads of the Israelis and others who fuck with the United States."
"You're still playing 'I've-got-a-secret' and we're standing on the edge of nuclear Armageddon," General Lowcraft said wonderingly.
Hurst had another file in his hand. "In Kilten's file it says he also worked with Red Flyer. It's apparently something compartmentalized between the Air Force and the CIA."
"I'm only the chairman of the Joint Chiefs," Lowcraft shook his head. "No one tells me what the hell is going on with anything."
Hill took Lowcraft's arm and led him out of earshot of the others. "Red Flyer took over the SADM mission from the Special Forces six years ago."
Lowcraft knew that SADM stood for Strategic Atomic Demolition Munitions. A fancy term for backpack nukes. He'd known about the mission being removed from the Special Forces, but he thought that was because the mission had been phased out given the accuracy of cruise missiles with tactical nuclear weapons.
"Why?" Lowcraft asked.
"There are times when we have to use the threat of a deniable tac nuke strike for diplomatic pressure," Hill said. "There's so much shit floating around now that a bomb going off can be pinned on terrorists if there is no trace of a missile or aircraft launch that can be backtracked."
"So we have Red Flyer teams stationed around the world with tactical nuclear weapons to use to threaten those who need threatening," Hill concluded.
"How was Parker involved?" Lowcraft asked.
"I don't know," Hill answered. "She must have done a tour of duty with Red Flyer. We take some personnel with the necessary nuclear weapons background from the military to work on the teams."
Lowcraft rubbed his eyes in weariness. "Jesus Christ, Kilten sure has uncovered a cesspool, hasn't he?"
Chapter Nineteen
Four sailors manhandled the pod with the money into the nose cone of the Tomahawk cruise missile. As soon as it was in place, a weapons specialist rigged the explosive bolts that would separate the nose cone from the missile and then the pod from the nose cone. As soon as he was done, the missile slid back on its rail into the launcher on the forecastle of the USS Shiloh.
The captain was in the fire control center, supervising as his weapons officer went through pre-fire procedures. They'd programmed the Tomahawk's guidance system using the disk from Kilten's desk at the Pentagon, the information sent by modem. The weapons officer had also programmed the firing of the bolts using the same disk.