Steve Martini - Trader of secrets

Adin had no idea of the connection between Madriani and Liquida. What’s more, he didn’t care. All that mattered was following the food chain: Madriani to Liquida, Liquida to Bruno. Adin could only hope and pray that he was getting close, and that he had enough time.

It’s possible he was a double agent,” said Janda. “We don’t know.” The general and Fowler finally decided to throw Thorpe a bone, what information they had on Raji Fareed. “We had him under surveillance. We thought we had him covered, but we lost him in France.”

“Who were you using on the ground?” said Thorpe.

“Military intelligence and CIA,” said Janda. “We thought we had plenty of resources. Somehow they both got away.”

“Funny how that happens,” said Thorpe. “Who were you using here in the States, for surveillance, I mean?” This was a sore point, and Thorpe knew it. Neither the CIA nor the military could be used legally within the territorial borders of the United States to conduct intelligence against U.S. citizens.

“We’re not discussing that,” said Fowler. “Suffice it to say that we were doing our job.”

“We knew what we were doing,” said Janda. “The reason I say Fareed could have been a double agent is not only his background, Iranian father and Israeli mother. We have photographs of him meeting with handlers from both embassies.”

“Did it ever occur to you that maybe he knew you were following him?” said Thorpe.

“He was playing a dangerous game,” said Fowler. “That’s probably why he’s dead.”

“How long did you have him under surveillance?” asked Thorpe.

“Two years,” said Janda. “We have reason to believe he was a deep plant, a sleeper. He could have been activated more recently by radicals, but we don’t think so.”

“Why wasn’t the bureau informed?”

“That’s above your pay grade,” said Fowler.

“Yet you allowed this man to have access to highly classified information and to leave the country,” said Thorpe.

“That’s enough,” said Fowler. “Your job is to find Leffort and to make sure we get any and all classified information back, including this flash drive. What about computers? Did the French police find a computer in Fareed’s hotel room?”

“No. We checked. If there was anything there, whoever killed him took it,” said Thorpe.

“Find that flash drive,” said Fowler. “Do you understand?”

“Yes.”

“Then, unless you have more information for us, we won’t detain you any longer.”

Thorpe got up, took his briefcase, and left.

They waited for the door to close behind him. “I don’t trust him,” said Fowler. “He’s not a team player.”

“He’s old enough to remember Watergate,” said Janda. “If you recall, all the team players in that event went to prison.”

“You’re not getting cold feet, are you?”

“No,” said Janda.

“In case you’re worried, let me remind you that we’re not stealing money and we’re not trying to fix elections here. You know as well as I do that this was our one chance to take down the major terrorist cell in Europe. We know they were the people one notch above Bruno Croleva in this thing. They’ve been the eyes and ears of more terrorist acts than we can count. What we were doing was on a need-to-know basis, and Thorpe didn’t need to know.”

“I agree,” said Janda. “I’m on board.”

“Good!”

“It’s just that if the media gets wind of any of the details of Project Thor, it’s going to be more than just a major international embarrassment. These are serious treaty violations. You know and I know that the president’s gonna be looking for cover, claiming that he never authorized anything. They’re going to be looking for a fall guy,” said Janda. The way he said it made Fowler wonder if he was auditioning for the role. The thought had crossed Fowler’s mind more than once.

Project Thor was a direct violation of international treaties prohibiting the militarization of space and the extension of weapons of mass destruction as part of space-based warfare.

Thor was a black box program of DARPA, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. It was undertaken only because defense agencies realized it was just a question of time before some other government stumbled on what was now becoming obvious.

Weapons of mass destruction on a scale previously unknown were already there and available, just waiting to be harvested. The Rand Corporation and others had done research and rendered reports some years earlier finding that the concept was not feasible. Not because it couldn’t be done-the science and technology were already there-but because it couldn’t replace a nuclear strike force in terms of deterrence. They were still thinking inside the box, in the terms of the Cold War. Since then the world had changed. Deterrence was not an issue if your goal was to wipe an adversary off the face of the earth and to avoid accountability for the act.

They were the perfect weapons for asymmetrical warfare. If properly deployed in a preemptive strike, the damage would be so devastating that no thermonuclear device, no matter how powerful, could compare. Best of all, they could be used without fear of retaliation. There was no way to trace them back to the nation that launched them. It was the perfect cover.

What no one knew, other than a few people at NASA and a handful of leaders at the highest levels of government, was that the United States was already three years into the testing phase. Two potential weapons were already deployed, something Raji Fareed and his handlers could not have known.

It was Leffort, the trader of secrets, who had changed the telecommand codes at NASA and severed the telemetry links to Project Thor. The weapons that had been on a taut leash for so long were no longer under the government’s control. If the world were to discover what was happening, the public panic and political fallout would be cataclysmic.

Adin drove past Richmond on toward Williamsburg, then swung around Langley Air Force Base to avoid the main gate. He approached the base from the south on State Route 167 where there was much less traffic and where he had gained access the day before.

A short distance south of the gate, he pulled off the road into an industrial area on the tidewater and parked. They all got out, Adin, Sarah, the dog, and Herman. Sarah held Bugsy on a leash. Adin opened up the back of the van. They folded up the jump seat in the back and pushed the boxes with their diplomatic seals toward the front where they could easily be seen by anyone standing outside the driver’s window. They made a wall with the boxes and arranged the tarp behind it.

Sarah and the dog got in first. Adin got Bugsy down on his stomach and petted him a little until he relaxed. Herman got in, and Adin covered all three of them with the tarp.

“Next stop is the gate. Stay still and keep quiet.” He closed the back of the van and locked it. If the guard made him open it, Adin had no idea what he would do next. This had never been part of the plan.

Back in the driver’s seat he started the engine, swung a U-turn, and drove back out to the road. He took a deep breath and turned right. Half a mile up, he saw the concrete gatehouse with the guard standing outside. There were two cars in front of him in line. Adin pulled up behind them, stopped the van, and got his paperwork ready. There was a clipboard with the embassy’s diplomatic lading slip, along with official documents all in triplicate, stamped with the embassy’s official seal.

One car was through. The second took only a moment, an officer with an ID. The guard saluted and waved him through. Adin pulled the van up and stopped.