Michael Walsh - Early Warning

Secrets. They were the basis of their relationship. Even though she knew it was not his real name, she still called him “Frank,” because that was how he had first introduced himself. She had since learned that “Frank Ross” was one of a series of operational pseudonyms he had used, never to be repeated, but Frank he first was to her and Frank he had remained. Perhaps, someday, she would learn who he really was. But then, she supposed, he would have to kill her.

As for herself, there were plenty of things she hadn’t told him. Most things. In fact, everything about their relationship-even their love affair-was based on indirection, misdirection, or outright lies. And neither of them would have it any other way.

They both had jobs to do. Thrice already in their lives their jobs had intersected, the first time in Paris, the second last year in Los Angeles and, later, in France. They had been there for each other, when they needed each other, and in their business that was just about the highest compliment one could pay to a colleague-or a lover.

And she did love him. Whatever had been the original impetus for her assignment, it didn’t matter. Iranian politics, especially since the revolution, were impenetrable to outsiders, even to him. But she had been raised in them. For more than thirty years her country had cried out for justice and vengeance. She only hoped she could give it a little bit of both.

Most Americans over the age of 50, she understood, had zero sympathy for Iran. As young people, they had had their senses assaulted by the hordes of Iranian demonstrators on the streets of America ’s cities, shouting about the Shah and his secret police force, the SAVAK. Then Khomeini came back to Tehran from Paris and the Shah fled and the ayatollahs took over, and suddenly the most Western country in the Middle East, a Persian culture that had existed for millennia, with great art, literature, poetry, and music, had succumbed once more to an alien, fundamentalist oppressor and was taking American hostages and shoving its women into burqas. In less than a decade, the glorious Peacock Throne had degenerated into another totalitarian dictatorship.

Then the demonstrators took the streets again, this time against the Ayatollah. With hundreds of Americans being held hostage in the embassy, in violation of every international diplomatic protocol, they found no shoulders to cry on. If, in 1980, President Carter had nuked Tehran, he would have won reelection in a landslide, thought Maryam. But he was too weak, and the rot that had taken over America had first revealed itself; despite Reagan’s tough talk, his primary focus was breaking the Soviet Union, which he did. And after him, the deluge of mediocrity that resulted from warring political families, neither with the best interests of the nation at heart. Which is why Tyler had been elected as a breath of fresh air, a plague and a pox on both their houses.

“…ready?” he was asking her.

“Sorry, what?” she said, coming out of her fog of remembrance.

Devlin looked at her. Every instinct, every bit of his training told him that he shouldn’t trust her, that he didn’t really know anything about her, and yet he did. It was Milverton’s last question to him as they battled to the death in London: “Do you trust the bitch? You don’t even know her real name.” But he had ignored that, instead taking a page from Milverton’s old outfit, the SAS-22’s: “Who Dares, Wins.” All his life he had trusted nobody, but he trusted her.

“ New York is under attack. We have to move. Now.”

Maryam tried not to let her alarm show. She was, after all, a professional. But an attack on New York was the nightmare that had been waiting to happen for a decade. “Then we go in together,” she said.

The plane was rolling to a stop as he replied: “No. I go in. You go on.”

“Where? When?”

“As soon as I tell that idiot Tyler what we’re going to do. Right now you’re going to tell me how bad it is.”

“But-” She caught herself. She knew it was no use to remonstrate with him. Neither love nor guilt played any role in his psyche, and on some level she felt that he would willingly sacrifice her if the mission ever required it. Just as she knew, deep inside, that if the day ever came when she had to choose between her mission and their happiness…She let the thought trail off, not wishing to finish it.

“There’s some kind of incident going on in Times Square. Whether the police are up to handling it, we’ll soon find out. Probably not, but they’ll never admit it. That’s why I need you to crack the CTU unit and find out what they know.”

“With what?” Even though they were aboard an NSA plane, which was as well equipped with computers and surveillance equipment as anything in the air, including Air Force One, they still might not be up to the challenge. The New York Counter-Terrorism Unit was famously secure.

“With your head,” he replied. “Now get cracking.”

Devlin pulled out his secure BlackBerry and opened up a direct channel to Seelye. This was not his preferred method of communication, because he felt a wireless device, no matter how well designed by the NSA engineers at The Building, could never be as safe as the hard-wire he’d had back at his home in Falls Church, but at this point he didn’t have any choice. This would get him straight to Seelye, which meant straight to Tyler.

IN PLACE SIT UPDATE ASAP

The scrambled and decoded text came flying right back at him. There were a lot of things he hated about Tyler -almost everything, in fact-but one thing he had to admit, the man was always on the job. Tyler had taught him a lot of things Devlin wished every night he could forget, but a work ethic and a sense of duty was not one of them.

HANDS OFF THIS END. YOU ARE SOLO. NORMAL ROE. CONFIRM

CONFIRMED. ACCESS?

NONE. LOCKDOWN. NYPD SHOW.

TOOLS?

IN PLACE, SAFE HOUSES. STAND BY. REVOLUTION

Devlin had to wait only a beat or two before a series of numbers flooded the secure computer screen. In a few minutes, they would be sorted out into street addresses superimposed upon enhanced-imaging maps provided by the National Reconnaissance Office, another of the many U.S. intelligence organizations few Americans had ever heard of. The NRO was attached to the SecDef, and it was responsible for collecting and coordinating aerial imagery from airplanes and satellites. In other words, the NRO was Google Earth on steroids, and it could send you a picture via nearly instantaneous transmission that could show you the Iranian nuclear installations at Qom or the tramp stamp on the girl on the beach at Ipanema.

“Revolution” simply meant that the vetted safe houses revolved on a daily basis and the secure information he was receiving would sort out the active flops from the dummies and the poisoned pills. Assuming he could get to one of them, it would be outfitted with just about any kind of weapon he might need, short of a low-yield nuclear device and he wouldn’t put that past NSA, either. Devlin glanced at the computer, which had identified three safe houses in Manhattan; one in midtown near the United Nations, one downtown near Wall Street, and one at the northern tip of the island, in Inwood.

ROGER THAT. COOP?

ASSUME NONE.

EMERGENCY LIAISON BYRNE, FRANCIS X, CORRECT?

UNDER ROE ONLY, YOUR CALL

Devlin clicked off. He memorized the locations of the safe houses and committed the floor plans to memory as well, noting all entrances and exits. There would be codes at each of them, security death traps for the unwary, the too-curious, and the sacrificial pawns, but he could handle that sort of thing in his sleep. He only hoped that the situation would not get too far out of control before he could in and get fully equipped.