The Assassin

Chapter One

Day 1

STRATEGIC ASSESSMENT SECTION

PENTAGON

Air Force Second Lieutenant Jarvis Reed took a sip of his now-tepid coffee, grimaced, turned around in his chair, glanced at the clock, and for the second time in as many hours, began sorting and checking through the backlog of the day's electronic F-2 reports. For Reed it was the last time-consuming chore of his shift. OP 214.1.0 stated that each day's files had to be organized and presented to the SAsC analysis crew that came on at midnight. Jarvis Reed was simply fulfilling his duty; he had never admitted as much, but he neither knew nor cared what happened to the reports after that. He had other things on his mind.

F-2 reports were routinely received between 1800 and 2100 hours and it was his shift's responsibility to have the files computerized and ready. He gave each set of photos a cursory glance, scanned each report for the time-date data, gave the report a code number, downloaded the content, made hard copies, and dropped the documents in electronic sector files marked either file/ retain or file/review . The analysts would take it from there.

Jarvis Reed considered the task of filing field reports just one more "no-brainer" in a job full of "no-brainers." After all, he was a graduate of Dartmouth, and deemed himself capable of handling far more challenging duties than the monotony and treadmill-rut the basement-based Strategic Assessment Center afforded him.

He was still scanning the most recent reports from the bases in segment P through Z when his phone rang. Delighted at the prospect of having something to do other than file reports, he snapped it up before it could ring a second time. "Lieutenant Reed, Assessment Center." He was pleased he had been able to project a military timbre in his voice.

The voice that came back at him sounded more sardonic than military. "This is Major Sanders at Rockwell, Lieutenant."

Sanders had no way of knowing it when he said it, but the words "Major" and "Rockwell" had caused Reed to turn off his radio and stiffen. Reed could count on one hand the number of important calls he had logged in his first four months at the center.

"Lieutenant, I've been reviewing our satellite photos of the sector 77-T pass at 1800GMT."

"Sector 77-T, sir?" Reed repeated. He was already in the process of locating the file, opening it, and trying to pull up the latest Rockwell report on his screen. "That would be ...?"

"That would be coded Katcar on the Turkish-Iraqi border, Lieutenant. Look for Zakho on your reference map." Sanders's voice had rapidly deteriorated from caustic to impatient.

Jarvis Reed continued to scroll past a litany of cities and sector areas with unfamiliar names: Amadiya, Arbil, Dohuk, Sinjar, and a host of others. Finally he reached the Sector 77-T map that included the area known as the Kurdish Autonomous Region as it had been called in his orientation, and the city of Zahko. "Got it," he said. There was an element of triumph in his voice. The last time one of the Rockwell analysts had called in, he had been unable to even locate the sector chart on his computer.

"Good. So tell me what you see, Lieutenant," Sanders droned.

Reed studied the images on the screen and tweaked the intensification dial. "Well, I see ... gee, are those sheep, Major?" He referenced back twenty-four hours and saw a similar image. "Is that what I'm supposed to be seeing, Major, a bunch of sheep?"

Sanders's sigh was audible. "Tell me, Lieutenant, doesn't anything about those photos strike you as the least bit unusual?"

Jarvis Reed scoured the blurry images again. "Well, sir," he stammered. "I don't think so--everything looks about the same to me."

"That's the problem, Lieutenant, think about it. Everything looks the same. Count the sheep in the first image. Reference back twenty-four hours and what do you see? Answer, the same thing, the same number of sheep. Now, doesn't that strike you as a bit odd?"

Reed waited. He was tempted to ask what was so damned peculiar about a bunch of sheep--but he knew better.

The man from Rockwell was droning on again. "I've just spent the last two hours applying overlays to that 1800GMT image, Lieutenant. Not only do we have the same number of sheep in eight straight exposures, but even more curious, those sheep are in the exact same location on each pass. What do you think the odds are of that happening?"

"Gee, I don't know, sir. Sheep are sheep."

"Those satellite images, Lieutenant, are giving us an area sweep with only a few degrees variation in each pass. Knowing that, I went back over forty-eight hours worth of images. Not one change, Lieutenant, not one single change. Do you have any idea what the mathematical probability is of those sheep being in the same damned identical position over a forty-eight-hour period?"

Reed cleared his throat. "I don't know much about sheep, sir. Maybe I should show this to Major Russell when he comes on at midnight." What little bearing there had been in his voice when he answered the telephone had deserted him. He knew he sounded green, but it was the only thing he could think to say.

"Wise decision, Lieutenant. Then, after Major Russell has had a chance to study the situation, have him contact me...."

With that, his voice trailed off into silence. Still, Jarvis Reed waited to make certain; he continued listening until he heard the line go dead. Only then did he allow himself to nestle the phone back in its cradle and take a deep breath.

It occurred to him that, in the grand scheme of things, the major's call might have been the most important one he had logged to date--but at that very moment, it meant one thing and one thing only. He would be expected to remain at his duty station until Major Russell had analyzed the satellite photos--which meant the small hours of the morning.

He picked up the phone again, this time to dial Janet's number. He was rehearsing how he planned to break the news to her. When she answered, his voice sounded flat. "Honey, better go on to bed. It looks like I'll be here for a while...."

Jarvis Reed had anticipated some kind of expression of disappointment in his girlfriend's voice, but the abrupt click that followed was the only thing that indicated how upset she really was. It was the third time it had happened in two weeks. Now, with nothing better to do, he turned his attention back to the satellite photos. "What the hell is so damned important about a bunch of damn sheep?" he muttered.

Air Force Major Simon Russell was a humorless little man who viewed any anomaly reported by the SAsC monitoring stations as a potential threat to national security. At forty-seven years of age, he was the senior analyst on the Center's midnight shift, and delighted to be pulling his second tour of duty at the Center. It was a position he had held and relished for the last five years.

Now, with Jarvis Reed standing behind him, peering over his shoulder, Russell examined the sequence of satellite photos. "When did you first notice this?" Russell finally asked.

"I wish I could say I did, sir," Reed admitted, "but I missed it altogether. Major Sanders at Rockwell is the one that caught it."

Simon Russell laid down his magnifying glass, pushed himself away from his desk, and rubbed his eyes. "Don't let Mel Sanders get to you, Lieutenant. He gets a kick out of twisting the tails of the greenhorns."

"I should have caught it, sir," Reed apologized.

"So--what else did he point out?"

Jarvis Reed reflected back on Sanders's call. "That's all, sir. Just that there were the same number of sheep in the same position over a forty-eight-hour period."

Russell smiled. "Did he neglect to mention that the sheep are all lying down?"

The young lieutenant bent down to get a better look at the sequence of photographs. "You're right, sir," he said. "Why do you suppose ...?"

Russell pulled himself back up to the desk and picked up the magnifying glass again. "Did you ever see sheep sleep, Lieutenant?"

Reed shook his head. "Can't say that I have, Major. Back in Boston where I come from, most folks don't keep sheep around the house."

"Sheep, Lieutenant," Russell began, "tend to sleep with their legs folded under them--like cattle. They don't very often sleep all sprawled out like the ones in this satellite image."

"Meaning what, sir?"

"I'll give you odds, Lieutenant, the sheep you see in these satellite images are either damn sick or all dead. Probably the latter."

Day 2

SHAQLAWA, IRAQ

Cemal Gursel considered himself to be a man both cursed and blessed. A Turkish Muslim by birth, he plied his trade from a small fruit cart: selling pomegranates, apples, pears, and now and then an occasional basket of almonds and walnuts to Kurdish tribesmen who lived in the area north of Shaqlawa.

Gursel considered his blessing to be the fact that he had once been wed to a young Kurdish woman by the name of Aniqua. Their all-too-brief union had presented him with a daughter named Divan. The girl's birth, however, both difficult and unattended, had resulted in Gursel's curse, the death of his young wife. In retrospect, Aniqua had lived just long enough to bear him a daughter and for the local Kurd tribesmen to regard him as an outsider who could be trusted.

Now, seven years later, with his cherished Divan sitting beside him, he guided his donkey, a cantankerous beast once said to be owned by a rich man in Gully Ali Beg, and his creaking cart onto an unfamiliar trail. The trail, he had been told, would lead him through a narrow, rocky pass down to his destination, a remote highland meadow. The meadow, he had also been told, was surrounded by sheer granite projections dotted with caves along the base--and the Kurds who lived there were said to be kinsman of Arion, distantly related to Gursel's late wife's father.

In making the journey, Gursel hoped that Arion's endorsement would permit him to do commerce with the Kurdish shepherds who still lived in the nearby caves and the village of Koboli.

As the trail widened and Gursel's cart rolled into the clearing, he was assailed by the repugnant smells of something long dead. When he was able to get a better look, he saw dotting the landscape the entire length of the meadow--the carcasses of sheep, hundreds of them. Their bodies were still bloated, but already in the early stages of decay.

"What is the smell?" Divan asked. Gursel knew she was still too small to understand the concept of death, and when he looked down at her, her eyes had already begun to tear and she was shaking. His first impulse was to hold her close to him and console her, but she had already seen the devastation. Instead, he crawled down from the cart and instructed the girl to stay where she was.

Later, near noon, Camal Gursel finished his gruesome audit. His search had taken him into a half-dozen caves and each time he was confronted with the same nightmare: the bodies of every Kurd man, woman, and child had somehow been subjected to the same terrible fate. Their faces were twisted into masks of agony. Their throats were bloated, their stomachs distended, and there was ample evidence of hemorrhaging from the eyes, ears, nostrils, and mouth. Dogs, goats, and several head of donkeys had suffered a similar fate.

During the course of his morning-long odyssey from one cave to another, Gursel had twice gone back to check on his young daughter. The girl, although still upset, appeared to be all right, and Gursel returned to his search, hoping to find the cause of the curse that had befallen the tiny Kurdish settlement. Throughout the morning he counted bodies, and whenever possible searched through their belongings in hopes of learning names. Some he had learned. Others would suffer ignominy in their untimely death. He had tried to gather all the names and facts he could. He knew Arion would want to know every last detail.

Finally, with the unrelenting mountain sun hammering down on the scene, and the stench of death assailing him from all directions, he concluded his investigation and started back to his cart. That was when he discovered the first of the strange canisters, made of metal, no more than ten centimeters in length and perforated with thousands of tiny holes. It was dented and even ruptured at one end of the cylinder. By the time he reached his cart, he had stumbled across two more of the strange-looking cylinders.

Gursel would later admit that he had thought about burying the remains of the unfortunate Kurds, but the enormity of the task and the smell made him decide to turn back and return to Shaqlawa. Then, as he started to leave, he looked back one last time. This time, like his daughter, he too had tears in his eyes.

Day 2

INTERNAL SECURITY AGENCY

WASHINGTON

It was a longtime habit; on Sundays Robert Miller caught up with his paperwork. As Clancy Packer's chief administrative assistant and number-one handyman at the Internal Security Agency, he had long ago fallen into the habit of reading field reports on the day when most everything else in Washington had been boarded up for the weekend. On Sunday, the phone seldom rang and the office was usually deserted. Deserted, that is, if he disregarded the two agents monitoring the latest reports from the world's hot spots in the basement of the three-story building.

Miller was a bachelor, a title he treasured more highly than even that of A.A. to the agency's number-one man, Clancy Packer. He was average height, average weight, and considered himself to be of no more than average intelligence. The fact that he had graduated with honors from Georgetown's prestigious law school apparently had done nothing to change that assessment. As well as average, Robert Miller also considered himself to be a realist--and that meant he knew what made him valuable. At the head of that list was an incredible memory for detail. Robert Miller had a mind that was somehow able to capture and retain the most minute aspects of long-ago events--many of which were embarrassingly irrelevant and served no useful purpose.

As usual, the majority of the reports he scanned on this particular Sunday were routine--so much so in fact that the agency's man in Northern Ireland had even taken the time to include a couple of limericks at the end of his report. The report from Malaysia read almost word for word like the one from the previous week. It wasn't until he began to review the file from Israel and the Palestinian territories that something caught his attention--two sentences in the second paragraph:

We continue to hear rumors of field testing by Iraqi extremists of a "mustard gas" type agent similar to that used in previous Iraqi attacks on Kurdish tribesmen. Air solvent samples taken by agencies monitoring the impacted areas would seem to verify at least some of these rumors....

Miller read the two sentences a second time, turned around in his chair, hit the "on" switch, opened the files, and typed out the words Poison Warfare (Nerve) Gases on his keyboard. The information began trailing across his monitor. He indexed down past Tabun (GA), Sarin (GB), and Soman (GD), until he came to the information he was looking for, the cyanides. The symptoms and formula for both hydrogen cyanide and cyanogen chloride appeared on the screen--and Miller studied them.

He was still hunched over his keyboard when the phone rang. Out of habit he reached for it before he remembered he had instructed the men manning the phones that he did not want any calls. When he picked it up, it was too late. "Miller here," he grumbled.

"Didn't expect to find anyone there, Robert," Langley admitted, "but I'm glad I caught you."

Miller slouched back in his chair. "What's the matter? No tennis matches today?"

Peter Langley laughed. "For Christ's sake, Robert, don't you do anything but hole up in that damn office of yours? If you'd bother to look out your damn window, you'd know it's coming down by the buckets out there. Not only that, it's getting colder."

"Then I'm in the right place," Miller said with a laugh.

"Is Clancy there?"

"Negative. In fact, he's in the wrong place. He's sitting out there in the rain and cold at the Redskins game. I don't expect to see him or talk to him until tomorrow. Any message?"

"Matter of fact, there is. I just got a call from a Dr. Henry Stanhouse over at Immigration Services."

Miller repeated the name. "Stanhouse. Do I know him?"

"He runs their screening unit. At any rate, they've come across something they think we should know about. It seems they got a body bag over there with some bad stuff in it."

" Bad stuff? What the hell kind of report is that?"

"Look, I don't know enough about this to know what I'm talking about ... but I did pick up on some of the background. Three weeks ago, the Red Crescent received word of an outbreak of some kind along the Iraqi-Turkish border in a Kurd settlement near Shehab on the Iraqi side. The Red Cross sent a representative in to see if they could be of any help. What they found made their toes curl: eighty or so dead Kurds and all of the livestock in the encampment wiped out as well. The RC rep thought he might be looking at some new kind of plague or something and made arrangements to have an autopsy performed on one of the cadavers. Bottom line, the Turkish authorities couldn't do much with it and the body was shipped over here so the folks at DIS could have a look at it."

"And ...?" Miller kicked back with his feet on his desk.

"And the body arrived this morning on a flight from Ankara. Stanhouse opened the bag, took one look, or maybe I should say one whiff, and closed it back up. He said he'd do the autopsy tomorrow to make it official, but he also said there was no doubt in his mind that the subject was exposed to, and in all probability died from, some kind of poison gas."

"Poison gas?" Miller straightened up in his chair again and began scribbling a note he would leave on Packer's desk. "Go ahead, Peter, I'm still listening."

"That's all I know at the moment. But Stanhouse wanted to be certain that you people over at ISA were aware."

"I'll see that Clancy gets the message," Miller said. "By the way, how does he go about getting in touch with Stanhouse if he wants to pursue this?"

Langley gave Miller three different telephone numbers where Stanhouse could be reached, then hung up. Within seconds after Langley's call, Miller had brought the Israeli report up on his screen for a second time.

... continue to hear rumors of field testing by Iraqi extremists of a "mustard gas" type agent similar to that used in previous Iraqi attacks on Kurdish tribesmen. Air solvent samples taken by agencies monitoring the impacted areas would seem to verify at least some of these rumors....

He read the text of the entire report twice, closed his eyes momentarily, then reached for the telephone. Before he completed dialing he had thought twice about what he was about to do, and instead turned to look out at the rain. Why ruin Packer's day? Besides, Packer already had his hands full. His boss would be damn lucky if the Redskins weren't getting pasted and he didn't catch pneumonia in the process. Peter Langley was right, it was indeed a nasty day out there.

Day 4

IMMIGRATION SERVICES

WASHINGTON

Dr. Henry Stanhouse was a tall, somewhat awkward-appearing man with a reputation for both thoroughness and integrity. He also had a reputation for being blunt--and it was that abrupt, often abrasive style that people said had kept him buried in the bowels of the DIS for over twenty years.

Sitting across from him, listening to Stanhouse conclude a heated telephone conversation, Clancy Packer was reminded of his own run-ins with the fiery medic. They had clashed more than once over the years and there were times when they barely spoke--a fact that did not keep Stanhouse from calling Clancy in on something when the occasion demanded it.

When he finished, Stanhouse slammed the phone down and grumbled, "Now, where the hell were we?"

"You were going to tell me about the necropsy report on--"

"Right, right," Stanhouse said. He reached for the intercom. "Helen, are you out there?" Packer heard a muffled response from the outer office. "Bring in that necropsy report I dictated this morning." Stanhouse thought for a moment, then added, "And bring in those photographs as well."

Helen came in, acknowledged Packer, laid two folders on the doctor's desk, and departed. Stanhouse glanced at both the file and photographs before he shoved three eight-by-tens across the desk at Packer. Clancy picked them up and caught his breath. Stanhouse hadn't warned him. They were photographs of a cadaver that had been laid open from his throat to his stomach. To Stanhouse the photographs were routine.

"From these pictures, Clancy, it's obvious the Turks butchered the body up pretty bad trying to determine the cause of death." Stanhouse shrugged his shoulders. "On the other hand, you have to give them credit; they had enough sense to put everything back where it belongs--except for the damned pancreas. They managed to stuff it in there ass-backwards."

Packer studied the photographs. "Just exactly what am I supposed to be looking at, Henry?"

"Start with the lungs," Stanhouse said. He reached across the desk and stabbed his pencil at the cadaver's lungs. "There, those cone-shaped organs there in the thoracic cavity. Notice how the pleural membrane is pitted and inflamed?"

Packer nodded. "What's that tell you?"

"It tells me I'm on the right track, dammit. That pleural membrane should never look that way. Whatever our friend here was doing when it happened, the air in his lungs was suddenly contaminated With properties his respiratory system simply couldn't handle."

"What you're saying is some kind of extremely toxic substance?"

"Exactly. The last few minutes of this young man's life weren't very pleasant, Clancy. He probably experienced a dryness and burning sensation in the throat, then a dyspnea or shortness of breath, followed by hyperpnea or rapid and shallow breathing as his lungs began to blister. This, of course, led to convulsion and coma, and ultimately he died, terminated by cardiovascular collapse. In other words, he was his own worst enemy in those few minutes before he died; the more he struggled to breathe, the worse it got."

Packer waited. He knew Stanhouse wasn't through.

"The agents or components in the toxic substance acted by binding the FE components of the cytochrome c oxidase system. This, of course, controls the cellular respiration and exchange of oxygen. An easier way to explain would be to tell you his respiratory system was invaded by an oily acid."

"Oily acid?" Packer repeated.

"I found traces of it in every damned biopsy I took."

"What was the chemical base?"

Stanhouse leaned back in his chair and looked at the ceiling. "Don't know yet. I'm no chemist. But it could be any number of things. I've got some of my people trying to determine the chemical components now."

"How was it ingested?"

"Breathing, pure and simple breathing. Whatever it was, Clancy, it was obviously in the air. Dispersed, I would image, by some sort of manmade device. Mother Nature just isn't that damned insidious."

"Any guesses?"

"Like I said, I'm no toxicologist, but five will get you ten it is some form of hybrid hydrogen cyanide or cyanogen chloride. But again, that's only an educated guess."

Clancy Packer frowned and leaned forward with his elbows on Stanhouse's desk. "Anything else you can tell me?"

"No doubt you've already figured this one out, but I'd say whoever concocted this little nightmare had every intention of causing a great deal of suffering. This was no accident."

Packer stood up and the two men shook hands. "I've got another meeting to go to, Henry. I trust you'll call me when you know more?"

"I will," Stanhouse assured him, "but I can already guarantee you this much. Whoever did this sure as hell didn't have the milk of human kindness coursing through their veins."

Day 4

INTERNAL SECURITY AGENCY

WASHINGTON

Robert Miller had developed the habit of closing up shop, as he called it, after the worst of Washington's rush-hour traffic had subsided. That meant he seldom left his office until a few minutes after six. Even then, he knew he was probably destined to spend more time in his car than he wanted to.

To pass the time before he left, he usually checked with the ISA offices in San Francisco and Los Angeles, or tackled one of the files in his pending basket. Miller thought it was unusual that Clancy Packer had not checked back with his office following his round of meetings that had begun with his morning meeting with Stanhouse.

With nothing more than the information Peter Langley had passed along in his Sunday call, Miller called up the single reference sector chart the NI officer had described, Sector 77-T, on his computer. When it appeared on the screen he was looking at a map of the northeast mountain region immediately south of the Turkish-Iraq border. He scrolled down until he found the chart indicating topographical detail and studied the terrain features. They consisted mostly of low mountains laced with a network of valleys. The yellow overlay indicated the entire sector was thinly populated. Someone had made a notation that indicated the chart had been updated two years earlier using a series of G-5A satellite photos. The new chart, minus research data, was visually more explicit.

Focusing on Zahko, he called up a map of the town as well as the surrounding area, pinpointing its location east of both the Tigris River and a major north-south oil pipeline. From there he zeroed in on the town itself. There were two large areas immediately east of the town, in Ammash, where construction appeared to be under way.

With that fixed in his mind, he referenced back to the more recent satellite photos, and the areas that had been under construction now appeared to be complete. In addition, the later photos indicated a network of roads had also been built to accommodate whatever was being built at the two construction sites.

He saw enough for him to put a call through to Chief Petty Officer Bet Crimmins at NI. She was known as Peter Langley's right-hand woman and a first-rate investigator in her own right. So impressed was Miller that he had even made discreet inquiries about her marital status. A laughing Langley had provided him with vague answers and an even vaguer concept of what she looked like. Still, it was a start; Miller knew now that she was single, and he continued to kick around the idea of asking her out to dinner.

When he heard her voice on the other end of the line, he announced himself. "Robert Miller at ISA. Need your help."

As usual, Bet Crimmins sounded happy to hear him. She was as relaxed as Miller was uptight. "Working late again, Robert? You know what they say about all work and no play, don't you?"

She had given him an opening, but Miller decided not to take it. "Dull boy or not, I need your help."

"Go for it."

Miller didn't hesitate. "Near the town of Zahko, northeast Iraq, there is an area called Ammash. The latest photos show two large structures and a number of smaller buildings, maybe even an airstrip --all relatively recent construction. What do you know about them?"

"A little out of your bailiwick, isn't it? I thought ISA was only interested in ZI matters?"

"Call it curiosity."

"Okay, I'll call it curiosity." There was a lull on the other end of the line and he could hear her fingers dancing over the keyboard. "Okay--the latest G-2 says the building to the is a military installation of some kind. The larger of the two structures is said to be a pharmaceutical factory."

"Pharmaceutical company?"

"Affirmative."

"What else do you know about it?"

"That'll take some digging. I'll get back to you."

Miller thanked her, hung up, closed his eyes, and tried to make some sense out of what he had just learned. Then he took out a piece of paper and began to jot down names. He had his own checking to do.