The Rule Of Nine Part 9

"Infosec, international relations."

"That covers a lot of sins," said Thorpe. "How long you been out of the navy?"

"Is it that obvious?" said Sanchez.

"Lucky guess," said Thorpe.

"Two years."

"When you see George Simmels, tell him Jughead says h.e.l.lo." Simmels was Sanchez's boss. He was an old salt who never hired anybody who hadn't first paid his dues bounding on the main. He and Thorpe, a former marine, went back almost twenty years.

Thorpe also knew that Simmels was soon for retirement, whether he wanted it or not. For decades the navy held a firm edge in the field of encryption, code making and breaking. Throughout the Cold War this was the NSA's fundamental mission. But no longer. That had all changed with the attack on 9/11. Now the NSA's job was to read everybody's e-mail and listen to their telephone communications, or at least as many of them as could be sucked out of the ether by the supercomputers at Fort Meade. The job was to scan it all, searching for the code words of terrorism. On that score the air force held the whip hand. They controlled most of the critical communications satellites.

"Sir, I'm Colonel Nelson Winget." The man in the uniform slid a business card down the table toward Thorpe.

"You can call me Thorpe, Zeb, anything but sir," said Thorpe. "That one's reserved for my five-year-old grandson and only when he knows he's been really bad." He looked at the business card: a.s.sISTANT COMMANDER, AIR FORCE SYSTEMS COMMAND, WRIGHT-PATTERSON AIR FORCE BASE. "Who wants to start?"

Zink jumped into the void. "The plane in the file photo is Russian made, an IL-76, registered in the Georgian Republic. As to who owns it, it's anybody's guess. t.i.tle seems to be a bit cloudy. The aircrew is a mixed bag, three of them out of Belarus, and one Chechen. They were flying out of North Korea. The plane was forced down by mechanical problems and landed at Don Muang airport in Bangkok two days ago. Thai authorities found thirty-five tons of arms and munitions on board, all of it in violation of the UN Security Council ban on exports from North Korea."

"And who says serendipity never works for our side?" said Thorpe.

"We did tip off Thai customs as to what we thought was on board," said Sanchez.

"You don't have to explain to me," said Thorpe. "As long as they land outside the country and it doesn't start a war, you got my vote. So far it sounds like an issue for the State Department or Defense, not us." He started to close the cover on the file in front of him.

"We don't know the intended final destination," said Zink. "You can probably draw a big circle around the Middle East and throw darts at it."

"But there appears to be a problem," said Sanchez, "and if we're right, it's gonna likely fall in your court sooner or later."

"Go on," said Thorpe.

"Yesterday we intercepted telephonic communications between an individual in Pyongyang, North Korea, and someone in the area of the northern Caribbean," said Sanchez. "They were using a satellite link we don't control, part of the old Soviet system. And the receiving end in the Caribbean wasn't using a cell phone. It was an old a.n.a.log landline."

"Cuba," said Thorpe.

Sanchez nodded. "It gave us some problems with transcription since our computers and our software are weighted toward digital signals. So we didn't get the entire conversation."

"Was it encrypted?" said Thorpe.

"No. It was clear and in English," said Sanchez. This meant it probably wasn't the North Korean military or its government talking to their counterparts in Cuba.

"It appears to have been a private-party conversation. The transcript is in your file, the parts that we were able to pick up."

Thorpe had the file open again and was turning pages until he found the transcript and started to read.

"The scanning software at one of our stations picked up the phone call because of the location from which the call originated, in North Korea. It became a full intercept when key words were recognized," said Sanchez. "You'll see those words highlighted in the transcript."

"The man calling in from Pyongyang was reporting to his friend in Cuba that a certain cargo plane was forced down in the 'land of smiles.'"

"Thailand," said Thorpe.

"It was clear there was something on board they were interested in. The man at the Cuban end of the conversation seemed to be in charge. He was worried that the communication might be intercepted. They beat around the bush for a while and finally out came the words 'big guy' and 'little kid,'" said Sanchez.

"And that's when all the lights and buzzers on your computer went off." Thorpe had already keyed on the highlighted words in the transcript.

"It's not just words or phrases, but usage," said Sanchez. "The way these words are employed in a conversation that triggers the computer to recognize them. They were among a number of similar words or phrases designed to capture a particular reference."

"Fat Man and Little Boy," said Thorpe.

"Yes," said Sanchez. These were the two atomic bombs dropped on j.a.pan to end World War II.

"We lost bits and pieces of the conversation. But it appears that the subject in the Caribbean asked the man in Pyongyang which of the two was on board the plane. And the man in North Korea said 'the big guy.'"

"I see it." Thorpe sits up straight in his chair. "Do we know what was on that plane?" He looks at Zink.

"We sent two agents over from the emba.s.sy in Bangkok late yesterday, before we knew about the telephone intercepts," said Zink. "But Thai customs wasn't sure how much they could cooperate until they had approval from a higher authority."

"So we still don't know what's on that plane?" said Thorpe.

"We do now," said Sanchez. "When the phone intercept came in, we alerted the military. The navy dispatched one of their nuclear weapons officers from Subic, in the Philippines. When the Thai military saw the guy in a Hazmat suit with a yellow Geiger counter the size of your mama's kitchen stove, they stepped aside and set a world speed record for deplaning."

"And?" said Thorpe.

"Good news and bad news," said Sanchez. "Good news is, there was nothing nuclear on board."

Thorpe issued a deep sigh of relief and settled back into his chair.

"The plane contained a bandit's bazaar, everything the well-armed terrorist wants for Christmas," said Zink. "RPGs, rocket launchers, missile tubes and the missiles to go with them, shoulder-fired surface-to-air stuff, enough Kalashnikovs to restart the Russian Revolution. All of it crated up in wood and labeled as tools. Thai customs is still doing an inventory.

"Don't get too comfortable," said Zink, "'cause we're not off the hook yet. There was one big surprise, a wooden crate about half the size of a small house, marked 'oil drilling equipment.' It took us a while, but we finally convinced the Thais to let us take a peek. At first n.o.body knew what it was. It looked like a very large, oversize hot water heater."

"Go on," said Thorpe.

"They tested it for radiation but it wasn't hot. Well, maybe I shouldn't say that yet."

"Why not?"

The air force colonel leaned forward at the table. "Because according to our ordnance people, it's thermobaric, and it's the biggest d.a.m.n thing they've ever seen," said Winget.

"You mean like McVeigh's truck bomb in Oklahoma City?" said Thorpe.

"Similar principle," said Winget, "but on a much higher order of technology, and far more destructive. It is a fuel-air device and considerably larger than anything we have in our own a.r.s.enal. We don't know the exact magnitude. So far our experts have only seen pictures of it. We have two of them on a plane now, on their way to Thailand to examine it. But based on the photos they've seen, they're telling us it looks like a Russian design."

"Why would the Russians-"

"We don't think the Russians built it. It probably has 'Made in North Korea' stamped on the bottom of it, part of the technology transfer from back in the eighties. The Russians got a big jump start on us in the field of thermobaric weapons before the Soviet empire went down. We had to play catch-up when we first went to war in Afghanistan. You remember the mountain caves at Tora Bora?"

Thorpe nodded. "I remember seeing pictures."

"We used B-52s and bunker-busting thermobaric bombs in an effort to penetrate the caves and incinerate whoever was inside. We believed it was Bin Laden. If it was, he slipped away.

"Based on the size of the device in the photographs, if its power is true to scale and if you could set it off in the right spot under the right conditions, you could boil a fair amount of the water in the Chesapeake."

"You're kidding," said Thorpe.

"I wish I was," said Winget. "It's only half a step to a step down from a nuclear device. There's no fallout from radiation and the blast effect is more confined. That's the good news. The bad news is that once you master the technology and perfect the design, which isn't that difficult, the weapon is easily replicated, and the technical know-how is readily transferable to others. We know that terrorist groups have been experimenting with fuel-air designs for some time. The bombing in Bali a few years ago showed signs of fuel-air design."

"It stands to reason that this is the cargo the man in Cuba was talking about with his friend in Pyongyang," said Sanchez. "The big kid."

"What you're saying is that somewhere there's a smaller one still floating around," said Thorpe.

"Worse than that," said Winget. "Look at the rest of the telephone transcript."

Thorpe turned back to the file and read to the end of the transcript. "The North Koreans have a replacement for the one on the plane."

"It looks like it," said Winget. "We're talking a very serious problem here. Grounding that plane may have slowed them down but it didn't stop them."

"It appears the North Koreans are selling this stuff to private contractors," said Sanchez. "There's a lesson to be learned here, if you ever get a chance to testify and they ask your opinion."

Thorpe looked at him.

"Before the embargo the North Koreans were s.h.i.+pping their military wares mostly to other friendly regimes in return for hard currency," said Sanchez. "As we push the UN to tighten the screws on the embargo, all indications are that more of this stuff is going underground. Major weapons systems finding their way onto the black market and into the hands of people who don't own territory or possess national flags. You want my opinion, embargos are not only weak because they're hard to enforce. When you do enforce them, the result can turn out to be even more dangerous."

"Unfortunately, we can't resolve that one here," said Thorpe. "It's above our pay grade. For the moment let's stick to the problem at hand. What are we dealing with? The device itself. How does it work? And what type of targets are most vulnerable? Let's start with how it works." He looked at Winget.

"In a nutsh.e.l.l?" said the officer.

Thorpe nodded.

"They use liquid high explosives in a vaporized form, mixed with delayed accelerants, in most cases aluminum powder or other flammable metal dust, magnesium, t.i.tanium, any of these will do. The bomb doesn't kill or destroy in the conventional manner of most high-explosive ordnance, through fragmentation or shrapnel. It uses intense heat and ma.s.sive concussion. It's a two-stage process. On ignition the device will deploy a large volume of powdered flammable metal dust into the air. This is followed by the detonation of a superheated high explosive that creates the first of two pressure waves, in this case an out blast. A fraction of a second later, the powdered metal in the air will ignite, setting off the second and much larger pressure wave, this one called a back blast. It's not unlike an implosion. This will collapse all but the most hardened structures and rupture the internal organs of anyone inside.

"Walls, even if they're concrete, don't provide much protection. The powdered metal, once it starts to burn, creates a superheated slurry that forms a molten plasma. This will find its way into even the smallest crevice in a wall and cook everything on the other side. If the target structure by some miracle stays intact and remains sealed, say an underground bunker or a hardened cave, the heat will suck the oxygen from it. So if the heat doesn't kill and the initial blast doesn't burst the lungs, the vacuum that follows will collapse them. If you're in the target structure, it's almost impossible to survive," said Winget. "It's a thorough and relentless killing machine."

"What kind of delivery system would be required, say, for the item crated up in Thailand to reach and destroy its target?" asked Thorpe. "And please tell me it's a heavy-lift airplane, something we can track on radar and shoot down before it reaches its target."

"Aerial delivery might be optimal but not necessarily the only method," said Winget. "In the proper setting a truck will do just as well. Unlike nuclear, you're not looking for an air burst to obtain maximum effect. We used B-52s at Tora Bora with earth-penetrating ordnance because it was the safest and most efficient way to reach the target. You can use fuel-air bombs on the open battlefield, but that's not the most optimum deployment. Maximum destruction and lethality would be obtained in a large enclosed structure. Thermobaric devices are perfect for underground bunkers, caves, tunnels, and they can be used to flatten large buildings. It's most effective to get them inside the structure before detonation. Then again, McVeigh didn't drive the truck into the federal building in Oklahoma City. He parked it at the curb in front. And we all remember the level of damage and loss of life there. So there are no hard-and-fast rules."

"Let's go back to the two men on the phone," said Thorpe. "Any idea where that plane was going to deliver this thing, if it hadn't gotten waylaid in Thailand?"

"Best bet's Cuba," said Sanchez. "They have airfields capable of landing and could provide cover for the device."

"You think the Cuban government would allow an air attack on the U.S. from the island?" said Winget. "I don't think so."

"I didn't say that," said Sanchez. "But once it's on the ground these guys could always transport the device by s.h.i.+p, move it from one vessel to another, and sooner or later it arrives in a U.S. port boxed as industrial tools and they could haul it by truck. You said so yourself."

"Possibly," said Winget.

"In other words, we don't have a clue," said Thorpe. "Mr. Sanchez, when your agency alerted the Thai government that there were arms on board that plane, I take it NSA had no idea that this device was there?"

"Correct," said Sanchez.

"How did you know about the small arms?" said Thorpe.

"Communications intercepts and, from what I understand, some satellite surveillance."

"What other agencies are already in the loop?" asked Thorpe.

"CIA and military intelligence branches have already been informed," said Sanchez.

"What about Homeland Security?" asked Thorpe.

"I don't know," said Sanchez.

"We notify Homeland Security, the White House, U.S. Customs, especially at the ports. Tell them what to look for. Send them photographs if you can."

Zink was taking notes. "We'll need to tell the State Department."

"Why?" said Thorpe.

"Just in case we're not the target. Somebody's gonna have to decide whether to inform foreign governments, and if so, which ones. What if the target's in Europe, or the UK?"

"It's not likely," said Thorpe. "But okay, alert them, but ask them to keep it low-key and on a need-to-know basis only. I don't want to be seeing it on CNN in the morning."

"Homeland Security is going to want to know what the threat a.s.sessment should be. What do I tell them?" said Zink.

"Tell them what we know, the telephone intercepts and the nature of the device in Thailand. They'll have to make a judgment call," said Thorpe. He turned back to Sanchez. "If NSA can give us even a hint as to the ident.i.ty of the two men on the phone, we need it yesterday."

"Understood," said Sanchez. "We did get voiceprints. We've got the computers checking for matches on overseas and domestic calls. If we get a match, we'll try to nail down a location and turn it over to your people or the CIA to run it down, depending on where it is. Preliminary voice a.n.a.lysis indicates that the voice in Pyongyang displayed indications of a Slavic accent, possibly Russian. It was impossible to be certain since the entire conversation was in English. The other man appeared to be a native English speaker, possibly from Australia or New Zealand. He was very cagey. He kept trying to slip into a South African English Boer accent, but our a.n.a.lyst didn't buy it."

"Stay on it," said Thorpe. He turned to Winget. "We will need all the satellite surveillance we can get over North Korea until this thing's over."

"We're on it already," said Winget.

"Any hint of these devices being moved or transported we need to know about it immediately," said Thorpe.

"Chances are any s.h.i.+pment will already be crated before it comes out into the sunlight," said the air force officer.

"Then get the dimensions on the box from Thailand, and anything that matches it we want tracked," said Thorpe.

"Will do." Winget made a note.

"We'll end up chasing a lot of false leads, but right now we don't have a choice. I'll have to tell the director over dinner," said Thorpe. "See if I can get him off alone for a minute and unload on him. We meet tomorrow. What's my calendar look like?"

"You've got an opening at four o'clock," said Zink.

"Afternoon or early morning?" said Thorpe.

Zink, who was still taking notes, held up his left hand, rubbing his thumb and forefinger together, as if to play the smallest violin in the world.