Secret Justice Read online

“They say they found you in a well with an AK-47, shooting at the American Special Forces when they came to arrest you. What were you doing in a well with a rifle?”

  “Hiding. I was simply there. Can they ask me these questions in this trial?”

  “That depends on whether we decide you should testify. We haven’t decided yet. Everything you tell me is secret between us. It’s called the attorney-client privilege.”

  “You work for the United States Government, and you’ll keep secret what I tell you?” Duar asked, not believing Little would keep anything secret. He knew Little would have to report to someone and would surely report on what was said between them.

  “Exactly. That is my obligation to you. You have my word.”

  “Your word doesn’t mean anything to me.”

  Little rubbed the palm of his hand on his polyester khaki pants, trying to avoid saying something he would regret. “It may not now, but maybe as we learn to trust each other, it will. You need to confide in me so I can prepare your defense. It’s to your advantage.”

  “In what way?” Duar demanded. “I want an attorney who is not an employee of the government who kidnapped me.”

  “You’re entitled to any attorney you want. Even a civilian attorney.”

  Duar jumped to his feet, thrusting the metal chair behind him. “And how is it I am to contact any such person? I’m a captive, against my will! I’m not allowed to leave, or communicate. I have done nothing wrong and I’m being charged with horrible crimes. What are you going to do about this?”

  “Who would you like to contact? I can make sure that your word reaches whoever you want to contact.”

  “I will let you know. I have done nothing.”

  “You keep saying that. Why do you say that? Do you deny that you were at the meeting in Sudan to purchase nuclear material?”

  “I deny it. I had nothing to do with it.”

  “So even though you are Wahamed Duar, the most sought-after terrorist in the world, your intentions in meeting a well-known arms merchant who had plutonium with him in the middle of the Sudan were innocent.”

  Duar looked at Little with ferocious intensity. He leaned on the table. “I am not Wahamed Duar.”

  “Then who are you?”

  “I am Mohammed el-Mahdi of Khartoum.”

  Little had seen the “It wasn’t me! You’ve got the wrong guy!” defense so many times he had lost count. A lot of criminal defendants thought it was very clever. They didn’t think anyone could actually identify them, or they thought they could create enough smoke about their identity to make a jury have a reasonable doubt. It rarely worked, and here, aboard the Belleau Wood in a tribunal, such a defense was even less likely to work. The jury was going to be a panel of military officers who wouldn’t be thrown off by subterfuge. And they didn’t need to convince the entire panel as they would in a criminal trial, just two-thirds. “What were you doing at that meeting?”

  “Something I cannot discuss.”

  Little rolled his eyes, and closed the file.

  * * *

  The Pankisi gorge of Georgia was notorious for its illegal residents, rough men from Chechnya and Afghanistan, from all over the world, who shared in the dream of Islamic rule. Most had fled from areas where they were being hunted. They knew they could hide in the Pankisi gorge. The government of the Republic of Georgia knew they were there, but they also knew that without using huge force they could never clear out the gorge. So Georgia left them alone, for now.

  The night had grown bitterly cold, and several of the men gathered around a raging fire, telling stories and regaling each other with tales of hair-raising fights in Chechnya, Afghanistan, and other remote parts of South Central Asia. One man, obviously not Chechen or Georgian, sat on a large rock listening. He was reserved and careful. Always listening, rarely talking. All the others knew about him was that he was from somewhere in Africa.

  Two of the Georgians were laughing uproariously, when one threw up his hands to silence the others. “Did you hear about those woodsmen?” He laughed, barely able to control himself. “They were cutting down trees, and found a cylinder in the snow. Did you hear about it?”

  The man from Africa leaned in carefully. A man next to him continued to translate from Georgian to Arabic.

  The Georgian pulled on his beard. His eyes were glazed over from vodka and his nose was running from the cold. He wiped his nose and continued. “They find a cylinder lying on the ground—it had melted the snow around it for about five meters. So what would you or I do? Something is wrong with that cylinder, right? We would go the other way. Right? What is in the cylinder? What is making the snow melt? Not these jackasses. They go right over and pick up the cylinder. It’s warm, even hot—”

  “Where did you hear all this?” a man asked, skeptical.

  “On short wave radio. There was a report.”

  “So what happened?”

  “So they decided this cylinder will help them stay warm. They take it back to their camp and put it in their tent, like some woman from Tbilisi, to keep them warm,” the man said, choking on his laughter. “The next day they’re so sick they have to call for a medical evacuation!”

  The others looked at each other, not getting the significance of the comments. The man sitting on the rock understood the implications immediately. He stared at the bearded man. Another man asked what they all wanted to know, “Sick from what?”

  “They had found a core of a small nuclear power generator! You know, the ones all over this damn country by the hundreds, weather stations, light stations. They got radiation sickness, and are now on their way to Moscow and Paris.”

  The man on the rock rose and walked toward the bearded man. “Where did this happen?”

  He pointed west with his thumb. “Abkhazia.”

  “Do you know where there are others of these nuclear power generators?”

  The bearded man was surprised by the interest. “Who the hell are you?”

  He hesitated. “Hotary. Tayseer Hotary. From Sudan.”

  The bearded man spoke. “Humph,” he said, unimpressed. “Yes, most are down there by the Black Sea. There are others elsewhere, all over southern Georgia.”

  “With nuclear cores?”

  “Yes, of course.”

  “Could you find them?”

  The man fought to regain sobriety. “Why are you so interested?”

  “I came here to find them. I need someone to show me where they are. I have a use for these cores, these power generators.”

  The bearded man smiled, showing his crooked teeth in the firelight. “For the right price, yes, we can help you find one. At least one.”

  “I need more than one. Can you lead me to several? You will come with my men.”

  “Maybe. Maybe I’ll bring a couple of my men too. You never know who you’re going to run into. When do you want to leave?”

  * * *

  Brad Walker, St. James’s assistant on the National Security Council, stood in the front of the situation room and looked out over the group. As often as he had given the security briefings first thing in the morning, he’d never gotten used to looking into the eyes of the President of the United States, the Director of Central Intelligence, the Secretary of Defense, the Chairman of the National Security Council, and others who knew ten times more than he did about everything. The only thing he brought to the table was information that he had derived from reading messages and other intelligence during the evening and very early morning. He had the details but they had the strategic understanding that he was only beginning to grasp.

  “Good morning, Mr. President. This is the security brief for Monday. Since it is the first Monday of the month, I would like to start with the military status of forces of various countries.” He proceeded to summarize the military positions of all major countries, their locations of forces, the locations of submarines, aircraft carrier battle groups, and others that could pose a threat to American forces or interests.

 
“Next, sir, I’d like to start in East Asia. Overnight there was an attack on the Spanish embassy in Thailand. The cause of the attack was unclear but seemed to be indirectly related to a Basque group that has heretofore been unidentified. This is a new move by Basque separatists to take some of their terrorism outside of Spanish territory. Could signal a scaling up of separatist activity that has not been seen for a couple of years. Moving on to Vietnam . . .” Walker continued to summarize intelligence developments around the world that had come up since the last brief.

  “In an update to the report we got yesterday of those Georgian woodsmen who found that nuclear core, the two who were taken to Moscow have died. The one taken to Paris is very sick, but may survive—”

  President Kendrick interrupted. “What else do we know about these power generators?”

  “They are called RTGs—Radiothermal Generators. Very small nuclear generators, Mr. President. The nuclear core is about the size of a loaf of bread. They were used to power weather stations, communications relay stations, navigation lights, and other devices in extremely remote parts of the Soviet Union. They required no power cables or power lines, and could work in any weather. They were supposed to be monitored and checked frequently. With the fall of the Soviet Union, they haven’t been checked in years. Nobody is responsible for them anymore. Many of the countries in which these generators are found don’t even know they’re there.”

  “What’s in the nuclear cores?” the President asked, frowning.

  Walker hesitated. “I am afraid I don’t know, Mr. President, I’ll find—”

  “Strontium,” Stewart Woods interjected. “Strontium and cesium.”

  “Remind me of whether those materials are problematic,” the President said.

  Walker was silent. Woods continued. “Definitely problematic. This is one of those little problems from the former Soviet Union. We’ve talked about warheads from the Russian nuclear arsenal that may have disappeared, and of course we’re working that problem. But this problem is of a different breed entirely. There are several hundred of these RTGs out there. They can be deadly.”

  President Kendrick tapped his fingers lightly on the table. “Is this something we need to worry about?”

  Stuntz jumped in. “We have given this a lot of thought. This is a new kind of threat, and it’s something that we have to evaluate on a regular basis. This story about these woodsmen is something that has caused great concern. We’re analyzing it very carefully.”

  Kendrick looked at Stuntz. “Meaning what exactly, Howard?”

  “Well, sir, to be frank, I think it now shows that there are several hundred possible sources for a dirty bomb.”

  “Explain,” Kendrick said.

  “The cores of these remote power generators are highly radioactive, and deadly. The strontium or cesium can kill easily. And these cores, maybe ten pounds or so, are full of this stuff. Already in powder form. Easy to spread. If someone wanted to be ugly about it, all they would have to do is take that ten-pound core, strap it to some ordinary explosives, drive into a city, and detonate it. The resulting radiation would make a lot of people sick, kill a few, but worse, contaminate a very large area for a very long period of time. It would cost billions to clean it up. It would leave radioactivity all over the place. If they did five or ten of these at once, on the same day, say, they could shut down the ten major cities in the U.S. for decades.”

  Kendrick shook his head. “I don’t like what I’m hearing. This sounds like just the kind of thing some low-grade terrorists could put together. We need to jump on this.” He looked at the Secretary of State and the Secretary of Defense. I want you two guys to put together a joint team to contact Russia, and all the members of the former Soviet states, to find how many of these things there are, where they are, and what level of safety exists. I want a plan to take care of this. Either they monitor them or disable them, or we’ll do it for them, with their permission, of course.”

  Stuntz and Richard Moore, the Secretary of State, nodded. “Will do, sir.”

  Chapter

  9

  Thanks for coming,” Rat said to the members of the team, glancing at those he trusted the most, Groomer, Robby, and Banger. They were in the conference room of International Security Consultants, Inc.

  “Nice to see that you’re out of jail,” Robby replied.

  “If they hadn’t let me out I’d have broken out. I was ready to kill somebody as it was. The question was who.”

  “So now what?” Groomer asked, cutting to the chase. He fingered a menacing Spyderco knife with amazing dexterity, opening the blade with one hand, then closing it again. “How do we get you out of these charges?”

  “If the trial goes forward, they can make you guys testify. There were a bunch of people who were there who are going to be able to say that I caused this guy some sort of ‘distress,’” Rat said, glancing quickly at Sellers, who looked away.

  Robby shook his head vigorously, his dreadlocks moving rhythmically. “I’m not going to testify.”

  “I’m not going to testify,” Groomer said, echoing Robby exactly.

  “They’ll subpoena you.”

  “I’ll plead the Fifth.”

  “I asked my lawyer. They’ll give you immunity. You can’t plead the Fifth if they can’t prosecute you.”

  Groomer’s face showed determination. “Then I’ll sit there like a stone. All of us will, right?” he said, looking around the table, getting mostly nods, but not from everyone. “They can put me in jail forever.”

  Rat nodded. “I appreciate that. We may very well be in jail forever together then. We can break out together. I may have to take the Fifth too.”

  “But what’s the plan?” Robby asked, knowing the Rat always had a plan.

  “I’m thinking about a plan for the team, for us, not the trial. We can’t stand still. Jacobs wants us back in the fight.”

  “I think you need multiple plans,” Banger said. “I think you have multiple targets and you’d better be ready to hit them all at once or you’re going to get blind-sided. And don’t forget, we’re in Washington. Sometimes the biggest threat here is the government itself. These people shoot to kill. Not literally, but—”

  “I hear you,” Rat said. He stared out the large picture window at dawn over downtown Washington, D.C. “This is the most exposed I’ve ever felt. I need to get to the heart of this. This feels political. I need to get to the politicians.”

  “Now you’re talking,” Robby said. “You need me to drop a bug in somebody’s office, let me know.”

  Rat replied, “I don’t know if we should be stepping across those lines. I don’t need another felony charge. I want to keep this clean. It just pisses me off that we go and capture the biggest terrorist in the world and I’m on trial for my life.”

  “It pisses us all off. Just let us know what to do.”

  Rat’s mind was spinning. “We’re going to have to think outside the norm. I’ll share my Washington plan with you once I’ve figured out what to do. But first, we need to talk about what Johnson said.” He saw confusion on the faces of two of the men. “The NSA guy, the guy who came down to The Point. It’s gotten worse. The activity has picked up, especially in the last twenty-four hours. He thinks he intercepted a notice message. Where one side of the organization notifies the other side with a code word. Or even a generic word. The message he sent yesterday says Duar’s organization has ‘located’ something. Not sure what. But there’s a location indicator. Everybody see it?”

  They nodded.

  “So somebody is running Duar’s operation in his absence. The snake has grown another head. We need to find that snake, and kill it once and for all. And whatever they’ve found, or located, we need to figure out what that is, and take care of it. That’s what Jacobs wants us working on.”

  * * *

  “Hello?” David Stern said hurriedly, not wanting to answer the phone. But he had drawn cold-call duty at the ACLU office in Washington for the
afternoon. It was a nuisance and kept him from working on his cases, which needed attention. Most of his office time was taken up doing capital punishment appeals, and trial time was spent on First Amendment cases. He hated capital punishment; it was barbaric and disgraceful. He loved doing whatever he could to stop it, or delay it, or confound it. Whatever it took. But he didn’t love the rest of the work. The First Amendment cases were his true love.

  “Is this Mr. Stern?”

  Stern was surprised the man had his name. He heard the accent but couldn’t place it.

  “The receptionist said you were there.”

  “She was right.”

  “I would like to talk to you. I would like to retain you for a . . . friend.”

  “What sort of case?” Stern asked.

  “It is not safe to talk about it over the phone.”

  Stern frowned and put his pen down. “And why would that be?”

  “Because this is very important, and high profile, and the government is on the other side.”

  “Other side of what?”

  “Of the . . . matter. We should meet.”

  Stern tried to determine how important this was without hearing any detail. He didn’t have any free time to waste listening to wild accusations. The thing that both intrigued him and put him off was that this was for a “friend.” That meant either the friend was unwilling to call, or, as was probably the case, unable. “Would you like to come here?”

  “No. Meet me in an hour.”

  “Where?”

  “I’ll call you. I am not in Washington right now. It will be close to where you are right now.”

  “What’s your name?”

  “That doesn’t matter. I’ll call you in an hour.”

  The hour passed slowly. Stern had looked at the same motion papers several times during the hour he waited for the call. For reasons he couldn’t articulate, he was intrigued. He hoped it wasn’t a hoax. The man’s voice was intense. That could mean a big case, or it could mean nothing. Stern’s imagination was starting to run away with him. More than an hour had passed. He realized he had turned through three pages without really reading any of them. The phone rang again. He let it ring three times. “Yes?”