anyway. Our biggest interest, as you know, is finding out the destinations of those arms.”
Mark got up from his desk chair and, stretching the phone’s cord, walked over to a window looking out on a busy street. “Are our relations with the Turkish military any better since the Iraqi war?”
“We just agreed to give them more F-Sixteens so they better be! We also must remember that they backed us in Afghanistan. The Islamist Welfare Party’s involvement in government is always going to be a problem. Libya’s Quaddafi has been courting the guy that’s head of it. And, of course, all the Muslim countries are wired in there. One way or another. That’s why these buyers are working out of Istanbul. They’ve got protection and help. But Agent Miller will fill you in on that. She’s been there for three years and knows the back alleys pretty well. She has also developed some fine sources within the government and industry. Have you had a chance to meet her yet?”
“No, I haven’t.” He paused to think a moment, then continued. “I find the fact that no one from the PLO office here in Tunis attended the meeting on the yacht very interesting. Why didn’t they attend?”
“Ummm. We have to assume that this particular arms purchase is run by the guys aboard the yacht. Besides, doesn’t the staff of that PLO Tunisian office maintain a low profile there?”
“According to the Embassy staff they do. They’ve had no problems here for the last several years.”
“Keep your head down anyway. There is no substitute for caution. I’ll be in touch when you get back to Paris. Let’s see what develops in the next few days.”
Mark caught a flight to Paris in late afternoon. He reached his office to find a report from McCall saying that The Medallion had dropped two men off in Tripoli. So, Mark thought, our intelligence has been right. The Libyans are involved. The last satellite report has The Medallion on a heading toward the Aegean Sea, so it’s probably heading back to Istanbul through the Dardanelles.
Mark called Agent Miller in Istanbul and found she had received orders from McCall to put The Medallion’s remaining passengers under surveillance when they docked. Several additional agents in the Ukraine had been called in to keep a twenty four-hour surveillance on the six Odessa warehouses used by Yuri’s group for storing arms. Mark kept close contact with the French as they continued monitoring Yuri’s construction company.
2
WASHINGTON, D.C.
Monday, February 3
While an arms transaction was taking place in Tunisia, 36-year-old Darren Hopkins slowly trudged up the stairs of the west entrance to the old executive office building in Washington, D.C. It was a few minutes after seven in the morning, and the worst snowstorm of the season ravaged the nation’s capitol. Old timers bitterly complained, and everyone admitted tiring of the dark, cold winter days.
The icy wind whipped the wet snow down Seventeenth Street, penetrating Darren’s bones in spite of his new coat. “Why don’t they shut down this whole city until this storm blows over? It takes a moron to be out in weather like this!”
He quickly looked around to make sure no one heard him. “No one’s dumb enough to be out this early on such an atrocious day but me,” he said aloud. At last he reached the sanctity of the foyer. He stomped snow off his shoes and then made his way to the elevator and the second-floor cubbyhole he called an office. The room, adjacent to the suite occupied by his boss, General George Burcks, a retired Marine, had grown cramped, but Darren managed. Burcks, chairman of President Carl Evans’ National Security Council (NSC), wore four stars, was in his mid-sixties, stood a trim, athletic, six feet three inches tall, and sported silky white hair. His decorations reflected major roles in every war and skirmish since Korea.
As he entered the elevator, Darren reflected on the weird process that brought him to Washington a year ago, which now seemed like decades. Many of the factors still eluded him. He did not know Burcks nor had he ever worked in government. And he had never worked in D.C. Never wanted to. He grew up in Texas but spent some of his childhood in Latin America and Asia. His parents, both medical doctors, spent a great deal of time assisting international health organizations. Two sisters practiced law in Houston and Austin. Darren landed a job with Global Analysis, a California international think-tank, after graduating from the University of Texas in nineteen eighty-five with a degree in international relations. Political risk analysis, business development tasks, and marketing research had kept him in Asia and the Mideast over the years. The move to the National Security Council began in Singapore, and he vividly remembers Ms. Clark’s phone call.
He had just pulled himself out of bed that fateful Wednesday morning at Singapore’s Hyatt Regency Hotel and sat on the edge of the bed worrying about losing some of his 240 pounds, when the phone rang.
“Mr. Hopkins, I’m Jo Clark, administrative assistant to General George Burcks who chairs the President’s National Security Council. The general would like to talk to you about a senior research analyst’s job.”
“Well,” he stammered in his sleepy condition, “you caught me on my blindside.” He could hear her laugh.
“I understand,” she said. “There’s a high degree of urgency in getting this position filled, so he hopes you’ll at least be willing to come to Washington at our expense to discuss it.”
“Uh, gosh,” he replied as he fought to shake the fog out of his head. “I’ve got a number of appointments set up over here, and I’d have to talk to my boss before I could agree to do that.”
“The President of Global Analysis has already given General Burcks permission to bring you to Washington. And, if things work out and you join us, your Global Analysis job will be waiting for you when you decide to return. You can’t top that can you?
“Wow. I’m impressed!”
“Can you postpone your meetings?”
“I suppose so,” Darren said slowly. His mind tried to process what had happened as rapidly as possible.
“Good. You need to catch an immediate flight to Washington. Can you arrange those flights or shall we?”
“Wait, let’s back up one step. How much time do I have to consider this?”
“The general wants an answer by noon our time. Again, remember, this is just an interview.”
“Well, I need to get the cobwebs out of my head before I answer.”
“Of course,” Ms. Clark said softly. “I’ll call you back in two hours. Is that okay?”
“I guess so.” He stared at the Singapore skyline from his twelfth floor window for several minutes after Ms. Clark hung up. Wow, he thought. The National Security Council? I don’t even know what the hell it does. His curiosity got the upper hand. He wanted to talk to General Burcks.
Whoops! The elevator opened on the second floor and Darren, so engrossed in the trip down memory lane, almost missed his floor. He headed down the musty corridor to his office, hung up his coat, and went to the kitchen off Ms. Clark’s office to prepare a pot of coffee. Letting the coffee perk, he returned to his office. At least the office is warm and cozy, he thought. The fierce wind rattled the old windows. He walked over and stood watching the snow pile up in Lafayette Park. His mind returned to that initial trip from Singapore to Burcks’ office.
The
