Chapter 8 

	In his apartment on 62nd Street in New York, HYDRA began a thorough 
examination of each step in his upcoming mission, desiring to leave no unnecessary 
portion of it to chance.  Far from accepting Stemmler's analysis at face value, HYDRA 
sought out every publicly available piece of information he could find on America's 
strategic command and control system, WWMCCS.  Sometimes he would grab a taxi and 
order it to drop him off at the New York Public Library, where he would sit for hours at a 
time reading old federal government reports.  For more recent works, he used a false 
name and credit card and had them delivered to a remote postal box, where he would pick 
them up. 
	Parcels poured in from the Brookings Institute, the Rand Corporation, the National 
Technical Information Service, the Naval War College, and the Government Accounting 
Office, which he would read until well past midnight.  On a few of the documents, the 
titles alone were enough to increase his faith in Stemmler's story: Worldwide Military 
Command and Control System -- Major Changes Needed in its Automated Data 
Processing and Direction; Worldwide Military Command and Control System -- 
Problems in Information Resources Management; Problems in the Acquisition of 
Standard Computers -- Worldwide Military Command and Control System. 
	The impetus for Wimex's structural design originated with computer entrepreneur 
David Packard, who, when he was Acting Secretary of Defense from 1969 to 1972, 
personally reviewed America's C3I capabilities and quickly came to the conclusion that 
the nation's strategic command system would more than likely collapse under a serious 
attack. 
	Antennas, radars, and command centers were all redesigned to make them more 
immune from the immediate aftereffects of a nuclear explosion, including massive doses 
of electromagnetic radiation, known in the jargon as EMP -- electromagnetic pulse.  
Aging EC-135 aircraft, previously used as airborne command posts, were replaced with 
custom-built hardened Boeing 727s, known by strange names like Looking Glass and 
NEACP.  But Melvin Laird, Packard's successor, later testified to Congress that 
additional protective shielding for the various nuclear command posts, power supply 
systems, computer rooms, and leased telephone networks would have prohibitively high 
costs, well beyond the resources of even the United States. 
	Meanwhile, early warning satellites to detect close-range submarine-launched 
ballistic missiles were installed, which would automatically alert ground-based bomber 
crews to take off at the first sign of an offshore launch.  Unfortunately, all this effort 
failed to guarantee that a well-timed and well-planned launch of enemy SLBMs against 
U.S. strategic C3I targets and ground-alert forces still wouldn't totally succeed in 
neutralizing America's command authority, so  the chain of command for the use of 
nuclear weapons in an emergency was drastically simplified. Now those authorities still 
remaining after a first strike were empowered to execute valid action orders in the 
absence of the original set of commanders. More than ever, America's submarine missile 
force was viewed as its last-ditch line of defense, linked to whoever remained in 
command by the single thread of the TACAMO.  It was precisely these two 
countervailing forces which give GERALD's Trojan Horse its devastating power. 
	HYDRA lay on his back in bed for hours at a time, reviewing Stemmler's outline 
of the operation over and over in his mind, trying to find any flaw in it he could, before he 
actually decided to act.  After several weeks spent viewing the operation through his own 
eyes, a sudden thought struck him like a thunderbolt: if they were to by chance become 
aware of the operation,  the combined U.S. intelligence agencies would have no choice 
but to engage in a massive coverup, just like they had put into place after the Kennedy 
assassination.  For if even a hint of his existence and his mission were to leak out, the 
world would be plunged into unimaginable chaos. On the other hand, he didn't 
underestimate the expertise of or the lengths to which the American security services 
would go to stop him if they were to get wind of his mission.  Eliminating a handful of 
personnel in Operation BUNCIN was child's play compared to being pursued by the 
entire counterintelligence forces of the United States.  This reality reinforced HYDRA's 
already firm belief that in order to succeed, each step of his operation would have to 
resemble an isolated act of criminal violence, giving the least hint of his existence.
	The silence in his bedroom was suddenly broken by the soft ringing of his spread 
spectrum telephone.  He hadn't been expecting any calls and watched its printer activate 
with veiled apprehension. 
	"Who's speaking, please?"  Sabawi Hussein's question came across the line.
	"HYDRA," HYDRA typed back. 
	"I'll be brief.  You may want to cancel the mission.  It's why we haven't sent the 
money yet." 
	"Why?  What's happened?" 
	"GERALD's under surveillance." 
	"When did you find this out?" 
	"Earlier today." 
	"I'll call you back in ten minutes," HYDRA immediately typed back, then abruptly 
and hung up. 
	HYDRA sat up on his bed and faced the wall.  He was furious, but at the same 
time, he told himself, the Mukhabarat was simply not a first-class intelligence operation, 
and he should have known that something like this would happen.  But there was nothing 
that he knew of that would tie him to GERALD, and with some luck, things would stay 
that way.  Besides, even if the American secret services now suspected that a Trojan 
Horse had been inserted into their software, based on what HYDRA had read so far, if 
GERALD could be silenced, it would take them months, if not years, to locate it . . . 
	HYDRA flipped open the tiny laptop keyboard and punched in the Iraqis' number.  
Sabawi Hussein responded almost immediately. 
	"Who's speaking, please?" the text scrolled out. 
	"It's HYDRA.  If you take care of GERALD, I'm still in." 
	There was a brief pause on the line. 
	"Done."



Chapter 9 

	The Assistant Director of Counterintelligence, David Woodring, walked into the 
FBI Director's outer office and smiled at the receptionist.  The buzzer's sound always 
startled him, no matter how many times he'd heard it. 
	"He'll see you now, Mr. Woodring," the girl smiled. 
	Woodring got up and prepared to walk the full length of Hoover's fifty-foot-long 
corridor, when he saw Director Hubert Myers waiting for him outside the thick, oaken 
door to the large conference room with its impressive fireplace. 
	Woodring noticed Hoover's old oil painting of Harlan Fiske Stone had been 
removed from the mantlepiece.  He waited for Director Myers to press the special button 
under his desk which told the receptionist he wasn't to be disturbed and also initiated a 
sophisticated series of electronic counter-measures designed to defeat any nearby bugs. 
	Myers, a recent Clinton appointee, was an unimposing lawyer who had previously 
worked in the Justice Department under Jimmy Carter, something, he knew, which did 
not endear him to his staff in an intelligence community which automatically feared 
Democratic liberals. 
	"What brings you back to Washington so fast?" Myers asked. 
	"I'm not sure," Woodring answered hesitantly.  "I thought I was making a routine 
visit to CI-4 on the UNSCOM case, but when I get there they tell me that half the 
Mukhabarat goons just up and left the country.  In and of itself that's bad enough, but 
combined with our problem in San Diego, it has the makings of a real disaster." 
	Director Myers was only too well aware of the facts; Woodring had briefed him 
about RABBIT before Woodring had made his presentation to the CI-5 Division in 
California.  Myers had also just read the Senate Intelligence Committee's report taken in 
executive session about the I.A.E.A.'s failure to produce intelligence leads in its post-war 
inspections in Iraq.  The chief inspector, Maurizio Zifferero, an Italian, had no concept of 
security and frequently discussed upcoming visits in bugged hotel rooms.  Zifferero also 
had the cute habit of leaving his backpack filled with documentation of Iraqi nuclear sites 
behind in his hotel room.  Meanwhile, on orders from Vienna, Zifferero would give the 
Iraqis up to twelve hours advance notice of each inspection, allowing them enough time 
to hustle pieces of strategic equipment out of one plant to another. 
	"You think I ought to bring this up with the NFIB?" Myers asked. 
	The National Foreign Intelligence Board was chaired by the Director of Central 
Intelligence (the DCI), and included the heads of the CIA, the FBI, the NSA, the DIA, the 
State Department's own intelligence branch, the Bureau of Intelligence and Research 
(INR), and representatives from other agencies and departments. 
	"Yes, sir," answered Woodring. 
	"Get your coat and let's go." 
	"Excuse me, sir?" 
	"The meeting's in ten minutes, you can ride with me in my car to F Street." 
	"But -- " 
	"You're as ready as you'll ever be, Dave.  Come on, we're already running late." 
	Even in morning traffic it only took Myers's limousine a few minutes to arrive in 
front of a separate gray building a block away from the Old Executive Office Building, 
next to the White House.  The moment the Cadillac stopped, Director Myers was out of 
the door, almost jogging to the building's entrance, making it difficult for Woodring to 
keep up with him. 
	Once inside Myers and Woodring  silently took their seats, since the meeting was 
already in progress and representatives from more than a dozen agencies were in the 
room. 
	"Well, Fred, I see you've brought a sidekick," uttered the DCI, Lincoln Daniels. 
Daniels had been Myers' predecessor at the FBI, before being appointed by Clinton as the 
new DCI.  He had started as a fieldman under Hoover in the fifties and actually looked 
more like a patrolman than an agent -- no neck, strong shoulders, and a large head framed 
with wavy silver hair. 
	All eyes were focused now on Woodring.  Since Woodring had just been 
appointed Assistant Director after the election, he was an unknown quantity in the 
intelligence fraternity, a clannish group where reputations often hinged on the opinions of 
a relatively small group of people. 
	"Woody, why don't you just tell the group what you told me in my office?" 
prompted Myers. 
	"Ah, yes, sir."
	Woodring cleared his throat, inventorying the various faces at the table: Frank 
Chalmers, Director of the National Security Agency, who had already been informed of 
RABBIT's existence; General Martin Praeger, Director of the Defense Intelligence 
Agency, the military's equivalent of the CIA; Daniels's Deputy Director of 
Counterintelligence (DDCI) at CIA and Woodring's counterpart, Keith Axe; Air Force 
General Haywood Ford, Director of the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO), the 
"black" Air Force division charged with operating the community's fleet of surveillance 
satellites; plus representatives from the Drug Enforcement Agency and the Justice, 
Treasury, and Commerce Departments. 
	"As a matter of policy, we normally don't disclose ongoing CI investigations 
unless requested by Justice to do otherwise for national security purposes, and generally 
that only happens when there's a conflict with another agency. 
	"That said, I felt the board might be interested in the following two situations 
which I'll relate to you without any analysis on my part, so you can draw your own 
conclusions: 
	"First, about two weeks ago we received a set of photographs from INTERPOL 
taken at various European airports of a subject we'll call RABBIT."  Woodring opened up 
his briefcase and handed a sheaf of surveillance photographs to Director Myers, who 
began to pass them around the table.  "In the last thirty days, RABBIT's made three two-
day-long trips to Europe.  RABBIT's an analyst at FHI Systems in San Diego, and his real 
name is Victor Saleh.  Saleh's a Lebanese-American, totally bilingual in English and 
Arabic, and is presently shopping for a new Mercedes on a G-10 salary. FHI systems is 
the chief contractor on the DCA's Wimex update. 
	"Second story: yesterday I got an urgent call from our CI-4 counterintelligence 
office in New York -- they're covering the Mukhabarat agents assigned to the Iraqi 
Mission.  When I arrived in Manhattan, I was informed the Iraqis had just cut the number 
of people in half they were devoting to reconnaissance of the Special Commission 
members -- " 
	"They what?" demanded Keith Axe, the CIA Deputy Director Counterintelligence 
at CIA.  Axe was Daniels' hatchet man, and his favorite pasttime was crossexamining his 
associates at official meetings. 
	"Like I said, the Iraqis cut their New York force in half." 
	"How do you know that for sure?" 
	"Because my guys at CI-4 photographed them waiting for their planes at 
Kennedy."  While Axe sat back in his chair with a grimace, the Director of NSA, Frank 
Chalmers, raised his eyebrows at his tablemate, General Martin Praeger,  Director of the 
Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA).   Praeger was more than happy to see "the Ax" put 
back in his place by the newcomer, Woodring.   Unlike the directors of CIA and FBI, 
Praeger was not a new appointee as Director of DIA, and had managed to survive the 
transition from a Republican to a Democratic administration with his job intact.  Utterly 
underwhelmed by Clinton's new team, and thinly masking his distaste for them, Praeger 
couldn't wait to see how they would all react to their first major crisis. 
	"Well now, I would say that's a very fascinating coincidence, wouldn't you, 
Keith?" Praeger grinned.  
	Woodring furrowed his brow and exchanged glances with Hubert Myers, his 
superior, who nodded for him to continue. 
	"Ah, there's one more thing." 
	The silence was deafening as all eyes returned to the new FBI ADCI. 
	"I had the boys at CI-4 in New York go through our old photo files, checking the 
stuff we took before we went to digital holography.  RABBIT was a walk-in at the Iraqi 
Mission on January 18, 1991." 
	"Shit!" cursed General Praeger.  "There's no telling what he's done!  There's over 
20,000,000 lines of programming in the whole system!"
	"Frank?  Anything to add to this?" asked Daniels, still trying to maintain his calm. 
	The Director of the National Security Administration, paused significantly before 
he replied: "If Dr. Saleh has indeed tampered with a part of Wimex, he may have just 
committed the one act of sabotage to which we are the most vulnerable -- attacking our 
communications software." 
	"I thought our system was designed with safeguards to prevent exactly this type of 
situation from occurring!" objected Daniels. 
	"The system's safeguards were designed mainly to prevent unauthorized use of the 
hardware," Chalmers rebutted. 
	"What are you telling me, Frank?" 
	"Just what I said.  The Wimex system wasn't designed with this type of thing in 
mind -- it's over twenty years old, for god's sakes." 
	"You mean a single disgruntled engineer can shoot off a full complement of 
ICBMs just by altering the software?  The system's that weak?" 
	"Not exactly." 
	"Not exactly?  What do you mean 'not exactly'?" 
	Chalmers was silent for a moment, then spoke, "The representatives from 
Treasury, Justice, Commerce, INR, and DEA are going to have to leave the room." 
	"Gentlemen."  Daniels motioned for the stunned members of the aforementioned 
departments to wait outside the door. 
	A full three seconds after the last representative filed out and the door was 
reclosed, Chalmers answered Daniels' question. 
	"The system is designed so that no nuclear missile will ever be fired automatically, 
without a human interface between the NCA and the device.  That means any emergency 
action message sent from the NCA has to be decoded and authenticated by a human 
being, not a computer, before any launch order's going to be initiated.  Since Dr. Saleh 
doesn't have access to the one-time codes for the EAM's, there's no way he can issue 
anyone a legitimate order to launch anything." 
	"So what else could this guy have done, Frank?" 
	"Something almost as bad," Chalmers replied. For the next fifteen minutes he gave 
the remaining members of the NFIB a crash course in trapdoors and Trojan Horses. 
	"Wait a minute!" Keith Axe protested.  "That means a missile silo, or a strategic 
bomber, could suddenly become incommunicado!" 
	"Right," Chalmers agreed. 
	"Then how would we know what they were doing?" 
	"We wouldn't." 
	"What if Dr. Saleh had the codes, sent off an EAM, then activated one of these 
Trojan Horses -- how would we be able to stop him?" 
	"You wouldn't, but Dr. Saleh doesn't have the authentication codes, so why worry 
about it?" 
	"Because someone else might try to get them.  Someone a lot harder to catch than 
Victor Saleh," interrupted Woodring. 
	"Gentlemen?" Daniels spoke, trying to bring the discussion back to earth. 
	FBI Director Myers immediately responded: 
	"I say we burn Saleh as quickly as possible and find out if we've got a problem." 
	"Everybody agree on this?" Daniels surveyed the dozen faces at the table, and all 
were silent. 
	"Woody, he's yours." 
	A telephone next to Daniels unexpectedly rang and the DCI picked it up, furrowed 
his brow, then looked quizically at Woodring. 
	"Woody, it's for you." 
	Woodring stood up, walked to the head of the table, and took the phone. 
	"Woodring." 
	Lincoln Daniels glanced worriedly at Hubert Myers as if to say, "What have we 
gotten ourselves into?" 
	Woodring dropped the handset on the cradle, the color gone from his face.
	"Dr. Saleh . . . he's dead." 
	"He's been hit?" Daniels demanded. 
	"They blew his whole house.  Saleh was standing outside.  They said it killed him." 
	"Surprise, surprise," muttered General Praeger. 
	"We've got to be careful, Lincoln.  If people even start to think we might have lost 
control of just part of our nuclear arsenal, there could be a panic," Chalmers worried 
aloud. 
	"Woody, take my car and go back to your office and get in touch with CI-5 in LA 
and tell them to put a lid on this story.  Keep our guys away from there for a couple of 
days and have the San Diego police say it's a gas explosion -- anything but a terrorist 
bomb," Myers ordered. 
	"Yes, sir." 
	Once Woodring left the room, Daniels turned to his own Deputy Director, Keith 
Axe. 
	"By tomorrow morning I want a full-scale but quiet background check on Saleh's 
family in Lebanon.  Use whoever you have to and give a copy of everything you find to 
Hubert." 
	Next, he turned to the Director of the National Security Administration.  "Frank, I 
want you to review everything you've got from Iraq, the Mideast, UNSCOM and 
whatever else you feel is pertinent and see if your people can find any mention of 
something unusual." 
	"Yes, sir." 
	Next, Daniels looked at General Praeger.  "Who's in charge of Wimex?" 
	"General Vaughn at DCA." 
	"Have him come to my office this time tomorrow.  As far as the Pentagon's 
concerned, he's got a sick relative somewhere.  I want a full briefing on how the system 
works." 
	"Lincoln, what do you want to tell the Joint Chiefs about Saleh?" Praeger asked. 
	"For the moment, nothing, if that's OK with you, General." 
	"I can wait twenty-four hours, but, after that, we're going to have to talk." 
	"Fine.  I expect to see you all in my office tomorrow at one o'clock," Daniels said, 
then immediately left the room, accompanied by Keith Axe. 


Chapter 10

	In December of 1978 a special investigator delivered a secret 280-page report to 
the House Select Committee on Assassinations regarding the activities of Lee Harvey 
Oswald in Mexico City from late September to early October 1963, directly prior to the 
assassination of President John F. Kennedy in November 1963.  A copy of the document 
was also immediately made available to the then President, Jimmy Carter.  Included in the 
report were several photographs of individuals whom both the CIA and FBI had 
represented as being Oswald visiting both the Cuban and Soviet embassies.  Also 
included were eight written transcripts of telephone conversations between a man 
representing himself as Oswald and various Soviet officials which had been secretly 
taped during the same period.   Finally, a lone tape-recording which had been retrieved by 
James Jesus Angleton from the home of the former station chief of Mexico City on the 
day of his funeral was also unearthed from the CIA's files and attached.  It was 
immediately clear to any one who read the report and the transcripts, looked at the 
photographs, then listened to the tape that neither the faces in the photographs nor the 
voice on the tape recording belonged to Lee Harvey Oswald, but to someone else. 
	Upon receiving solid evidence that Oswald had been impersonated in Mexico City 
by others only a month and a half before the assassination, evidence which was 
deliberately withheld from the Warren Commission, a furious President Carter ordered 
his director of Central Intelligence, Admiral Stansfield Turner, to clean house.  For, far 
from implicating either Russian or Cuban intelligence in Kennedy's death, the Lopez 
Report indicated that Oswald had been deliberately and unwittingly sent to Mexico City 
by the American intelligence services as part of a counterespionage mission, where he 
would  claim to be a disenchanted leftist interested in assassinating John F. Kennedy, 
perfectly positioning him as a prime suspect if an actual assassination were to occur. 
	Many of those in the CIA's covert operations staff who were let go had trouble 
adjusting to civilian life and found it difficult to find employment; many more were 
rehired by the subsequent DCI, William Casey, after President Reagan was elected; and 
others, like David Blond, found being self-employed much more rewarding and learned to 
welcome their sudden change in status.  Blond, himself, who had only been fifteen years 
old in 1963 and had had nothing to do whatsoever with Kennedy's demise, was later 
employed under contract by the CIA's Directorate of Operations as a tailor, a trade which 
he had learned from his father.  During the Second World War, Blond's father, whose real 
surname was Stetzko, happened to have been a member of a Ukrainian nationalist group 
which called itself the "Nightingales" and whose members wore Wehrmacht uniforms 
and performed nasty tasks handed to them by the SS.  Located in a displaced-persons 
camp by State Department intelligence agents, Stetzko was given new identification and 
recruited to fight communism in Eastern Europe, finally settling in New York. 
	At his shop on 53rd Street in Manhattan, Blond's father would receive envelopes 
filled with cash attached to pictures of foreign uniforms -- Italian carabinieri, the Greek 
postal service, French delivery men, Guatemalan highway patrol, Iranian naval officers, 
and Cuban marines -- accompanied by a list of required quantities and sizes.  In 
September 1963, he was surprised by a sudden request to make up two dozen various 
different uniforms based on pages torn from Texas law enforcement magazines.  Two 
months later, Blond's father realized the implications. 
	In the meantime, the father-son team, with the help of their special friends, had 
built up a sizable portion of legitimate sales to local New York-area police agencies and 
private security forces, enough to easily allow them to do without the custom orders from 
Virginia.  But David Blond, who finally took over the business entirely after his father 
retired at age sixty-five, would from time to time still fill certain orders whose origins 
were obviously illegitimate.  Now, instead of limiting himself in this regard to Langley's 
true believers, he had decided that he would entertain clients of almost all persuasions if, 
of course, their references checked out.  In fact, at one point, Blond had provided over a 
score of different uniforms resembling those worn by various guard personnel at Kennedy 
Airport to certain gentlemen of Sicilian background, which had occasioned a subsequent 
visit by investigators from the New York Police Department.  The NYPD had previously 
suspected Blond of similar endeavors, but had never been able to catch him at it. 
	So David Blond was hardly surprised to receive a call from a former client, a 
Colombian drug distributor who had found it was much easier to make his rounds 
disguised as a UPS deliveryman, who told Blond that a certain American was interested 
in his services and would arrive at noon, carrying a large package. 
	The moment HYDRA entered the waiting room, Blond guessed who he was and 
led him back to his private office. 
	"I assume you don't want to linger here any longer than's necessary," Blond 
suggested, taking a closer look at the man in front of him, "so let's get your measurements 
then."
	After setting the package on Blond's desk, HYDRA unfolded an advertisement he 
had torn out of Skin Diver magazine, handing it to Blond. It contained a lengthy list of 
measurements, allowing whoever filled it out to order a diving suit by mail from a firm 
based in Des Moines, Washington. 
	HYDRA removed his jacket while Blond pulled a tape measure from his pocket 
and waited for his guest to turn around before pressing against his shoulder with his 
finger. 
	"Left arm out, please." 
	HYDRA did as he was told and stretched out his left arm. 
	"Good.  Stand still." 
	Blond held one end of the tape to HYDRA's belt and measured his pants length. 
	"Legs apart.  Sorry, have to do the inseam." 
	HYDRA felt Blond pinch the tape to the bottom of his crotch. 
	"Arms up for a second."  The tailor next stretched the tape tautly around HYDRA's 
chest. 
	"You don't know your neck size, by any chance, I suppose, do you?" Blond asked.  
Something about his new customer restrained him from asking to be allowed to put the 
measuring tape around HYDRA's neck. 
	"Sixteen." 
	"Good.  We'll stick with that, then."  Blond went over and wrote 16 on the 
advertisement from the diving magazine, then spent the next several minutes measuring 
HYDRA's wrist to elbow, wrist to armpit, ankle to crotch, ankle to waist, shoulder to 
waist and shoulder seam to crotch. Now standing in front of his guest, the tape dangling 
in his hand, Blond asked, "Now how can I help you?" 
	"Luiz told you I was coming?" 
	"Yes, certainly." 
	"And did he tell you what about?" 
	"No, he only said that I could rely on your discretion and that you were a friend of 
his father's in Bogota." 
	"Then you're aware of who Luiz's father is, I take it?" The American paused for a 
moment, catching the look in Blond's eyes.
	"Yes, I know who he is." 
	"Good," replied HYDRA, pulling three patterns from his pocket.  "I'd like you to 
take a look at these." 
	The first pattern was actually a series of drawings, containing two separate patterns 
of a winter flight parka and a diving suit plus mechanical drawings of an ICOM IC-MI5 
handheld waterproof VHF marine transceiver and an ACR personal man-overboard 
strobe light. 
	Blond recognized the second pattern immediately as a uniform of the Naval 
Investigative Service, a counterintelligence unit of the U.S. Navy.  Blond knew, of 
course, that counterfeiting such a uniform was a federal offense, which, if found out, 
could easily attract an investigation by the FBI, something he didn't want. On the other 
hand, whatever friendliness there had been in his new customer's manner had suddenly 
evaporated, having been replaced by an almost palpable chill which gave Blond 
butterflies in his stomach.  The was tailor under no illusion as to what fate could easily 
befall him were he to refuse the implacable stranger, forcing him to go somewhere else to 
fill his order. 
	"Normally," Blond spoke slowly with great hesitation, "I don't do this type of 
work; there's just too much risk."  His customer's eyes narrowed in response.  "But if I do 
do this for you, I don't want to ever know your name or be given any information about 
where you live.  You understand?" 
	The stranger nodded in response. 
	"The two naval uniforms will cost you twenty-five thousand dollars each. The 
parka I'll do for a thousand." 
	"That's extortionate!" HYDRA protested. 
	Blond's index finger lightly touched the part of the pattern which illustrated the 
uniform's lapels. 
	"These aren't just the insignia of an investigator.  You're aware of that, of course?" 
	HYDRA paused a moment, while a cool grin formed itself on his face. 
	"Twenty thousand, then?" 
	"All right, twenty thousand, but nothing less." 
	"And I'd like it ready in thirty days." 
	"I can do that," Blond replied, folding up the pattern and slipping it into his jacket 
pocket.
	"I'd like you to return once and only once for the fitting.  You can wait here and I'll 
adjust them on the spot.  Is that all right?" 
	HYDRA nodded affirmatively, then left the shop and hailed a taxi, disappearing 
into the noonday Manhattan traffic.  After HYDRA left Blond carefully opened the box, 
extracting a regulation winter flight parka, ACR man-overboard strobe, ICOM handheld 
radio, and a pair of rubber fins which he spread out on his work table. Unconsciously 
rubbing his chin with his hand, Blond glanced at the first pattern, realizing all too well 
what it meant. 



Chapter 11 

	The taxi soon dropped HYDRA off at an electronics discount house in midtown 
which regularly ran full-page ads in the Sunday issue of the New York Times.  HYDRA 
asked a salesman to show him a Hewlett-Packard Model HP-100LX palmtop computer, 
which, after examining carefully for several minutes, he told the salesman he wanted to 
buy.  He paid for it in cash, then walked the few blocks to the post office branch he used 
for his mail drop and checked his box.  A thick envelope from the Family Service Center 
Relocation Assistance Program Office at the Patuxent Naval Air Base was folded in half 
along with a brochure from Boeing on the specs of the E-6A, the modified 707 known as 
the TACAMO.   He extracted them both and returned via taxi to his apartment on 62nd 
street, where he placed a discreet call to a local travel agent, asking her about flights to 
Baltimore, San Diego, and Seattle. After he hung up, he spent the rest of the afternoon 
reading. At 6:00 p.m. he walked to a neighborhood French restaurant and ordered a steak 
au poivre with a red Merlot, then caught a cab outside the Regency Hotel, telling the 
driver to take him to the United Airlines terminal at Kennedy Airport. 
	After successfully concluding the Operation BUNCIN affair for the Colombians, 
HYDRA had correctly guessed that someone outside the cartel was consulting it over its 
use of high-speed communications and cryptography, given the advanced level of the 
telecommunications equipment he had seen in Bogota.  The Colombians' planes and 
helicopters were fitted with state-of-the-art over-the-horizon radars; their cellular 
telephone calls were digitally encrypted using unbreakable algorithms; and their bank-to-
bank money transfers were wired through a maze of international accounts with the aid of 
sophisticated software programs, challenging even the relatively unlimited resources of 
the U.S. intelligence agencies to track them.
	During an expensive dinner at an Italian restaurant Luiz had admitted to him that 
certain experts were, indeed, on his family's payroll.  Some had formerly occupied cushy 
posts at companies a majority of whose revenues came from defense contracts, only to 
find themselves laid off as the military shrank in response to a lessening Russian threat.  
Others had previously been at firms which were unaffected by the federal government's 
shrinking military budget, but had succumbed to personal problems of their own, 
including, of course, drug abuse.  There were so many candidates that the cartel had 
found it necessary to hire several talent scouts to work the  Silicon Valley, Boston, and 
Los Angeles areas to help it choose its new hirees. 
	A few days after his dinner with Luiz HYDRA received a plain-white envelope 
addressed to Russell Matthews which bore no return address and contained only a single 
sheet of paper: the resume of a certain Alex Castor.  Castor's credentials fit HYDRA's 
needs to a tee:  Stanford undergrad; grad work at MIT where Castor received dual masters 
of science in computer science and electronic engineering;  five years at Bell Labs, 
followed by five more at GTE; then a stint at Mitre Corp in crypto, then nothing for two 
years.  The next time HYDRA saw him Luiz explained the nothing part by tapping his 
nose with his index finger and laughing. 
	By evening, the mist had turned into light drizzle, making rings around the halogen 
lamps on the Van Wyck Expressway, and a faded orange glow hung in the sky like an 
electric cloud.  Outside the terminal, swarms of taxis fought for precious road space, 
trying to unload their passengers in a small area crowded with waiting limousines, police 
patrol cars, and private automobiles.  HYDRA allowed his driver to let him out on the 
sidewalk opposite the terminal, resulting in a brief series of angry honks and catcalls from 
passing cars who had been temporarily backed up behind him; he ignored them, paid the 
driver, then walked to the nearest crosswalk. 
	Giving his name as Russell Matthews at the United Airlines desk, HYDRA paid 
cash for a ticket on UAL Flight #5479 nonstop to San Francisco and boarded the plane 
thirty minutes later.  Arriving a little after 10:00 p.m. local time, HYDRA took a taxi to 
the nearest airport motel, where he registered under his own name, prepaying for a one-
night stay in cash. 

	The next morning HYDRA had breakfast at the airport motel, checked out, got in 
his rental car and took the Junipero Serra Freeway  south, the state Highway 92 at the 
reservoir, and crossed 92 to reach Pacific Coast Highway 1.  Castor lived south of 
Stanford in the Santa Cruz mountains in a town with the picturesque name of Bonny 
Dune. Bonny Dune was an isolated subdivision that ran all the way from the Pacific 
Ocean to two thousand feet in the nearby mountains and was crisscrossed by meandering 
roads interspersed with stands of tan oak and redwood. 
	After rechecking his map, HYDRA took the turn after Davenport, following 
Empire Grade Road along the northern boundary of U.C. Santa Cruz. Castor lived up in 
the mountains off an unmarked road just past the sign to Felton, the next town. HYDRA 
wound up a gravel road bordered by madrone trees, stopping at a battered gate made of 
old cyclone fence. He got out of his car and shoved it aside, driving another mile until he 
reached a clearing. An old stucco house with a shingled roof sat in the middle surrounded 
by six oak trees. 
	HYDRA pressed the doorbell twice and waited.  It was about 10:00 a.m. in the 
morning and the suburban street was deserted, which made him feel better about renting 
the car in his own name.   There was still no answer at the door, so he pressed the buzzer 
again, this time leaving his finger on the button, remembering how Luiz had tapped his 
nose when describing Castor.  He heard a rumbling, then a voice. 
	"Yeah, just a minute!" 
	The door swung open, and a man with disheveled hair, rings under his eyes, and a 
stained shirt which had obviously been slept in stood before him. 
	"It's the man with no name," the man behind the door offered in greeting, 
chuckling nervously to himself.  Alex Castor had no idea who HYDRA was, and had only 
been told a certain visitor would be arriving the next day around noon using the name 
Russell Matthews. 
	HYDRA said nothing. 
	"Come on in, Mr. No-name.  Luiz told me you'd be coming." 
	HYDRA followed Castor through a living room littered with half-empty soda cans, 
old magazines, and dirty plates.  A huge big-screen TV had been situated in the center, 
and CNN was playing with the sound off. 
	"You want a Pepsi or anything?" 
	"Sure." 
	Castor opened a filthy refrigerator and fished out two cold cans of Pepsi.  HYDRA 
noticed Castor's hands slightly quivered as he handed him his, and that he sniffed 
involuntarily about every ten seconds. 
	Castor swept a heap of debris to one side of his kitchen table and pulled out two 
chairs, then sat down.  HYDRA followed suit, setting the HP-100LX in front of him. 
	"That's a nice machine," Castor spoke, nodding toward the laptop.  "Luiz says you 
want me to do something with it for you." 
	"Yeah." 
	HYDRA reached into his jacket pocket and extracted what at first resembled a .38-
caliber pistol.  
	"Hey!"  Castor involuntarily shoved his chair back, raising his hands in the air. 
	HYDRA slid the gun across on the table, slowly turning it so the barrel faced his 
own chest. 
	"Calm down.  It's not a weapon." 
	Castor blinked in fright as the realization painted itself on his face. "How'd you get 
this?  You know what this thing is?" 
	"Luiz told me you'd know how this thing works.  Do you?" HYDRA pressed. 
	"Yeah. I know how it works.  I also know you didn't get it from him.  What exactly 
in hell do you want?" Castor was still standing behind his chair. 
	"I want you to make me an adapter for the computer that'll keep the gun from 
zeroizing after it's been downloaded." 
	Avoiding looking HYDRA in the eyes, Castor gingerly picked the gun up off the 
table and turned it over in his hands. 
	"Listen, No-name, I'm gonna be up front with you, since Luiz sent you here and I 
don't want any trouble with him or any of his kind.   What I do for them is simply modify 
the boxes they give me to work a little better and a little faster, but I don't need a security 
clearance for any of the stuff they bring me."  Castor held the gun so that its barrel 
pointed at the ceiling and shook it for emphasis.  "If I touch this, if I'm even found with 
this thing in my house and the feds say that I stole it -- I could get 10, 20 years no-parole.  
Easy," Castor sniffed and wiped his sleeve across his nose. 
	"I'll call Luiz then, and tell him you're not interested," replied HYDRA as if it 
wouldn't be a problem, pulled the special telephone out of his pocket, and flipped it open.  
Castor took a deep breath. 
	"Man, this is gonna cost you." 
	"How much?" HYDRA replied, still holding the open handset. 
	"Fifty thousand, and I want twenty-five of it right now.  Up front."
	HYDRA reached into his inside jacket pocket, slipping out a thick white envelope, 
tossed it on the table, stood up, and began to leave the room. 
	"You keep calling Luiz on that telephone of yours, No-name, and eventually 
they're gonna find you." 
	HYDRA stopped in the kitchen door, his head half-cocked in Castor's direction. 
	"The BUNCIN boys all had telephones just like that.  I know 'cause I tracked them 
for Luiz.  True, spread spectrum's pretty hard to find if you're not looking for it -- but 
once someone knows you're using it, that thing'll act just like a beacon." HYDRA now 
faced Castor, the telephone still in his hand. "It's the codes.  The codes inside that thing 
that'll give away your position. 
	"Look, even GPS -- the Global Positioning System -- the satellites for navigation -- 
use spread spectrum.  If they're looking for you and you're talking on that thing NSA'll 
pinpoint you within 10 meters." 
	HYDRA furrowed his brow; Castor's unsolicited speculations were getting on his 
nerves.
	"You're the guy, aren't you?" Castor asked.  "You're the guy they sent down there.  
Jesus, I should have known." 
	"If I were you, I'd keep speculations like that to myself," HYDRA replied, then 
walked out the door. 

	On his return to New York he gave his cab driver the hacker's address on Wall 
Street, deciding not to stop first at his apartment. 
	The same guard on duty told the hacker that Fred Daniels was in the lobby, and 
HYDRA again took the elevator to the fifteenth floor, walking directly into the deserted 
office where the hacker worked.
	"I've been working a lot of late nights for you," the hacker announced without 
preamble.  
	"Come on around, I want you to look at this -- we don't have time to print it out." 
	HYDRA walked around the desk and peered over her shoulder as she grabbed a 
sack of McDonald's french fries off her desk. 
	"Want one?" 
	"No thanks." 
	Green letters all in capitals flickered on the monitor, NAV PAX RIV TDY 
ROSTER, ALL DIVISIONS. 
	"Which division do you want?" 
	"TACAMO Command." 
	"Hold on a second." 
	The hacker set the sack of french fries on the edge of the keyboard and typed in the 
password she'd stolen. 
	The screen blinked, then was filled with a list of acronyms, one of which was 
TACAMOCMD. 
	"That's it," she muttered to herself and entered the term with a second command. 
	"TDY ROSTER -TACAMOCMD -NAV PAX RIV," the screen answered back. 
	HYDRA carefully read each entry as the hacker scrolled through the list.  Regular 
TACAMO crew members, none of whom HYDRA wanted, rotated out of Tinker Air 
Force Base, Oklahoma to either Pax River or Travis in California. 
	"Wait.  Stop there," he ordered. 
	"Where?  On Barton?" 
	"No, Gereke, right below." 
	"Just a minute."  The hacker punched two keys, and Naval Air Force Reserve 
Lieutenant Junior Grade Jack Gereke's orders filled the screen.
	"Can you print that?" 
	"Sure.  Hold on."  She punched a different key, then glanced back at HYDRA. 
	"How can we find out if he's ever gotten orders for Pax River before?" 
	"Easy.  We just ask," replied the typist, and entered Gereke's name into a general 
search of the last twelve month's TDY. 
	Three full seconds later the words File Not Found blinked reassuringly on the 
screen.  Gereke the weekend warrior.  Meanwhile the hacker handed HYDRA a printout 
copy of Air Force Lieutenant Gereke's orders to report to Pax River on March 15 from his 
residence in Kansas City. 
	"I need his personnel file," HYDRA spoke in a tone, indicating it was an order. 
	"No problem," chirped the hacker. 
	She typed in a command that automatically cleared the screen, then hit carriage 
return and typed in NAV PAX RIV MIL PERS. 
	"Welcome to Pax River Naval Base, login," the base's computer immediately 
responded. 
	The hacker just as quickly entered the password for the base's personnel files and 
in seconds retrieved a printout, listing a complete record of Lieutenant Gereke's military 
history, age, salient physical characteristics, base and home address and relevant 
telephone numbers. 
	"You want NIS next, right?" 
	HYDRA nodded affirmatively and in seconds the hacker logged onto the Naval 
Investigate Service computer system at its headquarters in Suitland, Maryland. 
	"Personnel again?" 
	"Right," HYDRA answered.
	The words "Enter your password," appeared on the CRT screen, and the hacker 
accordingly typed in an eight-digit alphanumeric sequence.  A menu containing an 
alphabet soup of acronyms popped up next. 
	"What department?" 
	"Courier transfer." 
	The screen blinked, and a second menu scrolled across it. 
	"Subdepartment?" 
	"Technical services." 
	"O.K.," replied the hacker, grabbing her Coke. "You wanna print this out?" 
	"If it's O.K." 
	"O.K?  Like I told you they don't even know we're there, honey." She hit the 
carriage return, causing twenty-five resumes to slowly drop out of her HP laser printer 
into HYDRA's hands. 
	"What's next?" the hacker prompted, breaking HYDRA's concentration. 
	HYDRA looked up from the sheaf of papers, paused a moment, then spoke, "Let's 
run every one of these through Bangor's TDY, as far as you can so we can find who's 
already been there and who hasn't." 
	"Yes sir." 
	Just as the hacker logged off the NIS computer, HYDRA spoke up, holding one 
resume in his right hand. Technical Sergeant Peter Koester had just joined the NIS a 
month ago. 
	"Wait, try this name first," HYDRA said, giving her Koester's rank and serial 
number. 
	"No problem." 
	The computer operator cross-checked Koester's name with all previous visitors to 
Bangor Naval Submarine Base and came up dry.
	"You wanna try anybody else?" 
	"No." 
	"What's next?" 
	"I need credit cards for those two identities, plus a third one," HYDRA spoke, 
looking up from the printout.  "The third man's name is Russell D. Matthews."
	Before the hacker could protest, he held up his hand to stop her. 
	"Not the actual cards themselves, just the numbers.  Matthews probably doesn't 
have any, so go in and give him whatever you can.  I'll leave it up to you.  You can find 
Gereke's and Koester's in TRW credit reports -- I'd like the files, too.  But, whatever you 
do, don't get anything mailed out to any of them -- I don't want to raise any unnecessary 
red flags." 
	"No problem.  You want me to call you when I get them?" 
	"No," HYDRA firmly replied. "Just drop them in an envelope to this address."  He 
handed her a plain white card, with his post office address written in pencil on it. "By the 
way, what's all this costing me?" 
	"Nothing.  It's on the house.  Courtesy of Luiz," the operator grinned. 
	HYDRA feigned mild surprise, but they both had known from the outset that the 
job was a courtesy of the boys from Bogota, and that there would be no haggling over the 
price or conditions. 
	 HYDRA reached inside his jacket pocket, "I understand that you've been 
instructed to do me a favor and I want you to know how much I appreciate your 
cooperation . . ."  The hacker turned in her seat and watched him silently count out ten 
hundred dollar bills and lay them in her hand.  ". . . on the other hand I want to be up front 
with you and tell you that if you ever repeat anything about what you saw or did here 
today to anyone -- " 
	"Hey, don't worry -- I -- " 
	HYDRA held up his hand, again, interrupting her.  " -- I'll come back here and kill 
you myself.  You understand me?" 
	"Yes." 
	"You sure?" 
	"I got the message, mister, believe me." 


Chapter 12 

	General Curtis Vaughn, Director of the Defense Communications Agency, sat 
nervously beside General Praeger who was driving his wife's Toyota, as both men 
stopped at the security checkpoint outside CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia. 
	All Vaughn had been told was that he was to prepare a rush briefing on the present 
status of the Worldwide Military Command and Control System for presentation to the 
Director of Central Intelligence at 1:00 p.m. that day; that General Praeger would pick 
him up; that the meeting was classified and that he was to wear civilian clothes.  At first, 
Vaughn hadn't an inkling as to what the fuss was all about until he got a telephone call at 
his house that evening from one of his subordinates. Dr. Victor Saleh had died in an 
explosion at his home just as he was about to be arrested by the FBI. Even though local 
San Diego police were insisting there was no foul play, local newscasters had already 
found out that FHI Systems was involved in secret defense computer work. 
	The security guard made a brief telephone call to Daniels' security staff, then 
handed both men back their identification with two passes and waved them through.  
Praeger drove directly to the main entrance, parked, and motioned for Vaughn to follow 
him through the door.  They entered a cavernous lobby with marble walls, the right 
chiseled with thirty-eight stars for agents who'd died in the line of duty, the left engraved 
with a quote from Saint John, "And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you 
free."  After showing their passes to a second guard, they were met by a receptionist who 
ushered them into a small private waiting room furnished with an Oriental carpet, chest 
and several matching vases.  An elevator  door opened slightly, and a young man in 
plainclothes said, "General Praeger, General Vaughn, please come with me."  The two 
generals entered a small, private elevator, which Daniels's assistant took to the seventh 
floor, and ushered them into a second suite of similarly decorated waiting rooms. The 
security guard disappeared through a side door, leaving both generals momentarily alone. 
	For the next ten minutes neither general spoke to the other since neither had the 
desire, under the circumstances, to engage in idle chitchat.  Finally, a secretary with a 
pleasant smile on her face appeared and ushered them into a large and disconcertingly 
bright, spacious office  framed by a forty-foot-long floor-to-ceiling window with a 
spectacular view of the forest below.   The Oriental decor with its subdued rose and light 
mauve motifs gave the room a somewhat misleading air of comfort and tranquility. 
	But whatever pleasant feelings the room's interior might have normally instilled in 
Daniels's guests were not felt by General Vaughn the moment he caught sight of the 
meeting's other participants. Seated on two sofas were the Directors of the Federal Bureau 
of Investigation, National Security Administration, National Reconnaissance Office, and 
the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research, plus a face Vaughn didn't 
recognize, which, Daniels informed, him, belonged to a certain David Woodring, who 
was the Assistant Director of Counterintelligence at the FBI.  Vaughn knew that 
Woodring's presence could mean one thing only -- spies. 
	Daniels showed Vaughn and Praeger to a pair of armchairs next to his, then began: 
"Curt, I know that General Praeger here has already told you that anything we discuss 
here today, must be kept absolutely secret from anyone. Repeat, anyone." 
	"Yes, sir," Vaughn responded, partially clearing his throat. 
	"I'm sure you're by now aware of the recent killing of Dr. Saleh," Daniels 
continued.  Vaughn blinked at the word "killing", no one had told him for sure that Saleh 
had been a murder victim. "Unfortunately, Director Myers has informed us that what took 
place might involve something much worse than a simple act of terrorism." 
	Now the muscles in Vaughn's back involuntarily tightened, creating a sharp pain 
between his shoulder blades.  He fought to maintain his self control as the words seemed 
to march out of Myers' mouth.
	". . . after a thorough review of our old photographic files, we discovered that Dr. 
Saleh had visited the Iraqi Mission to the United Nations in Vienna more than two years 
ago." 
	  The words Operation ARCHANGEL popped into his mind, and Vaughn felt 
almost physically ill. Saleh was the one who had run the battle systems of the F-15 four-
ship that had disappeared.  Now there would be no way to tell what damage he had done, 
until it was too late, and Vaughn didn't have to be told who would take the blame for it 
all.  He guessed they would keep him on through the investigation, but, after it was over, 
his military career would be finished. 
	"Yes, sir. I see." 
	"Curt, what we'd like you to do right now is give us a quick briefing on the present 
status of the Wimex network, before we get into what Dr. Saleh may or may not have 
done while he was at FHI," Daniels ordered. 
	Vaughn fumbled with the legal-sized file folder he had brought with him, dropping 
a sheaf of papers to the floor.  After he picked them up, he cleared his throat and began: 
	"The Worldwide Military Command and Control System is an integrated 
computerized communications and battle system designed to provide the President and 
the Joint Chiefs -- or whoever's in control of the NCA at the time -- control over our 
military forces.  The Wimex data-processing system was designed for use under all 
conditions -- peacetime to nuclear war -- but, of course, has been augmented with many 
specialized capabilities designed specifically for use in a nuclear exchange. 
	"The system was designed both to provide downward communications connecting 
to the various forces, and also verified warning of attack to forces on alert in order to 
convince the enemy that our forces can and will be used against him if we are, in fact, 
attacked. 
	"Pre-attack operations are handled by Honeywell DPS 8 and 6000 computers, 
command center display systems are handled by Univac 1100s; war planning's on IBM 
3080s and intelligence data handling's on VAX 11/780 front ends . . ." General Vaughn 
paused a moment, surveying the faces before him, hoping someone would ask a question, 
but no one did.  As far as everyone in the room was concerned, he had said nothing so far 
of any great importance. Vaughn resumed, "Wimex's two basic components are the 
National Military Command System, that is, the President and Joint Chiefs; the command 
centers of each of the services: Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marines; and other agencies, 
such as your own.  The system's also designed to operate under a series of shifting 
commands, in case one or more is lost during an attack. 
	"The system's primary mission is to support the NCA during an attack, i.e., provide 
as much information as quickly as possible for a fast response.  With this in mind an 
integrated set of programs called the Joint Operation Planning System -- or JOPS -- was 
developed to provide data support.  Similarly, software was developed for a strategic 
nuclear war plan, the Single Integrated Operating Plans to be used by the Joint Strategic 
Target Planning Staff at SAC." 
	At this point several of the attendees had begun to shift in their seats; Vaughn still 
wasn't telling them anything that anyone couldn't have read in the Joint Staff Officer's 
Guide. 
	"Curt," General Praeger interrupted.  "I think everybody here's pretty familiar with 
how our communications work, and, if it's alright with Director Daniels, I think our time 
would be better spent having you tell us more about the exact duties of the late Dr. 
Saleh." 
	Vaughn glanced at Director Daniels who nodded his approval. 
	"Yes, sir. FHI Systems was hired by us to review overall system architecture and 
response interfaces between communications and battle systems -- " 
	"What's a response interface?" broke in Hubert Myers, tired of the endless jargon. 
	"A measure of how well and how fast the various individuals at the battle stations 
carry out the orders they're given by their commands." 
	"So what you're saying here -- and correct me at anytime if I'm wrong -- is that 
there's a Chinese wall between the people issuing the orders and the ones who carry them 
out, am I right?" 
	"Generally, yes." 
	"So Saleh's job was to review both the battle systems software and the 
communications software to see if one meshed with the other?" 
	"Yes, sir." 
	"What did you mean by 'generally'?" Woodring interrupted. 
	"Uh, that's what I wanted to bring up," Vaughn stammered, his face tensing up.  
"There was one instance after Desert Storm where we simulated a remote-directed 
nuclear strike -- " 
	"What's 'remote-directed' mean?" 
	"Each plane's battle systems software was operable from a remote command via its 
communications hardware."
	"Operation ARCHANGEL?" Woodring asked, raising some eyebrows in the room. 
	"Yes, sir." 
	"Weren't there some planes lost during ARCHANGEL?" 
	"Yes.  But it wasn't any of the F-111Bs -- the actual bombers, it was a -- " 
	"Four-ship of F-15s?" 
	"Yes, sir." 
	"Was Saleh on the panel when the planes went down?" 
	"Yes." 
	"Exactly what other battle systems software did Dr. Saleh have access to, 
General?" asked Myers. 
	"Most of it." 
	"What's 'most of it'?" 
	"ICBM, Navy, sub fleet, SAC, Army artillery tactical nukes, you name it." 
	"To the best of your knowledge could Saleh have put a Trojan Horse or trapdoor in 
one or more of these programs?" 
	"Yes." 
	"How long do you estimate it would take your guys to find it, if one of these things 
had been put in there?" 
	"It could take months.  Maybe years, depending how well it was done." 
	"And it wouldn't be necessary for Dr. Saleh, himself, to activate one of these 
programs, would it?" 
	"No.  Not at all.  Anyone with a little computer knowledge could do it, but what 
makes you so sure he did that, too?" 
	The fact that no one would respond to Vaughn's question made him all the more 
worried. 
	"Curt," Daniels prompted, "Frank assured us in executive session at yesterday's 
meeting of the NFIB that all nuclear battle systems have been designed to prevent a 
computer override.  You go along with that?" 
	"Yes." 
	"Why?" 
	"The way each of them's set up, there's no way to load and launch without the aid 
of a human operator.  In each case, it's a multi-step operation -- it's not like a gun where 
you just pull the trigger." 
	"Thanks, Curt," Daniels spoke, cutting Vaughn off from further comment.  "We 
may need you to talk to us again, so, in the meantime, do me a favor and stay in the 
Washington area until further notice." 
	Vaughn's neck was flushed and he was about to protest, but thought better of it. 
	"No problem, sir." 
	After Vaughn left Daniels' office each of the attendees sat in momentary silence 
rolling the implications of what Vaughn had just told him over in his mind.  Four F-15s 
were turned to butter, then disappeared off the radar, all because of an errant computer 
programmer in San Diego. 
	"My guess is the F-15s were just a demonstration," Praeger broke the silence.  
"Otherwise why should the Iraqis pull their men from the embassy three months later?" 
	"Why are we so sure there's a connection?" Myers asked. 
	"We're not," Praeger sighed. 
	"Keith," Daniels asked, turning to his deputy.  "We have anybody inside Hussein's 
command?" 
	"No, sir.  We don't.  They're all Tikritis, relatives from his hometown -- it's almost 
impossible to get anyone in there.  Plus, Saddam's even killed some of them."
	"How hard would it be to get someone in the country, then?"
	"Into Iraq?  It depends on what you want them to do," Axe replied. 
	"I'd want them to find somebody who'd know something more about Saleh and get 
them out." 
	"Snatch one of their top people?  That could take months -- if it's even possible.  
We'd probably have to bring in the Israelis.  Besides, if the Mukhabarat's being pulled out, 
the operation, if there is one, might only be known to a handful of individuals -- all very 
close to Saddam Hussein." 
	"Frank?" Daniels prompted, turning next to the NSA director. 
	"Most of our stuff's space-based -- and Saddam got smart and converted all his 
command center communications with fiber optics, enclosed in gas-filled metal pipelines 
for security.  Plus, if he's pulled his own men out, I doubt they're been told anything 
anyway, so we don't even know what we're looking for." 
	"I still think we have to look," Daniels spoke, almost as if to himself. 
	"Woody's welcome to come over to Ft. Meade any time it's convenient and we can 
show him what we've got." 
	"Hubert?" 
	"It's fine with me, if Woody wants to go."  Myers glanced at his ADCI, who 
nodded his head affirmatively in Director Chalmers' direction. 
	"Gentlemen," Daniels spoke, "unless anyone's opposed I suggest we meet again on 
F street in one week to discuss any new developments.  Agreed?"  As the DCI surveyed 
the faces in the room, he received each man's murmured assent. 
	As Woodring walked out the door, Frank Chalmers strode alongside him and put a 
hand on his shoulder, "We have someone we use on special projects, that, if it's OK with 
you, I'd like you to liaise with him when you come over.  You have any problem with 
that?"
	"No.  No, sir." 
	"Here's his name," Chalmers said, passing Woodring a blank white card with a 
name and number written on it.  "I think it would be best for obvious reasons for me to 
skip the introductions -- but I told him you'd be calling.  He's expecting your visit about 
now, if that's alright?" 
	Woodring looked at the name and address on the card.  Dr. Glen Hockaday, 
National Photographic Interpretation Center -- Washington Navy Yard.
	"He's not at Ft. Meade?" 
	"You meet him there and he'll give you a ride up, OK?" 
	"Sure.  No problem.  Let me clear it with Myers and I'll go right over."
K/K-7A

56