Collateral Damage Read online

  The man unlocked the door. It was set up for a small talk, with four dozen chairs facing a podium at the front. Zen rolled down the center aisle to the open space near the podium and turned around.

  “Grab a chair and fire away,” he told Toumi.

  She hesitated a moment—his slang had temporarily baffled her. Then she took her voice recorder out and began asking questions.

  “So, you know about the accident?”

  “I don’t know much about it at all,” said Zen. “I heard earlier that there was a bombing incident in Libya, and there are reports that civilians were hurt. This would be a tragedy, if true.”

  “If true?”

  “I don’t know whether it is true or not,” said Zen, trying not to sound defensive. “Certainly if it is true, it would be terrible. Anytime anyone is killed or even hurt in war, it’s tragic. Civilians especially.”

  “Should the perpetrators be punished?”

  “I doubt it was deliberate,” said Zen.

  “But even mistakes should be punished, no?”

  “I don’t know the facts, so we’ll have to see.”

  “In your experience,” boomed a loud voice in American English from the back of the room, “are robot planes more apt to make this kind of mistake?”

  Zen looked up. The man who had asked the question was wearing a sport coat and tie. Someone with a video camera was right behind him.

  Several other people crowded in behind the two men as they came up the aisle.

  “Are robot aircraft more prone to this sort of mistake?” repeated the reporter.

  “I’m sorry, I don’t know you,” said Zen.

  “Tomas Renta, CNN.” The man stuck out his hand. “Pleasure to meet you, Senator.”

  I’m sure, thought Zen as he shook the man’s hand.

  “First of all, I haven’t received any official word on what sort of planes were or weren’t involved,” Zen told the man.

  It was an obvious fudge, and the reporter called him on it before Zen could continue.

  “I’m sure you’ve heard the rumors and saw the YouTube tape,” said Renta. “Everyone is saying it was a UAV.”

  “Well, theoretically speaking, unmanned planes are no more likely to have accidents than any other aircraft,” said Zen. “The statistics are pretty close. Frankly, since people have been flying for so long, UAVs look a little better. Statistically.”

  The reporter drew a breath, seemingly gearing up for another question. Zen decided to beat him to the punch.

  “But that doesn’t meant that they can’t have accidents,” he said, looking directly into the camera. “It has to be investigated, obviously. I’m sure it will be. Speaking as a civilian—”

  “And former pilot,” said another journalist.

  “And former pilot, yes.” He gestured toward his useless legs. “My perception is, accidents can happen at any time. And they may be terrible ones. But I don’t know what happened here, and I don’t know that it would be of much value for anyone to pass judgment on anything until all of the facts are known.”

  “Should the U.S. compensate victims?” said the journalist. Zen thought he remembered him from a conference somewhere—he was an American representing AP overseas.

  “I don’t even know if it was a U.S. aircraft.”

  “Does this delegitimize the entire coalition involvement?” asked a short, dark-haired woman who’d just joined the group.

  “How would it do that?” asked Zen.

  “So killing civilians is its goal?”

  She was obviously trying to bait him, but Zen had plenty of practice dealing with that sort of thing. He simply ignored her, turning back to the reporter for CNN.

  “I think the coalition has a lot of good people here,” he said. “I’m sure they’ll figure out what happened and fix it. If it needs to be fixed.”

  “General Zongchen said that he wanted you on the investigating commission,” said the AP reporter. “Are you going to join it?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Why wouldn’t you?” asked Toumi.

  Mousetrapped. There was nothing else to do now but to sidestep, a maneuver best performed with a smile and a bit of a wink. Zen told them that he’d have to see what happened.

  He proceeded to answer different variations of the same questions for the next ten minutes or so, until the reporters finally concluded that he wasn’t going to change what he was saying. The man from CNN thanked him, and the others promptly turned around and headed away to file their stories.

  “Well, that went over well,” Zen said sarcastically to Jason. Following his aide’s glance, he saw that Mina Toumi was standing on the other side of him.

  “I’m sorry—you were trying for an exclusive,” said Zen. “I didn’t mean to ruin it.”

  “It’s OK,” she said.

  “Did you get everything you needed?”

  “I’m OK. Thanks.” She gave him a tight smile, then left the room.

  “Tongue back in your mouth,” Zen said to Jason, who was staring after her.

  “I wasn’t—I didn’t . . .”

  “Relax, Jay. If it was any more obvious I’d have to hose you down. Did you get her phone number at least?”

  “E-mail.”

  “You’re on your own,” Zen told him, wheeling from the room.

  5

  Benghazi, northern Libya

  Alone as the doors closed, Neil Kharon stepped back against the wall of the elevator and took a long, slow breath as he emptied his mind. Talking to the rebel princess required a complete suspension of ethics and opinion. Idris al-Nussoi was a despicable creature, ignorant and willful.

  But perhaps that’s why she had become the de facto head of the resistance.

  Of course, it could be worse: he could be talking to the Libyan government officials.

  His chest expanded slowly as he filled his lungs. He felt his muscles pushing outward, stretching the carbon-fiber vest he wore beneath his sweater as protection against a double cross. The vest would stop a Magnum round, and had even survived, intact, against a WinMag bullet in testing; otherwise he would not have put up with its constrictions. Kharon did not like to be constrained in any way. Tight spaces, like elevator cars, filled him with fear.

  He could deal with it, as long as there was plenty of light. He had learned several tricks over the years.

  He held his breath for a moment. The yoga guru he had learned the technique from emphasized the vibration one felt at this point, claiming that it put the adept practitioner in contact with the basic life force of the universe. Kharon had long ago dismissed this as bunk, but he savored the sensation nonetheless: a slight tingle through the muscles, relaxing against the nerve endings they intersected with.

  A moment of calm preparation for the job ahead.

  The elevator doors opened. Kharon stepped out and held up his arms as two men in tracksuits approached. They were bodyguards, though he wondered why anyone in their right mind would trust them. Disheveled, they smelled of fish and Moroccan hashish. They were several inches shorter than Kharon, and considerably heavier.

  The one on the right frisked him quickly—it was so inefficient, Kharon could have smuggled an MP–5 in his pants—and then stepped back. The other growled in an indecipherable language—it wasn’t Arabic, Berber, English, or Italian, all languages Kharon could converse in. But he knew from experience it meant he could go.

  He walked down the hall toward a pair of men dressed in faded army fatigues. Their clothes were old, but the AK–74s they flashed as a challenge were brand new. These had been supplied by Kharon’s sometime partner, a Russian spy-cum-arms dealer. The two men had been working together on and off now for several years, the Russian for profit, Kharon for something more satisfying and considerably darker.

  The guards eyed him suspiciously even though they had just watched him being searched. Kharon ignored them as best he could, staring straight ahead at the door he was aiming for.

  It opened before he reached it. His approach had been watched on a closed circuit television camera.

  But there were no other sensors or bugs. A thin wire sensor in his shirt acted as an antenna, ferreting out transmissions. It would have buzzed gently to warn him.

  “So, you have arrived. And on time,” said the short, fat man who appeared behind the door. He was Oscar Sifontes, a Venezuelan advisor to the rebels, the princess specifically. In theory he was independent, though everyone knew he was paid by Petróleos de Venezuela, S.A., the state oil company. He had a cigar in his left hand and he waved it expansively, as if he was happy to see Kharon.

  In reality, Sifontes considered him a tool of the Russians, and therefore a rival for influence. He had tried to persuade the princess to have nothing to do with him—something Kharon would have suspected even if he had not bugged the suite.

  The Venezuelan’s designer jeans were at least two sizes too small; with his white shirt, he looked like an ice cream cone, with a moustache on top.

  And a very smelly cigar.

  “We are having fine weather, do you not think?” said Sifontes, by way of making conversation. “It is more pleasant here than Sicily. The weather there was cloudy. In Libya, there is only sun.”

  “Weather is too random to consider,” said Kharon.

  While Sifontes struggled to translate the words into Spanish and then make some sense of them, Kharon strode from the small foyer into a large common room. The princess was sitting on a couch at the far end, watching a video feed on an iPad and talking on a cell phone at the same time. The iPad was a constant companion. It had been given to her by the Americans some months before as a present. It wasn’t bugged—there had been numerous checks, including Kharon’s own. Nonetheless, he suspected that the accounts it connected to were constantly monitored. The Americans never gave gifts without strings attached.

  Kharon bowed slightly. It was an unnecessary flourish that the princess loved. She smiled, then in Arabic told whoever was on the phone that she would call back.

  Her long black dress was baggy by Western standards, though here would be considered modern. The silk scarf that had slid back on her head had bright blue and green stripes on the deep black field, another straddle of old and new.

  “Your trip back from Sicily was enjoyable?” Kharon asked in English. He preferred the language to Arabic because it was harder for her underlings to understand.

  “Airplanes are not my favorite thing. But we made it in one piece.”

  “They treated you well?”

  “Always.” She dropped the iPad on the couch with a dramatic flourish. “But now we see that the Americans have bombed a city. That will set us back weeks.”

  “I don’t think so,” said Kharon.

  “Eh, always an optimist,” said the Venezuelan. He took a long pull from his cigar and exhaled. “You are good with science, but not with people’s opinions, I think.”

  “Perhaps,” said Kharon. “You have the key for me?”

  The princess rose from her couch and walked to the settee across the room. She was a real princess, the daughter of a tribal leader whose claim to some sort of local royalty extended back several centuries. But that claim aside, the real attraction for the rebels following her were her looks. At thirty-five, she had the body of a woman ten years younger. But assuming that she was just a pretty face being used by others would have been a dangerous underestimation. The presence of the Venezuelan was proof of that. He was clearly a counterbalance to the Europeans and especially the Americans, who strongly suspected that his government was trying to curry favor with the eventual winners of the power struggle here.

  They were right, of course.

  The princess returned with a small thumb drive. Kharon gave it only a precursory glance as he took it.

  “The man who delivered it was very scruffy,” she said. “You really should deal with a better class of people.”

  Kharon ignored the comment. “The rest of the money will be in the accounts by this evening,” he told her. “I appreciate your help.”

  “Maybe you should stay until then,” suggested the Venezuelan.

  Kharon turned his head and looked at the short, fat man.

  “Señor Sifontes, are you suggesting I would cheat the princess?” he said coldly in Spanish.

  “Oh, no, no, you misunderstand.” Sifontes smiled weakly and turned to the princess. “He’s worried that I think he’s going to cheat you.”

  “Are you?” she asked Kharon.

  “My integrity should be beyond doubt.”

  “When you deal with Russians, one wonders.”

  “The Russians have their pluses and minuses,” said Kharon. He put the thumb drive in his pocket.

  “I had heard that there were government planes near the city that was attacked,” she said.

  “I have heard that as well,” said Kharon. “Do you think they made the attack, or the allies?”

  “It would be convenient if they did. But from what I have heard, this was not the case.”

  “I see.”

  “I was wondering if you knew why the government chose that time to attack.” The princess stared at him. “They have not flown their airplanes for several weeks, and now yesterday they come up. Perhaps they made the allied planes miss.”

  “I wouldn’t put it past them,” said Kharon.

  “You have many contacts.” The princess sat down on the couch, folding one of her legs beneath her. “I’m told you were south just recently.”

  “Who said that? The Russians?”

  “I hear things.” She waved her hand.

  It had to be the Russian, he thought. Or had the Americans realized what he was doing?

  Impossible. He would be dead by now. The fact that he could move around freely proved that they didn’t know he existed.

  “I do my share of traveling,” Kharon told her.

  “To both sides.”

  “As I’ve said several times, I don’t care for either cause. Whatever advances my own goals are all I care about.”

  “Some people think you’re a spy,” said the Venezuelan.

  “Who?” Kharon glared at Sifontes.

  “Some people,” said Sifontes. “I don’t doubt that you are loyal.”

  “I am loyal to myself. That, I freely admit. In this case, our goals were similar.”

  “Stealing information from the Americans did not necessarily help my people,” said the princess.

  “But the money did.”

  “Yes.” She smiled at him.

  “I will stay if you wish.”

  “Oh, it’s not necessary. Your payments have always arrived in the past.”

  “This one will as well. Until we have the pleasure of seeing each other again, Princess.”

  He nodded, smiled as evilly as possible at the Venezuelan, then left the suite.

  Alone in the elevator, Kharon took the small USB key from his pocket. It looked like the right device, but he would not put it past the princess—or the Venezuelan—to try and cheat him somehow.

  He smiled as he left the building, giving the surveillance cameras a big, toothy grin.

  The princess was wrong. He was not trying to steal information about the American weapons. On the contrary. The USB key was one that his agents had used against them.

  The Russian agents, to be more specific. Kharon didn’t trust them to dispose of it on their own and had insisted that he get it back. The princess had saved him the trip to Sicily—a necessary precaution, as he didn’t want to be linked to the “accident” in any way.

  Not yet.

  He crossed the street to a second hotel, the Awahi Sahara. Aimed primarily at businesspeople, the hotel had fallen on hard times since the start of the second revolution; it was less than a quarter full, and room rates had been slashed to thirty euros a night, nearly a tenth of what they had been before the war.

  But Kharon hadn’t come for a room. He went straight to the business center at the rear of the lobby, slipped a key card into the door lock and went inside. An older Italian gentleman sat at the computer at the far end of the row, flipping slowly through e-mail.

  Kharon pulled the chair out in front of a computer. He moved the mouse to bring up the system screen, then took the USB drive from his pocket. With a glance toward the old Italian—he appeared absorbed in his work—Kharon pushed the key into the USB slot at the rear of the CPU.

  The key didn’t register as a drive.

  So far so good.

  He brought up the browser and typed the general address of Twitter. Entering an account name and password he had composed more or less at random, he did a search for #revoltinLibya.

  The Tweet he needed was three screens deep. He copied the characters, then pasted them into the browser. That brought him to a Web page filled with numbers.

  It was a self-test page, allowing him to ping the USB disk. A set of numbers appeared on the screen. He looked at the last seven: 8–23–1956.

  Ray Rubeo’s birthday. It was the right key.

  He backed out, then moved the mouse to the Windows icon at the lower left of the screen. He went to the search line and typed run, adding the address of a small program he had installed on the computer several days before.

  When he was finished, the unedited video of the Sabre bombing mission had been uploaded to half a dozen sites.

  After his mother died, Neil Kharon had gone east to live with an aunt and uncle. They were older, and not particularly warm people. Alone and isolated, he had concentrated on his schoolwork. It was an inverse acting out—his way of rebelling was to study harder and learn everything he could.

  He soaked up knowledge. He loved math and science. Though not rich, his guardians had enough sense to get him into MIT for undergraduate work, and then, with the help of another relative, to Cambridge. From there, he studied on his own, making connections to labs in France, Germany, and Russia.