War of Eagles Read Free

camera, were automatically sent to the CHP and to the FBI field division in Columbia and to Bureau headquarters in Washington, D.C. There, the images would be compared to a database of shipyard attacks to look for similarities. The remains and clothing would be studied to try to isolate distinctive national, cultural, or obvious blast characteristics. If this were a deliberate event, laboratory examination would determine the nature of the explosive used. If they found a fragment of the container used to house the explosive, scientists might be able to locate and read skin cells shed by the individual who had placed it. That would not tell them his identity, but it would tell them his ethnicity.
    Graff documented the scene unemotionally. He did not know who these people were or what they were doing on the vessel or dock. He did not know which of them had families. Since terrorism had become a daily possibility on every American calendar, Graff’s default setting was to protect the harbor, the city, and the nation. He was emotionless about his work but passionate about his responsibility. He was also thinking back as he took pictures, running through the first two hours of his shift to make sure there was nothing he might have seen that did not seem suspicious at the time: a light on the water, an unusual sound from the hull of the freighter, movement somewhere along the dark wharf.
    Molina informed him that the “scoop sloop” would be there within a quarter hour. That was the patrol boat with the nets and freezers required for evidence recovery. Graff acknowledged the update as he stood on the prow and continued to take pictures. He took each one twice, one through a night-vision lens and another with a flash. Comparing the two would help forensics experts construct a true-color image of the remains, something that would help them to pinpoint skin tone.
    As they neared the hole in the vessel, Graff saw something that punched through the professional detachment. Something that put the nature of the vessel, if not the explosion, in context.
    He saw a little bead bracelet floating on the choppy waters.
    With a little girl’s hand still attached.

THREE
    Washington, D.C. Monday, 7:33 A.M.
    The call came as a surprise to Paul Hood. He was just sitting down with a cup of coffee and a power bar when his assistant put through Lorraine Sanders, chief of staff to President Dan Debenport. The forty-six-year-old director of Op-Center was being asked to breakfast in the Oval Office at the White House.
    He ate the power bar anyway. The china at the White House was Jacksonian—old and delicate—and the less he used the happier he was.
    This was obviously not a crisis. That was not something a new president discussed over bran muffins. Also, an official car usually arrived within moments of the call. It was also not a social visit, since those invitations typically came with more than ninety minutes’ advance notice. It was certainly not a get-to-know-you meeting, because Hood knew Debenport well. The senator had been chairman of the Congressional Intelligence Oversight Committee, the group that controlled the budget of Op-Center. The fact that it was being held in the Oval Office indicated that it was to be a working breakfast. Moreover, the timing could hardly be coincidental. The White House knew what was happening this morning.
    As an intelligence officer, Hood knew when he was in what analysts called “the twilight zone.” He had enough information to stay engaged but not enough to tell him why or with what. Op-Center’s FBI liaison once described it as working on a crossword puzzle where you have scattered answers but not enough connective tissue to help solve the damn thing.
    Which is pretty much the state of American intelligence, Hood thought. Traditionally reactive, using the military fist to squash an enemy instead of surgical subterfuge to cut him out. Destroy the entire puzzle, and you don’t need to worry about this