Divide and Conquer by Tom Clancy, Steve Pieczenik, Jeff Rovin Page B

diplomatic pouch.
    Thomas did not take the news well. If Battat had succeeded in identifying the Harpooner, Thomas would have been a hero. Instead, he would have to explain to his counterpart in Baku and his superior in Washington how they had managed to blow the relatively simple job of surveillance.
    Thomas said that he would think about their next step and let him know. Food was brought in. Battat ate, even though he had left his appetite back at the beach, along with his self-esteem, his energy, the mission, and his career. Then he sat in a chair resting until Williamson and Moore arrived for a second, more thorough, conversation. Moore looked grim. This was going to be painful.
    Acoustic devices planted in the walls caused conversations to sound like static to the electronic eavesdropping devices that the Azerbaijanis had placed on surrounding buildings.
    Battat told them that Moscow had suspected the Harpooner was in Baku, and he had been sent to try and identify him. This news did not meet with the approval of the senior researcher.
    “The field office in Moscow obviously didn’t feel it was necessary to involve us in this operation,” Moore complained. “Do you want to tell me why?”
    “They were afraid that our target might have people watching the embassy,” Battat said.
    “Not all of our people are in the embassy,” Moore pointed out. “We have external resources.”
    “I understand,” Battat said. “But Moscow felt that the fewer people who were in the loop, the better our chances of surprising the target.”
    “Which didn’t really help, did it?” Moore said.
    “No,”
    “Whoever attacked you obviously knew you were coming.”
    “Apparently, though I don’t understand how,” Battat said. “I was well hidden, and I wasn’t using anything that gave out an electronic pulse. The camera was one of the digital seventies. No flash, no glass in front to reflect light, no moving parts that clicked.”
    “Couldn’t this Harpooner or his people have done a routine sweep of the shore?” the deputy ambassador asked.
    “I was watching for that,” said Battat. “I got to the site early, at a spot we’d selected through satellite imaging. We chose it specifically so that I could see and hear people coming and going.”
    “Then why didn’t you see or hear the goddamned assailant coming?” asked Moore.
    “Because they hit me just when something started to happen out on the boat I was watching,” he said. “Someone came from below and turned on a radio. It was a perfect distraction.”
    “Which suggests that someone knew you were in that spot, Mr. Battat,” Moore said.
    “Probably.”
    “Possibly even before you got there,” Moore went on.
    “I don’t see how, but I can’t rule it out,” Battat agreed.
    “What I really want to know, though, is whether this was even the Harpooner,” Moore went on.
    “What do you mean?” the deputy ambassador asked.
    “The Harpooner has been a terrorist for over two decades,” Moore told her. “He has personally run or been a part of at least fifteen terrorist strikes that we know of and probably many more that we don’t know about. He’s eluded countless efforts to trap him thanks, in large part, to his ability to stay mobile. He has no permanent address that we know of, hires whoever he needs, and rarely uses the same people twice. We only know what he looks like because one of his arms suppliers once snuck a photo to us. The supplier’s body was found a few months later on a sailboat, slit from chin to belly with a fish-gutting knife— after we’d relocated him and given him a new ID.”
    “I see,” the deputy ambassador said.
    “He left the knife behind,” Moore said. “He always leaves his weapons behind, from spearguns to bowline stirrups.”
    “Sea-related things,” said Williamson.
    “Often,” Moore said. “We suspect he was in the naval service somewhere—not a big leap of faith, though we haven’t been able to trace him.