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Praetorium Honoris

Thursday, August 29, 2024

Intel¹

Source
It was a brisk day in October, windy but clear. Beth Chapman was at the Washington Monument, one of her favorite places in DC. Looking out at the Mall, the Capitol in the distance, she could almost forget all of the confusion and outright terror she had experienced over the past few months.

Things were turning "interesting" again. The new FBI Director, Juan Ramirez, a former Lieutenant Colonel in the Maryland State Police, was in the news and in a very big way. He had proposed dismantling the FBI and folding its functions into the Department of Homeland Security. There were a number of Congressmen and women vehemently opposed to that, there were an almost equal number very much in favor of such a thing.

Both organizations had been brought into being by presidents, indirectly Teddy Roosevelt for the FBI and the DHS directly by George W. Bush. The latter organization had absorbed a number of existing agencies after its foundation as the Office of Homeland Security. It began not long after the attacks on 9/11.

Chapman had her doubts as to the wisdom of the move. Obviously the Justice Department was completely against the idea, they would lose much of their power. Which is why many supported the idea. That department had disgraced itself during the recent troubles, the FBI Director going so far as to support insurrection against the established government.

He had paid for that with his life.

Insiders knew that there were many in the DOJ who had opposed Juan Ramirez's appointment to be Director of the FBI, yet the Senate had confirmed him by 97 to 3. One of the naysayers had since resigned in disgrace when discovered to have unreported contacts with a Middle Eastern intelligence service. He was still awaiting trial, having been taken into custody shortly after his resignation.

Chapman was beginning to wonder if she shouldn't just move back home and start a new career. She was still current in helicopters, and there was a growing need for helicopter services around the country. She felt herself too old to go back on active duty, she also knew that her body couldn't withstand the rigors of life as a Navy helo driver.

As she turned to head back to where she was parked, she heard her name. She turned and a wide smile crossed her face, it was Alex Choe.

"Admiral! I haven't seen you in a while, how have you been, how ..." she couldn't help but notice that his uniform now had the broad stripe of an admiral, but now he sported the thin gold stripe above that denoting that he was no longer a Rear Admiral (Lower Half) but was now a two star, Rear Admiral.

"When did that happen?" she asked, nodding at his sleeve.

"Oh, a week ago, the President pushed it through. Said it was needed in order for me to take over the position of Director, National Maritime Intelligence-Integration Office and Commander, Office of Naval Intelligence. He said he likes my instincts, wants me in DC. So ..."

"What happened to Rear Admiral Crutchfield?"

"Uh, shot himself when he was discovered providing intel to the insurrectionists over at the FBI."

"Damn, I didn't know that. Anyway, congratulations. What brings you out here?"

"Uh, couple of things, I heard you were thinking of leaving Homeland."

"Yeah, things are confused at the moment. Heck, I'm confused at the moment. I might go home and start a helicopter business. Flying tourists around, ferrying hunters out to the backcountry, that sort of thing."

"What if I could offer you a job?"

"Where? Doing what?"

"Deputy commander of ONI, I'd be your boss. We worked well together over the past few months, at least I thought so. What do you think, if you need some time ..."

"I'm retired. Medically retired."

"The President wants you, you know what they say, anything can be waived. A return to active duty ..."

"Sorry, Sir, but no, do you realize the pay cut I'd be taking ..."

"Pay cut as an agent of Homeland, or pay cut as a helicopter ferry pilot?"

That made her think, the admiral was right, it would be a pay cut to leave Homeland to go back on active duty, but she was leaving Homeland one way or the other. So, she had no idea how much a helo driver could make in Idaho, maybe this was a good idea.

"If you need time to think about it ..." Choe's phone chimed, "excuse me, I need to take this."

Choe walked some distance away, where no one was nearby. She could tell that the conversation was very animated, then she saw his shoulders slump, as if someone had just dumped something heavy on him. He walked back to her, his face showing determination but with a hint of sadness around the eyes.

"Sorry, Beth, I need to go back to ..."

"When do you want me to start?" she said, without really thinking.

"How's about today? Right now. We can do all the paperwork later, you have the clearance and as I get to decide who has a need to know, you're in."

She nodded, suddenly sure of herself. "So what's going on?"

"The Italian Coast Guard stopped a suspicious vessel leaving Naples, bound for Le Havre. They claim to have found a nuclear weapon aboard. The Energy Department has got their experts heading out there to confirm."

"What's our interest?"

"The Italians claim that the captain of the vessel laughed when the weapon was discovered."

"Laughed?"

"Yeah, an arrogant pirate if there ever was, he told the Italians, 'You think that's the only one?' So, now we're interested."

"Damn."

"Yeah. Let's go, do you have your car here?"

"Yes."

"Okay, follow me to the White House."


Kargin turned off his cellphone, then broke it in half, he'd grab another burner from his desk. Things were going completely off the rails. Damned Obrecht had made his own deal for a nuke with a contact in Tashkent some weeks ago. Now the weapon he was attempting to smuggle into France had been intercepted by the Italians.

The idiot captain he'd hired had actually had to pull into port when his engines began to fail. After the repairs had been made, the man had stiffed the company who had done the work. They reported him to the Coast Guard and ...

Kargin slammed the broken cellphone to the floor then stomped on it. He was furious, time to show those effete fools in Switzerland who the real boss was.

On the bright side, he could go back to Paris when he felt like it, it would still be there.

Unless that Nazi idiot had managed to acquire more than one bomb!

He picked up his office phone and made a call.

He still knew people in the organs of state security, he needed wet work, and he knew just the man to make it happen.

"Slava! How are you? I need a favor, I trust your passport is up to date?" he heard the man on the other end of the line laughing and saying, 'of course, it is'.

"I'm going to send you something, could you look into it? Sure, you're away from the office? Okay, can you access a computer somewhere? Alright, I'll send it there. Thank you, Slava, the job will pay very well I should add. Let me know."


Svyatoslav (Slava) Petrovich Loshchilov logged off the computer at the Russian State Library. He then went to a public phone and called a number, no one answered, but when the line opened, he simply said, "Yes." He assumed that would be passed to Kargin by some modern miracle of technology.

He needed to book a flight to Zurich, there was a chalet not far from there that he needed to visit. He was to pass a "message" to whoever he found there. He understood what Kargin meant, one did not call Slava to pass normal messages, no, this message would be written in blood.




¹ No juvat, not the computer chip manufacturer.

36 comments:

  1. FBI, DOJ, Homeland Security........them plus others need a thorough cleansing, TS if someone loses their Federal pension Sarge. Good to have electricity back after losing it at 0530 on Tuesday from Mother Nature, came back at 1430 yesterday aaaaand severe storms being called for this evening....(sigh).

    ReplyDelete
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    1. Oh yeah, Nakagawa is going to try, we'll have to see how many entrenched interests he comes up against!

      I looked at the weather map, looks nasty up your way!

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    2. Effing Bee Eye doesn't need "cleansing" it needs to be purged. Those few decent people left can apply to the Marshal Service.
      Boat Guy

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    3. Cleansing as in "wash all the dirt away." Purge sounds too Soviet.

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    4. Restructuring the Eff Bee Eye will be more like hydraulic mining... Cut down the banks of dross, waste, and overburden and filter out the rare gold nugget that is left.

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    5. I see your purge and raise you a flush. As in; flushed, abolished, terminated.

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    6. The FBI started screwing up from Day 1. Their supposedly 'bestest' crime lab has been rocked with scandal after scandal, to the point that it is now relatively possible to throw out fingerprint evidence and convictions made from said evidence. They screwed up DNA evidence for years. And their agents aren't required to record interviews so they can lie like a cheap rug about what a suspect or interviewee said (see the hammering of General Flynn.)

      It's time to break it all up.

      Then again, it's time to break up the Department of inJustice, too.

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  2. Sarge, thanks for the clarification! With as many twists and turns in this story, I wasn’t too sure!
    ;-)
    juvat

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  3. Replies
    1. Things are moving, not sure in what direction just yet, but they're moving.

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  4. I'm trying to remember who's at the chalet in Switzerland... I'll bet I'll be reminded before long!

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    1. Are you reading my mind?

      Surprise, surprise, guess what's coming tomorrow?

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  5. More good stuff!
    JB

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  6. So we're going to have ... wait, how many "lost" nukes are there? Has anyone recovered some from our lost submarines? Those depths used to be "unreachable" or "unrecoverable", but now ... inquiring mind wants to be reassured in the real world. Yet another twist, is your Muse related to Medusa? Great plot, Sir.

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    1. When the USSR imploded there were a lot of nukes in places which were no longer part of the USSR, Ukraine gave theirs back to Russia, not sure if others did. Pretty sure the Russians didn't want potential enemies having those but given the state of Soviet "efficiency" at the time, there's the possibility that some went missing, mostly tactical ones.

      One could, in theory, recover nuclear material suitable for a bomb from a sunken sub (both Thresher and Scorpion went down in very deep water, so that would be very difficult) but an entire weapon, while possible, would be tough. After all, those subs carried SLBMs, continent-spanning ranges, big weapons. Tactical nukes would be more likely.

      And yes, that prospect is terrifying.

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    2. There are all those warheads lost by the Air Force, some around Spain from a B-52 and some even off our own shores from a B-47.

      Then there are other possible sources. The Norks, Pakistan (who have already acted in a bad manner in this storyline,) China, South Africa, Iran, missing nukes from Saddam's Iraq (which existed, then didn't exist, yet there are radioactive tunnels under Bagdad according to some of my military friends....,) France itself (oh, the irony if that was the sourse,) Great Britain and who knows where else, all possible sources for a tac nuke besides Russia/the former Soviet Union.

      Heck, if you think about it, it could even be a nuke from a Little John or Davy Crockett (or a Pershing) from the US arsenal for all we know. Do you really trust our Government considering all the conspiracies that have been proven true.

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    3. I used to know what we were talking about when someone said "our Government", today I really don't know who is running things.
      After the last Presidential election ALL THE BORADCAST NETWORKS refused to carry the President of the United States national address! And no one noticed.... I really don't know who "our Government" is anymore.

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    4. Beans - The Iraqis would be a source, or Syria, which some sources say the Iraqi WMDs wound up.

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    5. Rob - We don't really have an effective government right now.

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    6. The Thresher and Scorpion were both attack subs (not boomers) with torpedoes and short-range anti-sub missiles. Thresher definitely imploded. Small pieces of Thresher were recovered with the technology of the time. Scorpion may have had a torpedo explode aboard. Given implosion or explosion, the chances of recovering an intact workable warhead (as Sarge noted) are slim to none. The warheads may be intact enough to recover high quality fissionable material. Reachable, but expensive. And with interested nations pointedly wondering just what the salvers were doing

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    7. Yes, those sites are monitored, I'm sure.

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    8. And standing Navy policy is to neither confirm nor deny the presence or absence of any special weapons on a sub, so going down and searching either one is likely a waste of time anyway. Any noises at the wreck locations that suggest attempts at salvage would probably be investigated quickly.

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  7. Strange turnings in this story, hopefully leading to the saving of Paris and all the good history. Though, sometimes, I think a neutron bomb over Paris would allow France to become a great nation again. Get rid of all the guest workers and all of the super-socialists who live in the city.

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    Replies
    1. We might have the French military give it a go. They're pretty conservative.

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  8. I am pretty sure I know what the message is going to be. How it will be received is another story. Although bad guys against bad guys is not all bad...

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    1. If you can get the bad guys to kill each other off, makes the good guys job a bit easier. Maybe? Sometimes things will turn out differently than you'd hope.

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    2. Beans, all four nuclear weapons from the B52 over Spain were recovered. Apparently, the weapons were automatically jettisoned by parachute when the B52 exploded. One landed offshore and was recovered (after a lot of effort). One on land had the warhead break open (no explosion, but scattering plutonium over the local landscape [the US now owns a few very expensive acres of Spanish topsoil currently residing in a nuclear waste facility]). The two other bombs descended safely. One landed with the parachute on fire in the back garden of a Spaniard. Recognizing that fire in proximity to what looked like a very large bomb was not a good thing, he energetically set to stomping the fire out. In the process, he inadvertently gave it a couple of good kicks. Probably the only person to ever kick a nuclear weapon.

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Can't be nice, go somewhere else...

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