Wolffe just nodded. Hannister continued, “And the Bosnian? How does he fit in? Who’s the paymaster for all this shit?”
“He’s not Bosnian. He’s Croatian. We don’t know why the message said he was a Bosniak Muslim, but we believe it’s because they were lying about being in the pay of Iran. It was a cover story. His passport says he’s a Catholic.”
Hannister rubbed his forehead and said, “What the hell. What is going on here? Who is he?”
“We’re still running that down. He’s not on any of our systems. I doubt he’s ever been to the United States. He hasn’t pinged, but he will eventually. He also had another identification which is going to be delicate.”
“What?”
“He had a diplomatic passport for a group called the Sovereign Military Hospitaller Order of St. John of Jerusalem, of Rhodes, and of Malta. The name inside it was not the same name as his Croatian passport. It was Italian.”
President Hannister rubbed his chin, looked at Amanda Croft, and said, “Isn’t that the Knights of Malta? The ones with observer status at the United Nations? The group we give money to?”
She said, “It is, but they’re a Catholic humanitarian organization. They help refugee camps and things like that. They can’t have anything to do with this.”
Wolffe said, “I’m not going to argue that, but I need additional authority, and this isn’t the time for an Oversight Council meeting. It looks like you have your hands full here.”
Hannister let slip a rueful smile and said, “Yes, it would appear so. On the plus side, Denmark, the United Kingdom, and Australia are backing us up. Apparently, they don’t like their naval commanders being shot at any more than we do.”
“That’s a help?”
“No, it’s not. It’s just more pressure for me to act. We’re reaching a point where it won’t matter what we want to do. This is taking on a life of its own. If they have one more killing out in the wild—whoever it is—and they’re successful in implicating an Iran proxy, we’re taking it to Iran.”
“What’s Israel saying?”
“The usual crap. The hawks are screaming at us to neutralize the threat, like a kid brother hiding behind the older one. Behind the scenes, others are asking for calm. They still haven’t publicly released the fact that their diplomats were killed the same way as ours, with the same proof of Iranian complicity. Sooner or later, that’s going to leak, and that’ll be it. Either Israel will be forced to strike—which could lead to a conflagration of epic proportions with every country in the Middle East—or they’ll force us to try to cobble together some half-assed coalition to strike. It’s coming to a head.”
Wolffe said, “Sir, this could be for no reason. What if Iran’s not doing this?”
“I know. What do you want to do?”
“The cell phone we found on the Croatian had an app called Zello, which works off data on the cell network, or straight off Wi-Fi. It has a geolocation function, and we have the location of the end station of its last call. It’s in Rome, coincidentally the headquarters of the Knights of Malta. It didn’t end in Iran or any other Iranian proxy location, like Lebanon or Syria. I want to go explore that.”
“How long will that take?”
“Not long. Pike’s already on the way. He’ll be landing within the hour. I just need permission.”
Hannister laughed and said, “Let me guess, still as an Israeli?”
“Well, yeah. Ten days of quarantine as an American wouldn’t really help, but once on the ground we’ll need some gates to be broken to get into the Knights of Malta for a few questions. He’ll do that as an American consular officer.”
Amanda said, “You can’t go barging into their headquarters and accuse them of trying to assassinate the head of the Fifth Fleet. That’s not going to work.”
“We won’t. We’ll just tell them we found out the Croatian was associated with the organization, and wanted to learn more about him. Right now, he was killed outside of the main assault, so we’ll play it as just covering all the bases.”
President Hannister looked at Amanda and said, “You’ve got whatever permission you need to turn this off. Give me something I can use with the Iranians. They’re building up for the fight right now, and I need to turn it off—if it’s not them.”
Wolffe smiled and said, “Give Pike a chance before you set off World War Three. You’re the commander in chief. What’s happened has already happened. No need to rush to war. If you didn’t rain down the bombs yesterday, no reason to do it tomorrow.”
Hannister said, “If there’s another hit planned that’s pinned to the Iranians, and Pike can’t find it in time, me being commander in chief won’t matter. Iran will believe we think it’s them. They’ll strike first, and it will be against Israel.”
Wolffe said nothing. Hannister finished the thought in Wolffe’s head. “You and I both know what that means.”
Chapter 36
Garrett and the three remaining Turtles watched the BBC news feed out of Bahrain in silence. When it was over, Raphael said, “What happened to Donnie?”
Garrett said, “He’s dead. Gone.”
“How do you know?”
“Because I saw his body on the news.”
“That may not have been him. It was a chaotic scene and the news cameras were bouncing around.”
“It was him. He hasn’t contacted me since right before the assault. He’s dead, and we must continue on. The attack, even if it failed in its purpose, accomplished its objective. The world thinks Iran put those savages up to the mission, and the world is taking notice. Both Australia and the United Kingdom have condemned the attack. The United States has locked down the naval base and put a carrier strike group to sea. They just conducted air strikes into Syria against Keta’ib Hezbollah targets. We are on track. We must not lose our resolve.”
The three remaining Turtles said nothing. He continued, “Donatello was a brave, brave man. He did what he had to do. Don’t let his sacrifice be in vain.”
Raphael said, “He had the contact in Beirut. He was the one who was the expert on the Iranian drones. The one who found the cache in Syria. How can we duplicate that now?”
He said, “Leonardo was the paymaster. You know how to contact him, right? You met him in Beirut with Donatello, didn’t you?”
Leonardo looked at the other two, then said, “Yes, but it was just as Donnie’s backup. I didn’t do any of the work. I was just a gun.”
“But you can contact the man, yes? Donnie wrote an after-action review of the meetings precisely for this contingency. We planned ahead for that, didn’t we?”
He thought a minute, then said, “Yes, for coordinating with the contact to get across the border. But it doesn’t help with the drones. Donnie was the one who knew how to operate them, and the sole reason they think we’re coming is because we can increase their efficiency and range. It’s why they built the relationship. Donnie could talk that stuff. I cannot.”
Garrett said, “Doesn’t matter. You don’t need to talk about anything once you’re on the ground. Let them take you to the cache and then kill them. You can at least launch the drones, correct?”