Call to Treason by Tom Clancy; Jeff Rovin

Author:Tom Clancy; Jeff Rovin
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Generals, Action & Adventure, Presidents, Fiction, United States, Secret service, Suspense fiction, Adventure stories, Thrillers, Suspense, Crisis management in government, Espionage
ISBN: 9780425195468
Publisher: Berkley
Published: 2004-07-05T07:00:00+00:00

TWENTY-EIGHT

I lorn don, Virginia Tuesday, 12:11 p.m.

For more than a century, the Washington & Old Dominion Railroad was a lifeline to the nation’s capital. Nicknamed the Virginia Creeper in honor of its speed or lack thereof the train moved northwest through Virginia to points beyond. The track still passes through the center of town, where an underground garage stands not far from the W&OD museum. Two hundred feet long by seventy-five feet wide, and fifteen feet deep, the garage used to have track over it. Now there is only high, wind-rustled grasses. Once covered by removable wooden slats, workers would use the garage to get underneath the cars and conduct repairs.

Today, the garage has a much different use. It is the workplace of Art Van Wezel. It is where the CIA employee runs three key facets of the black ops infrastructure, what he calls “ways, means, and most definite ends.”

Commandeered by the OSS during World War II and covered with concrete, the Garage that became its formal code name was originally used as a secret listening post. Fifth columnists working in and around Washington, D.C.” would often go into the countryside to meet fellow operatives or send radio messages to waiting submarines. Because of the wires already in place for the railroad, the OSS did not have to erect additional antennae. The rails also gave them train and hand car access to the entire region, allowing for furtive counterespionage activities. After the war, the Garage was transformed into a storage facility for equipment used by the successor to the OSS, the newly formed Central Intelligence Agency. During the Cold War, the CIA leadership used the garage for decata-logued weapons and chemicals. These were produced for the sole purpose of arming field agents. They were stored in the Garage because, officially, such armaments did not exist. In the 1980s, the CIA converted the Garage to a warehouse for covert ops equipment. It was staffed by two former navy men: Jason Harper and Art Van Wezel. When Harper retired, only Van Wezel remained.

Van Wezel was still there.

When Kenneth Link took charge of covert ops at the CIA, he spent a lot of time in the Garage. Part of that was spent organizing it into a world-class repository for new and specialized ordnance. Part of the time was also used to shift deactivated materiel from the Defense Supply Center in Richmond, Virginia, to the Garage. His rank gave him access to everything the navy was no longer using. Many of these weapons were prototypes that were either abandoned or actually went into production. Van Wezel made sure the weapons were kept in working condition. He also made sure that most of them were reported to have been destroyed. Link countersigned those reports. The admiral held on to them.

The admiral also held on to Van Wezel. Link made certain he was promoted to increasingly more lucrative pay grades. Link gave Van Wezel friendship and job security in an insecure world.

During Link’s stewardship, the Garage appeared in fewer and fewer internal CIA memos.

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