Chapter Nineteen
Thursday, March 3, 1988
Islamabad
Johnson had taken only two steps through the door of the CIA station after returning from a quiet lunch when Vic came striding up to him, waving a piece of paper.
“Our communications intercept guys have got this,” Vic said.
“What?”
“It’s a transcript of some encrypted burst messages about planning for an attack on the new Parrot’s Beak facility near Parachinar,” Vic said. Parrot’s Beak was the nickname for the Kurram Agency area of Pakistan because of its geographical V shape.
“How did they get it?” Johnson asked.
“They broke the code on it last week, and they’ve had a feeding frenzy since. Probably won’t last because the Russians will change the codes again soon.”
The Agency’s signals intelligence, or SIGINT, teams who were respo
