“Certainly is. The sad thing is the agents. We’ve lost three for sure. The others—well—some of them are in pretty bad shape. I don’t know if some of these guys are going to make it.”
“We’re praying for all of them, and the president, and you, sir,” Chairman Allen added.
“Thanks, George, that’s very gracious of you.”
“My pleasure.”
“Do we have the AG?” asked Kirkpatrick.
“I’m here, Marsha. And I’ve got my senior team with me,” said Attorney General Neil Wittimore, the fifty-six-year-old former New York State Attorney General, at the Justice Department.
“And the DCI?”
“Yes, ma’am,” said Jack Mitchell, fifty-one, the colorful, Houston-born Director of Central Intelligence and a twenty-two-year veteran of the intelligence community. “I’ve got the DDO with me. The DDI is downstairs, but I’ve got an open line to him.”
“Is he alone, in a secure room?” Kirkpatrick asked.
“Yes, ma’am. We’re all set.”
“Great. Thanks. FBI?”
“I’m here,” said Bureau Director Scott Harris.
“Secret Service?”
“It’s Bud. I’m here, Marsha, and I concur with the vice president’s comments,” said Bud Norris. “The president is really hanging in there. But my boys are fighting—they’re fighting for their lives right now, and Mr. Chairman, they’ll take all the prayers they can get. Thank you very much, sir.”
“You’re welcome, Bud,” Chairman Allen said softy. “You hang in there.”
“Will do, sir. Will do.”
“OK, we’re all present and accounted for, Mr. Vice President. It’s all yours,” Kirkpatrick said, sifting through a series of cables and intel reports just set before her.
“Oh my God, Jim—thank God you’re alive.”
First Lady Julie MacPherson, surrounded by heavily armed Secret Service agents in the family’s Beaver Creek lodge was already on heavy medication to calm her shattered nerves. Hearing her husband’s voice for the first time since the attack, she immediately welled up with tears.
“…hey, sweetie…how are you?…How are the girls?” he responded, his voice weak, his blood coursing with narcotics.
Julie MacPherson tried to fight back her emotions, to be strong for her husband, to be there for him in spirit if not in person.
“We’re all good, sweetheart. It’s so good to hear your voice. We’ve been praying for you nonstop.”
“…thanks…I just keep…I just keep thinking…what did…what did Reagan say that time?…‘Honey, I forgot to duck’…”
The First Lady began to laugh, but it quickly disintegrated into sobbing, her body heaving with emotion. All she could think of was how blessed she was, and how devastated the wives of the slain agents must be. And for the moment, it was more than she could bear.
The room was a meat locker.
It couldn’t have been more than sixty degrees in there. The vice president—now wearing jeans, a thick navy blue wool sweater, and a navy blue fleece jacket with the vice presidential seal on it—leaned forward and held court.
“OK. The president is safe and secure at Crystal Palace. They’ve buttoned up the mountain and he’s got a team of medics working on him as we speak. Burt, where are we with airspace and military status right now?”
“Mr. Vice President, as you know we’ve moved to Threatcon Delta. With your permission, we’d like to go to DefCon three.”
“Do it.”
“Thank you, sir. As you also know, we’ve scrambled three F-15 squadrons to fly CAP over Colorado at the moment. The state is under a full ground stop. No flights can take off or land in the state until further notice. We’ve also instituted a full ground stop over the Washington, D.C., Virginia and Maryland area and have F-15s and F-16s flying CAP here, as well. We’ve also scrambled F-16s to guard the coastlines and the borders with Canada and Mexico.”
“Mr. Vice President, this is Scott at FBI.”
“Yes, Scott.”
“Shouldn’t we shut down everything?”
“Burt, what do you guys think?” the VP asked, turning to the Defense Secretary.
“Mr. Vice President, I don’t think we have any indication this is another 9-11. Not yet, anyway. I think what we’ve got is an attempt to take out the president, not a general series of attacks.”
“Marsha, how about you?”
“I think the secretary is probably right. You’re secure. The Speaker is secure. All of the Cabinet secretaries are secure. We’re going to keep monitoring everything. But let’s keep in mind what we know. This wasn’t a commercial jetliner. It was a private jet—a Gulfstream IV—chartered out of Toronto, apparently by some oil executives. That, of course, may just be a cover story. It may not have been a hijacking at all. And despite some twenty-five thousand flights each and every day, we haven’t had a single hijacking over U.S. airspace in quite some time. Again, we’ll shut down everything if we have to. But I just want us to be careful not to overreact here.”
“Overreact?” interjected Harris. “Someone just tried to take out the president and decapitate the U.S. government.”
“Scott, I don’t disagree with you. I’m saying the airline industry is finally back on its feet. We’ve got millions of Thanksgiving passengers headed to the airports later today. Let’s just stay cool before we shut the thing down again.”
“You’ve got to be kidding, Marsha,” Harris sniffed in disgust. “That’s precisely why we need to shut everything down. We could have a nightmare scenario on our hands. Look, when I woke up this morning—yesterday morning, whatever—I would have told you unequivocally that we’re doing a pretty good job protecting U.S. air travel. I’d have put my wife and kids on any commercial flight in the country. Right now, I’m not so sure.”
“How many air marshals have we got up tonight, Scott?” the VP asked.
“I don’t know off the top of my head, sir.”
“Ballpark.”
“Ballpark? Probably about three hundred—mostly on international flights coming into the U.S. and on all flights that are headed—were headed—in and out of Washington. But private aviation is totally unmonitored. No security checks. No metal detectors or X-ray machines or anything. You can just get on any private plane at any time of the day or night and there’s absolutely no security. At the minimum, we should ground all private aviation until we get to the bottom of this thing.”
The VP sat back for a moment and scanned the bank of video screens before him.
“All right. I’m going to talk to the president. But I want the FAA on notice that we may shut everything down on a moment’s notice. Marsha, you got that?”
“Yes, sir.”
“What about y’alls engagement orders over D.C. and Colorado?” asked Jack Mitchell at Langley.
Defense Secretary Trainor took that one.
“As per the president’s Executive Order several years ago, any full ground stop combined with a CAP triggers immediate presidential authorization to shoot down any aircraft noncompliant with the order.”
“Neil, are we in any Constitutional problems with the president under so much sedation?” Kirkpatrick asked the Attorney General.
“We could be soon. My team is working up the papers to put the VP in charge, should that become necessary. We really need an update on his progress.”
“Shouldn’t be long,” Kirkpatrick told Wittimore, then turned to the VP. “Sir, once we know for sure the president’s status, I think you should make a statement in the press room.”
“I agree.”
The VP turned and directed an aide to begin gathering the White House press corps—at least, those not traveling with the president and thus stranded out on I-70 in Denver—to begin assembling for a briefing.
“Mr. Vice President, just a few things from my shop,” said Secretary of State Tucker Paine, as the immediate security issues were finished.
“Yes, Tuck, what’ve you got?
”
“I just got off the phone with the Kremlin a moment ago. As you know, Marsha and I just returned from Moscow.”
“Right. What are they saying?”
“The trip itself was productive. They appreciated the emergency aid package very much, and they’ve been remarkably cooperative on the intelligence-sharing front. But they are very concerned about this latest attack, and they don’t believe there’s any al-Qaeda involvement. Not this time. Not with all the success we’ve all had in ripping up their network.”
“Who are they looking at?”
“They’re reluctant to say. But their first instinct is that it smells like Iraq.”
“Why?”
“I think they’re working on something. We should have more later this morning.”
“OK, let me know first thing?”
“Mr. Vice President?”
“Yes, Jack?”
Jack Mitchell—Texas born and bred—was a close friend of the VP, as well as the president, having met MacPherson in the jungles of Vietnam as a junior field agent with the CIA. When MacPherson returned to the States and headed for Wall Street, Mitchell asked for and received a transfer to the Middle East, rotating through a number of Gulf states. He eventually worked his way up to become the CIA station chief in Baghdad, shadowing the operatives of Mukhabarat—the Iraqi intelligence service—tracking the influx of Soviet and East German weapons, advisors, and scientists, and trying to keep tabs on activities at such places as Salman Pak, a terrorist training camp and biological weapons factory located south of Baghdad along the Tigris River.
Mitchell returned to the U.S. in 1989 to head up the Near East Operations Division at Langley, directing the Agency’s Scud-hunting efforts during the Gulf War in 1991. He was also instrumental in helping secure the defection of two of Iraq’s top nuclear scientists during the 1990s, two of the most dramatic yet publicly unheralded modern successes of the beleaguered American spy network. But for all his experience, Mitchell now shifted uncomfortably in his seat and stuffed some fresh tobacco chew between his cheek and gum.
“This thing’s going from bad to worse, fast.”
“How so?” the VP asked.
“We’re not the only ones getting hit.”
Mitchell whispered to an assistant to begin rolling some newly acquired videotape from various CIA stations around the globe. Then he began narrating.
“Oh my God,” said the vice president.
Though obviously taken by amateurs, the images were surreal. The Canadian Embassy in Paris was on fire. Every building in the compound was completely ablaze. Somehow the photographer—a Canadian tourist filming his fiancée in front of the embassy just moments before the attack began—had captured three successive car bomb explosions, one after another, inside the gates, followed by mortar fire coming in over the couple’s heads. Everyone in the room, including the vice president, was visibly shaken.
“This footage just came in,” said Mitchell.
“Casualties?” asked the VP.
“No word yet, sir. We’re still trying to gather more information.” We’ve got two field agents on the scene right now and more on the way.”
“The Canadian Embassy, Jack? What the hell for?” asked Trainor.
“It’s the new embassy. Just completed. Canadian president Jean Luc was there to dedicate it. They’ve been having a huge party there all night.”
The room fell silent.
“I’m afraid that’s not all, sir.”
Mitchell now directed everyone’s attention to a second video screen.
It was worst than the first.
“This is a live feed. Buckingham Palace in London is also on fire, apparently hit by a barrage of mortars and RPGs less than ten minutes ago.”
Everyone in the room gasped.
“London Station reports machine-gun fire can presently be heard in the streets around the palace. I’m trying to get more on that right now, sir.”
“Is the queen there?” asked FBI Director Harris.
“It seems she is,” said Mitchell. “Our embassy reports she’s OK, but she’s being airlifted to a military hospital as a precaution.”
On the video screen, an aide could now be seen handing Mitchell a note.
“What’ve you got now, Jack?” asked the VP.
“Holy…is this confirmed?…are you sure?…Mr. Vice President, I’ve just been handed a report that a 747 has just crashed into the Royal Palace in Saudi Arabia.”
“What?”
“One of my guys was actually driving to the palace when it happened. Saw the whole thing. Just sent a flash traffic email to the U.S. Embassy in Riyadh which was immediately forwarded here to Langley. Our agent started taking high-eight video footage. We should be getting that uplinked to us momentarily.”
“Sir, this is Burt at the Pentagon.”
“Yes, Burt?”
“Sir, I have to say I now think we’re looking at a coordinated global attack on our allied leaders. We need to go to DefCon Two immediately, not Three. And I’m sorry, I think now we’ve got to shut down the air traffic control system.”
“A full ground stop—no planes up or down—on the day before Thanksgiving?” asked the Deputy Treasury Secretary from Japan.
“I don’t think we have any choice, sir,” Trainor replied, directing his remarks to the vice president.
“Jack, do we have any reason to believe we’re going to see attacks on civilians? Or is Burt right, this is a series of assassination attempts designed to decapitate governments friendly to us?”
“Well, Bill, I can’t rightly say, for sure. I can’t go on record about what else might be coming. You got a bunch of lunatics out there right now trying to undo Western civilization. But, yes, for the moment, the initial evidence suggests a concerted campaign of assassinations, targeted at friendly governments—mostly NATO governments—rather than widespread civilian terrorism. But, sir, you know as well as I do that that could change very fast.”
The vice president took a deep breath and took a sip of fresh coffee, just poured and prepared to his liking—heavy cream, three sugar cubes—by a Filipino Navy steward.
“All right. Look, here’s what we’re going to do. Marsha, put a full ground stop on private planes immediately. But hold off a bit on a full commercial ground stop. At least until I can talk to the president. I’ll get you an answer soon. Burt, take us to DefCon Two. The president will definitely concur on that and I’ll get it written out at Crystal Palace in the next few minutes. Tuck, send out a flash traffic alert to all of our embassies worldwide. Explain what’s happening. Tell them to be in immediate contact with the leadership of their host countries that a wave of assassination attempts is under way. Then you get a conference call set up immediately with the foreign ministers of the G-8. Find out what they know and what they’re doing about it.”
“From here, or State?”
“Good question. I don’t know. Bud?”
“Sir, I don’t think any of you should leave that bunker right now, not with what we’re seeing unfold,” said Norris.
“I think he’s right, sir,” Kirkpatrick agreed. “We’ve got the facilities in the next room over. Tuck, you can run your diplomatic track from Conference Room Two while we coordinate with the president and the Task Force from here.”
“Good, do it,” said the VP.
“Jack, anything else? Tell me some good news.”
“Sorry, sir,” said Mitchell. “I’m afraid I don’t have any.”
FIVE
Bennett slipped his U.S. passport and American Express Gold Card to the Delta ticket agent behind the bulletproof glass.
He’d already been in line for nearly half an hour, and the line behind him now stretched out the door. He began to think he’d never get out. But membership does have its privileges. Nine minutes later he got lucky—the last seat on the last flight that could get him to New York before the day’s end, and it just happened to be first class.
The attractive y
oung Israeli woman with the slicked back dark hair and smoky dark eyes smiled seductively and slid him back his passport, credit card and a nonstop ticket. Delta Flight 97, leaving Tel Aviv at 1:30 P.M. local time and landing at Kennedy at 6:45 P.M. Eastern. That would be the easy part. Getting to Colorado would be the headache.
DIA, of course, was shut down indefinitely. The last flight from Kennedy to Colorado Springs—via American through Dallas-Fort Worth—left at 6:10 P.M. Eastern, more than a half hour before he’d even be on the ground in New York, much less cleared through Customs and able to get to the domestic terminals. And even if the American flight left late, it was completely booked anyhow. The next commercial flight to Colorado Springs didn’t leave until 5:50 the next morning. But that wasn’t the worst of it. The FAA had just ordered a full ground stop in Colorado—nothing was flying in or out of the state—so all of this was now moot anyway.
Bennett picked up his bags and glanced back at the Delta agent, who caught his eye and winked. He lingered for a moment, then finally convinced himself to go stand in another endless line, this one through security on the way to the passengers-only lounge. As he waited, he fished his cell phone out of his briefcase, speed-dialed McCoy in London, and told her about Iverson’s call. Next, he instructed her to track down the Signature flight support center at La Guardia and charter a private jet to Cheyenne, Wyoming. Get it big and fast and don’t worry about the cost, Bennett told her. And have Carey Limo waiting for him at Kennedy when he arrived. He would be signing all the expense vouchers from now on and this one would be the least of his worries.
Assuming he could clear Customs and get picked up by the car service between eight and eighty-thirty, Bennett figured he could get to La Guardia and meet the jet on the tarmac—engines running, flight plan cleared—sometime between nine and nine-thirty, depending on weather and traffic. He could then be in the air no later than ten o’clock New York time. With a good pilot and a tailwind, he could be on the ground in Cheyenne by midnight local time, maybe twelve-thirty. If he had to rent a car, McCoy told him the drive was about a hundred and eighty miles, or about three hours. If the Colorado State Patrol or the Secret Service could put him in a chopper, he might be able to get to the Springs—or wherever he was going—by one, maybe two in the morning at the latest.