“There is a briefing for senior officers in twenty minutes,” Toback explained, as he parked in a reserved space. Mija was amused to note that it looked just like an office block, if less amused to discover that the way in was barred by two MPs, who ran sensors over her body before allowing her to step inside. “You have been invited to attend and bear witness.”
Mija shivered. Back in the States, once she had signed documents forbidding her to talk without permission, she’d been told that there was clear evidence linking Saudi Arabia to the biological attack, Henderson’s Disease. Once she’d swallowed that, she’d been told that barring a miracle, American forces would be invading Saudi Arabia and, if she wanted, she could join the invasion as an embedded media reporter. She had been warned that it wouldn't be a pleasant holiday – she could have guessed that, but the military did seem to like pointing out the obvious – yet she knew that if she survived, she could write her own ticket. There would be countless media companies bidding for her services.
The briefing room looked surprisingly makeshift, at least to her eyes. There were several dozen chairs lined up on the floor, with a single podium and plasma screen in front of them. Most of the chairs were filled with senior officers, many wearing different uniforms; she recognised USAF and USN officers as well as soldiers and Marines. Several of them glanced in her direction, but most of the others were focused on the map displayed in front of them. Saudi Arabia was covered in icons representing military bases and known military deployments.
“If I could have your attention, please,” a female voice said. Mija looked up to see a young woman wearing an army uniform standing in front of the podium. The army intelligence officer looked tough and utterly unwilling to compromise; indeed, if it hadn't been for her voice, Mija would have thought that she was a man. “As yet, there has been no response from Saudi Arabia to our demands, but there have been reports of Saudi Princes and their hangers-on trying to get out of the country...”
“Rats leaving the sinking ship,” one of the Marine officers injected.
“...And the Saudi Armed Forces seem to be going on alert,” the intelligence officer continued, unwilling to be distracted by any interruptions. “Our sources within their military have largely dried up, but we have been following their activities closely from orbit and we have discovered the following.”
On paper, Mija realised, the Saudi Armed Forces were a formidable threat. They had one of the most advanced air forces in the region, including a number of pilots who had been trained in the United States, and a powerful army. Their navy, on the other hand, was weak and clearly not expected to last long against the might of the USN. In practice, however, the Saudis hadn't fought a serious war since Desert Storm and hadn't done well while fighting the Iraqis. The Coalition had been forced to attach officers to the Saudi military units just to ensure honest reporting.
“They appear to be massing a sizable force at King Khalid Military City, which may be intended to either defend their northern borders against us or to strike first against Kuwait,” the intelligence officer continued. “Additional forces appear to be forming near Qatar and around Riyadh, although we have little precise information. What we do know is that the Saudi population seems to be largely in favour of the attacks mounted against us” – there was a low rumble of anger through the compartment – “and their clergy has come out in support of defending the Holy Cities against the crusaders. We expect that thousands of Holy Warriors are already on their way to Saudi to join the fight.”
“They can come and we can kill them,” the same Marine officer said.
“As you were,” another officer growled.
“Before we get down to brass tacks,” General Brent Roeder said, “there is a detail I want everyone to be completely clear on. The ROE we will be fighting under are very loose; if you think that something is a threat, kill it. There will be no safe areas for them, no buildings protected by the will of a politician back home. If they use a hospital or a mosque as a strong point, destroy it; we don’t have the manpower to risk lives. Do not take chances.”
His gaze swept the room. “I expect you to use your common sense on this,” he concluded. “Whatever happens in this war, whatever they deserve, we will still have to live with ourselves afterwards.”
Mija shivered again as his meaning sunk in. For the first time since World War Two, American soldiers would be operating without any restraints on what level of firepower they could employ, or the need to show respect for different cultures. She felt, despite her own anger at Henderson’s Disease, that it boded ill for the future...and for the forces on the other side of the border, massing to stave off the Americans. They were going to be smashed without mercy.
Chapter Thirty
Everyone thinks of the President as being all-powerful. The President therefore gets the blame for anything that goes wrong, because he or she must have made the decision to let it go wrong, even if no one can comprehend why. If they knew just how weak the President really was, they would faint. All Presidents are shaped and defined by external forces.
- President Paula Handley
Washington DC, USA
Day 32
“Well,” her Press Secretary said, “the secret is out.”
The President looked up tiredly. “Which secret is out?”
“Someone decided to leak the news about our…diplomatic note to Saudi Arabia to a French reporter,” the Press Secretary said. “She promptly uploaded it onto the Journalist Network and transmitted it all over the world. We’ve been getting requests for information from every national and international media company in the world. They want to know if there’s any truth in the story.”
“We say nothing,” the President said, rubbing her eyes. It had been a late night, devouring reports on the military build-up and the growing crisis in America's cities. If someone had asked her where she had been in the future, she could have confidently said that she had been in a briefing, or reading reports written by government officials. Their cold dispassionate prose couldn’t disguise the fact that thousands upon thousands of American citizens were dying. “I take it there’s been no response from the Saudis?”
“No, Madam President,” the CIA Director said. “I believe, however, that the Saudis leaked the contents of the notes to the French media.”
The President scowled at him. “Why would they leak the information, knowing that it would force our hand?”
“There’s no one else who could have done it, Madam President,” CIA said. “Only a handful of people here had a copy of the note and all of their copies have been accounted for. The French Government knew what we’d told the Saudis, at least in general terms, but we didn’t send them a copy of the note…”
“Call it an ultimatum,” the President snapped. “That is what it is, when all is said and done.”
“The ultimatum,” CIA agreed. “The Saudis are the only other party who had a copy of the ultimatum.” He shrugged. “And as for why, I believe they did it to put pressure on us. There are already signs of trouble – additional trouble – in Europe and even parts of America itself. We’re invading the Islamic holy land, for crying out loud.”
The President stared down at the table, her lips moving soundlessly as she shaped a response. “I see,” she said, finally. “Does that interfere with the build-up in any way?”
“It should not, Madam President,” General Spencer said. The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff looked thoughtfully; the President silently admired his immaculate bearing. Hell, she wished she looked that good without an hour in make-up. “The deployment of our forces continues apace. We may see a delay in receiving additional forces from Europe or our Arab allies, but we can proceed without them if necessary. The only real danger would be Kuwait, Qatar or Iraq deciding that we couldn’t use their territory for bases and we have contingency plans to deal with that.”
The President smiled. Iraq had been more than willing to contribute troops for capturing – they�
�d called it liberating – Mecca and Medina; it wasn't something their government would want to pass up, even if it did mean some bad feeling from the other Arab nations. Kuwait and Qatar were too small to irritate the United States; if they chose to deny basing rights, the President and her staff had already drawn up contingency plans to occupy them by force and use them as bases anyway, whatever their people said. The United States no longer cared about the tender feelings of its half-hearted allies.
She shook her head, dismissing the thought. “And there has been no response from the Saudis at all,” she said. “What do they think they’re doing?”
“We don’t know,” CIA admitted. “We know that many of the Princes and the more well-connected members of the Saudi Establishment have been trying to get their families out of the country, in some cases into our waiting hands. The French shot down a jumbo jet that was trying to shift members of the Saudi Royal Family out of the country; the Spanish and Italians have rounded up several hundred of the family who had taken refuge in their countries before the crisis broke out. They may have had advance warning, but so far the interrogations have been inconclusive.
“We do know that there has been a major power shift in Riyadh itself,” he added. “The government isn’t saying much, apart from a broadcast from the King asking for calm, but the people are out on the streets and most of our assets – those we can still contact – report that Saudi is preparing for war. The clerics have been preaching about the duties of every Muslim to fight to defend the Holy Cities and to obey without question leaders who follow the commands of Allah. Our friend Prince Mukhtar is mentioned quite often.”
“So he’s in charge now,” the President said, flatly.
“We think so, Madam President,” CIA agreed. “We suspect that he is rallying his country for war.”
“Our own intelligence tends to support that view,” General Spencer agreed. “The Saudis have been moving up their armoured forces and drilling their air force quite extensively. It’s possible that they intend to hit Kuwait first, before we launch the invasion…”
“They may have something worse in mind,” CIA said. “We received a piece of highly-classified intelligence from the British. Unfortunately, we cannot verify it for ourselves and the British refuse to share any verification data with us, so I cannot vouch for it.”
The President blinked. “Verification data?”
“When we develop a HUMIT source – that’s human intelligence, a mole or spy within a foreign country – we have to be careful to ensure that it isn’t someone trying to feed us false information,” CIA explained. “We find out who they are, we verify that they do have access to the information they’re passing to us and we attempt to confirm that they do have valid reasons for sharing the information and committing treason against their own country. It isn’t an easy thing to confirm; during the Cold War many of our best spies turned out – afterwards – to be KGB plants trying to mislead us, sometimes quite successfully. Intelligence is never as simple as the media makes it sound.
“Unfortunately, we have a bad reputation for keeping – or rather not keeping – secrets. Back before 9/11, we were intercepting cell phone calls made by various terrorists and using them to develop intelligence. They were quite unaware that they were being overheard until President Clinton thought that it would be a good idea to reveal it at a press conference, telling the world that we knew what Bin Laden was telling his mother. The source dried up instantly and we never regained insight into his inner circle. It’s happened several other times as well, so now we get intelligence from outside the United States without any actual supporting evidence. The British believe that the information is genuine, but we don’t know for sure.”
He scowled. “The Saudis provided much of the funding for the Pakistani atomic weapons program,” he explained. “They wanted to develop an Islamic Bomb to counter India and Israel. As we understood it at the time, the Saudis wanted the Pakistanis to build and store the weapons, but if the Saudis ever wanted to go nuclear themselves, the Pakistanis would provide the warheads and help the Saudis mate them up with Chinese-supplied missiles. The information we have received suggests that the process has begun and the Pakistanis intend to ship the warheads to Saudi Arabia.”
The President bit down a word she'd learned from her husband. “I see,” she said. “How long will it be until they get the warheads to Saudi Arabia?
“Unknown,” CIA admitted. “Assuming the report is accurate, they still have to get the warheads to Saudi and transporting them over Iran would be asking for trouble. They’d have to send them by ship and we’d be able to intercept. I mean…we could be completely misinterpreting what we’ve heard…”
“But we can’t take the chance,” the President said. She shook her head tiredly. “Is there any more bad news?”
“The news hasn’t yet hit the public mindset, but it will,” her Press Secretary said, flatly. “Once it does, all hell is going to break loose. I don’t think we can clamp down on this one, Madam President; it’s already out and spreading. The bloggers are picking it up and running with it, so the MSM is going to run with it as well. There’s going to be a demand for immediate action.”
The President nodded sourly. She'd restricted the information in the hope that she – and the Saudis – would have some room to manoeuvre. If the information got out, she would be bombarded with demands for immediate retaliation against Saudi Arabia – and that retaliation would be nuclear. It would have to be nuclear; despite the claims of some of the country’s detractors, America possessed no offensive biological warfare capability. The country had decided, long ago, that the US would only conduct defensive research and not mass-produce any biological weapons. Even if she had had such a capability, she would have hesitated to unleash it when it could spread out of control, just as Henderson’s Disease had done.
“You will need to address the nation,” the Press Secretary said. “You will have to reassure them that you are on top of the crisis and dealing with the Saudis, or there will be demands for your impeachment and replacement with someone…”
“I know,” the President said, sharply. She held up a hand. “Once the news breaks openly, I will address the nation and explain just what is going on.”
She looked around the room. “Yes, Gayle?”
The Secretary of the Treasury sucked her pen as she spoke. “The news isn’t good, Madam President,” she said. “The economy is falling apart. There’s even a vote afoot in Congress to nationalise failing companies and have them run by the government.”
“Clever,” the President sneered. She ticked off points on her fingers. “The companies are failing because their workforce – and their customers – are either dead, dying or unwilling to come to work, either because they’re working with the emergency services or they’re simply scared of catching Henderson’s Disease. And if we nationalise them…what happens next? Can nationalising them make them instantly profitable?”
“No, Madam President,” Gayle agreed. “There is immense pressure for an emergency order that will force people back to work or face criminal charges.”
“There’s no point in passing a law that will not be obeyed,” the President said, rolling her eyes. “We cannot jail half the country.” She shook her head. “I think that we had better start nationalising Arab-owned companies and business interests – at the very least, we have to keep their money frozen to prevent them from using it – but after that I think we’re going to need to keep our hands off the economy. There's nothing we can do to make it work until we get the entire population immunised.”
She sighed. There were times when she wished she hadn’t ever considered running for President. “Let me know who’s pushing the bills and perhaps I can have a word,” she concluded. “And as for the Saudis, all we can do is wait until our forces are in place.”
***
Nicolas took one final look at the body and gently drew the cover over her head. Cally Henderson’s survival – s
he'd survived longer than anyone had thought possible – owed more to intensive medical treatment than to her own fortitude. She’d been given a level of treatment and medical care that would have been denied to anyone below the President, yet all it had done was prolong her agony. By the time death finally came to claim her, her entire body had started to collapse under the weight of Henderson’s Disease. The recordings had shown her screaming in pain, her delirium affecting her words and thoughts, before sinking back into an unholy stupor. The first known victim of the disease had finally passed away.
He was pensive as he passed through the decontamination chamber and climbed into the helicopter for the flight to the White House. Wildfire had hoped that they could, through studying Patient Zero, learn how to defeat Henderson’s Disease. They had failed and the worst of it, at least in Nicolas’s eyes, was that they had caused an innocent girl more pain than anyone should have had to bear. The criminals he had deliberately infected had deserved their fate – or so he told himself – but Miss Henderson had been innocent. He’d read the profile the FBI had drawn up on her, an astonishingly complete and detailed file that had only made her more real to him. She’d had three boyfriends in her time, all of whom had loved her dearly before she’d moved on from them; she’d even tried a lesbian relationship with one of her girlfriends. She’d had dreams of becoming an architect and had even been saving up for studying with one of the masters, yet all of her dreams had been cut short. Her face seemed to shimmer in front of him, the unmarked face he’d never seen in real life. She had deserved far better than to die, helpless and away from those she had loved.
The Coward's Way of War Page 29