Praise for the Executive series
“Executive Command mixes terrorists, politics, drug gangs and technology in nonstop action! Gary Grossman creates a master villain with a horribly plausible plot to attack the United States; one that will take Scott Roarke and Katie Kessler right to the brink and then over the edge. So real it’s scary!”
—Larry Bond, New York Times bestselling author of Exit Plan, Cold Choices, Red Dragon Rising
“Moving at break-neck speed, Executive Command is nothing short of sensational.Grossman is a master storyteller who sets you up and delivers. Expertly woven and highly researched. Executive Command is not just a great book, it’s a riveting experience.”
—W.G. Griffiths, Award Winning, bestselling Author of Methuselah’s Pillar, Malchus, Driven, Takedown, Talons
“Executive Command ramps up the excitement from Executive Actions and Executive Treason. This time, the terrorists’ target is not America’s political institutions, it’s America itself through the nation’s unprotected water supplies. Grossman found the way to make this an even greater thrill ride! I was absolutely riveted! A truly bravura performance from a master of the political thriller!”
—Dwight Jon Zimmerman, New York Times bestselling co-author of Lincoln’s Last Days (with Bill O’Reilly), Uncommon Valor, First Command
“Grossman combines detailed knowledge with a frightening, realistic plot to create a non-stop, suspense filled roller coaster ride. Executive Command is a great read!”
—Allan Topol, Bestselling Author, The China Gambit, The Spanish Revenge, Conspiracy
“Intricate, taut, and completely mesmerizing, Gary Grossman’s thriller Executive Treason is a hit! Grossman expertly blends together globe-spanning locations, well-researched technology, finely crafted narrative, and intriguing characters to create a virtuoso tale. Highly recommended.”
—Dale Brown, New York Times bestselling Author
“Executive Treason is more chilling than science fiction. Gary Grossman shows how the media itself can become a weapon of mass destruction. You’ll never listen to talk radio again without a shiver going down your spine.”
—Gary Goldman, Executive Producer, Minority Report; Screenwriter, Navy SEALs & Total Recall
“Executive Actions is the best political thriller I have read in a long, long time. Right up there with the very best of David Baldacci. Gary Grossman has created a masterpiece of suspense; powerfully written and filled with wildly imaginative twists. Get ready to lose yourself in a hell of a story.”
—Michael Palmer, New York Times bestselling Author
“Break out the flashlight, and prepare to stay up all night: Gary Grossman has written a sprawling, captivating political thriller, filled with meticulously researched details and riveting characters. Once you start reading Executive Actions you won’t be able to put it down.”
—Bruce Feirstein, James Bond screenwriter, and Vanity Fair Contributing Editor
Executive Treason
By Gary Grossman
Copyright
Diversion Books
A Division of Diversion Publishing Corp.
443 Park Avenue South, Suite 1008
New York, NY 10016
www.DiversionBooks.com
Copyright © 2012 by Gary Grossman
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever.
For more information, email [email protected].
First Diversion Books edition January 2012.
ISBN: 978-09839885-9-5
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, businesses, or incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or persons living or dead is entirely coincidental.
Related Global News
Reported in the American press September 5, 2004
BESLAN, RUSSIA—Attackers who seized more than 1,000 hostages in a provincial school may have smuggled in a large cache of weapons, possibly disguised as construction equipment, in the weeks before the takeover.
Reported in the American press September 3, 2004
WASHINGTON—Despite its fervent denials, Israel secretly maintains a large and active intelligence-gathering operation in the United States, which for a long time, has been designed to recruit U.S. officials as spies and to procure classified documents, U.S. government officials said. FBI and other counterespionage agents have covertly followed, videotaped and bugged Israeli diplomats, intelligence officers and others in Washington, New York and elsewhere. “There is a huge, aggressive, ongoing set of Israeli activities directed against the United States,” said a former intelligence official, familiar with the latest FBI probe, and who recently left government. “Anybody who worked in counterintelligence in a professional capacity will tell you the Israelis are among the most aggressive and active countries targeting the United States.”
Australia Radio interview with Air Force Brigadier General John W. Rosa, Jr., Deputy Director for Current Operations, the Joint Staff, about terrorists hiding in islands of Indonesia March 20, 2002
“I don’t want to be specific and tell you how or what we found but as you might expect, that is a vast, vast array of islands. Are there easy places to hide there? You bet ya.”
Reported Maluku, Indonesia press report July 2000
The Indonesian Navy Chief Admiral warned against those trying to smuggle weapons to warring groups in riot-torn Maluku. He told his staff to take stern action against intended arms smugglers. So far, the Navy had already detained 17 vessels in waters surrounding Maluku, confiscating weapons. Tensions in Maluku have been fueled by the arrival of 2,000 hard-line Muslim fighters from Java island, who have vowed a holy war against Christians. More than 3,000 people have been killed to date.
Reported in the American press September 17, 2001
A high-tech Littleton, MA company, Viisage Technology, Inc. has offered the FBI free use of its face-recognition technology to aid in the apprehension or identification of the persons responsible for terrorist activities in the U.S.
Reported in the American press October 6, 2004
Representatives of Congress heard testimony today in special House Subcommittee Hearings on the Constitution that The Presidential Succession Act of 1947 remains the single most dangerous statute in the United States Code. Testimony termed the present rules of succession a “disastrous statute” and “an accident waiting to happen.” Witnesses called for the repeal of the existing law, and the formation of a new operational model that would insure an orderly transition in the face of catastrophic events.
Principle Characters
Washington
Henry Lamden, President of the United States
Morgan Taylor, Vice President of the United States
Lynn Meyerson, White House administrative assistant
Scott Roarke, Secret Service agent
Billy Gilmore, President’s Chief of Staff
Bernie “Bernsie” Bernstein, President’s Chief of Staff
Robert Mulligan, Director FBI
Jack Evans, Director National Intelligence
Louise Swingle, secretary to Vice President
Roy Bessolo, FBI supervisor
Beth Thomas, FBI agent
Presley Friedman, Head of Secret Service
Congressman Duke Patrick, Speaker of the House
General Robert Woodley Bridgeman, U.S. Marine Corps, ret.
Dan Shikar, FBI agent
Shannon Davis, FBI agent
Kelvin Lambert, journalist
Leopold Browning, Chief Justice, U.S. Supreme Court
Brad R
utberg, White House counsel
Mike Gimbrone, FBI agent
Malcolm Quenzel, Secret Service agent
Admiral Erwin “Skip” Gaston, U.S. Navy General
Reed Heath, U.S. Air Force
Captain Penny Walker, U.S. Army
General Jonas Jackson Johnson
The CIA
Vinne D’Angelo, CIA agent
Faruk Jassim, CIA analyst
Backus, CIA analyst
Carr, CIA analyst
Dixon, CIA analyst
Bauman, CIA analyst
Boston
Katie Kessler, attorney
Donald Witherspoon, attorney
Paul Erskine, Starbucks employee
Australia
Mick O’Gara, electrician
Randolph Tyler, SAS
Commander David Foss, Prime Minister
Ricky Morris, SASR Tactical Commandeer
Chris Wordlow, Defense Chief
Los Angeles
Roger Ellsworth, LAPD Homicide Detective
Chicago
Luis Gonzales, Argentinean art dealer
Roger Alley, a driver
New York
Michael O’Connell, writer, The New York Times
Andrea Weaver, news editor, The New York Times
Tel Aviv
Ira Wurlin, aide to Mossad chief
Jacob Schecter, Director of the Mossad
Andrews Air Force Base
Lieutenant Eric Ross
Colonel Peter Lewis, Air Force One pilot
Captain Bernard Agins, Air Force One co-pilot
Shawnee Mission, Kansas
Charles Corbett
Indonesia
Commander Umar Komari
Musah Atef, soldier
Amrozi al-Faruq, soldier
Colonel Nyuan Huang
Russia
Aleksandr Dubroff, retired Politburo member, ex-KGB
Yuri Ranchenkov, FSB Sergei Ryabov, FSB
South Pacific
Admiral Clemson Zimmer, Commander, 7th Fleet
Adm. Erwin “Skip” Gatson
Lt. James Nolt, Navy SEAL
Cpl. Derek Shaughnessy, Navy SEAL
Sgt. Mario Pintar, Navy SEAL
Julio Lopez, Navy SEAL
Harold Chaskes, Navy SEAL
Todd Roberts, Navy SEAL
Mark Polonsky, Navy SEAL
Brian Showalter, Navy SEAL
West Chester Township, Ohio
Bill and Gloria Cooper, retired couple
Ramelan Djali, President, Indonesia
Damascus, Syria
Jamil Laham, a retiree
Rateb Samin, a visitor
Kansas
Elliott Strong, talk radio host
Darice Strong, radio producer
Paris, France
Robby Pearlman, Canadian businessman
Part I
Chapter 1
Sydney, Australia
Monday, 18 June
4:20 A.M.
It was the blinking LED that caught the electrician’s attention.
“What’s that?” Mick O’Gara muttered to himself.
If it hadn’t been for the intermittent flicker, visible only because it cut through the darkness, it would have gone undetected. The light had flashed a moment after O’Gara killed the fluorescents in a storage room on the basement level of the new 38-story Ville St. George Hotel.
“Now where did you come from?” O’Gara turned the overhead lights back on and looked around the crowded 14-by-20-foot room. He waited about a minute. Nothing, he thought. The hotel electrician shrugged his shoulders. He was about to leave when he decided to give it one more moment, now with the lights off. Ten seconds went by, and he saw a red flash—dim and off to the right. He waited for it to repeat or cycle again. His patience was rewarded thirty seconds later, though he couldn’t quite pinpoint the location. A half-minute more—“There you are! Up in the crawl space.” The light appeared diffused, indirect. “You’re bouncing off something.”
Mick O’Gara was one of the last hires in the electrical department at Sydney’s newest harbor-side luxury hotel. It overlooked both the famed Harbor Bridge and the stunning Opera House. As a result, the slim, 41-year-old man with a bushy moustache and long sideburns pulled the dreaded graveyard shift. He had been poking around the basement, tracing a conduit containing fiber optic wires. Guests on the thirty-third floor complained that their high-speed Internet connection was out. It wasn’t his specialty, but no one else was around, and he had the time to troubleshoot until his shift change.
Unfortunately and for no good reason, the conduit continued above the ceiling in the small room, but the schematic dead-ended. Another damned design flaw. “Why can’t they ever get it right?” Following it was going to be exhausting. After nearly an hour, O’Gara decided to leave the problem where he found it. That’s when he noticed the red flash.
He trained his flashlight on the area in the far end of the room. The crawl space was a good three feet higher than his head. O’Gara, only 5′7″, looked around the room and spotted a wooden cable spool, large enough to stand on. He dragged it over to the wall, stepped up, and peered into total darkness. O’Gara hit the void with the beam.
There, sandwiched deep into the opening, was a rectangular box, at first hard to see because it was either painted black or completely covered with black duct tape. He aimed the light at the top and then to the sides. It was wedged into an area no taller than eighteen inches. He figured it to be about two-and-half-feet long.
O’Gara tapped it lightly with his finger. “Tape, not paint on metal,” he said aloud. Curiosity was definitely getting the better of him now. The LED flashed again, illuminating the crawl space on each side for a fraction of a second.
The box wasn’t connected to any outside wires. “Okay, you’re not part of the phone system. And you’re not connected to the electrical plant. But you’ve got something making you tick. So what in bloody hell are you?” He reached his right hand in about two feet, aiming his light at the back of the box. O’Gara searched for openings or identifying marks. There were none.
Just as his hand was tiring from stretching so far, the beam reflected back. He saw what looked like a small wire antenna, no more than three inches long, protruding from the back of the box. His arm ached, and he pulled it back. Once again, the LED flickered. “You’re talking to someone, aren’t you? A transmitter?”
O’Gara heard the sound of one of the elevator’s pulleys engage directly above him. He looked up, then back to the box just as it emitted another red flash. “You’re not talking. You’re listening. Son of a bitch.” His pulse quickened. The elevator moved again. He was amazed how loud it now sounded—right on top of him. Then he caught the sound of the gears working on another elevator to the left. A moment later, another to his right. He closed his eyes and remembered that in total there were eight banks, four on each side of a central artery inside the hotel.
He pointed his flashlight into the crawl space one more time. Now the details of it became more apparent. The box looked crudely homemade. The antennae was stuck out of the back but bent toward the front. The light blinked every thirty seconds. Exactly. The regular frequency of the flashes told him it was either self-charging or scanning. He heard an elevator start above and across from him. It became more evident that he was under a critical focal point, a hollow shaft—the most vulnerable part of a large building. “Holy mother of God!” he exclaimed.
Mick O’Gara stepped down slowly. Very slowly. His green work clothes were dusty and drenched with sweat. He unholstered his Boost Mobile walkie-talkie cell phone from his belt. He was about to key the microphone when he suddenly stopped. “No, wait. The signal!” He didn’t want to make a call, for the same reason passengers are instructed not to use cell phones on airplanes. The radio could interfere or interact with other electronics. In this case, it coul
d set off the device.
The electrician slowly backed away and snapped the telephone onto his belt. He left the room, closing the door gently. It wasn’t until he was upstairs that he punched in a number.
“Security,” the voice answered.
“O’Gara. Listen carefully.” He slowly explained what he had found.
The security officer swallowed hard and called the hotel manager, who didn’t really know what to do. He phoned the CEO of the consortium that owned the Ville St. George, waking him from his sleep in the hotel penthouse. The CEO bolted upright in his bed as he followed the account.
“Are you sure?”
“Here, I’ll conference in O’Gara.” The security officer on duty connected him to O’Gara’s cell. He heard the electrician’s story firsthand.
Not knowing O’Gara but not wanting to take any blame, the CEO phoned his regular Wednesday night poker partner, who happened to be the Sydney chief of police.
This is when it got more serious. The chief didn’t hesitate waking the Australian Federal Police Commissioner. His must-attend seminars on terrorist threats had heightened his senses. The federal officer ordered the immediate evacuation of the hotel while he cradled the phone on his shoulder and pulled on his boxers.
All of this within eighteen minutes of Mick O’Gara’s find.
The Sydney police and national authorities had trained for such a contingency after concerns about terrorist attacks during the 2000 Summer Olympics. The country’s defense command realized Australia could be an easy target for al-Qaeda and even easy pickings for insurgent groups operating out of Indonesia and Malaysia. As a result, they developed an operational plan code-named Exercise New Deal.
Executive Treason Page 1