Field of Valor

by Matthew Betley

  A voice originated from the wall-mounted television over the fireplace in the enormous study, one side of which was constructed entirely of bulletproof glass. “The expected solar storm could be as large as the infamous Carrington Event of 1859, which is believed to be the largest in recorded history,” the stocky Weather Channel anchor, known for his dramatic penchant for weather-related phenomena, said. “I wouldn’t be surprised if we have major communication outages, power disruptions, and even serious damage to any satellites caught in the plasma cloud. This is going to be a big one, folks.”

  Indeed, the Founder thought, and stared out at the choppy waters breaking against the small island outcropping of rocks thirty yards offshore. Intended to keep boaters from the shallow beach area forty feet below his five-acre sprawl built on a small cliff, the outcropping also provided a landmark from which the Founder spent many a day casting for the bay’s prized possession—striped bass, locally referred to as rockfish. He’d had a small wooden bridge built to it from shore. Thirty yards to the right was the main pier, where he kept his small fleet of boats, including his prized Sunseeker 131-foot, four-deck yacht, which he used throughout the Caribbean and along the East Coast.

  * * *

  It’s a long way from the killing chambers in Pawiak, the tall, thin man in his eighties thought, the horrors still fresh in his mind, as vivid as if he were still that eight-year-old boy in the Warsaw Ghetto who had witnessed his mother shot in the head by a young, prideful SS officer. Her only crimes had been being a Jew and trying to shield her oldest son from a random patrol. His father, a Jewish tailor, had been forced to watch his wife’s execution as another sadistic SS officer laughed and pinned his head to the ground under a black leather boot. I can still see the leather glistening, even in the blood and muck.

  His father and brother had then been ripped from his life and sent as inmates to Pawiak Prison, which the Gestapo had incorporated into their Nazi death camp system. He’d never seen either of them again.

  The Founder had been left in the middle of the street, screaming in horror at the emotional and literal destruction of his family. Fortunately for him, a close friend of his mother’s had picked him up and taken him away to the decrepit apartment she’d shared with three other families. She’d tried to care for him, but he’d been ruined, a shell of a boy who survived on a day-to-day basis in the most deplorable conditions imaginable. Even to this day, the first year after the traumatic massacre of his family was a blur of extreme hunger, cold, and despair.

  Yet somehow, he’d survived, and after ten brutal months, he’d been successfully smuggled out of the ghetto and into Hungary through Slovakia. Landing in Budapest with other Jewish children who had escaped Poland, the Founder ended up in a Jewish Polish orphanage run by several Hungarian Jewish women who dedicated themselves not only to rescuing refugees, but also to bringing back their damaged psyches from the brink of madness and ruin.

  It was in Budapest that the broken boy had slowly transformed into a wounded but healing teenager, working for one of Budapest’s blossoming shipping companies after the war was over. It was there he discovered while still an adolescent that he possessed a shrewd business acumen, which a visiting Greek shipping tycoon had identified when the boy resolved a logistics problem between the Greek company, a fledgling Hungarian company, and the Hungarian government. It had helped that the boy had learned Hungarian and English, in addition to his native Polish and Yiddish tongues.

  As a result, the Greek tycoon had made the teenager—then seventeen—an offer: Come work in my Mediterranean logistics division. You have a rare gift and the potential to be more than just a boy who survived the Holocaust. I can see it in you, even if you can’t.

  Still recovering from the horrors of the war, the boy had felt no real emotional ties to Hungary, and he’d leapt at the opportunity to move even farther away from Germany. In Greece, he’d quickly risen through the ranks of the company until he achieved the position of chief of global operations at the young age of thirty-eight, which coincided perfectly with the European boom in manufacturing and the production of oil in the Middle East. The fates had smiled upon him for once, and he’d built a multibillion-dollar industry, reaching heights not even his Greek benefactor had envisioned.

  When the tycoon had passed away in 1972, he’d bequeathed the entire business to the Founder, who’d done more for the Greek’s family name than any blood relative. It was after that funeral that the Founder realized that even greater opportunity lay west, and he’d personally established a new base of operations in New York City.

  But building an empire, especially in the United States, required money and influence. He had plenty of the former and only a little of the latter. A political novice, he thoroughly researched the backgrounds of the most influential politicians in Washington DC, and discovered that no matter how diverse their backgrounds, they all had one thing in common—a thirst for power, even if shrouded in some self-delusional belief that they served their constituents. It was during that time that he developed a deep distrust and intense dislike of politicians, whom he viewed as morally deficient. In his mind, they were no better than the German SS officers who had slaughtered his family and permanently scarred him—just different. As a result, he did what any ambitious billionaire would do: he identified those most susceptible to the lure of unlimited wealth, and he bought them.

  His wealth and influence grew, and with it, new relationships with other billionaires and politicians around the world. As the world changed, he insulated himself and maintained as low a profile as possible, content to quietly amass a fortune worthy of a Second World nation.

  But September 6, 1986, drew the Founder out of the shadows, with an event that completed the transformation of the broken boy into a burning, lethal global force with which to be reckoned. Two gunmen opened fire on the Neve Shalom Synagogue in Istanbul, Turkey, slaughtering twenty-two worshippers before blowing themselves up. They were later confirmed to be tied to the infamous terrorist Abu Nidal, the founder of Fatah, the Revolutionary Council, which had split from Yassir Arafat’s PLO in 1974.

  The attack, while horrific, wasn’t spectacular in scope and scale. But it was the name of the victims that triggered the Founder to relive his boyhood trauma. One of the worshippers was the grown son of the Hungarian Jewish woman at the orphanage who had cared for him in the immediate months after his escape from the Warsaw Ghetto.

  Throughout his adult life, the void that he felt deep within his soul had remained. He’d tried to fill it with success and fortune, but he knew there was no physical remedy for what ailed him. His soul was beyond repair. The one thing that had brought value to his life had been the fact that after he’d become successful in Greece, he’d become the benefactor to every staff member from his orphanage, as well as their offspring. While he couldn’t buy happiness—or even a remote sense of peace—for himself, he’d tried to buy it for others, helping financially in every way possible.

  But it was never enough. The cruelty in the world could not be contained, and forty-one years after the end of World War II, anti-Israeli sentiment and terrorist operations were on the rise. And out of all the death and horror from numerous attacks, it was the death of one middle-aged man, the son of a woman he hadn’t seen in decades, that shattered the psychological house of lies he’d built, crumbling the false sense of security with which he’d shielded himself. After her son’s death, the elderly Hungarian Jewish woman had lost all desire to live. She died of natural causes—a broken heart and destroyed soul.

  Two days after he’d been notified of her death, he’d made a decision. He would counter the new wave of evil with all his available resources. He immediately realized how expansive the undertaking would be, but he would not be deterred. Over the next ten years, he built the leviathan organization the world didn’t know existed.

  Comprising wealthy industry tycoons, politicians, world leaders, and senior global intelligence professionals, the Organization had one p
urpose—to prevent the spread of global instability. It was an ambitious, endless pursuit, measured in small successes and shrouded in secrecy. The Founder—as he’d become known to the senior members of the Organization, who knew his true identity—had decentralized the Organization, authorizing and encouraging his agents around the world to pursue and execute independent operations, with only one constraint: there must be a positive outcome.

  While the purpose was specific, the name was deliberately ambiguous, a nebulous term that could refer to anything. No one would think twice overhearing a conversation about some generic “organization.” For him, the banality was a strength.

  The Founder was no longer a naïve, broken boy; he was now an aging man of conviction unbound by societal norms or common morality. He understood the developing world, the exponential trend of increasing technology and global growth. But he also saw the potential pitfalls, the underbelly of human nature that somehow insinuated itself into all ventures in life, no matter how noble the intent. And that underbelly needed to be managed.

  The methods of the Organization were necessary but often against the law—both local and international—though as long as the instability was managed, the Founder considered them acceptable. Enemy terrorist attacks were limited to one-time occurrences or small-scale events, and the groups responsible were held accountable in human capital. The Founder was particularly proud of the assassination of Abu Nidal in Baghdad in 2002, orchestrated to look like a questionable suicide to place blame on the Iraqi government.

  The Organization had served its purpose for decades, but since 9/11 and the US war in Iraq, the balance of power had shifted, throwing the Middle East into complete disarray. The Founder’s Council of senior global leaders had watched quietly as American servicemen and -women were sacrificed by what the Founder considered a flawed and petulant president, hell-bent on eliminating a thorn in his family’s side. It was the civilian death toll in collateral damage to both sides—the Americans and the insurgents—that truly outraged the Founder, reminding him that the aggressor in a conflict was often the one committing the most atrocities. But the Organization had taken no action on that front, patiently waiting as the drawdown inevitably concluded and Iraq regained tenuous control of its own destiny.

  But then a traitorous man named Cain Frost had betrayed the Council, seizing the opportunity to wage his own personal war against Iran. Cain’s thirst for vengeance for his brother’s torture and mutilation-murder had overruled his reason, and his bloodlust had temporarily placed the entire region on the brink of disaster. Fortunately, the US had prevented that eventuality with the assistance of a small group of skilled and determined individuals. The Organization had been forced to deal with Cain Frost directly though, as his trial threatened to expose them. Even though he’d been a loyal member and faithful to the mission, in the end, the Founder had been given no choice. Cain Frost had to die. The bomb placed inside a food truck outside the DC courthouse had accomplished that objective, but innocent civilians had also perished, a moral burden the Founder felt each day and which caused him to question his own mission.

  If I’ve become no better than the men I vowed to destroy, am I now as evil as those same men? He hadn’t been able to answer that question definitively, a fact that greatly disturbed him.

  As a result, he’d ordered a freeze on global operations, but someone inside his organization—a Council member, he was certain—had violated that ban and orchestrated multiple attacks, this time against the US, with the express intent of creating instability between the US and China. The operation had been thwarted once again by the actions of a task force of FBI consultants and CIA operatives, and even worse, the Founder had not been able to identify who the traitor or traitors were. But the events had pushed the Founder toward a decision and a course of action he’d always kept in the back of his mind but never realistically expected to execute.

  No matter what he’d personally become, he’d always been able to justify the actions of his Organization, but suddenly that scale had teetered to the wrong side, and he knew it was time to act. There was no way he was going to let his life’s work be hijacked by forces acting against him. And that was why the barrel-chested, middle-aged man with short gray hair stood behind him, watching and waiting for his instructions.

  “I never thought it would come to this,” the Founder said. “No matter what happens, I know that we’ve done more good than bad.” He turned to look at his audience.

  “I know, sir,” the Founder’s chief of all US security operations said. A retired military officer, the advisor was also the Founder’s right hand when it came to sensitive and clandestine Organization operations. “But it has to happen. When you approached me four years ago, it was the ideal of what you were doing that captured my attention. I knew from my decades of service that the world no longer functioned like it should, that politicians and political correctness were threatening our very existence. Our leaders refused to make the hard right choices. But you assured me we could make a difference, even if our methods were questionable or morally repugnant.” He paused for a moment, the overcast clouds seeming to capture his attention. “You know what the best definition of integrity is?”

  The Founder turned to him, momentarily intrigued by the question. “I have an idea.”

  His advisor nodded. “In the military, there are a few definitions, but a version of this one stuck with me from Officer Candidate School and guided my career—‘doing the hard right thing at the right time for the right reasons, especially when no one is watching.’ And that’s what we’re about to do, sir—a very hard right thing.”

  “I know, but once we open this Pandora’s box, there’s no closing it. The other Council members will realize I’m responsible, and whoever the traitor is, he’ll come for me.”

  “Let him,” his advisor stated resolutely. “If what I’m about to do draws the bastard out, even better. I can deal with him as well.”

  The Founder nodded. “You’ve become a loyal friend, Jack, and I trust your judgment on these matters, even though I wish we didn’t have to do this.”

  “It really is the only way. You and I know he’ll have the list on him,” Jack said. “I’ve known him for years, and I once considered him a friend. He may not be the ringleader orchestrating all of this, but he’s gone rogue and has to be put down. The amount of damage he can do in his position is unthinkable, not just to us, but to the entire nation and the world.”

  A moment of silence stretched out between them, and Jack wondered if the Founder had changed his mind. He pressed forward. “Sir, he’s set to testify at the Senate Intelligence Committee in two and a half hours. My men are in place, but I need you to confirm it.”

  The Founder sighed. There was nothing more to say. “Do it, and Godspeed, Jack.”

  “Consider it done, sir. I’ll update you when it’s over.” Jack turned and walked out of the glass-walled library, leaving the Founder to stare at the white-capped waves.

  How did it come to this? God help us all.

  CHAPTER 4

  I-295/Baltimore–Washington Parkway

  1045 EST

  Special Agent Frank Beckmann kept a watchful eye on the road ahead of the black Suburban, scanning for threats as the two-vehicle government convoy traveled south on I-295 from Fort Meade. The road was notorious for lengthy traffic delays at all hours and random accidents caused by reckless Maryland drivers, and he was pleasantly surprised as he maneuvered the second Suburban in the convoy in the right lane down the parkway. Must be our lucky day.

  A fifteen-year veteran of the Baltimore Police Department, Frank was a Baltimoreon, born and raised in the inner-ring suburb and tough, working-class neighborhood of Dundalk. An athletic and street-savvy young man with jet-black hair who’d driven a gas-operated forklift at the Dundalk Marine Terminal through high school, he’d had ambitions beyond the blue-collar jobs many of his friends had landed upon graduation. Frank had kept his job at the terminal, but he’d a
lso earned a two-year associate’s degree in law enforcement at Baltimore Community College, applying to the Baltimore Police Department during his final semester. Not overly optimistic about his chances—a young white kid from Dundalk in a town like Baltimore—he was surprised when he’d been accepted.

  Frank had spent the better part of his fifteen years in a patrol car, never overly ambitious but enjoying the satisfaction of each day that he felt he could make a difference and still go home alive.

  But the city had changed, and so had Frank, with political correctness running rampant through the mayor’s office and a sense that City Hall no longer had the backs of the police officers who protected it. His goal had been to do his twenty years and then retire to something else, anything else.

  Fortune had shone upon him when a close friend from the National Security Agency Police had called, and he’d been offered a position in the operations center. He’d taken it, excelling at coordinating internal on-site daily operations—inside the relative safety of multiple perimeters—and before he knew it, he’d found himself on the director’s personal security detail, or PSD.

  How time flies, Frank mused to himself as a voice from the backseat suddenly interrupted his automatic scanning of the environment and his own internal thoughts.

  “How we doing on time, Frank?” the four-star Marine general asked. “I don’t want to keep those arrogant jackasses waiting too long, even if some of them could use a lesson in patience.”

  Marine General Thomas Taylor—call sign “Major Tom” from his F-18 fighter pilot days and his penchant for David Bowie music—was the first Marine director of America’s largest intelligence agency, which focused on information assurance and signals intelligence, commonly referred to as SIGINT.

  General Taylor had risen swiftly through the ranks as first a squadron commander and then Marine aircraft group commander at Cherry Point, North Carolina. While all his peers had assumed he’d be the next commander of the Second Marine Air Wing, he’d been promoted to brigadier general and slated to a different billet—director of intelligence, or DIRINT, as the commandant of the Marine Corps’ chief intelligence officer. Two impressively successful tours and two promotions later—to lead the relatively new Marine Forces Cyber and then to Cyber Command deputy commander— it was no surprise that he’d been promoted to four-star and appointed commander of the United States Cyber Command and director of the NSA.