Rule of Law

by Randy Singer

  “Whose side are you on?”

  “I’m just trying to figure out what happened,” Wellington protested.

  For Paige, there were still too many pieces that didn’t fit. Who was the Patriot, and why was he giving them information? Why hadn’t Marcano discussed this directly with the president instead of meeting with Philip Kilpatrick on a park bench? Why hadn’t the president sent in the Quick Response Force? Why did she work exclusively on the speech that she would give in case of a disaster?

  “We’re missing something, Wellington,” Paige said. “We may be missing a whole lot of things.”

  Things got even more confusing on Saturday when Paige got in touch with Daniel Reese. She thanked him again for personally meeting with Kristen Anderson to give her the CIA pension benefits. “As you probably know, that came in handy at our hearing.”

  “Yes, ma’am, I heard that it did.”

  Paige couldn’t decide if she loved or hated the “yes, ma’am” routine, so she let it go. “You said I could call if I needed help. Do you have a moment for me to bounce something off you?”

  “Actually, I’m extremely busy right now, Ms. Chambers. And given the fact that the case appears to be proceeding forward into litigation, it might be best if we didn’t talk after all.”

  Paige was stunned by the sudden turnaround. Somebody had gotten to him. “I’m sorry. I was just following up on something you said at Kristen’s house.”

  “I appreciate what you’re doing for Mrs. Anderson,” Reese said stiffly. “But I really think it would be best if we didn’t talk.”

  45

  AL JAWF GOVERNORATE, YEMEN

  He was only thirty-nine years old, but the mantle had fallen to him. First, Anwar al-Awlaki, a dual American and Yemeni citizen, was martyred by a drone in 2011. Two weeks later, his sixteen-year-old son and nine relatives were killed by a drone in an open-air café in Shabwah, Yemen. U.S. officials claimed it was a mistake—the intended target was supposedly an Egyptian who was nowhere near that location.

  Seven years later, the Great Satan struck again. This time the victim was an Iranian imam named Yazeed Abdul Hamid, killed in Yemen when more than eighty soldiers ambushed his caravan. The Yemeni coalition government claimed credit for the assault, but everyone knew it was American Special Forces.

  The Great Satan would never learn that the death of one martyr only gave birth to a hundred more. And now Saleet Zafar, an imam from Saudi Arabia, had taken up the cause, his sermons blazing across the Internet, inspiring tens of thousands to great deeds for Allah.

  Zafar seemed an unlikely choice—an intellectual and an introvert, a reader of books and a student of current events. He had committed the entire Quran to memory before his twelfth birthday. One hundred fourteen suras. Six thousand two hundred thirty-six verses. Eighty thousand words. There was nothing more important than the word of Allah.

  He was a thin man with a black, wiry beard who always wore the long white robe of a cleric. He had bad eyesight and thick, round, wire-rimmed glasses. But when he preached, those imperfect eyes blazed with the glory of Allah.

  He was also a man on the run, shuttled from one host family to another, seldom sleeping in the same house on two consecutive nights. He often went for a week without seeing his family. But his two sons, aged twelve and ten, would be at the mosque tonight. Even Saleet did not think America would strike a mosque full of innocent women and children.

  But when he left, he would tell his boys good-bye. He did not want them sleeping under the same roof as him when the Hellfire missile came.

  There were times he would stay with members of ISIS; they had little fear of death. He knew his sermons on YouTube had inspired many to become part of the great jihad, but he was only doing the will of Allah. He had not asked for this mantle, but if it was Allah’s will, he would carry it with great zeal.

  He followed events in America closely. The infidels had turned on each other in the American courts, an entirely predictable occurrence. But the subject of his sermon tonight was something far more important—the upcoming trip of the Israeli prime minister to America. It was part of President Amanda Hamilton’s plan to construct an axis of power between the Americans, the Israelis, and the Saudis that would end up destroying all true followers of Islam. But these were the last days. What else should one expect?

  As he rose to speak, his two sons listened from the front row, their eyes expectant, their faces proud. There were hundreds of others jammed into the mosque, some recording the message with their phones so it could be posted on various Internet venues.

  Saleet began by reciting the Quran’s description of those who died at the Battle of Uhud: “‘Never think of those who have been killed in the cause of Allah as dead. Rather, they are alive with their Lord, receiving provision, rejoicing in what Allah has bestowed upon them of his bounty.’”

  Saleet, preaching without notes, expounded on the great bounty given by Allah to his martyrs. The remission of one’s sins. Avoiding the torment of hell, where the skin was literally burned from your body. Marriage to beautiful heavenly virgins. A crown set with priceless rubies. The right to intercede with God on judgment day on behalf of seventy relatives. Entry into the highest gardens of heaven. It was an impressive list, and therefore, according to Saleet, the tragedy was not in dying; the tragedy was in failing to live life fully surrendered to Allah.

  Partway through his message, he pivoted from theology to the recent events unmasking the agenda of the Great Satan. He condemned the alliance between the U.S. and Israel but saved some of his harshest language for the moderate infidels in Saudi Arabia who helped advance the Great Satan’s agenda.

  He ended by pleading with his listeners to study the Quran: “The life of a true Muslim flows from the ink of our Quran and the blood of our martyrs. Our history has been colored with these two streams: one of them black and the other red. The infidels cannot harm true believers. Even in our death, they can only guarantee that the great bounty of Allah will flow unhindered to those who truly believe.”

  When Saleet had finished, he looked down at his boys. They had soaked it all in, even concepts they could not yet understand. He knew in their hearts they were ready to die for Allah. And though it pained him to consider such a possibility, he trusted the words of the Quran over his own emotions. Allah demanded great sacrifices. And if this was the sacrifice Saleet was called upon to make, he would do it willingly, though his heart would break in the process.

  WASHINGTON, D.C.

  Najir Mohammed knew the video was his call to action. The twenty-one-year-old Georgetown University student would color history with his own red blood. He had been planning his attack for nearly a year, but now events had aligned. In a few days, the Americans would be celebrating Memorial Day, and the leader of Israel would be visiting American soil. It could not be coincidental. He prayed Allah would give him an opportunity to act, and he prayed for the courage to do what needed to be done.

  46

  VIRGINIA BEACH, VIRGINIA

  Early in the morning on Memorial Day, Paige parked her car in the gravel lot that overlooked Broad Bay at First Landing State Park. The rising sun was spraying watercolor purples and oranges on the river. The trail through the woods would be deserted and half-lit, but Paige knew her way by heart—every stump, every rut, every turn. By the time she finished, the sun would be fully up, and this day, which promised to be one of her hardest in a long time, would officially begin.

  First Landing State Park was one of Virginia Beach’s hidden treasures—sprawling, undeveloped land between Atlantic Avenue on the oceanfront and Shore Drive on Chesapeake Bay. The Cape Henry Trail was broad and fairly even, surrounded by swamp and lined on both sides by cypress trees that provided shade for mornings like this one when it was already eighty degrees and humid.

  She had put together a playlist that reminded her of Patrick. She would use it during her run to flush out all of her emotions so they wouldn’t sneak up on her and paralyze her
in the middle of the day’s events. She placed her keys on top of her left front tire and popped in the earbuds. She stretched, too quickly to make a difference, and began her run. For the next thirty minutes she would be alone on the park trail with her memories, her tears mixing with sweat as she focused on the world of what might have been.

  Half an hour later, she completed her run emotionally spent. She took out her earbuds and walked around for a few minutes to cool down. She felt better—psychologically prepared for the day ahead.

  She wiped her face with her shirt, grabbed her keys, and unlocked the door. On her seat was a plain manila envelope. She quickly surveyed the parking lot, but there were only a few cars and nobody looking in her direction. She pulled out the envelope. In the upper left-hand corner, where the return address would normally have been, were two words: The Patriot.

  Inside the envelope were a few sheets of paper and a thumb drive. The first page was the cover of the Senate Intelligence Committee’s report on the CIA’s detention and interrogation program that took place during the Bush administration. Through her research, Paige was aware of the six-thousand-page report, much of which had been declassified and released to the public. The second and third pages were excerpts from the report. She quickly scanned the documents to see if she could figure out why the Patriot had provided them. There, toward the bottom of the first excerpt, was a list of names that included current CIA director John Marcano.

  The next document was an excerpt from a speech given by Marcano when he first took over as director. He was talking about why the CIA mattered. Everyone had their own reasons for doing the thankless work of the agency, he said. For him, it was a good friend, a man who had been in his wedding, a man who was working on Wall Street when the towers fell. He was believed to be one of the men shown free-falling from the building, jumping to his death when he could no longer take the hellish fire inside. It was impossible to know for sure, Marcano said, but he had watched the video a hundred times, and he was almost certain the grainy image was his friend.

  “I do this for Eric,” Marcano had said. “I do it for his family.”

  Paige had a hunch that when she plugged in the thumb drive, she would see the image herself—the horrific sight of a man plunging to his death.

  But how was this connected to her case? And more disturbingly, how did the Patriot get inside her vehicle?

  He must have followed her to the park and watched as she put the keys on the tire. It gave her chills to think he had been watching her this morning, alone in the parking lot. How many other days had she been followed? How many other times had she practically rubbed elbows with the man, not knowing who he was?

  And why wouldn’t he make himself known? Why was he helping in the lawsuit now instead of complaining that they had filed one?

  None of these questions had answers, but she and Wellington had begun a methodical profile on the Patriot. They had started writing down everything they knew about him and hoped, through the process of elimination, to figure out his identity. Now, in addition to the fact that he was a high-ranking official with inside knowledge about the president’s National Security Council meetings and the tactics of the defense lawyers, he was also someone who could make at least two trips to Virginia Beach unnoticed. He was likely some kind of professional spy, and he obviously wanted to see the president brought to justice.

  Paige decided she would call both Wellington and Wyatt later and tell them about the Patriot’s latest delivery. If nothing else, these materials would help them understand more about Marcano and better prepare for his deposition.

  But other than that, the package raised a lot more questions than it answered.

  47

  WASHINGTON, D.C.

  For President Amanda Hamilton, Memorial Day was not going to be easy. For the first time since the ceremony for the fallen SEALs, she would be back at Arlington. It was tradition for the president to speak there in honor of America’s fallen soldiers, and for obvious reasons, she couldn’t miss it.

  But the optics, as Philip Kilpatrick liked to say, would be awful. The White House had invited each of the families of the fallen SEALs, including Kristen Anderson, but each had respectfully declined to attend. Adding insult to injury, they had decided instead to go to a local service at the Virginia Beach oceanfront, and organizers of that event had secured Admiral Paul Towers, former commanding officer of JSOC, as their keynote. There was no telling what the man would say.

  The news shows would juxtapose her speech against his, and she would be hit with questions all day about the pending lawsuit. It was, Amanda knew, going to be a long day.

  If she could just get through it, things were looking up for the rest of the week. Israel’s prime minister would be in the nation’s capital for two days, speaking to a joint session of Congress and meeting with the president. The symbolism would not be lost on the American public. The last time Israel’s prime minister had visited the United States, he had done so at the request of the Republicans in the House of Representatives and had avoided meeting the president altogether.

  Amanda Hamilton’s recent hard line against Iran had helped raise U.S.–Israeli relations to a new level. And later this week, she would be able to bask in the warm glow of a grateful ally thanking her in front of a joint session of Congress.

  But first she had to get through today. Her speech was prepared, her words chosen carefully. Now she needed time to think and burn off some of the nervous energy.

  The Secret Service hated it when she did this, but once a month or so, weather permitting, she liked to head down to the Potomac Boat Club, dust off her one-person shell, and go for a row. Agents went ahead of her and behind her in small motorboats, giving the president space while they watched the banks. Early in her administration, they had tried to talk her out of it altogether. But she could be stubborn, and the water did something for her that she couldn’t describe, something not just physiological but nearly spiritual. There was something about gliding across the surface of the Potomac, heart pumping and muscles aching from the strain of her relentless pace, that somehow opened her thinking and allowed her mind to focus. It was on the water that she gained perspective and courage, returning to the dock both exhausted and renewed for the challenges before her.

  She carried her own shell to the water and slid into it, chilled by the brisk air not yet warmed by the rising sun. She started slow—stretching, gliding, getting a feel for the water. But soon, like a kid set free at recess, she was rowing at full strength, her muscles instinctively recalling every precise movement that had made her stroke so smooth and powerful twenty years earlier. She reached forward with her long arms, sliding her seat, catching the water at just the right angle, and then exploded with her legs and torso as the seat rolled back on its track before she feathered the oars and repeated the process. Her pace climbed to forty strokes a minute. Reach, grab, slide, feather, and repeat. Stroke after stroke, the boat surging forward, the oars slicing into the water and skimming back across the surface for the next stroke. Her breathing and heart rate accelerated. She was a competitor, and competitors could never row just for fun. She leaned into it and picked up the pace, feeling the fatigue set in earlier than she thought it should. You’re forty-six, she told herself, not sixty.

  Her shoulders started burning first, then her thighs and hamstrings, and soon her arms felt like rubber. Her form began to break, and she told herself to sit up straighter.

  On the west bank, hidden in the bushes out of sight of the agents in the boats and the helicopter flying overhead, sat Najir Mohammed. The president was out of range right now, but she was rowing toward him. He had been waiting a year for this moment, and he took deep breaths to calm himself, eyeing her through the long-range scope, his finger trembling slightly on the trigger. He wore a suicide vest so that he could kill as many of the infidels as possible when they tried to apprehend him afterward. It was Memorial Day, and what could be more heroic than to become a martyr for the cau
se of the Prophet in a holy war on Memorial Day?

  “Allahu Akbar,” he whispered. “Allahu Akbar.”

  48

  Amanda Hamilton had been going for nearly twenty-five minutes and still wanted to do some sprints on the way back. She began slowly turning the boat around, catching her breath, giving her tired muscles a break.

  “Haven’t lost a stroke, Madam President,” one of the agents in the trail boat called out.

  “You get paid to protect me, Caleb,” she called back. “No bonuses for lying to make me feel better.”

  For the most part, she had a great relationship with these men. Like the Pope, she preferred being among the people, and that made their job harder. But she wasn’t a diva, or at least that’s what they told her, and she knew most of them by their first names.

  These early-morning rows were the things they hated most. They had to keep the event off the official schedule, of course. And they had agents crawling the banks on both sides of the river and others in boats, looking for anything suspicious. It took a lot of manpower, so she didn’t do this often.

  Yet occasionally she still insisted on this one indulgence. Clinton went jogging on public streets three times a week and always had a dozen or so agents in tow. Bush was a runner too. Obama played on public golf courses. And Hamilton had her rowing.

  Najir Mohammed prayed the president would change her mind and come a little closer. Instead, she started turning. Her strong back, which had been squarely within his sights when she was rowing, was now replaced by a sideways moving target. She might be slightly out of range, but it wasn’t going to get any better. When she completed her turn and the trail boat motored slowly past the line of fire, he sighted the crosshairs on her heart. Always go for the body mass—even if he was slightly off, the bullet would still find flesh. And if Allah wanted her to be dead, she would be dead.