The blast was deafening. Sarah didn’t have time to register exactly what was happening as she continued to build a sprint toward the gym, but the last thing she remembered before the blast wave slammed her against a row of lockers was arguing with her husband about bringing Brenda here today, and rather than fill her last thoughts with anger over his decision, she instead prayed that Brenda and the other students were far enough from the blast to not die from it.
Like her.
Over a peanut butter sandwich.
The Oval Office, The White House, Washington, DC
“Mr. President, there’s been another bombing.”
President Johnathan Bridges looked up from his perch on the corner of one of the couches in his office, his morning briefing only just begun, the most exclusive newspaper in the world, circulation “tens”, just having been received. The President’s Daily Brief. He remembered the first time he had read one after being sworn in, and it had been chilling. The number of threats and crises the nation faced on a daily basis was staggering. And terrifying. But no briefing had been more terrifying than those delivered over the past week, and as the pressure continued to build on him to take action, actions he couldn’t fathom, he wondered if he might reach his breaking point.
But he was the President, and he couldn’t break.
Not when his country needed him the most.
And now there was another attack.
The troubled look on his National Security Advisor’s face as she read a file just handed to her by one of her aide’s immediately had him concerned.
When will it end?
“What is it, Susan?”
Susan Lawrence waved the folder. “They just hit an elementary school in Detroit. Luckily it looks like the bomb went off early and there was some warning.”
“The kids?”
“All survived. Apparently there was a mother who helped delay the bomber according to some eye witnesses.”
Bridges felt a swell of pride in his fellow Americans at the image of this hero. “Did she make it?”
Lawrence shook her head. “I’m sorry, Mr. President, she didn’t. But her daughter did, as did over four hundred other children and staff. Several local law enforcement officers lost their lives, several were injured.” She sighed. “Mr. President, we got lucky on this one. It could have been much worse.”
“Thank God for small miracles.”
“And determined mothers,” added General Bradley Thorne, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
“Amen,” nodded President Bridges. He paused for a moment. “Ladies, gentlemen, this is the twelfth attack, if I’m not mistaken, in less than a week. The public is demanding action. Muslims are being attacked in the streets, vigilante groups are beginning to form. This has to stop.”
Lawrence nodded. “We’ve recalled all law enforcement under Federal jurisdiction from leave, requested all state and local law enforcement to do the same. Several governors have already called up the National Guard and I suspect even more will follow if we have more attacks. We have security at every school, transit station, mall, and government facility in the country.”
“Yet they still get through.”
“Yes, sir. And we don’t know how. And we don’t know why it’s happening. From all accounts the bombers were happy citizens and not Muslim.”
“Anybody can convert nowadays,” interjected General Thorne. “We’ve seen it before.”
“True,” agreed Lawrence, “but their friends and family usually know, and if not, we were able to confirm it after the fact. In all of these cases so far these were peaceful people, most of whom went to church, some the very day they performed their heinous act.”
“So what are you saying?” asked President Bridges. “That they’re not Muslim? Okay, I can accept that. Then what’s the motivation?”
“I might be able to shed some light on that, Mr. President,” said Ben Wainwright, Secretary of Homeland Security. “Our preliminary investigation into the first few bombings is suggesting these people are being coerced into doing what the terrorists want.”
“Coerced? I thought we had determined they were all murder-suicides?”
“That’s what we assumed at first. Each person’s family has been found dead when we searched their homes after identification. We’ve always assumed they killed them then went to set off their bombs, but so far we haven’t found any trace of explosives or any bomb making equipment in their homes, and each device has been identical. But more importantly, witnesses and records indicate every bomber has been on the phone when they blow themselves up.”
“On the phone?” Bridges rubbed his chin, transferring to a proper seat on the couch, the arm no longer comfortable. “With who?”
“We don’t know, it always traces back to burners. But we do know that they didn’t call anybody.”
“What do you mean?”
“They all received incoming calls.”
“Somebody called them?”
Wainwright nodded. “Yes, Mr. President. I can’t prove this yet, but I’m convinced that these people are being coerced into blowing themselves up under threat of their families being killed. Then when they do what they are forced to do, the families are killed regardless to make it look like a murder-suicide.”
“That’s cold,” observed NSA Secretary Susan Lawrence. “These people are killing themselves, thinking they’re saving their families, and they’re not.”
“Sounds like something we might want to make public,” suggested Wainwright. “If people are being coerced, if they knew their families were going to die regardless, they might not be so willing to take innocent people with them.”
General Thorne cleared his throat. “I’d advise against that, Mr. President. In fact, I’d advise against making any of this public. Right now we have Americans mistrusting a segment of their population. We need to do everything to dissuade them of any aggression toward these people, the vast majority of whom are innocent, but if we tell the public that the actual bombers are apple pie eating Americans just like them, everyone will be at risk. A guy wearing a puffy jacket, carrying an oversized briefcase.” He shook his head. “It would be panic.”
Lawrence bobbed her head. “I have to agree with the General. It could cause mass panic. We need to find out how they choose their victims.”
“Isn’t it just random?” asked President Bridges.
“I don’t think so. These people’s families are being held hostage and they are somehow being supplied with the suicide vests. These aren’t just random phone calls. These people are picked, observed, then set-up.”
Bridges squeezed his temples, gently massaging them. “So they could choose anybody, anywhere.”
“As long as they had a family they could coerce.”
“Is there anything out there, anything at all, no matter how weak, that might lead us to these people?”
Leif Morrison, National Clandestine Service Chief for the CIA, cleared his throat. “Mr. President, the one thing that is a bit odd is that none of the usual suspects are taking credit. In fact our monitoring of their chatter is revealing that they have no clue who is doing it, but they’re cheering them on. A few nobody’s are claiming responsibility, but we’ve confirmed they’re simply taking advantage of the situation. What we need are those conversations that are happening when the bombers are on the phone.”
“Which we can’t get without violating the constitutional rights of Americans,” added Lawrence as she looked over her shoulder at Morrison. She turned back to the President. “We would need to monitor pretty much everyone, then pull the data after the fact since we have no way of predicting who’s next. Americans won’t stand for it.”
“I beg to disagree,” said Homeland Security Secretary Wainwright. “The American public is demanding action. A temporary measure like this, that might solve the problem, I think would be tolerated. In fact, I think it might be applauded.”
Bridges frowned. Since 9/11 so many laws had
been passed that either overrode or went against the principles of the Constitution, America was no longer America, at least not the one he had grown up in. But he was guilty of it himself. He had continued the Termination List of his predecessors, a list few knew about. He had extended terrorist assassinations to include American citizens with the convenient caveat that they not be on American soil when it was done. He had sentenced so many to death without a trial, he had lost count. And he’d justified it every time under the guise of fighting terrorism. Was it right? No, deep down he knew it wasn’t. Was it necessary? That he wasn’t as sure about. Most days he felt it was, others, he had doubts. All he knew was that today, if he didn’t have to worry about the Constitution, he could probably end the terror gripping his nation swiftly.
He sighed.
“If we go down that road, like we’ve done before, it becomes slippery. Look at Guantanamo, the Patriot Act, Iraq. When we react without thinking things through, we end up with unintended consequences far too often, or overzealous individuals telling us what we want to hear. It’s one thing to go to war with a country over false-intelligence, it’s an entirely other thing to go to war with our own.”
“But we’re just talking about using MYSTIC on ourselves, maybe for a week. At the rate these attacks are happening, we’d have a dozen phone calls to possibly analyze.”
A dozen.
It sent shivers up and down his spine as he thought about the implications. Hundreds, even thousands more dead. The panic among the population was already palpable. One more week of this and there’d be rioting in the streets. But to implement MYSTIC, a National Security Agency system capable of recording 100% of a nation’s phone calls for a month, was almost unthinkable.
But it could end this!
When he became President he had no idea just how many secrets would be involved, secrets so secret that there were few he could talk to. It was something his predecessor, in his traditional letter to the incumbent, had mentioned.
It’s the secrets that will weigh on you the most.
Because secrets meant lies. And some secrets were lies, or thought to possibly be lies. Like the Weapons of Mass Destruction from Iraq. Everyone thought they were there, then the intel turned out to be bullshit. But then why were Russian Special Forces brought in only days before the invasion? Why were they photographed leading convoys of transport vehicles into Syria? Why, when Syria’s stockpiles were recently destroyed, were they more than 50% higher than estimated? Could the WMD’s have been moved to Syria by the Russians? After all, most of the chemical and biological weapons that both countries had were originally supplied by the Soviet Union. It made sense that Putin, who many Americans didn’t realize had run Russia since 2000, long before the Iraq war began, wouldn’t want any evidence found of the Soviet Union he still worshipped being involved lest it embarrass the country and result in sanctions against what was a fragile Russian economy at the time.
Secrets. Lies. Where does the truth lie?
“I’ll think about it,” he finally said. “How much time would it take to implement MYSTIC?”
“We can go live within twenty-four hours of your approval,” replied Lawrence. “But I don’t agree that this is a good idea. To eavesdrop on every American phone conversation? It’s”—she stopped, as if searching for the words—“it’s so un-American!”
Bridges nodded, forced to agree with her. “Countries without a constitution, without a constitution that is respected by a people’s government and institutions, don’t face the moral dilemmas we face on a daily basis. Would crime be lower if we didn’t have to respect someone’s civil rights? Absolutely. Would America’s enemies tremble in fright? Absolutely. Would our economy be better if we didn’t waste so much money on maintaining our constitutional way of life? Absolutely. But then we wouldn’t be America, and we wouldn’t be the greatest nation in the world. We’d simply be another China and not the beacon of hope that we are today.” He rose, the entire room with him. “No, people, we will not suspend our Constitution, we will not suspend civil rights. We will fight our enemies under the rule of law, lest we become the shadow of our former selves that our enemies would have us be. Thank you all for coming.”
A chorus of, “Thank you, Mr. President” ended the meeting and he returned to his desk, easing back in the sumptuous leather and closing his eyes.
He felt a vibration, first in his shoes then through his entire body. He jumped to his feet and pressed against the window behind his desk, a fireball in the distance rising, surrounding the Washington Monument.
And then to his horror it teetered for a second, then began to collapse, his hopes for his nation along with it.
CIA Headquarters, Langley, Virginia
“How was your meeting, sir?”
Senior Analyst Chris Leroux rose from his chair as Leif Morrison, CIA National Clandestine Service Chief entered his office, a nice walled affair made necessary by the highly classified projects Leroux found himself working on these days. His promotion hadn’t taken him out of the analysis trenches, but it afforded him additional resources including a staff of eight.
Movin’ on up!
And he hated it.
He never wanted the promotion. He was happy being the geek in a cubicle, hammering away at his keyboard, thinking in obtuse ways that brought unrelated data together in ways no one else might consider.
It was his gift.
And apparently my curse.
Morrison wanted to tap him to his full potential, or some other claptrap like that, but the stress having staff gave him was beginning to impact his work. He felt he had to be everyone’s friend, to listen to and consider all their ideas, to try and let people down easy all the time without hurting their feelings.
If it weren’t for his girlfriend, CIA Agent Sherrie White, he might have handed in his resignation and took a job in the tech industry or at a nice quiet library somewhere. He was able to dump on her when she wasn’t on an op, and take out his frustrations slaying zombies on his Xbox One when she was.
Which was far too often lately.
The life of a spy’s boyfriend.
His friend Dylan Kane had joked once that Leroux was “Jane Bond’s bitch” and that he better get used to it. Kane was probably his best and only friend save Sherrie, and he was the one who had ultimately pushed them together—Kane knew damned well he wouldn’t have had the balls to do it himself.
And it was Kane’s intel he was now working on. Intel that was mind blowing.
He watched Morrison close the door and sit down, not saying anything, his finger tapping his chin as he was lost in thought. He finally jerked out of his reverie, looking at Leroux.
“Disturbing.”
“Sir?”
“You asked how the meeting was. It was disturbing.”
“In what way?”
“There’s talk of enabling MYSTIC.”
“On who, the Chinese?”
Morrison shook his head. “Us. The United States.”
Leroux’s jaw dropped. MYSTIC was an incredibly powerful tool, allowing you to go back as far as a month in every phone conversation held within a nation. It was a fantastic tool for hindsight driven intelligence.
But it was never meant to be used on an ally, let alone the taxpayers that funded it.
“You can’t be serious!”
“The President said no. For now. Thorne and Wainwright are pressing him though, and you know how Bridges is. Weak.”
Leroux glanced around, checking for uninvited ears, still not used to having soundproof walls.
“Wouldn’t that be a violation of the Constitution?”
“Absolutely, but have you heard the news? People are starting to demand troops in the streets, Muslim internment camps and deportations. We’re getting very close to the tipping point where Congress and the Administration just might start to take drastic action. We’re up to a few major attacks a day, thousands dead, and absolutely no leads.”
“Well, I’m afrai
d I don’t have too much for you re the F-35. The photos and video Kane took have been confirmed as authentic and definitely showing our missing bird, right down to the tail number and classified camo tag on the tail. Nobody knows about those, and even if they did, they couldn’t possibly know what tag was put on the test plane that morning. This is the missing F-35.”
“Delivered by a dead American soldier to the Chinese.”
“I’ve got a little more on that. Facial recognition and voice pattern analysis confirm it is definitely Captain Lewis. A triple check of military personal records and civilian records confirm he died in Iraq in 2011.”
“Body?”
“Recovered, but badly burnt. Closed casket funeral.”
“How did they identify the body?”
Leroux smiled. “I think you’ll like this. They didn’t need to. He was the only one involved in the IED explosion. His men said he went down an alleyway then there was an explosion. His men went after him and found his body, blown to pieces, the pieces intact wearing his uniform and dog tags. There was no doubt in their minds this was their Captain.”
Morrison tapped his chin again, thinking. “So nobody actually saw him die, and a body that could have been anyone’s, pre-positioned for the killing, was presumed to be his.”
“Affirmative.”
“I want that body exhumed and DNA tested against records.”
“Funny you should say that, sir. I checked the records for tampering and found that not only were his fingerprint, dental and medical files updated just before he was killed, but so was his DNA profile.”
“Do we have access to the old stuff?”
“No, we don’t, officially. I took a peak at an old archive most people don’t know about.”
“You mean the Apocalypse Archive?”
Leroux nodded at the reference to one of several massive data archives spread across the country designed to preserve all information known to man, including financial transactions, land ownership, and more. They were meant to help get the country back on its feet should some sort of calamity strike resulting in the potential collapse of the government and our way of life. “The Nevada Archive has an old snapshot. The updated records? About the only thing they have in common with the originals is that he’s an African American male in his early forties. That’s it.”
Death to America (A Special Agent Dylan Kane Thriller, Book #4) Page 5