Dick Couch - Out of the Ashes

The SOCOM commander had turned several shades darker and started to speak, but again, Williams silenced him with a raised hand. “Now, sir,” he continued with more steel in his voice, “you have two choices here. You can comply with this request and we can discuss how you would like me to deal with your subordinate commanders for the transfer of these assets, and we’ll do this with no interruptions, from the Southern Command commander or anyone else. Or, if you feel this is simply beyond your statutory or moral obligations as the SOCOM commander, you can resign. It’s not an easy thing, I assure you, but we all have to act within the constraints of our conscience and how we see our duty. There is a third alternative; I can simply have you relieved, but that serves neither your nor my interests, or our obligations. So, General, what’s it going to be?”

After a long moment, Patrick picked up the sheet of paper lying on his blotter and studied it. “You feel you need a full troop?”

“I do,” Williams said politely. “I will need a platoon-sized element on immediate standby and a second element in a lesser recall status. You know better than I the toll it takes on men and their families if they are kept on immediate flyaway status. So yes, I’ll need a full troop.”

“You’ll get what you need, Mr. Williams,” Patrick said, the tension in his voice palpable. “And I hope to God you know what you’re doing,” he continued as he rose abruptly, walked to the door, and opened it.

Williams walked out without another word, and no handshakes were exchanged.

A week later, Chase Williams handed the guard his credentials at the gate of the National Counterterrorism Center compound at Liberty Crossing, near McLean, Virginia. He had been here many times during his years in uniform, and he declined the guard’s offer of directions. Inside the compound, he drove the short distance to NCTC’s headquarters building and parked in a space marked “Op-Center Director.” Nice touch, he thought.

NCTC’s deputy director was on the curb to greet him. “Admiral, welcome. Mr. Putnam is expecting you. I’ll escort you to his office.” Better touch .

“You all have been a bit busy over the past several months, haven’t you?” Williams asked the deputy director as they entered the imposing six-story building.

“We’re up for the challenge, Admiral. Mr. Putnam has had the intelligence community in overdrive working to get to the bottom of who did this to us.”

Built on the foundations of the CIA’s Terrorist Threat Integration Center, with bullet- and blast-proof external windows cast to standards set after the Oklahoma City bombing, the NCTC looked like a fortress, and it was. The deputy director led Chase Williams past office after office with coded locks, each office essentially a vault, where the NCTC staff worked to fulfill its mission to lead the nation’s effort to combat terrorism at home and abroad. That was their mission, but they had failed.

As Chase Williams entered Adam Putnam’s spacious office, the director of national intelligence rose to greet him as the deputy director closed the door, leaving the two men alone.

“Chase, it’s nice to see you again.”

“Likewise, Adam.”

“The president’s given you a huge assignment, and we’re here to help in every way we can.”

“Appreciate that.”

Chase Williams reflected on his years-long relationship with Adam Putnam. When he had heard Putnam was selected as director of national intelligence he was cheered that the intelligence community — the IC — had gotten it right. Putnam was one of the most capable and least territorial professionals he knew. He understood Putnam was doing all he could to ensure the nation’s intelligence agencies sniffed out potential attacks on Americans at home or abroad and he also knew he felt a sense of professional failure over the “NFL attacks.”

“You mentioned you’d met with Trevor Harward and the national security staff,” Putnam continued. “They think they’ve teased out a motive for these attacks?”

“They may well have. First, I’d like to thank you for putting Op-Center on all your intelligence feeds. We’re still getting staffed and organized, and truth be known we don’t yet have the capacity to use all you’re providing, but we will in time. In the meantime, I appreciate your willingness to make our endeavor to track down whoever attacked us a team effort.”

“I didn’t anticipate we’d have any issues, Chase. We in the intelligence community let the nation down. You and your organization will go a long way to ensuring this doesn’t happen again.”

With that, the two men embarked on an extended conversation regarding what they knew and what they still didn’t know. Williams shared what he had gleaned from Trevor Harward and what the national security advisor had learned from Gamal Haaziq. They were in general agreement to focus their efforts in keeping with a motive of revenge, a line of investigation they had yet to mine. Putnam agreed to have his analysts take the lead on running this to ground while Williams got his Geek Tank up and running on all cylinders. While they both recognized that the nation, and especially the president, wanted answers and wanted to avenge the NFL attacks as soon as possible, they both knew they would embark on work that was often painfully slow and deliberate.

The meeting complete, Williams rose to leave. “Adam, we’re going to get this done.”

“We will, Chase. I know we will.”

Twenty miles due south of where Chase Williams and Adam Putnam were hammering out their long-term working relationships, two other men were also trying to make things happen — and just as quickly. “I want your two bulldozers down there. Trench it out another four to five feet and then we can pour the next two columns we need to build.”

“Got it,” the foreman said to the project manager.

“Will your team have any problem working overtime for a few hours? We’re paying time and a half.”

“I think they’ll go for it. But I’m kinda worried they’ll burn out and somebody will make a dumb-ass mistake and get someone hurt or killed. This pace has been kind of brutal.”

“That’s why we pay up for foremen with your experience,” the project manager replied, raising his voice to be heard as the massive dump truck thundered by.

The foreman grinned. “Thanks, but it’s still not an easy build. I’ll keep a sharp eye out, and we’ll do our best to balance the schedule and safety.”

“That’s the Hitte spirit!”

Hitte Construction had secured a lucrative contract to build a basement under the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, the NGA, in Fort Belvoir North and the project manager would receive a substantial bonus if the massive construction project was completed early. He needed to push his team and push them hard. They hadn’t told him why they were building this basement under the NGA. All he had heard were rumors it was for an “important new organization.”

“So why the hell is this such a rush job? This is the government, after all, isn’t it,” the foreman asked.

“Hey, that’s way above my pay grade,” the project manager replied. “They don’t pay us to worry about that shit.”

Two days after his meeting with the director of national intelligence, Chase Williams sat in a small meeting room on the JSOC compound at Fort Bragg. He felt his business with JSOC called for a personal visit. The first of his two scheduled meetings had gone far better than the one with General Patrick at SOCOM headquarters just a few days before. The JSOC commander, a former 75th Ranger regimental commander and now a lieutenant general, had known exactly why Williams had come and what he needed. Far more than the SOCOM commander, he knew what it was to send men into dangerous and difficult situations. That was his job — had been his job. He also knew his primary role now was to assess, select, and train men for this most difficult of direct special operations tasks, not to command them in combat or even to select their missions. This didn’t mean he didn’t have his concerns. “I’ve given you one of my best troops, Admiral,” he told Williams. “If you get them hurt or killed, I will be the one to break the news to the families. I’ve had to call on recent widows and it’s something I’d like to avoid. You have your responsibilities, sir, as do I. So please, take care of our men.”