Dick Couch - Out of the Ashes

The president had used significant political capital to get Congress to agree to re-create Op-Center. Then there was funding to put in place, hiring authorities to set up within the Office of Personnel Management, and relationships to establish with other organizations inside the executive branch. Finally, there had been the matter of selecting a location and then actually constructing the new Op-Center.

While the reasons for selecting a basement underneath the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, constructed from scratch because there was no unused basement in existence, were sound, the actual construction project, like many things done in government, took longer than it should have. During that time, Op-Center had been able to put notches in its belt by eliminating Azka Perkasa and Abdul-Muqtadir Kashif. Fortunately, there had been no major “seam crises” that required Op-Center’s attention.

“Boss, we’re ready to begin if you are,” Anne Sullivan, Op-Center’s deputy director, began.

“Great,” Williams said. “Looks like you have the usual suspects assembled.”

“All mustered, boss,” Sullivan replied, a bit of brogue in her speech, a leftover of her early years growing up in East Belfast. “I’ve asked Roger to kick it off with an intel update.”

Early in his tenure as Op-Center director, Chase Williams had told the staff to not address him as “admiral.” Sullivan, a career civil servant and retired senior executive supergrade — and the first person Williams hired — had settled on “boss” as a way to address him, and it had stuck.

As Op-Center’s intelligence director, the N2, Roger McCord, rose to begin his briefing. Williams chided him, “So, Roger, I see you’ve managed to make it all the way in from Reston once again without wrecking your Harley.”

“Barely, boss, barely ’cause I think it was your Beamer that almost ran me into a ditch during the merge onto Heller Road,” McCord replied, smiling.

“Perhaps,” Williams said with a straight face, “but there are a lot of BMWs in this town.”

If Williams had a persistent habit, it was to begin meetings on a light note. He also tended to joke with the Op-Center staff with military backgrounds just a bit more than with the others. McCord was a former Marine who commanded the Intelligence Battalion in the Marine Special Operations Command, or MARSOC, and had been a company commander in Fallujah and a battalion exec in Ramadi prior to that. Wounded twice, the second time leaving his right leg so torn up it ended his combat career, he was allowed to remain on active duty while he stood up the MARSOC Intelligence Battalion. Williams figured if anyone on the staff could take some gentle ribbing it was McCord, and he was right.

“Fair enough, I’ll try to be a little more careful next time,” Williams continued, shaking his head. McCord could give as good as he got, and that pleased him.

“All right, I’m just going to throw up a few slides to recap our discussions over the past month regarding what’s going on in the Mideast. No action for Op-Center anticipated yet, but we’re following this closely to stay ahead of the problem.”

“Excellent. You and Brian are still having your subgroup meetings on this twice a week?” Williams asked.

“We are, boss. Brian’s chairing them. I’ll let him give you a quick recap before I get rolling.”

Williams looked over to his operations director, the N3, Brian Dawson. The man was a wall, six feet four and a hard 225 pounds. Dawson was a recently retired Army colonel and former commander of the 5th Special Forces Group.

“We’ve kept you up to date regarding the way the United States is surging forces to the Middle East,” Dawson began, speaking in precise, almost clipped terms. “The Truman carrier strike group is leaving on their rotational deployment six weeks early. The Air Force is surging bombers into theater to just about everywhere we have basing rights, and the Marines are keeping one of their expeditionary strike groups in the Central Command AOR and extending their deployment for at least another month,” he said, referring to Central Command’s, or CENTCOM’s, Area of Responsibility. “There’s an enormous amount of churn in the Middle East right now and as you know, most of it is focused on the threats Iran is making against Iraq. The way we see it, this surge is designed to reassure Iraq and to make Iran think twice before carrying out any of their threats.”

“I see,” Williams replied. “The tension is worse, way worse, than when I was CENTCOM commander, and I can see why we want, and need, more presence in CENTCOM.”

If there was one person on the Op-Center staff who thought like Chase Williams, it was Dawson. A West Pointer with massive contacts in the Pentagon, at CIA, and at State, he had been one of the youngest colonels in the Army and been deep-promoted numerous times. Operationally, he was rock solid. He left the Army before the selection board convened to consider him for his first star. Dawson said he wanted to go out while he was on top, and the top for Dawson was operational command.

“Roger will give you the intel background on all this.”

“Good.”

“Boss,” McCord began, “you were the CENTCOM commander for three years, so I know I don’t need to give you a primer about tensions there. The intelligence community has increased the number of analysts looking at this, but in essence, the centrifugal forces the Arab Awakening released are still having a ripple effect. The militaries in an increasing number of countries are having so much trouble dealing with internal unrest in their major cities that they’re less and less able to deal with terrorist groups operating in the hinterlands.”

“Yeah, got that,” Williams replied. “Nothing we didn’t see coming back in 2011, is it, Roger?”

“Maybe not in kind, but in degree,” McCord continued. “In many ways, some of these countries — Yemen, Syria, even Egypt — are becoming almost like Lebanon, even Afghanistan.”

“And you know how massively we’ve increased security at embassies in the region over the past several years,” Dawson added. “Still, even at that, boss, you see why we’re surging forces into the region as a precaution.”

“No, I get all that,” Williams replied. “I think you all have summed up the situation, and Brian, I know you know the tribal politics in the region as well as anyone. As you all continue to plan, let’s factor in how we might get our JSOC cell into the region if we need to.”

“Well, boss, I’m no Gertrude Bell,” Dawson began, referring to the English archaeologist whose subtle understanding of tribal politics helped the British administer Iraq during the colonial period. “Even so, you’re right. If we move in on the ground there, I’ll need to reach out to the right tribal chieftains. Having them on our side will be crucial, especially once you get a few miles away from the cities and out into the deserts.”

As the morning briefing continued, Chase Williams reflected on where Op-Center had been and where it was going. They had come out of the gate fast and made their bones in finding and taking out Azka Perkasa and Abdul-Muqtadir Kashif for the stadium bombings. It was an act of justice as well as revenge. Plus they had accomplished this while they were moving to a new location and before he had recruited and assembled his full staff.

If there was anything that had kept Williams centered during his long career of service it was to pause often to count his blessings. One of those blessings was the trust he had in the staff he had so carefully assembled. Another was the trust the president had continued to place in him.

After the serious business of eliminating Perkasa and Kashif was over, Op-Center had not been called into action again. Since then, Op-Center had been just been an expensive, but unused, asset. The president signaled his confidence in Williams by letting him and Sullivan continue to build the capability they knew they needed and train their team. Yet, they both had to admit, they didn’t anticipate the costs of the Geek Tank Williams had promised the president he would create from whole cloth.