Marc Cameron - Act of Terror

Clark tilted his head, looking at Garcia. “Would it surprise you to know Magnuson made three unreported trips to Peshawar, Pakistan?”

“After what I saw today, sir,” Garcia said, “nothing would surprise me.”

“All three shooters had a calendar in their respective homes with today’s date colored in red and the same Chinese character.” The president paused, glancing up at Palmer. “What is it again, Win?”

“ Dan,” Palmer said. “It means gall — bitterness.”

“Chinese…” Garcia mused, almost to herself.

“Oddly enough, yes,” the president said. “Chinese.”

He gave Director Bodington a hard look. “Other than that, the Bureau has found precious little evidence to connect them. No emails back and forth, no phone records…” He paused for a long moment before raising the blue file folder again. “Young lady, I hope you don’t have any plans for the near future. What I’m about to tell you is really going to screw up the next few months of your life.”

Garcia smiled, giving a shrug that, to Palmer, seemed utterly beautiful and free of guile. The poor kid obviously no idea what she was getting into. “I’ll make it work, Mr. President,” she said.

“Outstanding.” Chris Clark wasn’t one to stop and linger over the details. “Here’s the deal then, Ms. Garcia. I need to know how much I can trust you.”

Garcia flushed, recoiling as if the question were a slap. “Well, completely, sir.”

Clark caught Palmer’s eye. It was his cue that the national security advisor should do his job and dispense a little advice.

“In the end,” Palmer said, “we have to trust someone, Mr. President. Veronica Garcia has demonstrated her loyalty as well as her valor in stopping the CIA shootings-”

Bodington weighed in-though he wasn’t willing to interrupt the president, he would interrupt Palmer. “Sir, you’re suggesting we share highly classified material with-my apologies to Ms. Garcia-but essentially a security guard. Is it not just as plausible that Deputy Director Magnuson was trying to stop the shootings and she killed him before the response team arrived?”

Garcia went from sweet to seething in the flash of her dark eyes. “I’ve never met you before, Director Bodington, but I’m sure you know it’ll take about two seconds for ballistics to confirm the DD’s weapon murdered at least half a dozen of my coworkers.”

Bodington tried to wave her off, all but ignoring her to make his case to the president. “Please, sir, listen to reas-”

Garcia’s shoulders began to tremble. “I realize we have an extreme situation here. Frankly, I don’t even give a damn if you call me a security guard. It’s what I do. Someday, I hope to work for the Clandestine Service-and when I do, I hope to have the sense to look at a little evidence before I accuse someone of being a cold-blooded terrorist.”

Clark gave a quiet smile, sucking on his front teeth the way he did when he was particularly amused. “Kurt, I think the fact that she didn’t call you a son of a bitch shows incredible restraint. Two points here: First, as Win points out, we have to trust someone. Second, I’m not suggesting you share anything. From what I’ve seen, you have damn little to share. I’ll do the sharing. So, do your boss a favor and sit still for a couple of minutes.”

Bodington clenched his teeth, but said nothing more.

“Win.” The president tipped his head toward Palmer. “Would you be so kind?”

“Of course, Mr. President.” Palmer turned in his seat to face Garcia, who calmed immediately from her confrontation. “Plainly speaking, late yesterday evening, intelligence sources in Pakistan confirmed a problem we had suspected for some time. Foreign agents placed within our government-moles.”

The director of the CIA shook her head. The muscles in her face clenched, but she kept quiet. It was obvious she agreed with her FBI counterpart. Briefing such a low-level employee was just not done. Palmer decided to address that from the beginning, since it was, after all, a plan he had endorsed to the president.

He moved to the edge of his chair, leaning in to close the distance between himself and the young woman. “We have to assume these agents… these moles could be anywhere and that they-like Deputy Director Magnuson-have passed various backgrounds and security checks. An in-depth review of both Timmons’s and Gerard’s files found several glaring holes in their backgrounds-facts that when take separately mean nothing, but in light of what they did, mean everything.”

Garcia sighed, pushing a lock of hair out of her eyes as she processed the information.

It was a lot of information to dump on her, but Palmer plowed ahead. “Both men are the sole survivors in their families. Neighbors who were interviewed for previous backgrounds admit they really knew the parents better than the boys. Neither have a single friend that remembers them earlier than the seventh grade. According to their supervisors at the Central Asia Desk, both were fluent in Turkic, but when we looked into it further, other than some Internet courses, there’s no record of them ever studying that particular language.”

“You believe them to be foreign born then?” Garcia mused.

“We do,” Palmer continued. “And we missed it in their initial backgrounds. Essentially, everyone in the government needs to be re-vetted-and that includes the ones doing the vetting.”

“Ah,” Garcia said, deflating slightly. “And since you feel you can trust me, I get to begin the process.”

The president held up the blue file folder containing the background investigation on Garcia. Palmer himself had completed a review only two hours before. “Except for your load of good old American credit card debt,” Clark said, “you come out smelling like a rose, my dear. Who would admit to having a Soviet father and Cuban mother if they wanted to hide something?”

Director Bodington folded his arms tight across his chest, looking toward the Rose Garden as if to distance himself from events unfolding before him. Palmer never had liked the man, finding him a bureaucratic bloviate without concrete facts to back anything up. All hat and no cattle.

Garcia’s eyes remained worshipfully attentive to the president, ignoring Bodington altogether. “I assume I’m being assigned to a team,” she said.

Palmer smiled. “This is the team,” he said. “Director Ross, Director Bodington… and you.”

“And we are to vet government employees?” Garcia went pale. “All government employees?”

The president laughed, sucking his front teeth again. “All two million of them-not counting the Postal Service-but we’ve prioritized the list. As you clear people, they will begin to assist with the background investigations.”

Garcia sat perfectly still.

“You in particular will focus on those with direct access to the president,” Palmer said, hoping to calm her fears.

She turned her head to one side, hands folded quietly in her lap. Her eyelids drooped with exhaustion. “If I might ask…”

Palmer’s chair began to chirp softly. Each piece of furniture in the Oval Office was equipped with a secure phone line so presidential guests could carry out pressing directives on the spot.

President Clark nodded. “Go ahead and take it, Win.”

Palmer slid open the upholstered drawer hidden below the seat cushion and took out a white handset.

“Sorry to trouble you, Mr. Palmer,” the voice said. It was Millie, his secretary. “You need to turn on the news, sir. The president will want to see this…”

Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson Anchorage

Canadian cousin to the more ubiquitous government Gulfstream G5 business jet of Hollywood spies, the luxurious Bombardier Challenger CL 601 sat sleek and falcon-like on the ramp. Just as Quinn was an OGA-other governmental agent-the executive jet was an other governmental aircraft. Registered to the Federal Aviation Administration, the pilots were former Special Operations and reported directly to the national security advisor. Palmer had dispatched the plane to get the Quinns out of Alaska. If the sheikh had sent one team, he was likely to have sent two.