Jack Coughlin - Running the Maze

In what was no more than a routine milk run for the biggest bombers in the U.S. arsenal, the triangle of three aircraft reached a plotted GPS location only thirty seconds after the F-18 napalm strike. The large doors on the bottom of the planes opened with the hiss of hydraulics, and every B-52 spilled out fifty-one Mk-82 general purpose bombs, each weighing five hundred pounds.

Lieutenant Farooq was recovering from the shock of the napalm attack, and leaning against his Humvee, smoking a cigarette, while his superiors processed his new information. He looked around to satisfy himself that everyone was in position and the road was blocked. Nobody would leave or enter the area at his end until they could assess what was going on. The fires were out in the valley, but smoke still rose like thick mist from the earth.

He heard a high-pitched whine in the heavens, no louder than wind whistling through trees, and for the second time that morning, his world erupted.

The B-52 bombs hammered down just far enough away to give Farooq a chance to actually see the explosions blossom in towering spouts of earth and dirt before the sound reached his ears and the concussions slammed him. He staggered and fell, and his men again dove for protection. The vehicles rocked on their suspensions and the 153 bombs strolled along, punching the ground and gouging out craters in ragged, side-by-side lines that stretched more than a mile. A dust cloud rose like a curtain and drifted toward the soldiers. Farooq’s ears were ringing, his jaw was sore from gritting his teeth, and he pulled a scarf across his nose and mouth so he could breathe.

He had never experienced anything like this. What was it? He had never even seen the planes that dropped the bombs, and looking up now, he still could not find them. Rising to a knee, he pulled his binoculars to his eyes and was finally able to spy the flight of three bombers disappearing on a steady northward course. Turning back to the damage, the young officer realized the target had once again been the valley, which was now twisted and pulverized. After being scoured by napalm and crunched by bombs, it was a no-man’s-land. The bridge was still untouched, but he doubted that would be the case very long. He reached again for his radio to alert his superiors, knowing that they still would not believe that the Americans were actually attacking in Pakistan with a full military strike, not with unmanned drones or a team of special operations soldiers, but in force, with the heavy, frontline weapons that had been in use since the Cold War. If they didn’t believe him, he would invite them to come and see for themselves, for he knew this party was just starting.

Even as the shaky lieutenant was updating his report, he heard the throaty sound of a multiengine airplane approaching and saw an AC-130 coming up the valley, low and slow and ominous. “Now a Spectre gunship is coming in,” he yelled. “It’s going after the bridge.”

The lumbering plane climbed for some altitude and banked to the right as the sensors precisely computed the target and the side-firing gunners opened up, raining 40 mm and booming 105 mm cannon fire. As the aircraft flew past the bridge, left to right, the shells started at one end and walked all the way across, tearing up the surface and destroying almost every vehicle and piece of equipment on it. It made three passes before departing, leaving the surface in smoking ruin.

Farooq had fallen speechless. The voice on the radio was calling for him to answer, but words failed him. The destruction he had witnessed in the past few minutes was beyond imagination. He heard someone yelling, “Lieutenant! Lieutenant!” in his face and felt someone shaking him hard, but Farooq was too dazed to answer until his platoon sergeant finally slapped him and poured water onto his face.

“Helicopters, sir,” the sergeant shouted. “I hear helicopters.”

SECRETARY OF STATE MARK Grayson was the youngest son of a judge in Oregon, and both of his brothers were lawyers. It had been pounded into his head during family dinners for as long as he could remember that there are two sides to every story, even when pictures and witnesses and evidence pointed to a slam-dunk conviction of an accused person. Presumed innocence was the foundation of the American system of justice. Now he was seated on a sofa across from the president of the United States, having to accuse one of his own trusted advisers of treason, based on flimsy, circumstantial evidence gathered by the national intelligence community. They had been wrong before.

The president had come up from the Situation Room, where he had been monitoring the attack in Pakistan, because Secretary Grayson had said he had a matter that needed his urgent and immediate attention. The president listened to Grayson and to Andy Moore of the CIA with an expression of disbelief.

“Let me be certain that I understand you, Mark,” he said. “A senior diplomat, the head of the Bureau of American-Islamic Affairs, a man who had cleared the most stringent background checks, actually has been working with a terrorist organization dedicated to destroying the United States? Is that even possible?”

Grayson thought he saw the president’s eternal air of absolute confidence deflating. “I’m afraid so, sir. The intel community has been onto him for a couple of days. There’s no doubt in my mind that Bill Curtis has for some time been aiding the New Muslim Order and its leader, Commander Kahn. Unbelievable and unproven, but an apparent fact.”

The president slid his half-glasses down his long nose and read the one-page report again. He asked the CIA briefer, “You’re sure about this one, Andy?”

“Yes, sir. We had hacked the e-mails of Mohammed Javid Bhatti, a Pakistani at the UN, who is his main contact. Bhatti received an encoded message a few hours ago from Pakistan, and we back-tracked it to the security chief of the New Muslim Order, a man named Ayman al-Masri. Bhatti passed it on, word for word, to Curtis.”

“What did the message say?”

“We’re still breaking it down, sir, but one of our specialists in Pakistan has been questioning that prisoner picked up during the raid on the bridge, the guy who built it, and he confirms the bridge was to be a haven for Commander Kahn. He repeatedly coughed up Bill Curtis’s name as an old friend. If the bridge was being built for the New Muslim Order, and the e-mail is directly from the NMO, then Mr. Curtis has some explaining to do.”

“You bet he does.” The president laid the report on a small table, took off his glasses, folded them and put them in his shirt pocket, then looked at his watch. Almost midnight. “I remember once a long time ago when I actually wanted this job, even went out and campaigned for it. I don’t know if I would do it again. Your recommendation on the Curtis situation, Mr. Secretary?”

“We should take him into custody immediately and quietly,” said Grayson. “Do it under Homeland Security provisions and declare him an enemy combatant, so the case will be under a military tribunal. I can’t believe I’m saying this, but the burden will be on Curtis to earn our trust. At present, although he is an American citizen, he cannot have an open trial in a public courtroom.”

The president looked steadily at both Grayson and the CIA man, Moore. “Well, Mark, it looks like you’ve got to take on the Pakistani complaints after all. Our guys are kicking butt over there on that bridge. It is hard to imagine having a mole this high in the government. Good job digging this guy out. Go get Curtis, and find him a cot in Guantánamo.”

“Yes, sir.” Grayson sat back, glad that his part of this meeting was done.

The White House chief of staff picked up the ball. “One more thing, sir. We have to consider that Curtis may be orchestrating some kind of high profile strike against the Mars mission. The Pentagon, Homeland Security, and NASA are already on it.”