Mike Maden - Drone Threat

Lane shook his head. “I’m with Troy. If we do this, it’s got to be a maximum effort. Total war, total victory. Annihilate every last one of the bastards. I’m just not convinced yet it’s time to go to those extremes. I made a campaign promise. If and when I’m ready to go to those extremes, I won’t wage an undeclared war. I’ll go to Congress first and get a formal declaration. If we’re going to wage a total war, I want the full support of Congress and the American people.”

“If we brought some of the congressional leadership into the loop, I think you’d see that they would be in complete support of a war declaration,” Grafton said. “A total war to eliminate ISIS is something they could sell to their constituents, especially if we released the threat letter and told them about today’s attack.”

“If we release this information to the public, there will be a war whether you want one or not, Mr. President,” Peguero said. “I strongly advise against inflaming public opinion.”

Pearce ignored the AG. “If we’re serious about going to war, then we need to talk about bringing back the draft.”

“Amen to that,” Garza said. “Everybody needs to pay the price for this, including the sons and daughters of Congress and Wall Street.”

“What would convince you it’s time to go to war, Mr. President?” al-Saud asked.

“Right now we’re only dealing with a bloodless event. The kind of war I’m talking about will be anything but bloodless, and a lot of innocents will get caught in the meat grinder. I still can’t shake the fact that over a million Iraqis might have died in the fighting since Saddam’s fall. I’ll make that call for war, but only if the threat has truly escalated.”

“For what it’s worth, the Open Source Indicators show chatter’s up,” Eaton said. “The word’s starting to get out on this mess and they’re expecting more. Apocalypse and all of that.”

“I’d say al-Mahdi got our message,” Chandler said.

Pearce shook his head. Something wasn’t adding up. DARPA’s OSI program was designed as predictive software, vacuuming up every spec of Big Data it could find on the Internet and in social media to try to predict future events. A few years back, one Georgetown scientist proved the concept by using Open Source Indicators to retroactively predict the location of Bin Laden’s hideout in Pakistan. If the OSI was now predicting future trouble, it was probably right, but it didn’t take a crystal ball to figure that out, either. The ISIS assholes were always talking about the end-times. The whole point was to provoke a war that would bring the ultimate apocalypse. Why drop a private message on the White House lawn instead of broadcasting the threat on global social media?

Garza’s cell phone rang. “Mr. President, I should take this.”

“Of course.”

Garza picked up. All eyes were on him. He listened, nodding. Finally, “I appreciate the heads-up.” He hung up the phone.

Garza turned to the rest of the room. “That was the DNI. The guy who delivered our letter to al-Mahdi just arrived at the home of the CIA chief of station in Sarajevo twenty minutes ago. Sort of.”

“Meaning?” Lane asked.

“Technically, only his head arrived. In a box. Allahu Akbar was branded into his forehead and an ISIS gold dinar coin was shoved in his toothless mouth.”

“Well, there’s our answer,” Chandler said. “Poor fellow.”

“He was senior management in the Turkish mafia. Nobody will miss him, not even his own mother,” Garza said.

“Why were we dealing with the Turkish mafia?” Grafton asked.

“Dirty war, dirty friends,” Eaton said.

Pearce checked his watch. Margaret should be landing in Frankfurt any minute now — if her plane didn’t get blown out of the sky by a drone on approach.

“If the worst is over for today, I’m assuming we have until noon tomorrow before the next shoe drops,” Lane said. “Let’s make the best use of that time possible.” He turned toward the Saudi ambassador. “Thank you for taking the time to come over and answer our questions.”

“Of course. I’m happy to remain here as long as you need me.”

“Mr. President, a word, if you don’t mind,” Pearce said. He stepped over to the far side of the room. Lane followed him.

“Is there a problem, Troy?”

“I don’t think it’s wise to keep the ambassador in the loop.”

“Clay assures me he’s reliable and discreet.”

“The vice president forgets the ambassador is a Saudi national and a royal. He’s honor bound to promote the interests of his government over ours. And frankly, I’m not sure why Grafton is here, either.”

Lane studied Pearce’s eyes. “Is there something you know that I don’t? Or is this personal?”

“Let’s just say I have some trust issues.” Pearce glanced over Lane’s shoulder. Saw Chandler glowering at him. “But it’s your call, of course.”

“I’ll take it under advisement. Anything else?”

“No, sir. Just had to get that off my chest.” He checked his watch. “The first Gorgon Sky launch was ten minutes ago, over D.C. New York will have one in about an hour. I should get back on the horn and see how the other systems are coming along.”

“Thanks, Troy. For everything. We’ll get through this.”

“Yes, sir.”

Pearce left the room. No doubt we’ll get through it , he thought as he passed through the hallway. He just wasn’t sure what they’d all look like on the other side of the wood chipper.

After passing through customs, Myers proceeded through the packed terminal, her mind still on the news flash that pulled up on her smartphone when she powered it on after landing. A “software glitch” in the U.S. National Airspace System sounded awfully suspicious to her but it was a plausible reason to ground air traffic around the country if that really was the problem. Pearce had left a terse voice mail telling her he missed her and to call him as soon as she landed but she decided to wait because she was running late. The American air traffic shutdown had international flight ramifications, especially for Germany, one of America’s largest trading partners. With so many passenger and cargo flights scheduled for the United States now canceled, airport terminals around the world were jammed. Her Lufthansa flight circled above Frankfurt airport for an extra forty minutes before it could land. German customs was mercifully short.

The terminal Myers was passing through on the way to baggage claim was packed shoulder to shoulder. She loved airports. They always gave her the feeling of an adventure about to take place. It was particularly thrilling to hear so many languages being spoken here in Frankfurt, the third-busiest airport in Europe. In addition to German, she heard Hindi, Swahili, Polish, and Italian spoken around her as she made her way down to Level 1 and the baggage claim area.

Arabic, too.

And yet while she was appreciating the beautiful mosaic of global humanity all around her, she had been with Troy Pearce long enough to pick up some of his security habits. She was never a worrier either before or after becoming president, which was one of the reasons she refused Secret Service protection after she left office. Her first line of defense was keeping a low profile. A big security entourage, press coverage, and official welcomes only drew attention to her value as a target. As for her personal defense, she worked out and was very fit despite her adult-onset diabetes, and had trained in aikido for years, as much for fun as anything else. Back in the States, she had a concealed carry permit and was proficient in the use of a Ruger LCR 9mm snub-nosed revolver.