Foreign Enemies and Traitors (90 page)

Colonel Spencer said, “General, we were not even considering taking that type of direct action against—”

“No.  Of course not.  And I would not be a party to any attempt to… my God, I can’t even speak the words!”

“General, we’re not considering any type of direct action along those lines.  For one thing, it would have no real effect; the vice president is almost as bad as the president.”

“They’re both traitors, they both defile the Constitution they swore to defend!”

“General, you said this planning conference will be at Camp David?”

“Yes, on Thursday.”

“Then I’m sure you’re familiar with Raven Rock Mountain, six miles north of Camp David in Pennsylvania.”

“Ah yes, Site R.  Of course.  The Alternate Joint Communications Center.  Possibly the most famous ‘secure undisclosed location’ in America.  I’ve been to The Rock many times.  It’s a mountain of solid granite, with a small city inside it.  I think I’ve got a bunk there with my name on it, although I’ve never stayed overnight.”

Colonel Spencer said, “My understanding is that its mission is to run emergency communications for the Pentagon during and after a nuclear war, isn’t that right?”

“Well, that’s mostly right.  Yes.  That’s essentially correct, if not the complete story.  It’s also the alternate National Military Command Center, the standby Pentagon.  At least, depending on which war scenario is playing out.  If it takes a twenty-megaton direct hit, it won’t be anything but a smoking crater, and other backup communication sites would be activated.  But short of that, yes.”

“General, isn’t it true that the Emergency Broadcast System can be triggered and run from Site R?  That almost every radio and television station in America can be switched to the EBS during a time of national emergency?”

“Yes, that’s correct.  They can do that and a lot more, all from inside Raven Rock Mountain.”

“And you’re authorized to enter Site R?”

“Well, yes, of course.  Anytime I want to, announced or unannounced.  I’m the commanding general of NORTHCOM.  I’m damn near the top of the cleared list.”

“Well, General,” said Colonel Spencer, “that raises an entire new range of possibilities.”

****

Bullard’s admin assistant knocked on his office door.

               
“Come in, Jeff.”  Director Bullard spun his executive chair around toward his desk.

               
Sinclair entered and sat in a leather and stainless steel chair across from him.  “We’ve got something here.  It might connect to the missing Legion humvee, and from there back to the situation with the Nigerians and the Kazaks.”

               
“Go on.”

               
“Remember yesterday’s morning briefing?  We found an audio clip of an American voice, and we thought it might have been sent by accident from that Kazak armored security vehicle.  The one that was stolen.”
             

               
“The one that almost started a war between the Kazaks and the Nigerians.”

               
“That’s the one.  Well, yesterday we fed that clip into Omnivore, and we just got a hit.  Last night, somebody made a phone call from Tennessee to Maryland, and Omnivore made a digital voice match.”

               
“Who was it?”

               
“At this point, it looks like the call was originated by an Army private named Douglas Dolan.  He called his mother’s house of record in Baltimore.  I can request a transcript, which will take a few hours.  Then I can print it out if you want to read it.”

               
“What’s the bottom line?  Who’s Douglas Dolan, and where is he now?”

               
“Private Dolan was assigned to an engineering regiment out of Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri.  His battalion was sent to Memphis after the first earthquake, and he’s been missing and presumed dead since last January.  After the second quake, he dropped off the radar completely, until he made that broadcast from the Kazak ASV.  Then last night he called Baltimore, and Omnivore put a name on him.”

               
“So where is he?”

               
“We don’t know where he is now, we just know where he called from last night.  He called from about twelve miles west of Clarksville, off of Highway 79.  We’ve narrowed it down to about a dozen possible homes and trailers.  They’re down on someplace called Roaring Hollow Road.  Of course, he also could have made the call from a vehicle, or he could have been on foot and not in any house at all.  The phone didn’t have GPS, so we could only triangulate off of cell towers.”

               
Bullard said, “I thought
all
cell phones were GPS trackable today.”

               
“I thought so too, but apparently not.  It was a prepaid phone, an old one, but it still had an active account.  I’m told the GPS function can be hacked out of those phones, even if they were originally GPS capable.  We’ll figure out how that happened later.”

               
“So who owns the phone?  Dolan?”

               
“No way to tell.  It was bought for cash two years ago in North Carolina.  More minutes have been put on it with airtime cards a couple of times, but they were always bought with cash, in little stores that don’t have surveillance cameras.”

               
“So the owner is a pro,” observed Bullard.

               
“Or just careful.”

               
“Dolan…  Can we place him in North Carolina two years ago?”
                “I have no clue.  We’re just starting to work him up.”

               
“What about these homes on Roaring Hollow Road? What do we know about them?”

                “Nothing yet, we just got the alert message from Omnivore.  We’re starting from square one.”

               
“Well, get a Predator over them, and record all activity in and out.  People, phone calls, radios—anything.  Get the property tax and title information on all of the landowners, rental contracts and any other records.  Give them a data-mining rectal exam.  And find out everything you can about Private Dolan.  Find out about Dolan’s family, especially his mother.”  Bullard smiled, and cracked his knuckles.  “This is great—this is just the hook we needed.  Keep me informed at each new step.” 

               
“Will do, boss.”

               
“And show me where this Roaring Hollow Road is.”  Bullard stood and walked across his office to a large-scale wall map of Tennessee and Kentucky, and found Fort Campbell and Clarksville.  Then he traced his finger west along Highway 79.

               
“The road is too small to see on this map,” said Sinclair.  “You’ll have to look on your computer to get down to the right scale.  It’s about here, south of 79.”

               
“That’s on the north side of the Cumberland River.  Damn, that’s close.”  Rivers formed natural barriers and choke points in Tennessee, especially since so many bridges were still down after the earthquakes.  The remaining key bridges were tightly guarded, and watched carefully.  But not carefully enough, evidently.  Their terrorist quarry had already managed to cross the mighty Tennessee River undetected at Carrolton.  Now they were apparently on the north side of the Cumberland, the last remaining water obstacle before Clarksville and Fort Campbell.

“Close is right,” agreed Bullard’s assistant.  “They could practically walk here from where that call was made.”

“Okay, get some surveillance teams out there.  Put remote video snoopers on all of the intersections; just make sure the installation teams are careful.  Any strangers driving down those back roads are going to be spotted in about five seconds.  These guys must be damned good to have made it this far—we don’t want to spook them by being clumsy.  Keep at least one Predator on top of Roaring Hollow Road around the clock.  That’ll be easy this close to base.  Keep on top of all of the cell phone activity in that sector in real time, in case they slip up again.  I’ve got a bad feeling about these guys.  After what they did in West Tennessee, I don’t want to take any chances.  I’d like to take them alive if possible, but not if it means we spook them and they take off again.

“Let me know about any suspicious activity we spot from the Predators, and then I’ll decide if we’re going to go for a SWAT raid, or if we’re just going to drop a Hellfire on their asses.  In case we decide on a raid, put the tactical response team on standby.  Just be careful, and don’t tip them off before we can pin them down and corner them.  I’d rather just blow them to hell with a missile than tip them off and have them scatter.”

Bob Bullard did not mention another factor that was consuming his thoughts.  This Roaring Hollow Road, between the Cumberland River and Highway 79, was practically in Fort Campbell’s backyard.  Miles of Highway 79 formed the unfenced southern boundary of Fort Campbell.  Just as he had suspected, the group that had killed over twenty Kazak, Nigerian and Mexican peacekeepers was being drawn toward Fort Campbell like bloodhounds on a fresh scent trail.  Toward Fort Campbell, the home of both the 5th Special Forces Group and his own Department of Rural Pacification.

Yes, he’d prefer to take these boys alive, just to see who they were and what made them tick.  He’d like to run a long-term aerial and ground surveillance on them, and find out all of their contacts and discover any other safehouses.  But if there wasn’t a clear opening for a slam-dunk SWAT raid to take them alive, then once he located them, he’d just drop a missile and be done with it.  These killers from southwestern Tennessee were extremely dangerous, and Bob Bullard had not risen to his current position by taking unnecessary risks.

****

General Mirabeau’s command sergeant major
did make it back to Corinth before suppertime.  In addition, on their return flight the Blackhawk’s crew chief had managed to snap a series of high-resolution digital photographs of the massacre site from 6,000 feet up.  The brand new photographs were compared to archived Google Earth images of the same terrain.  There was no doubt that the ravine formerly at those coordinates had been bulldozed flat.  Track marks left by an earthmover were still visible on the freshly churned earth.  A few dozen small pine trees had obviously been dug up from nearby and replanted over this scar on the earth.  After a year or two, as grass and weeds took root and the trees continued to grow, the cover-up would have become all but undetectable.  But the evidence was clear in the side-by-side imagery.

                The general’s staff traveled with him and was never far from hand.  He called a planning meeting for 1700 hours in his mobile headquarters RV.  A folding mess hall table was set up lengthwise, extending from the front of his desk down the center of the open space.  His officers took their seats on either side of the table, his CSO at the far end.  As usual, they were dressed in their digital ACU combat uniforms.  The late afternoon staff meeting was not out of the ordinary, but the mood was more serious than usual.  The nine officers were already seated in their places by 1700, ready and waiting.  They all stood to attention when General Mirabeau entered the RV at 1701.

                “Seats, gentlemen,” he said as he dropped into his own chair behind his desk.  “You’ve all seen the pictures, and you’ve seen the witness depositions.  I’ve prayed over this, and, well, I’ve decided we’re not going to just stand by and receive refugees while Americans are massacred less than twenty miles from where we’re sitting.  So this is the bottom line: I want to be ready to conduct a helicopter assault on the site of the massacre, and on the barracks and headquarters of the Kazak Battalion.  I want an ops plan that I can execute in twenty-four hours.  Let me know how many helicopters and how many troops we can assemble and how fast.  Count all of the operational helos at Benning, Rucker and Hunter. 

                Our first objective will be to secure the area around the ravine, and as soon as that’s accomplished, we’ll deal with the Kazaks.  They’ll surrender and make an accounting of their actions, or they’ll be wiped out.  For planning purposes, assume that NORTHCOM is uncooperative.  Uncooperative, but not hostile.  I should know more about NORTHCOM’s likely reaction by tomorrow, but I want to be prepared to launch under a full spectrum of contin-gencies.  We’ll meet again at 1900, so be prepared to brief me on options.  For now, we’ll go around the table as usual.  Give your normal p.m. SITREPS, and then we’ll do a little brainstorming.”

                ****

Colonel Spencer drove Boone Vikersun
from Fort Campbell to his home in a newer subdivision north of Clarksville.  The colonel’s wife made them spaghetti for dinner, and then they retired to his office to discuss the events of the past few days, and plan their next moves.  The colonel used his computer to make copies of the primary photographic and video evidence while they talked.  Colonel Spencer had changed to casual civilian clothes when he got home, but “Major Garrett” was still dressed in his borrowed blue Army Service Uniform.

Boone said, “I can’t believe that the general went for it.”  He had never been to the colonel’s home, and he examined with keen interest the military artifacts on the walls and shelves.

“I can,” replied Colonel Spencer.  “He’s a good man.  He taught at the War College when he was a one-star and I was a major.  That’s where I first met him.  We’ve stayed in touch, off and on.  You could tell that this situation with the foreign mercenaries has been eating his guts out.  He was just waiting for a push, and the massacre was all it took.”

“It seems almost like a miracle that we walked into his office right after he’d seen the other pictures.  It’s almost like he’d been set up to hear our pitch.  Like he had been primed for it.”