The Last Jihad (8 page)

This was Crystal Palace, code-name for the North American Air Defense command—NORAD—located deep inside Cheyenne Mountain in southern Colorado. The Mountain was now sealed. The president was safe.

The principals were ready.

The Counter-Terrorism Task Force video conference was now in session, linking all the major players in the federal government to the vice president in the PEOC, code named “Prairie Ranch.” National Security Advisor Marsha Kirkpatrick quickly settled the room down and got things moving.

“OK, gentlemen, if you’d take your seats…and Mr. Secretary, if you’d sit in that seat to your right…great…OK, we’re a go,” said Kirkpatrick, as everyone in the room looked up at a wall of large-screen video monitors and digital clocks showing the time in major cities all over the world.

“Take the roll call,” the vice president directed.

“Yes, sir. Gentlemen, this is National Security Advisor Marsha Kirkpatrick at Prairie Ranch. With me are Vice President Oaks and Secretary of State Tucker Paine. SecDef, are you with us?”

“I’m here, and I’ve got almost all the Chiefs with me—Navy is still on the way,” said Defense Secretary Burt Trainor, the sixty-four-year-old Vietnam vet and recent General Motors CEO, once named one of
Black Enterprise
magazine’s top ten CEOs of the twenty-first century.

“Good. Treasury Secretary Iverson is out in Colorado with Bob Corsetti, en route to Crystal Palace. Is the Deputy Secretary with us?”

“Yes, Marsha, I’m here, and I’ve got Fed Chairman Allen with me,” said the sixty-three-year-old Deputy Treasury Secretary, Michael Forrester. “The chairman and I are in the communications center underneath the U.S. Embassy in Tokyo. We were supposed to meet with the prime minister later today, and the heads of the Asian central banks.”

“That’s off,” said Kirkpatrick.

“Right, we’re getting on an Air Force jet in about an hour to head back to Washington,” replied Forrester.

“Mr. Chairman? It’s Bill,” interjected the vice president.

“Yes, Mr. Vice President,” responded George Allen, seventy-one, in his first term as chairman after nearly two decades on the Federal Reserve Board.

“Got anything?”

“As a matter of fact, I do, sir. At 6:45
A.M.
Eastern the Fed will announce a significant cut in the Fed funds rate.”

“How much are we looking at, George? Off the record, of course.”

“Off the record? Fifty basis points.”

“Half a point? That’s great, George. Thanks. I’ll tell the president.”

“Yes, sir. How is he?”

“He’ll be fine, incredibly. It’s a miracle. Have you seen the video of the attack yet?”

“No, sir, not yet,” said Allen.

“Horrifying. How anyone could have walked out alive is, well…”

“The grace of God, sir,” noted the Fed chairman.

“Certainly is. The sad thing is the agents. We’ve lost three for sure. The others—well—some of them are in pretty bad shape. I don’t know if some of these guys are going to make it.”

“We’re praying for all of them, and the president, and you, sir,” Chairman Allen added.

“Thanks, George, that’s very gracious of you.”

“My pleasure.”

“Do we have the AG?” asked Kirkpatrick.

“I’m here, Marsha. And I’ve got my senior team with me,” said Attorney General Neil Wittimore, the fifty-six-year-old former New York State Attorney General, at the Justice Department.

“And the DCI?”

“Yes, ma’am,” said Jack Mitchell, fifty-one, the colorful, Houston-born Director of Central Intelligence and a twenty-two-year veteran of the intelligence community. “I’ve got the DDO with me. The DDI is downstairs, but I’ve got an open line to him.”

“Is he alone, in a secure room?” Kirkpatrick asked.

“Yes, ma’am. We’re all set.”

“Great. Thanks. FBI?”

“I’m here,” said Bureau Director Scott Harris.

“Secret Service?”

“It’s Bud. I’m here, Marsha, and I concur with the vice president’s comments,” said Bud Norris. “The president is really hanging in there. But my boys are fighting—they’re fighting for their lives right now, and Mr. Chairman, they’ll take all the prayers they can get. Thank you very much, sir.”

“You’re welcome, Bud,” Chairman Allen said softy. “You hang in there.”

“Will do, sir. Will do.”

“OK, we’re all present and accounted for, Mr. Vice President. It’s all yours,” Kirkpatrick said, sifting through a series of cables and intel reports just set before her.

“Oh my God, Jim—thank God you’re alive.”

First Lady Julie MacPherson, surrounded by heavily armed Secret Service agents in the family’s Beaver Creek lodge was already on heavy medication to calm her shattered nerves. Hearing her husband’s voice for the first time since the attack, she immediately welled up with tears.

“…hey, sweetie…how are you?…How are the girls?” he responded, his voice weak, his blood coursing with narcotics.

Julie MacPherson tried to fight back her emotions, to be strong for her husband, to be there for him in spirit if not in person.

“We’re all good, sweetheart. It’s so good to hear your voice. We’ve been praying for you nonstop.”

“…thanks…I just keep…I just keep thinking…what did…what did Reagan say that time?…
‘Honey, I forgot to duck’
…”

The First Lady began to laugh, but it quickly disintegrated into sobbing, her body heaving with emotion. All she could think of was how blessed she was, and how devastated the wives of the slain agents must be. And for the moment, it was more than she could bear.

The room was a meat locker.

It couldn’t have been more than sixty degrees in there. The vice president—now wearing jeans, a thick navy blue wool sweater, and a navy blue fleece jacket with the vice presidential seal on it—leaned forward and held court.

“OK. The president is safe and secure at Crystal Palace. They’ve buttoned up the mountain and he’s got a team of medics working on him as we speak. Burt, where are we with airspace and military status right now?”

“Mr. Vice President, as you know we’ve moved to Threatcon Delta. With your permission, we’d like to go to DefCon three.”

“Do it.”

“Thank you, sir. As you also know, we’ve scrambled three F-15 squadrons to fly CAP over Colorado at the moment. The state is under a full ground stop. No flights can take off or land in the state until further notice. We’ve also instituted a full ground stop over the Washington, D.C., Virginia and Maryland area and have F-15s and F-16s flying CAP here, as well. We’ve also scrambled F-16s to guard the coastlines and the borders with Canada and Mexico.”

“Mr. Vice President, this is Scott at FBI.”

“Yes, Scott.”

“Shouldn’t we shut down everything?”

“Burt, what do you guys think?” the VP asked, turning to the Defense Secretary.

“Mr. Vice President, I don’t think we have any indication this is another 9-11. Not yet, anyway. I think what we’ve got is an attempt to take out the president, not a general series of attacks.”

“Marsha, how about you?”

“I think the secretary is probably right. You’re secure. The Speaker is secure. All of the Cabinet secretaries are secure. We’re going to keep monitoring everything. But let’s keep in mind what we know. This wasn’t a commercial jetliner. It was a private jet—a Gulfstream IV—chartered out of Toronto, apparently by some oil executives. That, of course, may just be a cover story. It may not have been a hijacking at all. And despite some twenty-five thousand flights each and every day, we haven’t had a single hijacking over U.S. airspace in quite some time. Again, we’ll shut down everything if we have to. But I just want us to be careful not to overreact here.”

“Overreact?” interjected Harris. “Someone just tried to take out the president and decapitate the U.S. government.”

“Scott, I don’t disagree with you. I’m saying the airline industry is finally back on its feet. We’ve got millions of Thanksgiving passengers headed to the airports later today. Let’s just stay cool before we shut the thing down again.”

“You’ve got to be kidding, Marsha,” Harris sniffed in disgust. “That’s precisely why we need to shut everything down. We could have a nightmare scenario on our hands. Look, when I woke up this morning—yesterday morning, whatever—I would have told you unequivocally that we’re doing a pretty good job protecting U.S. air travel. I’d have put my wife and kids on any commercial flight in the country. Right now, I’m not so sure.”

“How many air marshals have we got up tonight, Scott?” the VP asked.

“I don’t know off the top of my head, sir.”

“Ballpark.”

“Ballpark? Probably about three hundred—mostly on international flights coming into the U.S. and on all flights that are headed—were headed—in and out of Washington. But private aviation is totally unmonitored. No security checks. No metal detectors or X-ray machines or anything. You can just get on any private plane at any time of the day or night and there’s absolutely no security. At the minimum, we should ground all private aviation until we get to the bottom of this thing.”

The VP sat back for a moment and scanned the bank of video screens before him.

“All right. I’m going to talk to the president. But I want the FAA on notice that we may shut everything down on a moment’s notice. Marsha, you got that?”

“Yes, sir.”

“What about y’alls engagement orders over D.C. and Colorado?” asked Jack Mitchell at Langley.

Defense Secretary Trainor took that one.

“As per the president’s Executive Order several years ago, any full ground stop combined with a CAP triggers immediate presidential authorization to shoot down any aircraft noncompliant with the order.”

“Neil, are we in any Constitutional problems with the president under so much sedation?” Kirkpatrick asked the Attorney General.

“We could be soon. My team is working up the papers to put the VP in charge, should that become necessary. We really need an update on his progress.”

“Shouldn’t be long,” Kirkpatrick told Wittimore, then turned to the VP. “Sir, once we know for sure the president’s status, I think you should make a statement in the press room.”

“I agree.”

The VP turned and directed an aide to begin gathering the White House press corps—at least, those not traveling with the president and thus stranded out on I-70 in Denver—to begin assembling for a briefing.

“Mr. Vice President, just a few things from my shop,” said Secretary of State Tucker Paine, as the immediate security issues were finished.

“Yes, Tuck, what’ve you got?”

“I just got off the phone with the Kremlin a moment ago. As you know, Marsha and I just returned from Moscow.”

“Right. What are they saying?”

“The trip itself was productive. They appreciated the emergency aid package very much, and they’ve been remarkably cooperative on the intelligence-sharing front. But they are very concerned about this latest attack, and they don’t believe there’s any
al-Qaeda
involvement. Not this time. Not with all the success we’ve all had in ripping up their network.”

“Who are they looking at?”

“They’re reluctant to say. But their first instinct is that it smells like Iraq.”

“Why?”

“I think they’re working on something. We should have more later this morning.”

“OK, let me know first thing?”

“Mr. Vice President?”

“Yes, Jack?”

Jack Mitchell—Texas born and bred—was a close friend of the VP, as well as the president, having met MacPherson in the jungles of Vietnam as a junior field agent with the CIA. When MacPherson returned to the States and headed for Wall Street, Mitchell asked for and received a transfer to the Middle East, rotating through a number of Gulf states. He eventually worked his way up to become the CIA station chief in Baghdad, shadowing the operatives of
Mukhabarat
—the Iraqi intelligence service—tracking the influx of Soviet and East German weapons, advisors, and scientists, and trying to keep tabs on activities at such places as Salman Pak, a terrorist training camp and biological weapons factory located south of Baghdad along the Tigris River.

Mitchell returned to the U.S. in 1989 to head up the Near East Operations Division at Langley, directing the Agency’s Scud-hunting efforts during the Gulf War in 1991. He was also instrumental in helping secure the defection of two of Iraq’s top nuclear scientists during the 1990s, two of the most dramatic yet publicly unheralded modern successes of the beleaguered American spy network. But for all his experience, Mitchell now shifted uncomfortably in his seat and stuffed some fresh tobacco chew between his cheek and gum.

“This thing’s going from bad to worse, fast.”

“How so?” the VP asked.

“We’re not the only ones getting hit.”

Mitchell whispered to an assistant to begin rolling some newly acquired videotape from various CIA stations around the globe. Then he began narrating.

“Oh my God,” said the vice president.

Though obviously taken by amateurs, the images were surreal. The Canadian Embassy in Paris was on fire. Every building in the compound was completely ablaze. Somehow the photographer—a Canadian tourist filming his fiancée in front of the embassy just moments before the attack began—had captured three successive car bomb explosions, one after another, inside the gates, followed by mortar fire coming in over the couple’s heads. Everyone in the room, including the vice president, was visibly shaken.

“This footage just came in,” said Mitchell.

“Casualties?” asked the VP.

“No word yet, sir. We’re still trying to gather more information.” We’ve got two field agents on the scene right now and more on the way.”

“The Canadian Embassy, Jack? What the hell for?” asked Trainor.

“It’s the new embassy. Just completed. Canadian president Jean Luc was there to dedicate it. They’ve been having a huge party there all night.”

The room fell silent.

“I’m afraid that’s not all, sir.”

Mitchell now directed everyone’s attention to a second video screen.