Traitor (41 page)

By 6:00 p.m., Frankie began to wonder how long it could take to fly to Miami, having still not heard from Deputy Director Turner. At 6:30 p.m., she knew she would never hear from him again.

The breaking news that the man who had led the investigation and foiled Nick Geller’s plot was to be appointed Deputy Attorney General flashed on Frankie’s TV screen. A beaming, newly minted Deputy Attorney General Paul Turner stepped forward. Frankie spotted Secretary of Defense Harry Carson in the background of the shot.

She turned off her TV, packed a bag that would fit in her Porsche and drove out of Washington for the last time. Her destination: Colorado.

EIGHTEEN MONTHS EARLIER

Harry Carson paced the corridor outside the White House Situation Room. His position was one that few knew and even fewer understood. He solved problems before they became issues. A new problem had arisen. One that was way beyond his normal remit and as a result, he had asked for a special meeting with President Mitchell and Secretary of Defense Bob Hammond. Finally, the meeting that was delaying his access began to break up. The attendees filed past him warily. Harry Carson was a man few ever wanted to see in their department. If he was there, something big was about to happen.

With the room finally empty of all but the two men he needed to see, Harry entered the room, closed the door behind him and ensured that any recording devices were switched off. President Mitchell and Bob Hammond watched the unshakeable Harry Carson fuss around the room checking the devices with some concern. Harry Carson was unflappable, emotionless, nerveless. But he was obviously worried, which could only mean one thing: They should be
very
worried.

“Jesus Christ, Harry! What the fuck is wrong?” asked Bob, unable to wait any longer.

“Gentlemen, these are chatter graphs,” he said, laying out a number of charts on the large conference table. “And when I say chatter, it’s the level of communication from areas of known terrorist organizations. It’s a gauge of how active the terrorists are.” Both members of his audience nodded. “This is the graph up two weeks ago.” He tracked a fairly uniform pattern with his index finger, no spikes or curves, just a fairly flat straight line. Both nodded again.

Carson put down a new chart. “This is from then until today, Monday.” He pointed to a massive spike in activity.

“Yes,” said the President. “The CIA has told us it’s to do with the Caliph Zahir al Zahrani announcing some new offensive. They expect the levels to drop back in the next few days. They don’t have the support or power they once had.”

“One part of that’s correct. Al Qaeda is not as powerful as it once was and alone it’s not the concern it once was.”

“And the other part that’s not correct?” asked Bob.

“That the levels will die down,” he said somberly. “Zahir al Zahrani has a plan, a dream it would seem, to join with all of the other jihadist organizations across the radicalized world and create one army fighting for Allah.”

“Never going to happen,” scoffed Bob. “Too many factions and differences between them.”

Harry pulled out another chart. “I asked some very clever guys to drill down into what they could of the chatter. There is one shit load of crosstalk between organizations that we would never have thought possible. This is real, gentlemen,” cautioned Harry sternly.

“Okay, Harry, you’ve got our attention,” said President Mitchell, sitting more rigidly in his chair.

“So what’s the plan?” asked Bob.

“The plan?” asked Harry.

“The plan, Harry, you know, the one you don’t enter a room without.”

“Oh, that plan,” he smiled, walking to the door and opening it. “You can come in,” he said to someone in the hall.

“President Mitchell, Secretary Hammond, let me present to you the most traitorous son of a bitch this country has ever produced, Nick Geller.”

“Nick,” said Secretary Hammond.

“Mr. Secretary,” replied Nick.

“You know each other?” asked President Mitchell, still confused as to what Harry was proposing.

“Nick is one of our guys in Defense Clandestine Services, one of our very best.”

Nick proudly squared his shoulders. “Thank you, Mr. Secretary.”

“I thought you said he was a traitor?” asked the President.

“Not yet, but by the time I’ve finished with him, his own family, if they were still alive, would hate him,” said Harry confidently.

“Perhaps I’m missing something or just being particularly stupid today but what exactly the fuck is it you’re planning to do?”

“Hijack Zahrani’s plan.”

“Surely we want to stop it?” asked the President in frustration.

“And then we’d have to stop them again the next time, and again and again. And then what would happen the time we didn’t stop them?”

“So, no offense, Nick,” said the President before turning to Carson, “but that’s it? One guy? We’ve got over one and a half million service men and women and millions more in law enforcement to take these guys down. One guy? Seriously?”

“One guy who they think is theirs.”

“Geller…” President Mitchell mused, “that’s a Jewish name, isn’t it?”

“We’ve worked that into his cover. The religions have more in common than you’d think.”

“Perhaps if you start from the beginning and just explain it to us,” said Bob.

“Last week, I visited Creech Air Force Base in Nevada on a trip to LA,” said Harry. “While I was there, I witnessed the amazing work they’re doing with drones. Anyway, I wondered if they could do something similar with our E3s and tankers. After a chat with the commander of the unit, he promised he’d do some evaluations. On the flight down to LA, we passed over a couple of airport storage facilities which, given the information we have on Zahrani’s plans, got me thinking.”

“What did?” asked the President impatiently.

“The drones and the storage yards. It came to me. What if we could get all the jihadists into one controlled area in which we were free— and without risk to any innocent life— to do anything that was necessary?”

“Yes?” Bob pressed.

“Aircraft. If we get them onto planes, they’d be weaponless, totally defenseless and at our mercy.”

“And how do we convince them to board these planes?”

‘We make them think they’re coming to destroy us. We make them think they’re part of the one true army fighting for Allah, a holy jihad to rid the world of American evil.”

“I’m not convinced,” said President Mitchell.

“We’re still at the planning stage. There’s a lot we need to work out. How do we get them to trust Nick? How do we get them to believe he can take Al Zahrani’s plan and make it happen? To be honest, we’re struggling to make it work with Al Zahrani around. We need to control the timescale, not him.”

“Sounds like an impossible dream,” said the President. “Perhaps we should just focus on stopping them.”

“We think it’s possible. We just need to think like the jihadists. Remember, they’ll sacrifice themselves for their cause. That’s where they have the drop on us but we can use that to our advantage.”

“You’re losing me again,” said the President.

“The key, we believe, requires four stages. Nick winning their trust, that’s number one and perhaps the hardest but we believe we can create a scenario that will make that possible. Stage two is Nick gaining the trust of Caliph Al Zahrani, again difficult but under the right circumstances, possible.”

“So far, all I see is Nick being executed very publicly to humiliate us,” said Bob.

“Stage three,” continued Harry, ignoring Bob, “is where it gets tricky. We remove Al Zahrani, or at least Nick does.”

“You kill him?’ asked the President.

“So he can receive a medal from you and in the process attempt to assassinate you,” said Harry quickly. “And this room could do with an update anyway. In fact, the whole West Wing could do with a refurb.”

“Attempt to assassinate me and blow up the West Wing? You’ve got to be fucking kidding me?!”

“Nick would then escape and, armed with a tape of Al Zahrani to prove that he is carrying out Al Zahrani’s plan, the tape will show Al Zahrani sacrificing himself for the greater cause. Nick then steals a deadly virus and over a period of weeks causes utter and total panic in the US while gaining the trust, confidence and admiration of the jihadists across the Arab world. They will rise and fight with the man who very nearly killed the President and has in his possession a virus that will destroy the entire country.”

“In the meantime, we kit out a number of planes that we then sucker them onto thinking they’re coming to carry out their jihad and destroy America.”

“It’s absolutely fucking crazy!” said the President. “Nick will be dead in ten minutes and we’ll have done nothing to stop them! You know there’s no chance you’ll survive this?” said the President, looking at Nick.

“Yes, sir,” replied Nick without hesitation.

“Assassinate me? Actually shoot me?”

Harry nodded. “It needs to be real, everybody needs to believe it’s real. We need to throw everything we’ve got into hunting him down.

“And what if our guys catch him or kill him?” asked Bob.

“They won’t,” said Harry confidently.

“But if they do?”

“The plan’s dead in the water. It’s a risk but to the world and the American people, we need to make it real. The fewer people who know, the better. So far, we’re the only four people who are aware of the plan and I’d like to keep it that way.”

“The VP and NSA Liz Roberts would need to be in on it. I’d want their input on the plan. Jesus! You’ve got me talking like this is possible!”

“It is,” said Harry. “Laid out like I’ve just done it sounds a bit ridiculous but over time, we’ll iron out the creases and finesse the details. If we do it right and Nick thinks like them, I believe we can do it.”

“And what do we do with these planeloads of suicidal jihadists? Gitmo’s not that big and I’m supposed to be closing it down.”

“Sorry, I left that bit out. We blow them the fuck away and let their bodies rot at the bottom of the ocean.”

“That bit I get,” smiled President Mitchell, before turning to Nick. “How good a shot are you?”

“Not bad, sir,” replied Nick with a smile.

PRESENT DAY

The White House

President Mitchell looked out at the construction teams who were rebuilding the West Wing. He was still struggling to believe the audacious plan laid before him almost a year and a half ago had been successful. Harry, Bob and Liz had been camped out with him since 11:00 a.m. in the makeshift situation center that had previously been the State Dining Room. The one man not present, the former VP, had been sorely missed but not forgotten.

In great secrecy, they had kept in touch with the events of the day through the various disconnected parts of the operation that Harry Carson had concocted.

The agents who had so efficiently manned the check-in desks and who had subsequently acted as the stewards on board the flights, were all Combat Controllers, highly specialized and skilled members of the USAF’s Special Forces. They were expert in many fields and most importantly for the mission, high altitude parachuting. They had more knowledge than most of what was likely to happen to the passengers on board the aircraft but ultimately could do nothing but guess.

The drone pilots who had been trained over the previous months on how to pilot the Boeing 747s, had been told that the planes were being rescued from imminent scrapping and were being used in a military exercise. None was aware that there were passengers on board the crewless airliners.

The fighter pilots who had left Narsarsuaq were the only people outside of the makeshift Situation Room who were fully aware of the mission. They had been carefully selected by Harry’s brother-in-law, Major General Howard Carter, and given their history and personal losses, it was highly unlikely they would ever talk.

In all, they had created twenty Boeing 747 drones from planes sitting in storage waiting to be scrapped or sold for spare parts. All had been allocated a real flight number and thanks to the Combat Controllers at check-in, the real passengers were separated and directed to their real flights, while the jihadists were directed to a ghost flight of the same number. The airlines had helped, throughout the months of training, by allowing the military to carry out its top secret exercise which required the use of their desks and allowed the forces’ planes to use their livery. It had all gone perfectly to plan except for the US Airways Boeing 747 screw up. US Airways not having a 747 in service had created a buzz amongst a very observant plane-spotting community. A buzz that needed to be silenced to protect the operation and which was costing the US government an extra $400 million. The only way to cover their tracks was to make the planes that should never have existed, suddenly exist. US Airways was about to gain two free Boeing 747-400s, whether they wanted them or not.