Red Deception

by Gary Grossman

  “The attacks have become the top story on the news. America first, edging out everything else.”

  “Precisely. Edging out Europe,” Reilly declared. “Communications was the real target.” He paused for a teachable moment; he wrote down two words and turned the paper around. Moore read silently at first, then aloud.

  “Diversion = Deception.”

  “Absolutely. And right now, I’m willing to bet that the president is having a hard enough time wrapping his head around our own problems—forget Europe.”

  “So Russia attacked us,” Moore wondered.

  “Possibly, but what do I know? I’m just a hotel guy who travels a lot.”

  “A hotel guy who knows people in high places, and who wrote a shopping list of today’s targets.”

  “I think I’ve told you all I can, but you haven’t asked me the most important question, Agent Moore.”

  “Which is?”

  Reilly spread his arms wide, a gesture that conveyed the enormity of what they didn’t yet know. “What’s next?”

  WASHINGTON, D.C.

  THE WHITE HOUSE

  President Alexander Crowe had had an entirely different day planned. Meeting with 4H students, signing a new international climate initiative, and then a flight on Marine One, the Presidential helicopter, 62 miles north-northwest of Washington, D.C., to a secluded wooded area in the Catoctin Mountain Park. To Camp David, and two days of golf, and hopefully a break from global concerns.

  All plans for that day were abandoned with the first explosion. It escalated with the second and third attacks. And then came the satellite images and intelligence from the Baltic nations and Gorshkov’s latest gambit.

  Beginning with the report of the initial attack, it had been briefing after briefing; Pierce Kimball, the National Security Advisor, was by his side for each session. In and out of the Oval Office came the heads of Central Intelligence, the FBI, and NSA, the Secretaries of Homeland Security, Defense, State, and Interior, and lastly, Vice President Ryan Battaglio.

  This latest meeting had everyone crammed into the basement Situation Room. It was a ‘quiet room’ where neither cell phones nor recording devices were allowed, but ideas and solutions were welcome. The president’s team examined a photograph on a monitor.

  “A diversion,” Pierce Kimball said. “Brutally elegant.”

  Kimball had been decorated for valor in Iraq, and had served as commander of the Combined Joint-Inter-Agency Task Force—Shafafiyat in Kabul, Afghanistan. He was then moved inside the Pentagon as Vice Chief of Staff for the U.S. Army, and completed more than 35 years of service as a four-star general. As a civilian, Kimball then accepted a senior-level appointment at the State Department before opening his own political consulting firm. President Crowe had then brought him back inside, appointing Kimball National Security Advisor. No longer in uniform, the bald, six-four, two-fifty Kimball still commanded attention. He used his voice effectively, punctuating adverbs and adjectives for impact.

  “What kind of diversion?” the president followed up.

  “The kind a magician uses. Look at the pretty lady to hide the deceptive moves. In this case, the lady wasn’t so pretty.”

  “You’ve got that right.” Kimball knew he did. He recognized the operation.

  “Any chatter?” Crowe asked the CIA chief.

  CIA Chief Gerald Watts peered over his tortoiseshell glasses. His 25-year intelligence career began as a summer intern at the CIA. Since then he’d worked the Asia desk, was assigned to Moscow, and served in other posts, none of which were on any resume. Watts’ four years as Deputy Director for the previous administration made him the natural pick for Crowe as Director.

  “Aside from noise on the Internet, no.”

  “What kind of noise?”

  “Conspiracy theories. Everything from domestic terrorists to you, Mr. President.”

  “Me?”

  “Wag the dog, sir. Create havoc against slipping poll numbers. Not real, but believable in some fringe quarters and pushed out automatically by bots. They began popping up within a half-hour after St. Louis. Timed and programmed to trigger.”

  The President opened his hands, his signal that he needed more explanation.

  “We’re looking into the usual suspects: Russia, Iran, North Korea. Possibly China. But we haven’t completely ruled out ISIS or Al Qaeda and other groups.”

  “Any digital fingerprints?” Crowe asked.

  “None yet.”

  Next, Crowe turned to FBI director McCafferty.

  “Anything, Reese?” the president asked.

  “Only assumptions. Highly coordinated,” the former New York City Chief of Police said. He had handled terrorist threats and attacks in New York and took bombings especially personally. He’d lost his fiancée at a London café when a suicide bomber took a seat, had three relaxing sips of coffee (all caught on CCTV cameras), and then opened his jacket revealing a chest packed with explosives. He stood and pressed a trigger. Crowe had been told the story before meeting McCafferty. He could never look at him without thinking of the trauma and memories his director brought to the job.

  McCafferty continued: “And very well-financed. We’re already looking into bank transfers and screening camera footage along the bridge and tunnel, running license plates, and checking on the Kawasaki Jet Ski rental on the Mississippi. And something else.”

  He paused. The kind of pause that invited a reaction.

  “Too soon to comment, sir. But there’s a State Department report that bears some attention.”

  McCafferty shot Pierce Kimball a look. Kimball cocked his head to the side in subtle acknowledgment. Vice President Battaglio took it all in. He was anything but quiet and reserved, but he had nothing to contribute. Not yet.

  “What kind of report?” Crowe asked as he loosened his tie and rolled up his sleeves.

  “Prefer not to say, Mr. President.”

  “Well, I prefer you do, Reese.”

  “I’ll take that, Mr. President,” Secretary of State Elizabeth Matthews volunteered. Alexander Crowe turned his attention to Matthews, his most trusted cabinet secretary.

  “A blueprint, Mr. President. A step-by-step blueprint for what occurred today. Prepared for me when I worked at State. Detailed beyond belief.”

  CHICAGO

  “You’re a bit of a mystery, Reilly,” the Agent Moore admitted.

  “Not to my friends,” Reilly replied. “Maybe if you get to know me—”

  “I bet there’s a lot your friends don’t even see.”

  “My job just requires me to worry about things. Like you.”

  “Which means you get sensitive information. What do you give in return?” Moore asked.

  Reilly shrugged his shoulders.

  “My point exactly.”

  At that moment Reilly’s assistant stepped in.

  “Your flight, Mr. Reilly,” Brenda Sheldon announced. “But you should change first.” She held up a hanger with pants, shirt, and sports jacket.

  Moore looked surprised.

  “Another flight?”

  Reilly checked his watch and stood. “Yup. London. Gotta go.”

  Brenda rolled in his suitcase and handed Reilly his boarding pass.

  “Everything’s inside.” That meant his crisis committee update and reports from Kensington Royal General Managers across Europe.

  “Thank you, Brenda.” He took the suitcase and began heading toward the door.

  “But we’re not through,” Agent Moore called out.

  “We are for now,” Reilly said, waving back with the pass in hand. “Unless you’re interested in returning to the airport with me.”

  “Traffic’s still nuts,” Moore said.

  “Not if you’re over it.” Reilly smiled. “Think of me as your captive audience. Closest you’ll get to really detaining me.”

  WASHINGTON, D.C.

  THE WHITE HOUSE

  “Let me get this straight. We’ve got terrorists following a game plan
that we wrote?”

  “I wouldn’t call it a plan, sir. But essentially, yes,” Matthews replied, “a comprehensive assessment of weaknesses to our infrastructure. Expertly researched and written in plain English.”

  “Jesus,” Crowe said. “How the hell did it get out?”

  “Three possible ways: leaked, stolen, or sold.”

  “And you commissioned this?” Crowe asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Well, you should have burned it right away.”

  “Actually, sir, it’s helped us tighten security in many locations. But Congress has not been a cooperative partner. Money.”

  Matthews now addressed the FBI Director.

  “Reese, I’m curious. How did you get hold of the report?”

  “Sources.”

  “You had eyes inside State?”

  Reese McCafferty said nothing.

  “Okay, Elizabeth,” the President said, redirecting the conversation. “What about the author? A source of the leak?”

  “It isn’t him. He wouldn’t. I can vouch for him.” FBI Director McCafferty was working under a different assumption.

  “Put a pin in that, Mr. President. My best field agent is with him now.”

  CHICAGO

  The ride to the heliport in a KR Town Car provided the perfect time to talk.

  “Game theory,” Reilly began. “Ever hear of it?”

  “No,” the FBI agent replied.

  “Essentially it’s an explanation of how players in a game employ cost-benefit scrutiny of both their actions and the reaction of the opposition—the enemy. Probabilistic risk assessment, PRA for short. A means to determine if the positive outweighs the negative, and the probabilities of succeeding. It’s how governments consider protecting high-value targets, making terrorists aim for less protected ones. Flipped around, it’s how state-sponsored terror, as opposed to individual terrorist cells, choose their objectives and plan their attacks.” Moore listened closely.

  “In 1993, ten Islamist extremists, some connected to the World Trade Center bombing that year, planned to bomb the Manhattan Federal Building, the United Nations, the Lincoln and Holland Tunnels, and the George Washington Bridge. An FBI agent infiltrated the group and stopped the attack. Ten years later, an al Qaeda plot against the Brooklyn Bridge was foiled. Terrorists hoped to bring down the bridge by cutting the suspension cable. The leader was arrested in Columbus, Ohio. In 2006, an attempt to bomb a PATH train tunnel between New York and Jersey was flagged on the Internet. Eight conspirators were arrested by Lebanese police on tips from the U.S. Their downfall was open research on Google, traced right back to them. Not smart,” Reilly noted, “but typical of your garden-variety terrorist.”

  He glanced out the window at the city bustling below them, and took a deep breath before laying out even more recent cautionary tales.

  “A Long Island native schemed with Al Qaeda to bomb a Long Island Railroad train that served the community where he grew up. Pakistani police arrested the American training in the country in 2008, before he returned to carry out the plot. In 2012, a Kosovo-born Islamist extremist conspired to plant bombs in a Tampa, Florida Starbucks, a police center, and a bridge. He was arrested by undercover FBI agents after he obtained dud weapons from them.”

  “All intercepted,” Moore confirmed.

  “Yes,” Reilly said. “Great work from the FBI, and in each case the terrorists were likely willing to die for the cause. Now add a higher level of planning to the game playing. Instead of fringe groups, substitute plots hatched by well-organized governments. Professionals with real training.”

  “What makes you think that’s what occurred today?”

  “One reason: professionals operate to penetrate, attack, and escape. To live another day. Suicide is not part of their mission.” Reilly again breathed deeply. “None of the attacks appeared to be suicide missions. Right?”

  “Are you assuming that these attacks weren’t carried out by terrorist groups?” Moore asked incredulously.

  “I am. They have the earmarks of a government mission. Four factors point against anything but: one, we have counterterrorism measures that deter radical groups; two, and you’d know better than me, we have a positive track record of intercepting or infiltrating their operations; three, perceived structural soundness discourages them; and four, money matters. It takes a great deal of money to evaluate, buy, conceal, and transport equipment. And even more to actually execute a plan like this. All of this, the facts, the figures, the conclusion and the worry—it’s all in my report. You should read it,” Reilly summarized.

  Moore smirked. Reilly leaned back in his seat and closed his eyes, but continued his explanation.

  “Well-financed teams, Moore. State-sponsored with all the ways and means. Our tunnels and bridges make for valuable cultural icons. They cost millions of dollars to build and will take billions to repair. Three targets so far, and I don’t think you’ll find terrorists in the rubble.”

  Reilly saw that they were now a few blocks from the Veriport pad on South Wood Street. He looked back at Moore.

  “Do you know how many bridges there are in the U.S.?”

  “I don’t know. Say two hundred thousand.”

  “Triple that. Six hundred thousand,” Reilly said. “I identified approximately one thousand that, if disabled or destroyed, would lead to significant deaths or injuries, economic disruption, and societal disarray. Now on top of that reality check, throw in the nearly three hundred and forty major highway tunnels, and another two hundred-plus transit tunnels, many under rivers and bays. Just think about the Lake Pontchartrain Causeway: for eight of its twenty-four miles, you can’t even see land. Then there’s Seven-Mile Bridge to the Florida Keys, and the seven-mile San Mateo Hayward Bridge crossing San Francisco Bay. Ninety-three thousand vehicles a day cross it. And don’t forget the Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel, seventeen point six miles shore to shore. I worried about all them,” Reilly admitted. “You should, too.”

  They sat quietly until they got to the heliport and boarded for O’Hare.

  “We don’t have enough resources, Reilly,” Moore said, once they were again in the air.

  “Tell me about it.”

  Twenty minutes later, after landing at O’Hare, they approached TSA security. Reilly offered Moore his hand.

  “Can’t say you didn’t make the day more interesting.” He produced his ID and boarding pass to the officer who scanned it on his device.

  “Sir, you’re Daniel Reilly?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’m afraid there’s a problem.”

  “Oops,” Moore said. “I forgot to mention you were flagged for detaining.”

  “Still?”

  “Easy to get on a no-fly list. Harder to get off. I’ll clear this up.”

  “You do that,” Reilly said. Moore produced his identification and pulled Reilly aside.

  “Give me a few minutes.”

  He dialed his cell and spoke softly, waited for a response. Two minutes later he hung up, thanking whoever he had spoken with. Then he returned to the TSA officer.

  “Mr. Reilly should be good to go. Try again.”

  Reilly was cleared to board.

  “I have to admit,” Reilly said, “it doesn’t hurt having an FBI agent tag along to help circumvent TSA lines.”

  “One of the perks of being my suspect,” Moore grinned.

  As they approached the scanner, Reilly had a request.

  “I want my report. Blank pages don’t do me any good, I need to refresh myself with—”

  “I’ll see what I can do.”

  “I need it.”

  Reilly waved goodbye without looking back. He continued to the gate, and walked right onto the plane, ready to relax in his first-class seat. Halfway down the jet way, Reilly felt a tap on his shoulder. Not a hand, but a thick business envelope. He turned to face Vincent Moore again.

  “You forgot this.”

  Reilly shot a curious expression.

&nb
sp; “Don’t give me that look, Reilly. You’ve got nine hours of reading time to get caught up.”

  Reilly smiled. He was beginning to like Moore.

  The FBI agent leaned in and whispered, “Oh, and you didn’t get it from me.”

  “Of course I did.” Reilly motioned above. “There are cameras to prove it.”

  14

  NEW YORK, NEW YORK

  “Who the hell is that?” The New York Times investigative reporter froze the image on her computer. “That guy.” Savannah Flanders pointed to the video from the 14th Street Bridge.

  “Him.”

  “Don’t know,” replied co-byline reporter Mike Blowen. “But he’s been popping up on a bunch of the videos.”

  Flanders rolled through the Facebook and Instagram cell phone uploads until she found an even better frame than the previous one. She grabbed a snippet and printed it out. It was a little soft, out of focus. She tried other frames until she had something sharper.

  “Some kind of good Samaritan?” Blowen suggested.

  “More than that. Watch.” She hit play again. “He was on autopilot,” the front-page reporter surmised.

  Flanders went to a saved link containing another survivor’s footage.

  “Again. Moving toward the action. Who does that?”

  “Military? Someone in law enforcement?” Blowen proposed. “ATF? Capitol Police? Hell, it’s D.C., take your pick. But plainclothes or off-duty.”

  “Whatever, the guy has seen action. He knows what to do. He’s not afraid.”

  “How do you know?”

  “My dad was a first responder. I saw a lot of what he did.”

  Flanders watched another posted clip. Her subject was further in the background.

  “You think he’s a story?” Blowen asked.

  “I do. And a good one for us. What’s your guess on his age, Mike?”

  He rolled his chair closer to her computer.

  “Late thirties. Or a really fit early forties. Hard to tell.”

  Flanders grabbed more screenshots. She uploaded them into a FaceRec tool installed on the Times computers. The system mapped coordinates of a subject’s face, but in this case, all the footage was shaky and most of the actual images were soft. So Flanders uploaded inexpensive Movari video-stabilizing software on her computer. The program would reduce bouncing and she could then select better images and hopefully find a match in an open source Vis.js library. Though not as reliable as the FBI’s more robust technology, it allowed newsroom editors and reporters a shot at narrowing down a person’s identity. And a shot was all she needed.