“Major,” she took a deep breath, planned her next words. “I brought you here because I need to explain the real situation.” She paused for a long moment before she said, “But it has to be off record, okay?”
Fitzgerald adjusted his stance, placing his arms behind his back. For the first time, he looked interested in what she might be about to say. “Go on Keser?”
She took her cell phone from her pocket, removed the SIM card and then the battery, and then returned the three components to separate pockets of her cargo pants. “Would you mind indulging me, Major, and doing the same with any communication devices on your person?”
He appeared a little put out, but did as she requested. “You’re worried about being recorded? Bugged?”
She nodded. “We’re dealing with the most dangerous cyberterrorist I’ve ever encountered. I lost a friend and a colleague in Berlin because we were more lax with our communications than we should have been.”
He placed his dissembled cell phone into his pocket. “What is it you want to tell me, off the record?”
“Sir, the President of the United States has tasked me with bringing down this terrorist who is impersonating him. I have solid leads, names and faces. But what I haven’t told you, or anyone else on this base is the very important fact that the President who sent me here isn’t the President. That man died three weeks ago.”
Fitzgerald’s frown was deep. “That’s not possible!”
“It is possible.” She kept her voice firm because she could not let Fitzgerald think even for a second she had any doubts about what she was telling him. “A cyberterrorist assassinated the President by arranging for an insurgent to shoot Air Force One out of the skies in Afghanistan. I saw his body.”
Fitzgerald shook his head in disbelief. “The debriefing notes said it was a decoy President who died.”
Peri nodded, battling with her brain fog, having gone around and around in confusion on this point herself. “Sir, even if your understanding of events is true, admit, there’s always the possibility an imposter endorsed my mission, not the President.”
“That’s a big stretch.”
“Tell me Major, what have you witnessed happening around the world these last weeks? There are so many policies and executive orders that the President has enacted, so radically divergent from any previous Presidential or party agendas.”
He took a moment to reflect. Then like a lightbulb switched off, the color drained from his face. His eyes pierced through her. Peri couldn’t work out if he was furious or terrified, or both.
“That’s a serious accusation.”
“I could be mistaken Sir. Perhaps I saw the decoy’s corpse instead. What I’m saying, as one intelligence professional to another, is that we have to consider all possibilities. Since the assassination attempt, the President has been very different. This is a credible scenario.”
“Okay. So that’s the reason for this being off the record.” His tone had become more conciliatory. Perhaps he believed her. “You bring this to me because the President, real or otherwise, can’t know that you’re investigating him?”
“No, he can’t.”
“And you are doing this merely on the possibility he might be an imposter?”
She nodded.
Fitzgerald pursed his lips. “Meanwhile, I take it you want to run the President’s assigned mission as tasked, find these cyberterrorists he’s identified and neutralize them. But you’re about to ask me if I’ll endorse a black op inside your black op, tasked with determining whether the President is the real enemy?”
Peri nodded, impressed that Fitzgerald had caught on so quickly.
“This is extremely dangerous, Special Agent Keser, for me now and you. I take it you have a plan?”
“Yes, Sir. Two weeks ago, in the NSA’s Utah National Data Center, I discovered that the cyberterrorists in question had hacked into a locally operating NSA mass surveillance program called Shatterhand. Those terrorists used the NSA’s own state-of-the-art Shatterhand servers to impersonate the President electronically, everywhere across the globe. We shut down those servers, crippling, if not decimating, the terrorist’s capabilities. But we didn’t catch him.”
“Yes, I’ve read all this, in your report.”
“Then you’ll also know that we uncovered strong evidence that the perpetrator was an NSA employee Alan Irvine, and we suspect his wife Clementine Irvine is also involved. Alan was a senior official, Director of Active Intelligence. The man who, for many years, led the development and implementation of the Shatterhand program. He supposedly also created a program called GhostKnife, designed to shut Shatterhand down, but I’m not so sure this is true. Instead, we believe he got greedy, used Shatterhand to enforce his own ideological agendas and get rich. You’ve noticed all the strange news articles popping up everywhere of late? I think he’s been posting them using the Shatterhand code.”
“You mean like female priests in the Catholic Church? A ten thousand percent increase in global aid money? Oh, and a new president announced in Venezuela after the last one stepped down voluntarily?”
“That’s exactly what I’m talking about.”
Fitzgerald shook his head. “You’re seriously telling me you think this is all the work of Alan Irvine?”
“Or he’s the first layer in a deeper conspiracy…”
The CIA officer paused, assessing his next response. “So, you don’t think he’s the type to turn traitorous?”
“No. I don’t.”
“Okay… you have another target in mind?”
“Yes Sir. I’ve read the Irvine profiles, as I’m sure you have. They don’t seem like turncoats. Nothing in their psych profiles or history suggests that either. At the very least, I doubt they’re the kind of people who would orchestrate these events on their own.”
“Puppets to a puppet-master?”
“Maybe.”
“So, who is the target?”
Peri took another deep breath, realizing there was no way to turn back now. She had shared this secret with only one other living person until now, and she was nervous about sharing it again, potentially compromising her position and putting her once more in the crosshairs of the Presidential Imposter. She might not survive the day if Fitzgerald didn’t believe her story and took her concerns to higher officials, who would relay her findings all the way up the chain of command to the man they believed to be the President of the United States, but who she thought was a dangerous cyberterrorist.
“My primary concern is the traitor Simon Ashcroft, also operating under the alias Stephen Ashpool. He has an accomplice, girlfriend Claire Skaffen. Ashcroft is a former ASIS agent turned mercenary. Skaffen’s an American citizen with an information security background. They’ve been hiding out together in Nigeria for over a year now, time enough to plan out and execute this scheme.”
“What’s your source?”
“A sarin attack wiped out the entire Shatterhand-GhostKnife team in Utah. They were the source. Myself and my colleague, Paul Szymanski, were the first to discover the bodies. Paul’s in Mumbai laying the groundwork for our arrival and liaising with the CIA to secure use of a state-of-the-art safe house. We discovered evidence amidst the massacre that the Shatterhand-GhostKnife development team were investigating Ashcroft and Skaffen just before their deaths.”
“And you think these two are impersonating the President?”
“Yes Sir. I’m convinced of it.”
“Yet you think they sent you — acting on behalf of the Presidential Imposter — to Mumbai to eliminate the Irvines, because the Irvines know the true identities and location of these cyberterrorists?”
Peri nodded, again fascinated at how easily Fitzgerald was keeping up. “I do Sir.”
He was silent for a few minutes, taking his time to consider everything she had told him. When he was ready to talk again, he said, “How do you know Ashcroft and Skaffen will be in Mumbai?”
“My investigations identified a private
military contractor that formerly employed Ashcroft, DevWorld Security. The South African company specializes in war zone security services. Four days ago, in Cape Town, I met with the Managing Director, Roger Gridley-Brooks. He told me Ashcroft hacked into Gridley-Brooks’ business and personal accounts and drained them. He did the same to all the DevWorld employees’ personal accounts.”
“What’s the Indian connection?”
“Gridley-Brooks is convinced Ashcroft is in Mumbai. Ashcroft lived there for a time, has contacts and knows the lay of the land. Ideal place for him and Skaffen to go to ground. And because Gridley-Brooks knows Ashcroft — having worked with him in India — I’m betting he’ll know at least some of Ashcroft’s haunts. Szymanski is already in Mumbai tracking Gridley-Brooks — who landed there earlier this morning. We follow Gridley-Brooks. He should lead us to Ashcroft.”
Fitzgerald wiped his sweating forehead. “That’s all very complex. You’ve been planning this for days now, haven’t you?”
She nodded.
“Your team follows Gridley-Brooks. He leads you to Ashcroft and Skaffen. You snatch them, then determine if they are the Presidential Imposter?”
“In a nutshell, that’s it.”
“And you want to run all this off the record, as you say, in case Ashcroft is still impersonating POTUS and uses those Presidential powers against you, worried that he would go so far as to take you out?”
Peri smiled for the first time in a very long time. “Yes Sir, that is exactly what I want to do.”
At that moment her sole drive was to apprehend Ashcroft, to make him pay for all the misery and death he had caused, including the brutal murders of her closest friends and colleagues. Because of his deplorable actions, she had failed at the job she had trained her whole adult life to achieve — protecting the President of the United States from all harm. She would not rest until she had this traitorous man in custody, or eliminated once and for all. Simon Ashcroft had become enemy number one.
Fitzgerald looked to her. “Well then, we better not get caught, or we’ll all be in the shit so deep we’ll be drowning in it.”
CHAPTER 4
Major Fitzgerald led the way. Feeling her energy coming back, Peri marched by his side, on a beeline to Camp Lemonnier’s Task Force compound.
“Time to brief the team,” he said.
“Yes Sir. I appreciate that.”
“Let me introduce you. I need to build you up, show I trust you.”
Fitzgerald provided security clearance to allow them both access inside the Task Force compound, ringed off from the rest of the camp by sandbagged walls and barb wire fencing. Inside, muscular Delta Force operators and Navy SEAL Team Six soldiers lifted weights, performed sit-ups, push-ups, chin-ups and every other routine possible to build muscle mass. Others sunned on makeshift banana lounges as if the compound was their own private beach resort, shirtless and tanning while they enjoyed ice creams or non-alcoholic ‘near beers’.
They entered a briefing room within the two-story tactical operations center. Both uniformed and civilian men and women rested in chairs. All looked bored and frustrated. One by one they spotted the Major, jumping to their feet and standing at attention and saluting. The man had obviously earned their respect.
“At ease,” Fitzgerald commanded. He walked with Peri to the podium at the front of the briefing room. Soldiers returned to their seats, some leaning back against walls, alert now and no longer disinterested.
“Listen up team, this is Special Agent Perihan Keser of the United States Secret Service. She’s your new operations officer for the next mission. This is a priority Alfa mission, top of the chart. Keser will brief you now, so I want you all to pay her your full attention. Give her the respect she deserves. Her mission is sanctioned from the very top. When I mean the very top, I mean the President of the United States himself. Take her seriously. When she’s done briefing, at 2100 hours, you’re all shipping off with her to Mumbai. That’s India, for those of you who failed geography in grade school. Got it?”
“Yes Sir,” they shouted enthusiastically.
She sensed every one of them were alpha-personality types. The type that got itchy feet when left to sit around, doing nothing. An operation in India was better than prolonged inactivity inside the wire of a foreign U.S. military base. Her briefing was a welcomed distraction if nothing else.
Fitzgerald searched through the team until he laid eyes on a young woman of medium height in a tattered sandy colored civilian shirt and pants, with matching scuffed and well-worn hiking boots. Her dark straight hair pulled back into a ponytail. Contradictory to her clothes, her hair held a shine that only expensive shampoos could produce. A rarity in any military base situated inside an impoverished, but developing, African nation.
“This is Saanvi Dara,” Fitzgerald made his introduction. “She’s CIA. Over a decade of field experience on the Subcontinent and the Middle East. Dara’s your lead intelligence officer.”
The woman nodded. “Pleased to meet you Ma’am,” Her Indian accent suggested she had grown up there and not the United States.
“Likewise, thank you Saanvi.”
“So you are aware, Ma’am, I know everything there is to know about Mumbai. It was once my home.”
“That would be why you’re assigned to this team then?”
“Yes, Ma’am.”
Peri noted that the woman seemed eager to please, which could prove to be both a help and a liability.
Fitzgerald searched the room again, identifying the second, and only other female in the group. Dressed in a U.S. Army uniform, the tall, slim and dark-haired woman appeared to be mid-thirties. Her mannerisms suggested a casual confidence opposite to Saanvi’s pleasing nature. Grease stained her hands. She seemed to look straight through Peri, like she had already decided she knew everything there was to know about her new boss, and didn’t care about any of it. “This here is Lieutenant Emily ‘Em’ Dawson. She’ll manage your communications and electronic surveillance requirements, including satellite uplinks coordinated via the National Reconnaissance Office. Dawson will, through me, coordinate your drone requirements.”
The Army woman saluted. “Ma’am.”
“Lieutenant.”
Fitzgerald cleared his throat, showing with a wave of his fingers that two men should step forward. “These two fine gentlemen are Sergeant Rashad Wilks and Sergeant Bodo Pfündl. Delta Force, hard-assed and patriotic to the core, even though the U.S. government denies their existence. Isn’t that right, boys?”
“Yes Sir,” they barked in unison.
“We’ve trained Wilks and Pfündl as Paramilitary Operations Officers. They’ll lead your front-end dirty work: securing a location or an asset, gathering field intelligence, eliminating a threat, interrogating insurgents, pathfinding, and so forth.”
Peri categorized the two operators as clones of the exercising men just outside. Fine sculpted muscle layered every inch of their bodies. Each man oozed ironclad confidence. Judging by the knowing looks they gave each other, she sensed the two were great buddies. Her ‘heavy-lifters’, and worth every pound.
The Major introduced the rest of the team, and to his credit, knew everyone by name, rank, skills, experience and quirks. Every one of them had a specialty, ideally suited for covert operations. Together as a cohesive unit, Peri saw they would provide the team she required to take down Simon Ashcroft. The President had delivered the best. Perhaps he wasn’t an imposter. Or at least she hoped that was the case.
She looked up and saw all eyes were on her, Fitzgerald’s included.
“When you are ready, Special Agent Keser…”
Peri stepped towards the podium, fighting down her mild anxiety and clearing her throat as discretely as she could. She noticed Sergeant Wilks had picked up on her moment of uncertainty. He nudged Pfündl as he said with a frown, “Ma’am, you up to this?”
“Of course, Sergeant.”
“It’s just that you look shattered, like a prisoner of
war left to rot in a cell for months.”
Peri tensed, staring at Wilks and willing herself not to blink. He annoyed her, challenging her in such an inappropriate way. She would need to put him in his place. She took her dismantled cell phone from her pocket and made a deliberate show of the separated SIM card and battery. Peri placed the three components on the podium. “Can you do the same, Sergeant?”
He nodded. “Yes Ma’am, if I need to.”
“Then what are you waiting for?” She looked around the room. “What are any of you waiting for? Any communications device, smart phone, radio — you know what I’m talking about — I want you to take them out and shut them down. Now! Battery disconnected. SIM card disconnected.”
She stood patiently until everyone had done as ordered. The risk of her enemy listening in to this meeting was too high. Then she turned to Wilks. She could see he didn’t like her, but that was okay. For now, the feeling was mutual. “I hear Delta Force operators are always ready for anything?”
“They are Ma’am.”
“Then run to the airfield, flat out, find the largest aircraft idling there, and wait for me.”
“Now, Ma’am?”
“Now.”
She caught Fitzgerald’s smirk from the back of the room.
Wilks looked to Pfündl, who was grinning ear to ear as Peri had gotten one up on his friend.
“What are you grinning at, Sergeant? You’re running with him. Go!”
The two men saluted and took off.
“I’m talking to all of you. Run! Now! Leave your cell phones here.”
Everyone leaped to their feet and sprinted fast from the briefing room.
Peri ran with them, determined to prove that she was as good as any of them. Fitzgerald jogged just behind, keeping an even pace.
Soon she was overexerting herself. The heat became uncomfortable. She tried to maintain a steady rhythm, one leg after the other, arms swinging in opposition to her feet, but it was hard work. Too hard in fact. One by one every member of the team passed her. They made jogging the distance look easy. Gritting her teeth, she could barely contain her pain and frustration.
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