The Enemies of My Country

by Jason Kasper

  Finally the minivan edged forward, Ross trailing a half car length off the rear bumper and finally creeping up the side of the semi-trailer to see the logo of Blackwood Seafood Company. Looking over to shoot an angry glance at the trucker, he saw a rotund Chinese man with a beard. The driver didn’t look back, keeping his emotionless eyes forward.

  “No wonder he was so slow,” Ross said. “He’s DWA—Driving While Asian.”

  “Ross, stop it.”

  “What? I’m not saying they’re terrible people. Just terrible drivers.”

  The minivan finally—finally—engaged its turn signal, and then began a ten-second lane change back onto the right side of the road where it belonged.

  Ross floored the gas, roaring past the pair of sloths and letting out a whoop of victory as he flew by a large sign with a red heart that read, WELCOME TO VIRGINIA.

  43

  The crowd around Worthy began cheering at the first sound of the aircraft approaching the Charlottesville airport. He caught a glimpse of them seconds later, flying low over the horizon on their final approach.

  The helicopters were unmistakable: a pair of Sikorsky VH-3D Sea Kings, their bodies olive drab and bearing the Seal of the President of the United States beneath gleaming white upper surfaces marked by the American flag. Whichever one held the president—and Worthy had no idea—flew under the callsign of Marine One.

  The two helicopters thundered over the tarmac as three trailing aircraft swept into view. These were MV-22 Ospreys, whose tilt rotor assemblies gave them the appearance of an insect-like mashup between a cargo aircraft and helicopter. The Ospreys carried White House staff and an additional contingent of Secret Service agents, descending to land in sequence only after the two Sea King helicopters had touched down and begun taxiing behind the main terminal building, out of Worthy’s view.

  He pulled out a phone and texted the designated brevity code, see you soon. Even though Ian had performed some cyber-wizardry to prevent Duchess from tracking their personal phones, today they relied on a network of prepaid cellular devices complete with brevity codes for fear of some classified Secret Service capability intercepting their communications and finding them suspicious.

  Yesterday, David had informed the team of his meeting with Duchess. To his credit, he said that once the Agency realized their weapons and equipment were missing, David would assume all responsibility, claiming he lied to his team and said he was under orders from Duchess herself—as if she’d believe that. Still, it was a noble effort on his part to manage a situation that had spiraled out of control. Whatever the fallout, the ISOFAC was cleaned out and they were a day if not mere hours away from being caught in the act of usurping not just their previous authorities but the legal sanctions governing all US citizens.

  But until they were busted for sure, David’s plan was to have the team strung out along the president’s route, so that even if a response wasn’t required, they could at the very least be informed in real-time.

  At his overwatch position outside the Charlottesville Albemarle Airport, standing amid throngs of civilians lined up for the spectacle currently unfolding, Worthy was the first of his team with eyes on the presidential motorcade.

  And when he caught his first glimpses of it, he felt a keen sense of humility.

  Before his assignment to the team, Worthy had been a bodyguard to unarguably the most feared and respected leader of any criminal syndicate. He’d been selected for his competitive shooting abilities, having none of the public relations considerations of the suited Secret Service agents that the public observed on a regular basis. Instead he’d openly worn a highly modified competition pistol with a barrel extension, reflex sight, and extended magazine that would allow him to react to any close-range threat with lethal precision.

  But even he was merely the central cog in many concentric rings of security around his primary—and even that sum collective protection paled before what he saw now.

  The first vehicles to pass him were a mix of Virginia State Police and Charlottesville PD cruisers, a melee of patrol cars, SUVs, and motorcycles that ripped past with their lights blazing. Some would remain ahead of the convoy while others were designated to block intersections, and it wasn’t until a dozen vehicles had passed that he caught his glimpse of the real convoy.

  The first jet black Suburban to pass him was known as the Route Car, the vehicular equivalent of a point man for the president’s convoy. It was trailed by an identical SUV called the Pilot Car, flanked on all sides by state police motorcycles.

  Then came the Sweepers, a half-dozen police cars serving as a protective buffer before the lead car, a Secret Service Suburban that preceded the presidential limo. Or, to put it more properly, one of three presidential limos.

  They were indistinguishable from one another down to the license plates, a trio of hulking black limousines whose front headlights were crested with the American flag on one side and the presidential flag on the other. While they looked big enough to transport a large group of people, Worthy knew that the rear seating was virtually shoulder-to-shoulder beneath the extensive armor and internal oxygen supply that would protect the occupants from any conceivable attack.

  Though who those occupants were was a mystery to anyone outside the convoy.

  While the limo carrying the president was designated Stagecoach, the other two were merely Spares, implemented to conceal the president’s location as they swapped positions in a fluid choreography. In the event of a ground attack, the two Spares would serve as blocking forces or outright battering rams to pummel the Stagecoach away from the threat.

  The limos were trailed by two more Suburbans, their purposes distinguishable to Worthy at a glance.

  First was the Halfback, carrying a heavily armed contingent of Secret Service agents with body armor and assault rifles. The tailgate was open, revealing a rear-facing third row with shooters facing out.

  The second was called Watchtower, its roof and rear bumper bristling with antennas. This was the electronic countermeasures vehicle, capable of jamming electronic explosive devices. If Bari Khan tried to employ the rockets against the convoy, the Watchtower truck would detect the incoming projectiles and deploy flares and chaff upward in an attempt to cause early detonation.

  Then came the Support Vehicle with the president’s key staff, and the Control Vehicle carrying the top military aide with his “football,” a forty-five-pound briefcase whose contents allowed the president to authorize retaliatory options ranging from a single cruise missile to a full nuclear strike.

  Behind the Support Vehicle was the CAT, a counter assault team whose shooters filled two Suburbans. The men inside were the closest approximation to Worthy’s team, outfitted in body armor and with enough weaponry to maneuver on heavily armed enemy forces if required. They were trailed by the Intelligence Division Vehicle, where people like Ian were hurriedly compiling real-time reports from local and national intelligence assets to determine if any changes to the convoy’s route were required, or if an immediate evacuation was in order.

  And the show wasn’t over yet: a giant quad-cab pickup with a covered trailer served as the Hazard Materials Mitigation Unit, capable of detecting and responding to chemical, nuclear, and biological attack.

  The final elements of the convoy included vans transporting the White House Press Corps and reporters from national news outlets, and a mobile command and control vehicle known as Roadrunner that kept the communications relays to the White House running securely. Behind it was the president’s personal ambulance, and finally a bevy of marked and unmarked police vehicles serving as the Rear Guard.

  Impressive as the convoy was, Worthy knew it was merely one of more than a dozen that forward deployed ahead of the president, who, during campaign season, could require them in two or three cities in a single day.

  The convoy threaded its way along Towncenter Drive toward US-29 South, its immediate defenses just one of many elements put into place ahead of the president�
�s travel. Worthy could still see sniper and spotter teams atop the terminal building, their rifles out of sight as they scanned the crowd with binoculars. And it didn’t take a tactical genius to spot the plainclothes officers and agents in the crowd around him, to say nothing of those circulating around Charlottesville during the team’s reconnaissance efforts over the past few days. He didn’t know the full extent of protective assets staged along the convoy route and around Monticello itself, though he could reasonably suspect the number of men and women involved numbered in the hundreds.

  Worthy just hoped that today, it would be enough to protect the President of the United States.

  44

  Reilly’s position in the outdoor seating area of C’ville Burger & Brew afforded him a complete, if somewhat noisy, view of US-29 as it merged with US-250 and circled around the west side of Charlottesville.

  He’d spread out his meal as long as he could to occupy the table, starting with a twin round of appetizers before putting in the order for a medium-rare burger with all the toppings that the restaurant had to offer—bacon, fried egg, and jalapenos for starters. For Reilly, this wasn’t exactly a hardship duty. His physical size required a lot of calories to maintain, and he had a ravenous appetite. There was little that even an American menu could throw at him that wouldn’t be quickly suppressed by the energy expenditure of his workouts, and that held doubly true as he faced the imminent prospect of lifelong incarceration with food that would be far worse than what he could buy in Charlottesville. Matter of fact, he hoped to have time for a quick dessert before relocating to his next position to survey the presidential convoy’s return to the airport—that was, if the convoy made it that far.

  The traffic noise beside him abated considerably in one fell swoop, the stream of vehicles in the southbound lanes trailing off to nothing as temporary roadblocks took effect. This was followed by the excited chatter of his fellow diners as the motorcade appeared, its arrival heralded by a fleet of police vehicles with their red and blue light bars flashing.

  Reilly texted his brevity code to the team—on my way—and then waited for something further to report.

  But the long row of sleek black vehicles surrounding a trio of presidential limousines continued past him unhindered. There was no drama, no thunderclap of rockets from the sky, nothing but the sun and sky and civilians around him enjoying their lunch.

  Reilly looked up as his waitress reappeared, setting his burger down in front of him.

  “Thanks,” he said. “Name’s Reilly, by the way.”

  She smiled politely, muttered some blithe response, and walked away.

  Shrugging indifferently, Reilly turned his attention to his plate.

  Then he lifted his burger in both hands, gave a sigh of delirious pleasure, and took the first bite.

  45

  Jo Ann sat beside Duchess in the OPCEN, watching the president’s address at Monticello as it unfolded live on CNN.

  The OPCEN was down to a skeleton crew. With no mission in progress, their role was to monitor the situation in Charlottesville and serve as an additional conduit to the Intelligence Division Vehicle in the presidential motorcade, supplying any real-time data regarding Bari Khan’s plans as that information became available through a network of overseas sources.

  Which, of course, hadn’t occurred.

  There had been no further intelligence on the location of the rockets or Bari Khan’s whereabouts. Duchess had expended virtually all her remaining credibility on raiding a Chinese billionaire’s yacht, which at the time represented the highest possibility of affiliation with the Uyghur separatist who’d taken control of the rockets in Syria.

  And this lack of progress seemed to be reflected in Duchess’s posture; she was currently seated beside Jo Ann with arms folded, watching the screen as if it were a funeral procession.

  What she had to sulk about, Jo Ann wasn’t sure—Duchess had somehow pulled her career out of the ashes, having been granted an extension from Gossweiler under the condition that she find the rockets at all costs. And rather than relish that fact, Duchess appeared upset that the Charlottesville visit had proceeded against her best advice.

  Jo Ann asked, “Are you pissed because the president didn’t cancel this visit?”

  “One hundred percent. You?”

  “Not really,” Jo Ann admitted. She knew this wasn’t what Duchess wanted to hear, but it was the truth. “There is no indication that the rockets have made it stateside. For all we know, Bari Khan could be hunkered in a safehouse, waiting for the arrival of his cargo.”

  Duchess countered, “But those rockets are a lethal threat. One that exceeds even the Secret Service’s capabilities to stop them. There’s not an air defense network in America outside of DC that could shoot them all out of the sky at once. And just one of those rockets could take out a tank. That’s what they were designed to do, and that’s why we supplied them to the Syrian resistance fighters. Can you imagine the effects of hundreds of them impacting within our shores?”

  “But it’s still a hypothetical. If we had some concrete intelligence that the attack was proceeding on time after everything that happened in Syria, I could see altering the presidential schedule.”

  As if in vindication of her statement, the president concluded his address, pausing beside the Indian president for a final photo op before both men stepped out of the room in Monticello to the flickering lights of journalist cameras. He was now leaving, without the slightest whiff of a terrorist attack against him. For a moment Jo Ann felt proud of herself; no matter the dark realities of her job, she refused to lapse into the void of cynicism and despair that seemed to overcome Duchess and, to an extent, many of the old hands on the Agency team. Some of them showed up to work with the grim determination of factory workers, seeming not to relish their job but resent it.

  Duchess said, “Looks like you were right, anyway. No terrorist attack, not even an attempt. Congratulations, Jo Ann. Who knows, maybe we’re one step away from being shut down no matter what happens.”

  “Would that be so bad?”

  Her counterpart seemed thrown off guard by that comment.

  “You sound like you’re questioning the efficacy of this program,” she replied incredulously.

  “By this point in time, aren’t you?”

  “It doesn’t matter what I think,” Duchess replied. “You’ll probably be around long after Gossweiler throws me to the wolves. What are your thoughts?”

  Jo Ann swallowed, considering her words. “I think this program is indicative of the fundamental miscalculation in how we as a nation use our military. We don’t send enough troops when they’re needed, and then we send too many once the situation has already spiraled out of control.”

  “Case in point?”

  Jo Ann looked like she’d been slapped.

  “How about bin Laden?” she replied. “We had so many chances to put a bullet in his head immediately after 9/11. He spent a month in a Kandahar safe house, then another month in Kabul before making any attempt to flee the country. Another two months near the border being hunted by a literal handful of Delta operators and CIA officers, the leader of which requested a few hundred Rangers—who were located a few hours away in Bagram, mind you—to block off the mountain passes in Tora Bora.”

  Duchess smiled. “Gary. Hell of a good officer.”

  “And he was refused because the Bush Administration believed that the Pakistanis would turn over bin Laden if he made it across the border. So bin Laden walks into Pakistan uncontested, where he had safe haven for the next decade while we deployed close to a million troops to the desert for an endless counterinsurgency.”

  “And you’re concerned that we’re seeing the new Tora Bora?”

  “I’m concerned that Longwing is an extension of the mentality that fetishizes the surgical application of force when more assets would accomplish twice as much in half the time. Look at what happened with Bari Khan—he escaped because we’re using a five-man team
with minimal local assistance. It’s not enough.”

  “Jo Ann, I have to say I disagree with you completely.”

  “Not for the first time,” she replied, throwing her hands up. “But I haven’t stated anything that isn’t a known fact.”

  “I’m not questioning your facts, I’m questioning your logic. The time to put a ‘bullet in his head,’ as you so eloquently put it, wasn’t after 9/11. It came and went long before then.”

  “If we’re speaking with the benefit of hindsight, sure.”

  “How much hindsight do you need? We could have snatched him in the ’98 Tarnak Farms raid, which we rehearsed for months before the Agency leadership lost their nerve to seek presidential approval. Three months later, bin Laden bombed our embassies in Kenya and Tanzania and killed a couple hundred people.”

  “There was a cruise missile strike after that,” Jo Ann pointed out.

  Duchess nodded. “A strike that missed him by a few hours, which brings us to spring of ’99, when bin Laden was at Sheikh Ali hunting camp in Afghanistan. That strike was scrapped due to diplomatic considerations about the presence of Emirati nationals—who, mind you, were his personal friends if not financiers. Three months later, he was stationary in Kandahar for five days and no one was willing to launch cruise missiles despite arguably the best intelligence to date. So he bombs the USS Cole in 2000 and kills another couple hundred people. CENTCOM then presented thirteen options for phased bombing campaigns against bin Laden and his organization, all of which went unused.

  “All the while, the Administration waffled back and forth over whether it was permissible to kill him if a capture wasn’t possible, there were miscommunications between the Administration and the Agency, later redactions of clear kill authority in the memorandum wording, and opportunities slipping through our nation’s fingers like so many grains of sand.”