Foreign Enemies and Traitors

by Matthew Bracken

  According to the modified flight plan, the special operations Blackhawk would drop General Armstead, his chief staff officer and his aide at Camp David, and then make the quick hop six miles north to Site R, where his deputy commanding general would conduct a brief inspection visit. The Raven Rock mission was a typical add-on, based on the availability of the helicopter mission to nearby Camp David. Such last-minute plan mods were routine in an era of budget cuts and restricted flying hours. The helicopter would refuel and wait at Site R until the end of the conference, when it would pick up Armstead and his entourage for their return flight to Fort Campbell. That was the official plan. The reality was otherwise.

  The catch was that Armstead’s actual deputy was on leave fishing in the Florida Keys. In his place, Phil Carson would be playing Armstead’s chief staff officer, Brigadier General Clayton Harper. For the purposes of official orders, General Harper was already expected at Site R, as well as being on the authorized visitor list for the Camp David conference as a part of Armstead’s group. The genuine General Harper would be in his office at Fort Campbell, out of the loop and blameless if the plan went awry. In reality, only Armstead would be flying to Site R, with Gersham and Dolan.

  Boone Vikersun would become Major Curtis Paxton, General Armstead’s new aide, and so he was also on the amended list for the Camp David conference. General Harper and Major Paxton actually existed and had the requisite Top Secret clearances, a fact that routine White House security checks would readily verify. New Army identification cards would be created, with Phil Carson and Boone Vikersun’s pictures on them. In the digital age, this could all be done by computer with the correct authorization codes and the correct ID card paper stock, which were both under General Armstead’s control. When they arrived at Camp David, their faces would match their new ID cards, and the names on those cards would match the names listed among General Armstead’s expected entourage. That was the shell game plan hatched among the conspirators for getting Carson and Boone into Camp David, and General Armstead to Site R.

  The general said, “I need to be back in my office by 1300, and I still have to go over Operation Buffalo Jump with Mr. Carson. I took pictures of every page of the CONPLAN, so you can put it on all of your computers. No matter what happens tomorrow, as far as I’m concerned, this plan is proof of treason by the president.” He passed a memory stick to Colonel Spencer, who inserted it into his laptop.

  The CONPLAN was classified Top Secret, and they were all committing multiple felonies simply by being in this room when its illegal distribution was being discussed and carried out. They were all burning their bridges today, those who still had them to burn. But with the Camp David conference less than twenty-four hours away, they faced minimal risk of compromise or exposure. “All right,” said the general, “let’s get right to our actions at Camp David and Site R.”

  Colonel Spencer said, “When the EBS is initiated, the Secret Service will probably try to take the president straight down into a bunker until they figure out what’s going on. Aspen, Laurel and Hickory lodges are all connected by tunnels to a blast-proof bunker system. That’s why they only need a company of Marines for security. Once the president is underground, they can just wait for outside help to arrive. The bunkers connect to tunnels that run outside the camp. Some of the private residences on the farms around Camp David are thought to be front operations, and the president can pop out of any of them and take off. All the Marines at Camp David have to do is protect him until he’s underground.” Colonel Spencer looked directly at Phil Carson and Boone Vikersun. “So you’ll need to grab him fast, before he disappears like a rabbit down a hole.”

  General Armstead described the next phase of the plan. “It’ll take us fifteen minutes to fly from Camp David to Site R and get inside. Then another five minutes to reach the EBS studio, and after that…well, I hope we can initiate the EBS in another ten minutes, but that’s probably optimistic. Call it thirty minutes from the time I leave Camp David at approximately ten hundred hours. Best case will be a minimum of twenty-five minutes, to a maximum of however long it takes. The reception at Camp David is set to run from ten to eleven, when the president is scheduled to leave the conference center. So if the EBS isn’t on the air by eleven, we couldn’t do it, and the mission is an abort. We’ll try to fly back to pick up the Camp David team, unless we’ve been detained inside Raven Rock.” He didn’t need to add that in that event, Phil Carson and Boone Vikersun’s futures would be very grim.

  Doug Dolan asked, “Does the EBS automatically announce what it is? Or do we control the output a hundred percent, including the titles and description? What I mean is, are we stuck with that alert tone and the guy who says, ‘This is the Emergency Broadcast System’ and all of that?”

  “No no, that’s way out of date,” said the general. “You just need the correct authorization code to get control of everything, and I’ve got it. Well, that is, I have my half of it. I can initiate the EBS, but only if I can convince the commanding officer of Raven Rock to type in his half of the code. I’ve seen it done in exercises. As the commanding general of NORTHCOM, I’m one of the officers who can authorize initiation. It’s all a part of our continuity-of-government plan. It’s a contingency plan in the event that I’m the senior officer who survives when Washington gets nuked and the White House and the Pentagon are wiped out. We practice it a couple of times a year, sometimes with unscheduled tests. The only difference is that this time the EBS really will be initiated, and all national programming will be under our control. I know the current CO of Raven Rock pretty well, he’s a colonel in the Signal Corps. I think I can get him to cooperate after he sees the evidence we have. Not just the massacre videos and pictures, but my Operation Buffalo Jump CONPLAN.”

  “What if you can’t get him to put in his code?” asked Carson.

  “Then we might have to get rough with him. We’ll have to figure it out as we go. Adapt and overcome.”

  “How will we know if the EBS is going to come on?” asked Boone.

  “You won’t,” said Colonel Spencer. “That’s the thing. Camp David is totally jammed. Nobody’s cell phones will work there. No cell phones, no BlackBerrys, no radios, nothing. The only way to communicate will be to use a secure landline from Site R directly to Camp David’s commo center, and get a message hand-delivered to you. But that’s not something we can count on. You’ll just have to go by the timing, and assume the EBS will be initiated sometime between 1030 and 1100 hours. That’s not much to go on, I know, but it’s the best we can do.”

  There was silence around the table after General Armstead finished, and the realization sank in among the participants: the basic concept of operations was to throw two Hail Mary passes at the same time.

  After a few moments Colonel Spencer said, “Now let’s talk about Sidney Krantz. I’ve learned quite a bit about him since yesterday. On the surface, he’s just a former college professor turned political consultant. He’s a radical socialist of course, but that probably describes most professors today. Some people who know him call him ‘the president’s Rasputin.’ Supposedly, he knows where the bodies are buried. If you can believe the rumors, he gets off-the-record private face time with the president as some kind of special adviser. He’ll be flying into Fort Campbell tonight around 1800. We need to decide if it’s worth snatching him. I think it’ll be worth it.”

  “Won’t he be missed?” asked Boone.

  “No,” said Colonel Spencer. “He’s not an hourly employee, that’s for sure. He has some kind of do-nothing job at the White House, something about “special plans and projects.” He has his own office in the Old Executive Office Building, but he doesn’t answer to anybody but the president. He even said on his phone call to Bullard that he might fly back tonight or he might fly back tomorrow. That gives us just enough time to play with. I say we go for it. We can run the whole operation right here on base.”

  “What’s the upside?” asked General Armstead.

 
; “I’m just making deductions, but ‘special plans and projects’ sounds like some kind of White House plumbers outfit. He gets one-on-one time with the president. Now he’s coming down here to visit Robert Bullard, and Bullard is in charge of the foreign contract battalions in the rural pacification program. Whatever they’re going to discuss in person is something that couldn’t be said over the phone, not even on what they thought was a secure line. I say it’s worth it. He’s bound to know some pretty high-level secrets, which could turn into more evidence to use against the president. And we don’t need to bring anybody else in to do it. We can run this op ourselves.”

  “All right,” said the general. “Do it.”

  ****

  Director Bullard met with the leader of his Tactical Response Team in his Building 1405 office. He wanted to conduct this after-action debriefing personally. Also present was his deputy, Mitchell Brookfield. John “The Jackhammer” Hamlin brought his own black anodized metal-cased tactical laptop computer, and set it on Bullard’s desk. It contained still pictures and video clips documenting the aftermath of their successful action on Roaring Hollow Road. After plugging in a cable, he connected the computer to a gigantic plasma TV that occupied the office wall across from Bullard’s desk. Hamlin was still wearing his dusty black tactical outfit, without the body armor or helmet, but with his pistol strapped to his leg in a black holster. Dirt and sweat streaked his lean, angular face and caked his crewcut hair. Mitch Brookfield, Bullard’s deputy, was wearing a jacket and tie and sat on the leather couch along the side wall. Bob Bullard sat behind his desk while the TRT leader narrated. Hamlin was seated on the other side of the wide desk, controlling the computer.

  “The house is a total loss, as you can see. The three subjects who arrived in the white Expedition were all killed in the explosion and then were burned beyond recognition. Oh—it looks like there was one female in the house too, so there’s actually a total of four dead. I mean, we think there were four people inside; we’re just not sure if one was a female. They’re pretty messed up. They’re crispy critters, in pieces. But we did get one positive ID. It’s kind of funny—one hand was blown clear of the house, and it landed right in the driveway. The fingerprints were perfect. Check this picture out.” The TRT leader clicked to the next slide on his laptop, and the giant television on the wall showed a mammoth severed human hand. It was lying on asphalt next to a ruler that had been placed beside it for size comparison. On the big plasma TV, the ruler and the hand were over a yard long. There was a gold wedding band on the hand’s ring finger. “The other bodies will be DNA jobs. That viper pretty much shredded them, and then the house collapsed and burned to ashes. What’s left of them ain’t pretty, that’s for sure.”

  “So who was the hand attached to, before we nailed them?” asked Bullard.

  “His name was Cordell Acklin. He owned the house and the white Ford Expedition. He used to be a sergeant in the 101st here on Fort Campbell, and he did multiple combat tours in Iraq. He was Ranger qualified, sniper qualified…you name it, he probably did it. He was in the 82nd before the 101st, mostly in recon units. We did an internet search on him, and we found out he’s a real asshole. Well…he was a real asshole.” The Jackhammer chuckled, and so did Bullard. “His whole life story is on the internet. He used to write a blog, and he posted on military forums all the time. He called himself “Shadowfox,” whatever that means. He quit the Army when President Tambor was elected, something about gays serving openly in the military, I think. That, and serving on United Nations peacekeeping duty. His battalion was scheduled to rotate into Kosovo, and he just wouldn’t do it. He wouldn’t wear the U.N.’s blue beret, so he quit the Army after almost ten years. Yeah, he was a hardcore constitution fanatic; a real asshole and a troublemaker.”

  “One down, and only about a million more to go,” said Bullard, leaning back and cracking his knuckles. “What else did you find, besides his hand and his internet history?”

  “Some interesting guns. We found an arsenal of sniper rifles and assault weapons. Three scoped bolt-actions, and two semi-autos. They were outlaws, that’s for sure.” Hamlin clicked ahead through his slides to show a picture of five melted and broken long guns lined up on the ground.

  Bullard asked, “What caliber are they?”

  “The usual, 7.62 and 5.56. He even had a fancy semi-auto sniper rifle in 7.62, a DPMS Panther. It’s like a big M-16, but without a carrying handle. That’s the one on top in the picture. That’s a night scope mounted on it. Well, it was, anyway.”

  Brookfield said, “A 7.62 assault sniper rifle with a night scope? That sure sounds like our gang from West Tennessee. We recovered some 7.62 slugs from those dead Kazaks where they stole that ASV.”

  “That’s what I’m thinking too,” said Bullard. “Three men, at least one of them an Army veteran with an ax to grind. All loaded with illegal military-style weaponry. Great work, Jackhammer.”

  “Hell, we didn’t do anything but take pictures and collect evidence. Your Viper did all the work.”

  Bullard grinned and laughed again. “Well, if anybody had survived, I’m sure that you would have done a great job on them. Okay, Mitchell,” he said to his deputy, “I think we can close the file on those assholes. We can cancel the BOLO and put the Predators back on routine patrol. I’m going to swing by UAV air ops one more time, and then I’m going to call it a day.” Bullard stood and stretched his arms out, smiling with relief. John Hamlin closed his laptop, got up and gave his boss a congratulatory fist-bump across the desk.

  Bob Bullard felt good about his decision to drop the Viper instead of merely putting the gang under surveillance. Nobody ever escaped when five pounds of high explosives punched through their roof and detonated inside. He could scratch the killers from West Tennessee from his list of concerns and prepare for his meeting with Sidney Krantz. It was “T minus beer-thirty,” and counting.

  ****

  Ira Hayes Gersham arrived at Hugh Rogan’s house in his own nondescript compact car. It had the correct Department of Defense windshield stickers, and he had his Army retiree’s ID card, so he could come and go onto the base as he pleased. General Armstead had already departed Rogan’s duplex, after briefly going through the Operation Buffalo Jump concept of operations plan with Phil Carson. Doug Dolan was alone in Rogan’s office, standing with his head tilted sideways, reading the titles of the books on a tall shelf. Ira came into the room with Boone and closed the door behind them.

  “Sit down,” Boone ordered. Doug was startled to see “Dewey Lieberman,” whom the other men called Ira, and he dropped into the chair by Rogan’s computer.

  Ira Gersham held a small digital audio recorder in his hand. He placed it on the desk by Doug and pushed a button. “Now listen to this.”

  “Director Bullard? It’s Harry. We have activity at the target area. The new one.”

  “Oh? Tell me about it.”

  “Three unknown subjects just arrived at a house in our primary watch area. They came in a white SUV a few minutes ago. The house is owned by an Iraq War vet.”

  “Men or women? What?”

  “All men, as far as we can determine.”

  “Where are they now?”

  “They’re inside the house.”

  “Where’s this house in relation to the cell call’s triangulated position?”

  “It’s not exact, of course, but I’d estimate pretty darn near the center of the box. Plus or minus a few hundred yards.”

  “Hot damn! Has Dolan made any more calls?”

  “No. That phone’s been quiet since Monday night. We’ve been trying to activate it, but either its batteries have been removed, or it’s shield-ed inside something thick. Or it’s just been moved outside a cell coverage zone.”

  “Any evidence that Dolan is one of the three men in the house?”

  “We can’t confirm that yet. The SUV is parked under a roof; we didn’t get a good look at them before they went inside the house. About all we can tell from th
e film is it’s three men.”

  “What about the license plate on the SUV? Did the snooper pods catch anything?”

  “We got the tag number, but it looks like it might be stolen, a fake or a duplicate. It’s a Tennessee plate, but the number doesn’t appear to be current, and it doesn’t match the vehicle.”

  “All right! Wrong tags means they’re dirty, so they’re probably our unknown subjects. Harry, this is looking very promising. Is the on-station Predator armed?”

  “It sure is. Two Vipers and four thirty millimeters.”

  “Good. I want missiles ready to drop anytime I say. I’m coming down to flight ops, so be ready.”

  ****

  “Do you want to hear it again?” asked Boone.

  Doug appeared shattered by the recorded conversation. He stared blankly at the recorder as he slumped forward in the chair. “No.”

  “So, who did you call?” Boone demanded.

  Dolan glanced between the two men, who stood over him in postures suggesting that he was about to get a beating. “I…I called my mother in Baltimore.”

  “Tell us everything,” said Ira. “Who, what, when, where and why.”

  Doug looked down at the floor. “I found a cell phone in the kitchen drawer at the cabin. You guys were gone. I called my mother; I haven’t spoken to her in more than a year. She thought I was dead. I’m sorry. I’m really sorry.”