Foreign Enemies and Traitors

by Matthew Bracken

“Oh, he’s giving the brief all right. Don’t worry. There must be some mistake with the flight schedules; they must not have caught up with the plan mods. He’ll be here.”

  “He’d better be!” Delaney stormed off to rejoin the cluster of Army brass and civilians surrounding the newly arrived secretary of defense.

  Boone said, “I sure wish I knew what was going on at Raven Rock. They’re cutting it awfully close.”

  Just then, a Navy sailor in dress blue “crackerjacks” weaved through the room, obviously looking for someone. He spied the two Army officers and headed for them. From ten feet away, he could read Carson’s nametag. “General Harper, I have a message for you from General Armstead. He says everything is set for 1100, as planned.”

  “That’s all?”

  “That’s all, sir.”

  “Thank you, petty officer.”

  The sailor turned and disappeared into the throng.

  “I guess we’re on deck, then,” said Boone. “The next step is up to us. Which option do you think will work?”

  “I don’t know yet. It has to be before eleven. If the EBS goes off, they’re going to haul the rabbit downstairs and we’ll miss him. And after eleven, he’s leaving anyway. We have to do it before then.”

  “Damn…this is getting tight.”

  “Like Colonel Spencer said, it’s a leap of faith,” said Carson.

  “I just hope the Ravens can pull it off at their end.”

  “Armstead’s message said they would. We have to take it on faith. Like you said, the next move is up to us.”

  “But which move?” asked Boone.

  “I don’t know yet. We’ll just have to roll with it, and decide when the moment comes.”

  ****

  The president’s handlers, mindful of the schedule, steered him away from a group of Saudi diplomats who had already exceeded their allotted minutes with him. Boone and Carson watched while the presidential party walked toward the open double doors to the conference room. These were of heavy wood, like church doors, so the conferees could have privacy and quiet inside when they were closed. Now they were folded back against the walls on either side of the wide opening. The president took up a position just outside the doors, and the conference guests formed a receiving line to pass him and move inside, to take their positions around the long table. Boone and Carson drifted toward the back of the receiving line. According to the schedule, the president would make some brief remarks to the entire group of about fifty participants, and then depart.

  Further up the line, General Delaney was standing with Henrietta Bramwell and her entourage. Delaney looked behind him, saw “General Harper” and waved him forward. Carson pretended not to see Delaney, engaging in an imaginary conversation with “Major Paxton.” Delaney’s aide, Major Fitzgibbon, soon scurried back to them. He was carrying an oversized briefcase, practically a suitcase, containing all of his general’s and his own papers and files.

  Besides their braided aiguillettes and ubiquitous briefcases, generals’ aides wore special medallions on the lapels of their uniform jackets to denote their unique status. These inch-tall insignias looked like tiny red, white and blue Interstate Highway shields. The joke was that their real purpose was to give fair warning that a general’s dog-robber was prowling around, looking for anything of value that was not bolted in place to shove into his briefcase. Major Fitzgibbon’s insignia had two stars across the blue top section of the shield, because his boss was a two-star major general. Boone’s shield had three stars, because Armstead was a three-star lieutenant general. Both men were majors, but in some way Boone “outranked” Fitzgibbon because of his own general’s higher rank. If Major Fitzgibbon knew that Boone was an imposter and not an officer at all, but instead an enlisted man and a wanted deserter, without a doubt his head would spin like a top and then explode.

  “We need to know when General Armstead is going to be here. We need to know right now! General Delaney is going to have a conniption. If General Armstead doesn’t make it in time—”

  “Don’t worry.” Boone answered him, dog-robber to dog-robber. “General Armstead is going to give the brief of his life, I guarantee it. I’ve got the PowerPoint presentation all set. He’s just running a little late.”

  Fitzgibbon stared up at Boone with a quizzical look and asked, “If General Armstead flew to Site R…why didn’t you go with him?” Before Boone could answer, the aide had left and was soon whispering in his general’s ear further up the line. Off to the side, where the main hall led to the entrance portico, Boone caught a glimpse of Major Acorzado speaking into his walkie-talkie.

  The reception line continued to advance. After shaking hands with the secretary of state and the president, the guests turned to enter the conference room and find their designated places. Carson checked his watch. It was 1059, and they were only a few people from the president. “Which plan?” he whispered to Boone. “We have to decide.”

  “It has to be the razzle-dazzle. It’s too late for anything else.”

  “Okay,” said Carson. “I’ll start it—be ready.”

  President Tambor was standing to the side of the entrance to the conference room. Standing slightly behind him were two beefy Secret Service agents. To his left was the secretary of state. Once the participants were all seated around the table, the president would give some prepared remarks and then he and his cabinet secretaries would depart.

  The secretary of state was the dour elder statesman Camden Ellsworth Thornedike, resurrected from a previous administration to lend the young and inexperienced president foreign policy gravitas. He was limpwristing the guests as they filed past, looking as though he wished it were naptime already. Boone and Carson were almost at the end of the line. Carson reached the secretary of state, and gave him a perfunctory handshake. Boone stood just behind Carson, carrying both of their briefcases. Aides-de-camp did not shake the hands of presidents or cabinet secretaries. They were merely aides, and their hands were usually occupied carrying briefcases and laptops for their generals anyway.

  There were only a few Middle Eastern diplomatic stragglers behind “General Harper,” when Carson finally reached President Jamal Tambor, looked him in the eyes and shook his hand. Tambor had a grip like a wet fish, but to be fair, he had been shaking hands nonstop for the past half hour. Carson said a brief “Nice to meet you, sir,” to which Tambor nodded distractedly, gazing past Carson to his own aides across the anteroom. In his mind, the president had probably already left the Laurel Lodge Conference Center.

  Carson let go of Tambor’s hand after only a second, turned to enter the conference room, and then froze in place and went wide-eyed. He thrust out his left arm, pointed his index finger like a stage actor and yelled as loudly as he could, “He’s got a gun!” He pointed directly at an unlucky Turkish general, who was opening a briefcase on the near corner of the oak conference table only a dozen feet away. The innocent Turk gave a guilty “Who me?” look, and quickly slammed his briefcase shut. Fifty pairs of misdirected eyes turned in unison to see the sudden downward movement of the case’s lid and Carson’s outstretched accusatory arm. Even the president turned to look.

  In that same second, Boone Vikersun dropped his two briefcases, lowered his shoulder and slammed his 240 pounds into the slender Jamal Tambor like an NFL linebacker tackling a very small wide receiver. He shouted, “Get him down!” as he drove the president through the open conference room doors, before his two Secret Service bodyguards could react. Boone knew that “the razzle-dazzle” was about to happen, and he was cocked and ready for action and they were not, and that made the difference. Their attention had been whipped from Carson’s surprise accusation down his pointing arm and finger to the Turk and his slamming briefcase. In that instant the president and Boone disappeared below their field of view, with the agents following behind just a split second later. The two Secret Service bodyguards dove on top of Boone Vikersun, who was on top of the president. They were attempting to put more Kevlar and bod
y mass between their charge and any flying bullets. If they’d had time to consider, they would have thought that Boone was a quick-reacting Army officer who was evidently striving to protect his commander-in-chief. In just a few seconds there was a growing human dog-pile on the beige carpet as more Secret Service agents rushed in from all directions.

  Unlike the main reception hall, the smaller conference room was windowless and had only the single large entrance, so all of the dignitaries and guests who were inside moved further away from the scene of the activity, deeper into the room.

  The Turkish general was slammed face down on the conference table, his arms pinned by even more agents as he grunted and bellowed protestations of his innocence. These were lost in the din and bedlam of shouts, orders and counter-orders. Even more Secret Service agents formed a protective barrier around the president, who was still on the ground beneath Boone Vikersun, his two original bodyguards, and a half dozen others who had piled on as living armor.

  Once the Turkish general was frog-marched out of the room and out of sight, with his briefcase removed to a safe location, Secret Service agents and helpful Army officers began to peel back the layers of bodies protecting the president, like football referees looking for the ball after a fumble. Several hands finally grabbed the shoulders of Boone’s uniform jacket and began to pull him up. One of the helpful military officers was Brigadier General Harper, who had worked his way in among the president’s protectors during the melee. As he came up, Boone still had the slim president clutched to his chest. Once his feet were under him, Boone pushed himself up the rest of the way, shaking off the helping hands, and swung himself around to put his own back to the wall of the conference room, just inside the doors. Phil Carson was next to Boone’s shoulder, also behind the president.

  32

  Instead of being a moment of great relief, with the incident being defused and the president returned to his feet unharmed, there was a fresh round of shouts and screams. A few and then more people saw that the very tall Army major was holding something dark against the president’s throat with his right hand, while his left arm was clamped across the president’s chest. A moment later, a brigadier general improbably wrapped several loops of something around Jamal Tambor’s neck with rattlesnake speed.

  Boone was out of breath, his chest heaving. Carson held up a cell phone. Cell phones and all wireless devices were jammed and therefore useless in Camp David, but they were not forbidden. This cell phone, however, had the end of the green tubing disappearing inside it, where a battery charging cable would go. Carson held it up, and the room went silent in a few riffling waves of hushing chatter. The phone’s screen was lit, and his thumb was pressing down on a button. There were a dozen Secret Service agents’ pistols and submachine guns coming up to take aim at him and Boone, while trying to avoid sweeping the president within their arc of fire.

  In a loud, clear voice, Carson said, “This is Dupont detonating cord. Blasting cord! If I drop this phone, you’re going to see the president’s head fly across the room. So lower the guns—NOW!”

  Detonating cord, or “detcord,” was used to tie a series of demolition charges together so that they would all explode in virtually the same instant. Its pencil-thick plastic casing was packed with a powerful high explosive that burned at faster than a mile a second. In reality, the green line wrapped around Tambor’s neck was not detcord, which would not have made it past the explosives-sniffing booth or the dogs in the security room. Actually, it was just a piece of plastic-coated coaxial wire that bore a striking resemblance to commercial detonating cord. But the Secret Service men did not know this. They all had experience with demolitions, so they could readily visualize the president’s head being blasted from his body in a spray of blood. Their knowledge was being used against them.

  And so they reluctantly lowered the barrels of their weapons toward the floor. Boone’s black ceramic knife was pressed against Tambor’s throat, the pulse in his jugular visible against the thin blade. The president’s eyes were as wide as saucers, but no sound emanated from his gaping mouth.

  Carson then said, “Everybody move all the way to the other end of the room, away from the doors. Secret Service, everybody!” The agents were reluctant to abandon their charge. Carson waved the lit cell phone over his head, with its line of simulated blasting cord leading to the president’s neck, and they slowly backed up. Phil Carson’s next demand was an unusual one. “Turn on the televisions, the big ones over there. Slide the panels open and turn on the news. Come on, I know you have audiovisual techs back there; somebody here knows what I’m talking about. Get it together, people—open the panels and turn on the news!”

  All four walls of the conference room were finished in dark wood and hung with historical “Americana” paintings. Somewhere a button was pushed, and two wood panels slid a dozen feet apart, across from the middle of the thirty-foot oak conference table. When the panels were retracted, two enormous flat-screen televisions were visible, joined edge-to-edge. The room was frequently used for secure video teleconferences, and could be joined with other conference rooms anywhere on the planet. The two giant televisions then became a virtual window between the geographically separated rooms. Prime ministers and presidents sat on opposite sides of tables separated by entire oceans, and looked through the electronic window at one another in real time.

  Boone and Carson dragged President Tambor along the far wall away from the televisions, until they were in the corner opposite the entrance doors. From here they could see the televisions, and nobody could get behind them. Boone yelled, “Turn on the TV, or I’m going to cut him!” In a few moments, both televisions lit up. The volume was muted. The television on the left showed a very attractive blond cable news reporter, smiling and cheerful while her wetly glossed lips moved across her gleaming white teeth. On the giant television, her head was as big as a mailbox. The television on the right was showing the lead-in to a daytime soap opera. It showed a revolving globe, as it might have been seen from outer space.

  There was a row of analogue clocks on the high wall above the televisions, indicating the times in various world capitals. The minute hands on all of them were at two minutes past the hour. It was after eleven, and the networks were still running routine programming. In the back corner of the room opposite the entrance doors, Carson leaned close and whispered to Boone, “Another fine mess you’ve gotten us into,” and Boone actually laughed aloud. His right hand twitched, and a thin hairline of red appeared on Tambor’s throat. Boone whispered back out of the side of his mouth, “Please don’t do that again. I don’t want to cut him…yet.” Against Boone’s chest, President Jamal Tambor was quivering like a gazelle in the jaws of a lion, almost completely limp, his own legs barely supporting any of his weight.

  General Delaney pushed through the diplomats and foreign military officers, right up to where Secret Service agents were facing in both directions. They were attempting both to control the people in the room and keep weapons directed toward the hostage takers. Delaney yelled, “Let me through, goddamnit!” and then, “Harper, have you lost your mind, you dumb son of a bitch?” Then from around the wall next to the open double doors, a line of Marines in full SWAT gear suddenly appeared. But instead of being dressed in SWAT black, their uniforms were in the USMC’s digital woodland camo pattern. They were armed with M-4 carbines, all with sound suppressors, all topped with red-dot reflex sights. Secret Service agents with their own lesser weapons drawn were screaming at them to back up and get out of sight, but they held their ground, their weapons aimed at Boone and Carson. The slender president was not much of a shield for the two hostage takers behind him. Without a doubt, each of these Marines was capable of hitting individual buttons on their uniforms at this twenty-foot range.

  Major Acorzado was still wearing his dress blues, but with an armor vest thrown on top and a Kevlar helmet in place of his formal officer’s hat. He was holding a .45 caliber pistol. He took one quick look across the room
to assess the standoff in the opposite corner and hollered, “Major Paxton! What the fuck are you doing, you fucking moron? Have you lost your fucking mind? Put down that fucking knife!” As a group, United States Marines were world-class profanity users, and under stress, Major Acorzado was true to type.

  A Secret Service agent in a black suit shouted at the Marine, “That’s detonating cord around the president’s neck, and it’s on a dead-man switch!”

  Acorzado yelled, “Oh, shit!” but his Marines kept their rifles leveled. “You can’t get out of here, Paxton! Neither of you can get out!”

  “Well, that’s all right with me,” Boone yelled back, “but neither will this traitor—at least not in one piece! Now back off, or we’ll be playing volleyball with his head!” Carson was behind both Boone and the president, holding the cell phone “detonator.” The clocks above the two huge televisions all ticked over to three minutes after eleven.

  One of the Marines behind Acorzado also had a suppressor-equipped M-4 carbine, but in addition to its reflex sight, it had a tiny video lens mounted on the right side of the weapon’s accessory rail. He aimed slightly to the side of the hostage standoff, because his primary mission was to record the incident. His lens was connected to a wireless transmitter that sent color video of the event back to Camp David’s security center, located 400 meters away in a bunker beneath the Marine barracks. There, shocked Secret Service agents, Marine officers and NCOs watched the unfolding drama in real time. Within one minute, these images were also streaming live at Marine HQ in Quantico, Virginia, and at the Joint Chiefs of Staff at the Pentagon, where colonels and generals were standing frozen before their video monitors with their mouths agape, wondering if this was some kind of a drill, but knowing instinctively that it was not.

  ****

  At 1104 in the Camp David conference room, the two giant televisions went to white static snow at the same time, and then they went to a blue screen for almost ten seconds. The next image was the same on both televisions. It was color video of the ground, filmed from high in the air. The edges of the picture showed the date, time, latitude and longitude, altitude and other data. An aiming curser like a bull’s-eye was in the center of the film. Carson recognized it in an instant, because he had seen it many times before. It was the beginning of the Mannville massacre, when the town’s inhabitants were being rounded up by the Kazaks. There was a fresh buzz of whispers in the room, and somebody yelled, “Turn it up!”