Act of War

by Brad Thor

  “Anyone with the temerity to suggest that the government be scaled back becomes an enemy of the state, targeted not only by its aforementioned tentacles but by a complicit, big-government media. It is worse than Louis XIV’s claim L’état, c’est moi. It is no longer one person, but the entire government declaring that the state takes precedence over the individual. It has devolved into L’état, c’est l’état soi-même.

  “Imagine a family that is completely out of money but that keeps signing up for more credit cards. It doesn’t scale back its lifestyle but actually takes it to the next level, buying more expensive cars, summer homes, and luxury vacations abroad. It’s a recipe for complete and unmitigated disaster. Yet damning the torpedoes, the government proceeds full speed ahead.

  “And as it does, as the government continues to tax and grow and borrow and spend, the day of reckoning draws ever closer. The bill is already overdue and at some point, we will no longer be able to borrow the money we have been using to put off the inevitable. Simply put, our national debt is growing faster than we can pay for it. The laws of physics and economics are inescapable. No nation can keep spending money it doesn’t have forever. But spend we do.

  “The prior administration tripled the deficit and increased the national debt by over seventy-five percent. Within the next ten years, every penny from taxes will go just to covering the interest on our debt. We’ll have to borrow money for everything else. Military spending, Homeland Security, you name it. And knowing this, who would be stupid enough to loan us any money?” Fleming asked as he advanced to his next slide. “This is where President Porter’s thoughts come in.

  “Forty percent of our national debt is held by the federal government and the Federal Reserve. Essentially we print money and move it from our left pocket to our right. The largest foreign holder of American debt, though, is China.”

  “Despite everything you’ve said,” the Secretary of Defense interrupted, “that still doesn’t mean that they can come in here and declare themselves owners of the United States.”

  “Again, a week ago, I would have agreed with you, but hear me out,” Fleming replied as he went to the next slide. “In the 1990s, Mexico had a currency crisis, which the United States stepped in to help resolve. We propped up the peso with an influx of $20 billion. It was the largest non-military international loan the U.S. had made since the Marshall Plan.

  “There was a rumor that circulated at the time that the loan almost didn’t happen. Some were very concerned that the Mexicans wouldn’t be able to pay it back. Others were less concerned with whether the loan would be paid back than with what would happen if the Mexican economy completely collapsed. Would our southern border be overrun with economic refugees? Congress was dead set against the loan.

  “A small D.C. think tank aligned with the administration at that time made a radical suggestion. Have Mexico collateralize the loan by putting up the Baja Peninsula. If Mexico defaulted, Baja would belong to the U.S. and become the fifty-first state. That idea was allegedly discussed and dismissed as ‘too crazy.’ The think tank then recommended Mexico secure the loans with oil and natural gas drilling leases. That idea was also dismissed. The administration was worried they could end up looking like they had taken advantage of ‘poor little Mexico.’

  “In the end, the then Secretary of the Treasury skirted Congress by tapping a Treasury Department emergency reserve fund and got the money to Mexico that way. The idea, though, of nations backing up their loans with something tangible had been planted.”

  Fleming clicked his remote and a new slide appeared. “I know the President doesn’t like to blame the previous administration. We’ve all been told we have to play the hand we’ve been dealt as well as we can for the American people. But, it is important to note that the Congressional Budget Office warned the last administration that the nation’s debt was unsustainable and their spending policies were presenting lawmakers and the public with difficult choices.

  “They were told that if nothing was done, entitlement spending would double, the government would have less flexibility to respond to unexpected challenges such as economic downturns or wars, and the risk of another financial crisis was being greatly increased. All of these, they were warned, would cause America’s lenders to demand super-high interest rates in order to continue financing our government’s borrowing binge.

  “The CBO’s warning wasn’t top secret. It was very public. Not only were the markets listening, but so were the Chinese. They knew that it didn’t matter much who sat in the Oval Office. The United States government was a life-form committed wholly to itself. It would continue to borrow, spend, and grow. It would die of obesity before ever agreeing to be slimmed down to a manageable size.

  “The previous administration used the Federal Reserve to keep interest rates artificially low so it could continue to borrow money, but the Chinese were not only wise to it, but also growing increasingly tired of this game. Apparently, they got to the point where they were no longer content to play along.”

  The Secretary of State looked at Fleming and asked, “What do you mean, apparently?”

  “Your predecessor said it best. ‘Our debt and deficits are unsustainable and will cause us to not only lose our influence, but prevent us from making the right decisions.’ He was right and that is exactly what has happened.

  “China stopped listening to us about their human rights violations, international partners no longer wanted to line up with us to take on threats like Syria, Iran, or North Korea, and country after country, including China, has been bucking to dump the dollar as the world’s reserve currency.

  “In short, much of the world no longer respects us, China in particular. In order to continue to loan us money, they began to demand a new premium, one more reflective of the risk they were taking.”

  “What kind of premium?”

  “They wanted their loans backed up with more than just the full faith and credit of the United States government. They wanted the loans to be collateralized.”

  “With what?”

  Fleming went rapidly through a series of slides. “Everything. Oil and gas leases in Alaska and the Gulf of Mexico. Mining rights throughout the Rockies and the Mountain West. Timber. Farmland. Water rights. Shipping ports. National parks. For every loan we rolled over or issued anew, the Chinese demanded a concession.”

  “And the last administration gave in to this?”

  Fleming nodded.

  “Without congressional approval?” the Secretary of State, a former senator, asked incredulously.

  “The bigger the government, the less the respect for the rule of law.”

  The Secretary of Defense jumped in to chastise the Secretary of State and former senator. “All that administration did was end-run Congress. The warning signs were there and plenty of people were screaming for you and your colleagues to do something. You and your pals, though, didn’t want to ‘alienate voters.’ You all said, ‘We’ll fix it later’; that it had to begin at the ballot box. Well, here we are. Thanks a lot.”

  Normally, the President would have short-circuited this kind of pissing match, but all of it needed to be said. The Secretary of State was a good peacemaker, but peacemaking had its place and its price. Turning a blind eye to abuses of office when he was a senator wasn’t making peace. It was capitulation.

  “How is it even possible that this is the first time I am hearing about this?” the Secretary of State demanded.

  Fleming looked at the FBI Director, who had been assisting him over the past week. Pulling a file from the folder in front of him, the FBI Director said, “There had been a whistleblower at Treasury. She was apparently ready to name names and went to a congresswoman she thought would be sympathetic. The congresswoman was sympathetic all right, to the last administration. She ended up ratting her out in exchange for a bunch of special items she wanted the President to approve through executive order.

  “The President’s people then went after the whi
stleblower with a vengeance. It’s not hyperbole to say they turned her life into a living hell. She was not a perfect woman by any means and they used everything they could against her. She has a handicapped son and they pulled the trump card. They threatened her pension and medical benefits. She folded on the spot.”

  The Secretary of State was irate. “I want to know who the congresswoman was and I want to know who on the President’s staff was involved. This will not stand.”

  Now it was time for the President to get involved. Raising his hand he said, “We’ll get to all of that, but now is not the time.”

  The Secretary of State backed down and Secretary Fleming reclaimed the floor. “During the congresswoman’s reelection, the whistleblower approached her challenger and gave his campaign the full story. It was a very serious claim, which the campaign couldn’t prove. Plus, she told them they couldn’t use her name, so they didn’t go public with it. They did, though, pass it along to the FBI. But when agents approached her, she denied she had made any of the claims.”

  “Why? Is she some sort of loon?” asked the Secretary of State.

  “No, it was still under the previous administration and she was afraid they would come after her again. But with the new presidency, she’s had a change of heart.

  “The FBI Director and I met with her personally. In exchange for her cooperation, and eventual testimony, I offered to bring her back to the Treasury Department, plus give her a promotion. She hasn’t made up her mind yet, but she has begun working with us.

  “What we’ve learned is that several key figures from the think tank advising the administration during the Mexican peso crisis back in the 1990s were brought in under the most recent administration to advise President Porter’s predecessor. We believe there was a second set of books being kept in relation to China. We’re attempting to locate them.”

  The Secretary of State shook his head. “The lawlessness you’re suggesting is unfathomable.”

  “And none of it will matter if the Chinese succeed in pulling off their attack. Which brings me to my summation. If everything we have learned is true, if the Chinese were able to get the United States to collateralize its debt obligations, and those obligations cannot be vacated—no matter what happens to the United States—then we know why the Chinese feel they’ll be able to waltz right in here after a catastrophic attack and make themselves at home.

  “With a ninety percent casualty rate, America as we know it won’t even exist anymore and China will be holding the deed to the United States.

  “As we talked about at the beginning, who is going to argue with them? They’ll probably even send us aid and offer humanitarian assistance. But in the end, when America cannot repay its debts, because it has collapsed, they are going to stake their claim and take what they believe is theirs. If we do not stop them, this absolutely will be the end of the United States.”

  CHAPTER 23

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  MARYLAND

  Harvath had flown with some absolute assholes in his day, but the U.S. Ambassador to the UAE, Leslie Conrad, was one of the worst.

  U.S. ambassadors serve at the pleasure of the President. After an election or a reelection, all ambassadors submit a letter of resignation. Some are accepted immediately, usually for the plum ambassadorships, while others are asked to remain in place until a new ambassador can be chosen. Conrad was one of those asked to stay put until the President could find his replacement.

  Conrad had gotten his ambassadorship by being a big bundler and raising a lot of money for the previous president. He reminded Harvath of Peter O’Toole in Lawrence of Arabia. In addition to being a thorough Arabist who thought he knew the region better than anyone else—along with what America’s foreign policy absolutely should be—his hair was too blond, his teeth were too white, and his skin was too tan for a man of his age and stature. Harvath chalked a certain amount of that up to his parents’ having named their male child Leslie.

  It was apparent that Ambassador Conrad had not voted for the current president and didn’t think much of his foreign policy. Conrad also didn’t seem to think much of his very own duty to his country. The ambassador resented being awakened in the middle of the night to be roped into some “cloak-and-dagger circle jerk,” as he put it.

  Initially, Conrad had refused to cooperate. Then the Secretary of State had gotten on the phone and chewed his ass. Even though Conrad had done nothing of note while serving in his post, he was passionate about the Foreign Service and wanted to continue in it. The Secretary of State had used that to push his ungrateful behind out of bed, out of his villa, and into the motorcade waiting for him outside in Abu Dhabi.

  Harvath and Levy had gone through Khuram Hanjour’s entire Palm Jumeirah condo and had stacked anything of potential intelligence value at the front door. Cowles packed all of it, along with the contents of the hidden bed safe, in a set of designer luggage Hanjour had in one of the guest bedrooms.

  Driving Hanjour’s Mercedes out of the Oceana complex, Harvath and Levy had met up with the CIA assault team parked nearby. They transferred the luggage and traded cars while Levy handed over Hanjour’s key card and explained how to enter the building in order to retrieve Cowles and the prisoner. Harvath and Levy then set out for the ninety-mile drive up the coast to the U.S. ambassador’s residence in Abu Dhabi.

  What would have normally been an hour-and-a-half drive, Harvath completed in forty-five minutes as Levy worked on her cell phone the entire way. The State Department, as well as the CIA, maintained accounts with private jet companies around the world, and with that in mind, Harvath had made two requests. He needed the fastest plane they could get, plus Ambassador Conrad’s cooperation in coming along for the ride. With a United States ambassador in tow, none of the other passports in the entourage, particularly Harvath’s, would receive additional scrutiny. That went double for their baggage.

  Harvath had suggested creating a phony family emergency back in the U.S. that would require Conrad to leave the UAE immediately. But without knowing Conrad’s family situation, Harvath could make only a few general suggestions of how to handle things. Levy had taken it from there.

  Levy relayed everything to her boss, Chuck Godwin—a seasoned CIA veteran—who then coordinated with CIA headquarters in the U.S. Langley pulled Conrad’s file and decided to use the ambassador’s aging mother in Carmel, California, as the source of the emergency.

  After assembling the plan, CIA Director Bob McGee contacted the Secretary of State for sign-off. With the green light in place, Godwin was told to wake the ambassador.

  Conrad was told that his “family emergency” would be cover for getting a U.S. intelligence operative and some highly sensitive documents and other materials back to the United States. The ambassador had asked what the documents and other materials were, but was politely told that the information was of national security importance and classified above his clearance. Conrad asked Godwin who the intel operative was and what he had been doing in the UAE without his knowledge, only to be told that was also classified above his clearance. That was when Conrad had lost it.

  The best term Chuck Godwin could come up with to describe it was “hissy fit.” The ambassador was incensed that a covert operation had been carried out in his backyard without his approval. He didn’t like being kept in the dark. And not only had he been kept in the dark, but now the CIA wanted to rope him in as cover to help get whatever they had out of the country. He announced that he was not only “personally and professionally insulted,” but had no intention of cooperating.

  Chuck Godwin hated the ambassador’s guts. He was a feckless dilettante who had bought his way into the ambassadorship and was doing it only because of his love of parties, not love of country. In his estimation, the ambassador was worthless.

  So when Conrad pushed back on helping to provide cover for Harvath and transporting the luggage as his own, Godwin simply thanked him, stepped out of the room, and called the seventh
floor back at Langley. Three minutes later, the Secretary of State himself had called the ambassador’s home and begun to read him the riot act. Within a half hour, Conrad was in his armored Suburban headed to the airport. Harvath was there, too, riding shotgun and posing as part of the ambassador’s security detail. Wherever the bags went, Harvath was going. He had been instructed not to take his eyes off them.

  Conrad’s staff alerted the Emiratis to the ambassador’s family emergency, and the convoy was met at the airport by an Emirati official who sped them right out to the tarmac and their waiting Gulfstream G650. The passports were handled planeside and every courtesy was extended to the ambassador and his retinue.

  When the crew offered to stow the luggage in the belly of the plane, Harvath explained that the ambassador preferred to have access to his bags during the flight. The crew explained where the luggage could be stored in the cabin and helped carry it up the stairs and into the aircraft.

  The ultra-high-speed, ultra-long-range G650 was considered the gold standard of business jets. The wide, fold-flat, first-class-style seats as well as the walls were wrapped in white leather. The tables, cabinets, trim, and doors were bird’s-eye maple. The thick, café-mocha-colored carpet sported a motif that looked like lines drawn with twigs in wet sand. The cabin had one divan that folded flat into a nice-sized bed. The ambassador made a beeline straight for it. Harvath and the other three passengers picked the remaining chairs and settled in.

  Though Harvath had locked the zippers of the luggage with the TamperTell seals provided by Chuck Godwin, he knew you could still pierce a zipper seam with a ballpoint pen, get into the bag, look around, and zip the seam back together with no one the wiser. He didn’t think the ambassador would be that vindictive, or that stupid, but he didn’t know for sure.

  His concern caused him to sleep fitfully, waking every time he heard something unusual, or sensed someone was near the luggage. It made for a long flight.