“You may discuss it all you want, Mr. President. But if you hear it on the news, you’ve discussed it too long. Good-bye.”
Morgan Taylor disconnected.
“Next?”
Forty-four
The Oval Office
1200 hrs
The president greeted Dr. Comley and her boss, CDC Director Glen Snowden. They did what everyone always does when they entered the Oval Office. They stopped and stared while history overtook their emotions. Here was where the world’s most momentous decisions were made; where the country’s history was charted; where slavery was debated and erased; where the development of the atomic bomb was approved; where a missile crisis was averted; where incriminating tapes were recorded; where orders to neutralize terrorists were signed. This was the home of every United States president since 1800 when John Adams and his wife Abigail moved in. Within its walls, leaders aged faster than their years and learned more than their memoirs would ever report. Here was more than two centuries of history itself in the fifty-five thousand square feet known to the public.
“Come in, come in,” Morgan Taylor urged, recognizing the difficulty Comley and Snowden were both having.
“Yes, thank you, Mr. President,” the director said. Protocol required that he speak first. “It is our honor.”
“I’m afraid it’ll be your job and not so much an honor based on what you’ll present to us today, Dr. Snowden.”
“We’re here to figure that out, Mr. President. Let me introduce Dr. Bonnie Comley.”
The CDC investigator stepped forward. She had a briefcase in one hand and large charts in another. She fumbled trying to get her right arm free to shake Morgan Taylor’s hand.
“Let me help you,” the president said.
“Thank you, sir,” she said, obviously nervous.
Taylor took the charts and handed them to John Bernstein, who, along with General Johnson, Directors Evans and Mulligan, Homeland Security Secretary Grigoryan, Attorney General Eve Goldman, and Scott Roarke had been invisible to the awestruck visitors until now.
“Please set up whatever you need and have a seat. We have sandwiches and drinks on the table behind the couch. Don’t stand on ceremony; you can get them at any point. In the interest of time, I’ll start with introductions.” Taylor went around the room and ended on Scott Roarke, who he simply identified as one of his Secret Service handlers.
Comley needed a few minutes to organize her notes and put the charts in order on an easel the White House staff provided. When finished, she stood next to the stand and everyone quieted down. She didn’t begin until the president was seated directly opposite her in a famous wooden captain’s chair. Like everything else in the Oval Office, it had its history. Taylor set the stage for the meeting by telling the story of its origin.
“This chair belonged to Admiral Isaac Hull, commander of the famed American frigate, the USS Constitution, ‘Old Ironsides.’ It’s right off the ship, though the Constitution is still officially in service.”
“In Boston?” Comley seemed to remember.
“Actually, Charlestown Navy Yard, just north of downtown Boston.”
The president liked the fact that she was engaged in his story. He would certainly be engaged in hers.
“It has a celebrated, illustrative history, which came down to a blustery August 19, 1812, when Hull sighted the Royal Navy warship Guerriere. The British captain, well-experienced in broadside combat, fired first. He scored hits, but there was little damage. The Constitution delivered a quarter hour of intense firing in return. Eventually, the ships became entangled. Both sides readied boarding parties. However, America’s marksmen persevered, wounding the Guerriere captain. As the ships separated, the British frigate’s foremast collapsed, bringing the main mast down with it. It was over by early evening. The USS Constitution defeated the Guerriere, inspiring the Navy to greatness and heralding the beginning of America’s dominance of the world’s seas. Which, of course, we have never given up.”
“And so, Captain Hull’s chair is a reminder to me of my responsibility to defend and protect our shores,” Morgan Taylor noted.
In her work, Comley also lived on the edge of the deadly war threats. The significance of Hull’s achievement and the president’s retelling of the account was not lost on her.
“Now to the reason we’re all here. Homeland Security Secretary Grigoryan presented a critical political analysis to us. Now we’re ready for the health risk assessment. Let’s have it, Dr. Comley. Straight and to the point.”
Comley cleared her throat. She looked at everyone before beginning. She studied them individually. These key decision makers had to follow her in a methodical manner, but she couldn’t bore them with too much scientific explanation. She chose to wear a simple black two-piece suit, with a navy blue blouse and a red scarf. Comley had practiced in front of her mirror before going to bed. She knew what to emphasize, the correct pace to take, and the points to underscore. She decided on low-tech poster boards rather than a PowerPoint presentation and handouts. Close up and focused because she had to report the worst.
“Mr. President, with your permission, we can live only minutes without air. Of course, under dire circumstances, we can hold out for thirty-six, forty-eight, or more hours without drinking, and in some cases weeks without food. But none of us deliberately goes without water. Not for even a day. It’s part of our everyday life. As Americans, we take for granted our access to clean, potable water. Why? Because U.S. water systems deliver some of the safest water in the world. We’ve long trusted that we’re free from deadly waterborne epidemics of the past.
“However, as Dr. Brad Roberts, from the Institute for Defense Analysis once warned, ‘What we think we know can be misleading. Dangerously so.’”
Comley had turned the corner on her introduction. So far no interruptions. She had the complete attention of all the president’s men and the lone woman, Attorney General Goldman.
“I would leave it to General Johnson’s good offices to support the contention that it’s unlikely that the United States can be seriously challenged by conventional military means in the sense of a traditional wartime attack.”
She didn’t expect an acknowledgement and didn’t get one. The Cold War was over and no matter what breast-beating politicos argued to ramp up patriotic fervor, America was probably more vulnerable to strategic terrorist attacks than Russian missiles.
Now her inflection changed. She added more timber. “Why? Because this sense of U.S. superiority can actually leave us blind to potential asymmetric attacks against weaknesses in our infrastructure.”
“Make that has left us blind, doctor,” the president noted.
“Has,” she said. “The vulnerabilities were pointed out in a 1999 air force analysis titled A Chemical and Biological Warfare Threat. They include telecommunications, energy, banking and finance, transportation systems, emergency services, and,” she paused again for impact, “water.”
This was her second dramatic characterization of the importance of water. She was a long way from finishing.
“But we can go back to 1941 when FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover issued a warning.” She read from a file card. “‘It has long been recognized that among public utilities, water supply facilities offer a particular vulnerable point of attack to the foreign agent, due to the strategic position they occupy in keeping the wheels of industry turning and in preserving the health and morale of the American populace.’”
She looked at Morgan Taylor squarely in the eyes.
“Nineteen forty-one, Mr. President. “We’ve been living on borrowed time.”
But Comley didn’t stop there.
“Getting back to more recent history, President Clinton called for an assessment in A National Security Strategy for a New Century. How vulnerable were we in 1999 and now? Depending upon the actual objectives, an enemy could attack water in two ways. Physical or cyber attack on controls, including the destruction of dams, pumping stations, or di
stribution lines, could deny us water and degrade emergency services. On the other hand, to kill Americans, terrorists could deliberately contaminate our water with CW/BW.”
She intentionally employed the stark abbreviation knowing the power it would have on everyone in the room. “CW/BW, Mr. President, Chemical Warfare and Biological Warfare.”
Comley now turned the first board over on the easel. It read Vulnerability.
“Now I’m going to go through some history. Quickly, but it’s highly relevant considering where we are today. First a quote that bears telling. ‘…and he that will not apply new remedies must expect new evils; for time is the greatest innovator.’ The author, Sir Francis Bacon, in 1601. And Mr. President, I can honestly say, we are facing new evils.
“The record shows that for thousands of years, city states, nations, and both advancing and retreating armies have deliberately contaminated water supplies as a means of achieving victory or revenge. Attacks have been crude and as simple as dumping human and animal cadavers into wells and watering holes to well-planned contamination by cholera and anthrax.
“In ancient Rome, Emperor Nero dispatched his enemies with cherry laurel water. If it sounds inviting, you’re wrong. Cyanide is the chief toxic ingredient. In the Civil War, Confederate soldiers shot farm animals and left them rotting in ponds, compromising the water for General Sherman’s soldiers on the march. During World War II, the Japanese laced water in China with anthrax, cholera, and other bacteria. The Nazis released sewage into a Bohemia reservoir to sicken residents. It goes on and on. Through Kosovo in 1998, Afghanistan more recently.
“Under President Clinton’s authority, The President’s Critical Infrastructure Assurance Office, the CIAO stated, ‘The water supplied to U.S. communities is potentially vulnerable to terrorist attacks by insertion of biological agents, chemical agents, or toxins. The possibility of attack is of considerable concern…these agents could be a threat if they were inserted at critical points in the system.’”
Comley changed the poster board. Threat Analysis. She still had everyone’s attention and no interruptions.
“Foreign nations have developed programs and arsenals with substantial chemical and biological weapons. Our evaluation of our own vulnerability has revealed that local, state, and federal infrastructure is already strained as a result of dealing with other important health problems, so little effort was placed on detecting and managing threats to public health through what was the probable, now the actual, use of these agents as weapons.
“In an unpublished, 2000 CDC Strategic Planning Workgroup titled Preparedness and Response to Biological and Chemical Terrorism: A Strategic Plan, steps were outlined for strengthening public health and health care capacity to protect the country against such dangers. It called for the CDC to join with law enforcement, defense, and intelligence agencies to address a national security threat. Participating with the CDC in this effort was ATSDR, The Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry. It was determined that a) recipes for preparing homemade agents are absolutely available; and b) use of these agents will require rapid mobilization of public health workers, emergency responders, and private health care providers.
“The United States Air Force, in its own studies, focused on potential threats. The term they used —Centers of Gravity. Drinking water being one such COG. Injecting deadly chemicals or insidious infective agents into air base water supplies could functionally disrupt or destroy operations. In fact, in late September, 1990, during Operation Desert Shield, a mission was scrubbed, and base combat effectiveness was reduced to fifty percent for a week because aircrews were sick in bed, the result of unintentional water poisoning.”
She flipped the poster board again. Weaponized Water.
“How can it be accomplished here? How is it being accomplished? In our estimation, not by poisoning lakes, rivers, and aquifers. The amount of toxins required would be too risky for terrorists to transport. Eighteen-wheelers, train cars—too visible, too likely to be inspected. Moreover, biological agents dumped into a city’s water source would become highly diluted by the time they reached a treatment plant. But contaminants in smaller doses are easy to transport, and at specific critical points in the supply system, easy to insert.
“Here’s what compounds the problem. We don’t have a system to rapidly access whether an attack has occurred. We’re quite reactive rather than proactive.”
“Why?’ Attorney General Goldman asked quite sincerely.
“Simply put,” Comley explained, “water supplies are really only monitored for a limited number of contaminants, and even those results can take hours or days. Also, local monitoring is fairly concentrated on screening for microbial contamination from human waste. Not the presence of bio and chem weapons. Mostly sewage.”
“Shit,” Bernsie whispered. It was not meant as a joke.
“To put it another way,” Comely continued, “we are not prepared to defend or test our water resources from an attack. And that brings me to a report from The Journal of the American Medical Association. The AMA reviewed the likely ways lethal or near-lethal agents could be used in a biological attack. Some can survive better in water than others. It depends upon how much water and whether the toxins have to pass through sophisticated filtration systems.”
The CDC doctor scanned her notes. She hadn’t missed a thing.
“So, where would a terrorist lace water with positive results? In rural wells, in critical downstream points of the delivery system, in unpressurized, typically passively defended water bladders, in water towers, through valves at control points where maintenance and supervision is lax, in building holding tanks, and in common public, office, and home water coolers.
“Through these delivery routes, CW/BW toxins can have deadly impact. A saboteur with four- and-a-quarter hundred-pound bags of sodium cyanide, with access to clear wells or water storage bladders, could create a deadly blend that could kill or incapacitate a small town right through their faucets. Just .21 kilograms, or less than a half a pound of botulism toxin in a two hundred thousand-gallon supply would do just as well. For less than ten thousand dollars, anyone with something as simple as a home brewing kit, protein cultures, and personal protection gear can cultivate trillions of bacteria, effective threats to drinking water. It’s incredibly easy. If a treatment plant isn’t manned twenty-four hours, and not remotely monitored, then a terrorist could shut off the online chlorinator and dump in any number of nasty toxins. Within hours of consumption, well, let’s just say this doesn’t end well.”
Dr. Comley flipped the board again. Response Time.
“The covert dissemination of toxins may not be noticed on a wide scale for a variety of reasons. Local doctors may not be experienced in sophisticated diagnoses. They may not have been trained to report CW/BW cases. As a result, regional or national CDC investigators could remain unaware of the threats for days or longer. This is what has just occurred. Patients have been infected in rural areas and small towns with little notice. But over the last week, news began to spread through late night talk radio, blogs, and social media. It is surely to be followed when reports from Las Vegas hit the wire services, television, and the Internet. Inevitably, we face the possibility of widespread panic.
“Before I take questions, I’d like to refer to America’s Safe Drinking Water Act which identifies contaminants that have posed risks to public water systems. It categorizes levels of toxins and deployment by their danger to humans. In its Susceptibility Analysis, critical factors include potential poisons, proximity of the contaminants to water sources, geological considerations, and the likelihood of actual release and dissemination.
“Contaminants that could be released are given a factor of x1, or as I like to say, Times 1. Those close to release, with still indeterminable impact are rated x2; Times 2. And contaminants that pose a real and present, quantifiable health hazard on a grand scale are given the factor of x3. As a physician, a research scientist, and a mother, I never
wanted to see America at Times 3. But I’m here to tell you, without any equivocation, we are.”
Forty-five
Morgan Taylor held Scott Roarke back as the session ended. “Scott, one quick thing.”
“Sure, boss.”
Taylor thanked everyone and asked them to wait in the cabinet room, get caught up with phone calls, and be ready for further briefings. When the Oval Office was clear, the president put his hand on Roarke’s arm; a sign of endearment and trust.
“We’re going to move at light speed. I need three of you. Unfortunately, there’s only one.”
Roarke laughed.
“So expect calls 24/7, meetings at any time, and be ready to move on a dime.”
“Always packed.” He didn’t need to add armed.
“Starting in fifty in the Situation Room. You earned a seat at the briefing. But no sitting. Stand in the back. Wear your damned lapel pin for a change and read the faces. They’re going to be shocked and I want to know who can really handle this crisis with me.”
Roarke didn’t do it often, but this time the request called for a formal, command reaction. “Yes sir.”
“Thank you, now take a hike. I’ve got to give Patrick and a few other members of Congress a preview so they don’t shit a brick.”
Congressman Duke Patrick’s name reminded Roarke about his dinner with Christine. It was getting complicated already.
Congressman Duke Patrick’s office
The congressman’s secretary buzzed Patrick. “Mr. Speaker, the president is on the line.”
Patrick and Slocum were reviewing talking points for an MSNBC interview. He stumbled the last time on the air. Now with Slocum’s coaching, he would be better.
“What the hell does he want? Kelly, find out if it can wait.”
Scott Roarke 03 - Executive Command Page 27
