Rigged

by James Rosone

  When they approached the boss, General Royal held up a hand. “I know what you’re going to ask—the President green-lit our deployment to Kosovo. As soon as the NSA and CIA identify the safe houses and those who were involved in this attack or supported it, we’ll start carrying out raids.”

  He turned to Moore. “Chief, I want you to assemble and lead an analytical team on the ground at Bondsteel. Identify who and what you’ll need and get those assets airborne now. The Air Force is going to have a C-40 Clipper arrive here in two hours. Once it’s fueled and ready to go, you guys are to head straight for Kosovo.”

  Next, he looked at Lieutenant Colonel Mitchell. “Seth, you’re going with them,” he ordered. “The Agency is sending a special interrogation team to Bondsteel. You’ve worked with them in the past, so I want you to stick to them like white on rice when the time comes. I’m not about to allow us to be frozen out of whatever the Agency uncovers. You know these guys—you have a rapport with them. More importantly, they trust you. Keep me in the loop on whatever you guys discover out there. We’ve got thirteen days until the election. It’s going to be pure chaos and craziness until it’s finally over, and God only knows how many more attacks they have planned.”

  Seth nodded in acceptance. “I understand, sir. We’ll get these guys.”

  With that said, Chief Moore and Lieutenant Colonel Mitchell split up to head back to their individual workspaces to make sure they had everything they’d need, grab their go bags and then make sure the people they were bringing with them were ready as well.

  Seth took a minute to walk outside and found the locker where he had locked up his cell phone earlier. He quickly withdrew the key and turned his phone on. As he waited for the system to reboot, he tried to run through in his mind what he was going to tell his wife. He couldn’t tell her much, but she needed to know he wouldn’t be coming home tonight and most likely not for the next several weeks.

  Looking down at his screen, he saw that his phone had been inundated with news alerts, missed text messages from friends and family, and several voicemails. Putting all that aside, he hit the speed dial to his wife’s phone. It rang twice before a familiar voice picked up.

  “Seth? Are you OK?” she asked.

  “Hey, darling. Yes, I’m OK. Are you and the kids all right?” he asked, concerned. He had left rather abruptly five hours ago. He was sure they probably had questions. The kids were probably scared by his quick departure in combination with everything that was going on.

  “We’re doing OK. The kids want to know when you’re coming home,” she said.

  He sighed. “That’s what I’m calling about. I can’t tell you much—you know how security is. What I can say is I’m going to be gone for a little bit. Before you ask, I don’t know exactly how long, and I can’t tell you where.”

  He paused for a second to let his words sink in. He knew Dana would have questions. “Are you going to be in danger? Are there more terrorist attacks? Are we safe?” she asked in rapid succession.

  Seth pulled the phone away from his head, letting his hand fall down to his leg. He wanted so badly to tell her what he knew, to confide in her. But he knew he couldn’t. At least not over the phone. Lifting the phone back to his ear, he explained, “You guys should be safe. Don’t travel far from home, though. Stay close to the house and make sure you carry that Sig I bought you everywhere you go, OK?”

  He heard her sigh. “OK. I can keep the pistol with me, but you didn’t answer my questions about the attacks or if you’ll be safe,” she said, fear evident in her voice.

  She never missed a beat, he thought, realizing that there were some downsides to marrying a woman so intelligent.

  “I can’t say if the terrorist attacks are done or not,” he answered. “As to being sent into harm’s way… I’m in Special Forces. We’re tip of the spear. Just know that I’m doing everything I can to protect you guys and our country, OK?”

  There was a short pause, and then she angrily retorted, “Damn you guys and your operational security. I hate being kept in the dark, never knowing what you’re doing or if you’ll be safe.” He heard another sigh. “I’ll tell the kids you had to do some work and will be gone for a little while. If you can, you need to figure out a good time to call and talk with them. They deserve to hear from you when you have a chance to talk.”

  He nodded. “You’re right, Dana. When I get to where I’m going, I’ll do my best to find a time when I can at least talk to them for more than five minutes.” Seth paused for a moment as he tried to steel himself, wiping a tear away. “I have to get going, darling. I love you. I love the kids, and I’ll do my best to call again when I get a chance, OK?”

  “OK, tough guy,” she said, obviously trying to buck up like a good soldier herself. “You hang in there, and don’t be a hero. Just come home when this is all done. I love you…my Captain America,” she said. Then she ended the call.

  Wiping away another tear, Seth turned his phone off and placed it back in the phone box. He’d retrieve it again before they headed to the airfield to catch their ride.

  Twenty minutes later, Lieutenant Colonel Mitchell, Chief Moore and about two dozen others all stood outside the headquarters’ main entrance as they waited for the vehicles that would drive them over to the airfield and the waiting aircraft.

  Three Air Force vans pulled up to the group of soldiers, who quickly piled in. After a short ride, they pulled up near the plane. Seth saw a K loader lifting a couple pallets of gear onto the C-40. When the vans pulled up to the staircase truck, the soldiers all piled out of the vans and proceeded to head up the stairs into the plane.

  Seth suddenly realized he was the senior ranking officer of the group of two dozen soldiers loading into the plane. For some reason, it hadn’t clicked with him until that moment that no other colonel or lieutenant colonels were part of the team being sent to Kosovo. The closest officer in rank that was coming with them was an Army major, and Seth knew he was on loan as a technical expert from Delta. It made sense that he was coming with them; he was probably linking up with his team from Bragg.

  The soldiers Chief Moore had tagged to come with them ranged from communications experts, cybersecurity, and IT subject matter experts to a handful of linguists who specialized in the languages they’d be dealing with once on the ground. Seth was glad someone had remembered they’d need some linguists.

  Seth quickly settled into one of the leather captain’s chairs. He put aside all the swirling thoughts he was having about what he’d learned from his Agency friend. For the next few hours, his focus would be on trying to catch some sleep. Their overnight flight would take them to RAF Lakenheath in the UK to refuel before continuing on to Kosovo. If he was going to be sharp when he arrived, he had to catch some z’s.

  Four hours into their flight, Chief Moore gently shook him awake and pointed toward the fresh cup of coffee sitting on the table nearby. “Time to get up, sir. We just got an intel dump from headquarters—lots of new information.”

  After yawning and doing a deep stretch, Seth felt like a new man despite only having gotten less than three hours of sleep. His mind had been so tired that once he’d closed his eyes, he’d quickly fallen into a state of deep sleep.

  Looking down at the coffee, Seth reached for it and quickly lifted it to his lips, drawing in as much of the hot caffeine-laden liquid as possible in one go. After a couple of large gulps, he stood up and stretched again, this time pulling and stretching out the kinks in his back. His spine popped and cracked more than usual.

  I’m getting too old for this crap, he thought.

  Seth walked over to the part of the plane that had a conference table set up and half a dozen soldiers sitting or standing around it. Looking further down the aircraft, he saw the rest of the soldiers all sacked out in their chairs, doing their best to grab some sleep before they made their first landing in the UK.

  “Good morning, sir. Welcome back to the land of the living,” Master Sergeant Nance said
happily.

  “You’re entirely too cheerful, Sergeant,” Seth replied with a wry smile.

  “Lieutenant Colonel Mitchell, this came in twenty minutes ago. We’re chewing through the information, but Chief said we should wake you up and get you up to speed.” He pointed to the documents. “The FBI finally IDed the other attackers, and they managed to capture one of them.”

  Seth took a seat in one of the chairs and then grabbed the papers. He quickly scanned them over, looking for the pertinent pieces of information first.

  Suspect One, identified as Ismail Gashi, age 32. Originally from Srbica, Kosovo. Traveled to the United States on a German passport 62 days ago. Was wounded in shoot-out with police, received non-life-threatening wounds. Is currently being questioned by FBI.

  Suspect Two, identified as Jamaal Rexhepi, age 29. Originally from Mitrovica, Kosovo. Traveled to the United States on a German passport 41 days ago. Was killed during shoot-out with police.

  Looking up at Master Sergeant Nance, Seth remarked, “I guess it’s a good call that we’re already on our way to Kosovo. It appears these attackers all originated out of this area. Do we have any additional information on any other attacks or other individuals yet?”

  Shaking his head, Nance responded, “Not yet, sir. Hopefully, the FBI will be able to get the one guy we do have in custody to start talking. Until he does, there isn’t much more we have to go on just yet.”

  Chief Moore added, “We’re still trying to figure out why these guys were traveling on German passports and, more importantly, how they got them.”

  “Hopefully, someone from State is working that angle,” said Seth. “How much longer until we land at Lakenheath?” he asked. He wanted to get a sense of how much longer it’d be until they got to Kosovo. From RAF Lakenheath, it was still another six hours and twenty minutes to the Pristina International Airport.

  One of the Air Force guys in their group replied, “We’re twenty minutes away from landing. The pilot should be coming on soon to tell us more.”

  The remainder of the flight went by without incident, and they landed at the joint US-UK base to refuel and quickly got back on their way. By the time they landed in Pristina, a much bigger picture of what had been going on was starting to develop.

  Through a temporary suspension of a few laws and an executive order, the Sachs administration had turned the National Security Agency completely loose to track down exactly who was propagating this information warfare campaign against America. Within minutes of being unleashed, the NSA had begun using their extensive power to squash as many sources, bots, and servers that were propagating the various videos of the terrorist attack as possible. One second, the videos were being shared across Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube—the next, they were simply erased.

  The NSA was quickly purging the internet both domestically and internationally of the incidents to prevent them from being further propagated and used as a divisive tool to tear the country apart. Like a thief in the night, the NSA was deleting the videos and actively tracking down where the bots were originating from that were being used to push the clips.

  What was quickly becoming evident in their quest was the number of hot spots starting to pop up throughout the Balkans, Belarus, Ukraine, Russia, China and, surprisingly, Germany. As the locations were narrowed down, a list of targets was quickly being generated. Home addresses of where the IP addresses originating from, along with any tangible link to who owned the home, such as who the electric bill was registered to, and who else might be staying at that home, were being compiled into electronic dossiers and sent to the Special Forces and CIA teams that were quickly descending upon the sleepy little backwater facility of Camp Bondsteel, Kosovo.

  When the C-40 touched down at Pristina International Airport at 0700 hours, a group of Kosovo officials, including the Minister of Internal Affairs and the head of the Kosovo Police and Security Force, along with the US ambassador and the defense attaché, were there waiting for them.

  As he stood at the top of the staircase that led out of the airplane, Seth looked around. He saw a string of six C-17 Globemaster cargo planes offloading a half dozen black suburban SUVs, and a dozen or so other armored personnel carriers. There were already a few dozen US soldiers scrambling over the various pieces of equipment and cordoning off the far end of the airfield for military use.

  As he reached the bottom of the stairs, Seth extended his hand to the officials who were waiting to meet them.

  “Good morning, Lieutenant Colonel Mitchell. I’m Ambassador Gary Goodman. This is Minister of Interior Ramush Ahmeti, and this is Pal Gashi, the Head of the Security Service. Essentially, all paramilitary and intelligence functions fall under Pal. This is General Ivan Lluka, head of the Kosovo Police and Border Police. I understand you’ve flown directly here from MacDill Air Force Base. I know you probably have a lot on your plate right now, but I would like to know if you could take a few minutes to meet with us and perhaps bring us up to speed on what’s going on. As you can see, a lot has suddenly happened in this sleepy little country, and it has caught everyone off guard.”

  Seth didn’t have time to deal with this. He’d just been given a series of potential targets, and he needed to get eyes up on those marks so they could start to identify the individuals involved and then get the go order to start making arrests. However, seeing the sense of urgency in the ambassador’s countenance and the nervous looks by the other locals, he also knew if he didn’t take a few minutes to brief them on what was going on, things could end up getting bumpy. While the US did operate a base in Kosovo, it still needed their help.

  He nodded. “You’re right, Ambassador. You guys should be brought up to speed. I’m not sure how much big State Department has told you, or what US European Command has shared with you, but I can give you some background on what I’ve learned. I’m sure someone more senior than me will be arriving soon to take charge of all this,” Seth said as he waved his hand around. “How far away is the embassy from here?”

  The ambassador looked visibly relieved. “It’s not far, maybe fifteen minutes by vehicle. We can drive there. I’ll phone ahead to have the SCIF made available. Do you mind if you drive in the vehicle with me while we head to the embassy?” he asked nervously.

  “Yeah, that should be fine,” Seth responded. “Let me just issue a few orders to the rest of my party so they can get the ball rolling on some things.” Then he turned around to find Chief Moore before the ambassador or anyone else could say anything further.

  As soon as he spotted Moore, Seth made a beeline for him. He was yelling at a few soldiers when he walked up. “Hey, go find out if those Suburbans that are being offloaded are ours, or what their status is,” he ordered. They’d been told a half dozen up-armored Suburbans were being flown in to support them, with a few dozen more on the way. Since they were going to be operating in a nonpermissive environment, they couldn’t exactly run around in military combat vehicles.

  Seth waved his arm to grab Moore’s attention. “Chief, I’m going to head over to the embassy for a short bit to talk with the ambassador and bring the locals up to speed. I’ll be on my government phone should you need to reach me. In the meantime, I need you to get things up and running as quickly as possible in Bondsteel. If these vehicles are ours, get them moved to the base and start handing out assignments to 10th Group. I’m going to see if I can’t get us a few local national security folks assigned to help us. They can probably provide us with a better lay of the land and help guide our guys better than we could on our own.”

  “Copy that, sir,” Moore responded. “Just make sure the ambassador and the locals know the President has authorized our mission and given JSOC supremacy. We’re here to go after the guys that just attacked us.” He had a look of concern on his face.

  Seth sighed. Everyone knew that when the politicians got involved in a military mission, they tended to screw it up. No one wanted to mess this one up—not if they had a chance of nabbing the
masterminds of the attack on their homeland. This wasn’t quite 9/11, but it was still a coordinated violent attack on American soil, and for once, they knew where to find those who’d orchestrated it.

  “Roger that, Chief. I’ll be in touch,” Seth replied. He pointed to Master Sergeant Nance. “I’m taking Nance with me. I may need him.” Chief Moore nodded, and when Nance gave him a pleading look, he just shrugged. Nance was obviously not too happy about being told he needed to tag along to go meet with the locals.

  He wants to start working on the target packages, Seth surmised, holding back a chuckle. It made sense, since that was how he felt too.

  After they’d walked back up to the ambassador and his crew, Seth and Nance climbed into the vehicles and began their trek to the embassy. Once they were alone in the vehicle, just the ambassador, his regional security officer or RSO, Lieutenant Colonel Mitchell and Master Sergeant Nance, the ambassador tore into them.

  “Colonel, what the hell is going on? We’re seeing all kinds of horrific stuff going on back in the States, and then I’m getting called by the Secretary of State telling me things are about to completely hit the fan here in the Balkans. An entire company of Special Forces soldiers just arrived out of nowhere, and the CIA Station Chief tells me he has close to two dozen Agency assets inbound. What is happening here?”

  Oh man, we’re going to have to get the CIA deconflicted with us or we could end up tripping over each other, Seth thought to himself.

  He took a deep breath before he spoke, being mindful that they were in a car and not a SCIF. “It’s about the terrorist attacks,” he replied. “What you’re seeing on the news and social media is fake. I mean, the attacks themselves were real; they did kill people. But the captions identifying the attacks are part of a massive disinformation campaign to turn the country against itself.”

  Seth explained in broad terms about the multiple captions attributed to the attacks and how they were being propagated to specific audience groups on social media. The ambassador just shook his head in shock and then dismay at what was happening.