by James Rosone
He then turned to look at Austin Peterson, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs. “General, if we move forward with this plan and bring this to the people’s attention, there is going to be some serious civil disturbance. Worse, things may start to fall apart. How will the military feel about this? Whose side will they come down on?” he asked.
“It’s not about whose side the military will come down on, Mr. President,” General Peterson answered. “Each and every one of us has sworn an oath to the Constitution, to protect it against both foreign and domestic enemies. What I see from what’s been shared with me up to this point is a clear attack on our democracy. Foreign actors have purposely tried to usurp our government and install a candidate of their choosing, not the American people’s. That is the problem. When couched that way, I believe the officers and soldiers under my command will adhere to the authority of the duly elected President. Right now, that’s you. If the election were held and a new leader were elected, then the military would fall under that new authority.
“If you present the information to the people the same way you presented it to me, I think the voters will decide for themselves what to believe. If they still choose to vote for the other guy, well, then you’ll have done the right thing and they will have won fair and square and the military will back you up on that.”
Austin has been fairly silent during the past hour, so McElroy felt that it was good to get his perspective on the situation.
Lifting his head up, the President turned to Malcolm and Patty. “OK. We’ll let the American people know what we know and let the chips fall where they may. In the meantime, General, I need you to work with the AG and DHS on preventing these terrorist attacks from happening. If I need to sign some sort of executive order to make it rain, then please tell me what you need. We have to stop these attacks.”
The next hour was spent going over what specific laws needed to be suspended and for how long. Once the NSA was able to identify and locate the terrorist cells still in hiding, the Joint Special Operations Command would unleash the entire wrath of the US military on them.
Chapter 14
Thunderclouds
October 31, 2020
Kosovo
Camp Bondsteel
Sefer Kubura had been stripped naked and strapped to a chair in the interrogation room with the sensory deprivation headphones and eye mask on for nearly four hours. His body shivered a bit in the cool air while goose bumps had formed across much of his body.
Once he had been captured and brought to Bondsteel, they immediately began the process of disorienting him and getting him primed for his interrogation. His mind and body were being meticulously prepped for what was about to happen to him. Every effort to break him down physically, emotionally, and mentally was being applied.
With a terrorist attack supposed to happen today, there was not a lot of time to get the information from him, so they had to skip a lot of steps that normally would have been taken.
“Seth,” said Brigadier General Lancaster, drawing his comrade out of a deep train of thought. “See if he knows anything about the election day attack the Serbian group was going to carry out. I’m not confident we’ll find Tahir Shicri in time now that he knows we’re after him.”
Seth nodded. He agreed that the chances of them finding Shicri in less than seventy-two hours were slim. They’d need to see if Sefer could fill in any of the same pieces to the puzzle.
“I’ll do my best, sir,” Seth responded. “I know I don’t have long, so we’re going right to the hard stuff.” He held up a small black bag with a zipper on it.
Nothing more needed to be said. The general walked back to the interrogation observation room along with the other analysts, who would check and cross-reference any information Sefer provided and feed questions to Seth via his earpiece.
Once he walked into the interrogation room, Seth told the two guards to take the headset and eye mask off the prisoner. While they were doing this, Seth placed a bottle of water on the table in front of Sefer. When his disoriented detainee could see again, Seth pointed to the water, and through the use of an interpreter, he told him to drink.
Seth wasn’t fond of working through an interpreter, but he didn’t speak Serbo-Croatian or Albanian. Seth was fluent in Mandarin and had a working understanding of Korean, but virtually no European language skills.
Sefer grabbed the bottle of water and drank most of it down. He took a minute to survey his surroundings; just like Rexhepi, he couldn’t see a way out. Turning his attention back to the American before him, he asked, “Why have you captured me? I haven’t done anything to you.” The translator did his best to keep up.
Pretending the translator wasn’t there, just as he had been trained to do, Seth focused his attention on the prisoner and let the man sitting behind him do his job while he focused on doing his own.
“We know about the terrorist attack you’re planning to carry out in America,” Seth asserted. “I want to know how many people are involved and what your targets are.”
With a look of indignant arrogance, Sefer just laughed.
Feeling his anger rising within him, Seth again asked the same question.
This time, Sefer just spat at Seth. “You’ll never find them. You’re too late,” he said, letting out a deep guttural laugh.
“We’ll see how much you laugh in a few minutes,” Seth countered, unzipping the small black bag lying on the table in front of him.
Sefer’s smile immediately turned serious when he saw Seth pull out a small vial with a yellowish liquid in it. Seth filled the syringe about halfway. For effect, he pushed a little bit of the liquid out, allowing a small amount to spray into the air as it pushed the remaining air out of the syringe.
Seth looked at his prisoner. “I’m about to give you a drug, Sefer. This isn’t a fun drug that makes you happy. You see, this is a specially designed drug, an experimental drug, if you will. It’s been manufactured for one sole purpose—to make every nerve ending in your body feel as if it is on fire. In reality, your body won’t be enveloped in flames, but I can promise you, your mind won’t be able to distinguish the difference.” He paused at this point as he let the translator catch up.
“I’m going to ask you again—how many people are involved in this attack, and what are their targets?” He held up the syringe for effect. “If you fail to cooperate, I will inject you with this drug.”
When the translator finished speaking, Sefer looked at him with pure anger and hatred in his eyes. He then sucked as much snot as he could into the back of his throat and attempted to spit it at Seth.
Seth stepped aside just in time and the spittle landed behind him, next to his interpreter, who likewise sidestepped the sputum. Seth nodded to one of the guards, who walked up to Sefer from the side and punched him so hard in the side of the face that he fell out of his chair while still strapped to it. The guard then picked the chair up with him still attached to it and held his arms down. Seth walked up to Sefer, jabbed the needle into his deltoid muscle and depressed the plunger. Within seconds, Sefer’s entire demeanor changed.
He began to scream uncontrollably. Sweat collected on his forehead and face. The heart monitor the guards had attached to him showed an immediate spike in his pulse as the drug circulated throughout his body. For the next several minutes, Sefer just shouted and shrieked in agonizing pain as every nerve in his body sent signals to his brain, telling him he was burning from the inside. He kept looking down at his arms and legs, as if not believing that it was possible he wasn’t actually engulfed in fire.
When Sefer’s heart rate had stabilized a bit, Seth asked, “How many people are part of this attack? What are they going to attack?”
Sefer tried his best to look tough. He stuck his chin out. “You can torture me all you want, but I will never talk. Never!” Then he screamed again as another wave of pain washed over him. His body tensed up as he fought against the straps holding him to the chair.
Seth picked
the vial up again and filled the syringe halfway up with more of the yellowish liquid. He showed the drug to Sefer. “This stuff won’t kill you, but you’ll wish it would. The pain is only going to get worse. I suggest you start to talk. If you do, I can give you another drug that will turn this off like the flick of a switch.” He snapped his fingers for effect.
Seething with anger, Sefer just growled at him. Seth nodded to the guards again, who moved forward and held the prisoner’s arms still as Seth approached. He swiftly injected the second round of drugs into Sefer’s arm.
Sefer screamed again and again in pain, howling as the agony washed over every cell of his body. He started shaking, sweat now dripping off his face and the rest of his body. His heart rate was now spiking up to two hundred beats a minute. Seth knew he couldn’t push him much further, or he’d stroke out.
I hope he breaks in a few more minutes, Seth thought. He didn’t want to resort to the physical stuff, but he would if he had to.
Three minutes went by with no one saying anything. Seth just watched as Sefer rocked back and forth against the restraints in pain.
“All I want is a number. How many people are going to carry out the attack?” Seth asked, using a more comforting tone.
Shaking uncontrollably, Sefer looked up at Seth. “Fine. I’ll tell you. Just make it stop!” he yelled. “I can’t take it anymore.”
Nodding, but not smiling, Seth replied, “OK, Sefer. I’ll make it stop. Just tell me how many people are involved in the attack.” He picked up a different vial with a clear liquid in it. Seth grabbed a clean syringe and filled it up about a quarter of the way. Then he paused as he waited for the answer.
With fire in his eyes, and a hatred Seth had only seen a few times in his life, Sefer cursed at him a few times before he finally said, “Six. Six people are going to carry out the attack today.”
Nodding, Seth got up and walked over to Sefer. Before placing the syringe into his arm, he asked, “How are they going to carry out their attack?”
Looking up at Seth, Sefer suddenly sported a wicked grin. “It doesn’t matter. You’re too late to stop them,” he said.
Tilting his head to the side, Seth replied, “Then you should have no problem telling me how it’s going to happen. I mean, if we’re too late, then what difference does it make?”
He then proceeded to inject Sefer with the concoction that would turn the effects of the nerve pain off. Unbeknownst to his prisoner, Seth had already mixed this drug with his other drug of choice, the happy drug that made people extremely calm, chatty, and completely unable to resist answering his questions.
It took only a moment for the new concoction to take effect. In a fraction of a second, Sefer’s body language completely changed. Every muscle in his body that had been tense immediately relaxed. Seth watched the telltale expression of exhilaration take hold of his prisoner’s face; the hatred and animosity were gone.
Sefer laughed at Seth’s question. “You’re right—it doesn’t make a difference. You can’t stop them. You know why you can’t stop them?” he asked.
Walking back to the chair opposite Sefer, Seth sat back down and looked back at him. “No. Why don’t you enlighten me?” he asked.
Sefer smiled. “Look at me. Look at you. Look at your interpreter…we’re all white. You can’t stop my bombers because, unlike Arabs, we’re all white. We look just like you. You can’t stop us because you can’t distinguish us from yourselves.”
Seth nodded at the response. He had to give these guys credit. Whoever had thought up this master plan had done a superb job. They had found a group of Islamic extremists who looked just like the average American or European.
Seth moved to praising his prisoner and stroking his ego. “Clever. Incredibly clever, Sefer,” he said.
The prisoner smiled and nodded. “Our attack is even more clever,” he said, subconsciously repeating Seth’s words. “Not only are we using white people to carry it out, we’re bringing the jihadis directly to your most vulnerable people. Tonight, when your children go out trick-or-treating, our suicide bombers will strike.”
Seth did his best to conceal his horror and his own anger. My own kids are going to be out tonight, he thought, an undercurrent of panic rising up.
Seth took a deep breath and steadied himself. “What type of attack are they going to carry out?” he asked calmly.
Sefer snickered. “One you can’t stop—martyr attacks.”
Shaking his head disapprovingly, Seth exclaimed, “Impossible. You can’t get the equipment to build a suicide vest in America, not in 2020—maybe a decade ago, but not these days.” Seth was trying to create doubt in Sefer’s mind and get him to tell them more details that might help them track down who the attackers might be.
“You Americans are so arrogant. You think you know everything. You know nothing. Our vests aren’t homemade. These are professionally made using military-grade explosives. When you have friends in high places and you’re doing the will of Allah, nothing is impossible.”
“You really think the Chinese are going to help you?” Seth retorted. “They’ve probably sold you fake explosives just to make money off you.” He was throwing a piece of meat out there just to see what Sefer’s response would be.
Tilting his head to the side, Sefer gave a wry smile. “You know about the Chinese?”
“We know everything,” Seth said nonchalantly. “Why don’t you tell me your version?”
Sefer smiled and shook his head. “Nice trick, but I think I’ll let you figure things out on your own…”
For the next hour, Seth tried multiple different angles and approaches to get Sefer to give up the details of the type of suicide attack his people were going to carry out and whether he knew anything else about the election day attack the Serbian group was planning. Unfortunately, Sefer wouldn’t budge, despite the drugs Seth continued to pump into him.
Frustrated, Seth turned the interrogation over to one of the DEVGRU interrogation teams to work on him for a while. He needed to write up what he had. While he didn’t have all the details he was after, they now knew the terrorists were going to target trick-or-treaters tonight. It wasn’t a lot to go on, but hopefully that bit of information could be pieced together with others and paint enough of a picture for someone to see the whole thing.
*******
Fort Meade, Maryland
National Security Agency
National Security Advisor Robert Grey drummed his fingers on the mahogany table as he waited for one of the deputy directors of the NSA to come in and brief him. The President had signed an executive order suspending some privacy laws in the US that barred the NSA from being able to listen on phone calls made by individuals who fit a predetermined profile that had been created by the DOJ, FBI, NSA, and DHS, and the NSA was now quite busy sorting through their mounds of data.
Fortunately, intelligence had determined that the attack was going to be carried out by individuals from Bosnia, Serbia, Kosovo, Albania, and Macedonia, so the NSA could focus their efforts on going after individuals and groups that fit that specific demographic. Of course, the EO was only valid for five days, but he hoped it would be just long enough for them to identify the terrorists before they could carry out their attacks.
God, if word ever got out about what we’re doing, this could go really south on us, he thought. He knew the optics of it would be especially bad since it was right before an election.
Suddenly the door to his office opened. One of the deputy directors of the NSA walked in with a woman he didn’t immediately recognize.
“Good morning, Mr. Grey,” said Deputy Director Tony Wildes. He walked up and extended his hand.
Smiling, NSA Grey responded, “It’s actually afternoon now.” He motioned to the chairs and they took their seats.
Tony blushed slightly. “I suppose you’re right,” he said. “We’ve been busy trying to track down the information you requested. I must say, I’m rather surprised the AG and the FBI went alon
g with this EO. This is an incredibly expansive directive.” He opened his briefcase and proceeded to pull out a folder he’d brought with him.
“Extraordinary times call for extraordinary steps to be taken to protect our democracy,” Grey said flatly.
“Yes, of course,” said Tony, shifting a bit in his seat. “OK, per the parameters given to us, we’ve run some searches, and I think we’ve come up with some possible names and individuals who fit the bill.”
NSA Grey lifted his left eyebrow suspiciously. He hadn’t expected a result so quickly.
The woman who’d taken a seat next to Tony explained, “You’ve taken the leash off. We’re responding.”
Grey smiled at the response. “I’m sorry. What’s your name and what do you do here?” he asked.
“I’m Leah Riesling. I’m one of the department heads in the counterintelligence department. I run the European desk,” she replied.
Robert nodded. “Good to know,” he replied. Then he wrote her name and job title down on his pad of paper. When he had finished, he said, “Great job finding something so quick. So, what have you got for me?”
“We have a few names for you,” said Leah, pointing to a list on the first page of the report Tony had produced. “These six individuals flew into the US on German passports five days ago—three men and three women. Nothing was flagged when they entered the country, but we’ve since learned that the biometrics they provided match German nationals who are still presently located in Germany.”
NSA Grey held up a hand. “Whoa, how is that possible? Wouldn’t this have been caught when they entered?”
“The passports were spoofed, sir. They took a legitimate passport, forged the image with their intended operator and then hacked the electronics to associate someone else’s fingerprints. When we did our check at customs, everything would have seemed correct.”
“OK, so how did you guys figure that out, then?” asked Grey.
“Under normal circumstances, we’d honestly have no idea that someone had managed to successfully spoof a passport. However, with the EO you guys provided us, we broke into the German biometric database. After running recent entry data against their system, we found that these fingerprints matched other German nationals, not the ones listed on their passports.”
