Rule of Law

by Randy Singer

  But in moments like this, they knew it was a very big deal.

  “I will be monitoring every minute of this mission from the Situation Room at the White House. While Americans go safely about their business, your team will be showing the rest of the world why this is still the land of the brave.”

  She leaned back a bit, and Patrick wanted to salute. But he didn’t know the protocol and thought he should wait for her to stand. When she did, he gave her a crisp salute. He sensed his team rising behind him and doing the same.

  The president saluted back. “God bless you,” she said, and the feed was terminated.

  For a few seconds, nobody said a word, the gravity of the moment engulfing them.

  As usual, it was Beef Anderson who broke the reverence. “You suck-up!” he said, pounding Patrick on the back. “‘I’ll be sure to vote for you next time!’” he squealed. “‘You are such an awesome leader!’”

  The other men chimed in, mocking Patrick and his interaction with the commander in chief.

  But Patrick didn’t care. The mission was on! And a farm boy from a small town in upstate New York had just spoken to the president of the United States of America.

  13

  WASHINGTON, D.C.

  On Maundy Thursday, Philip Kilpatrick began his day, as he always did, at 6:30 a.m. with President Hamilton in the Oval Office. Kilpatrick was an inch or two shorter than the president and about twenty pounds overweight, ten of which had been added during the first year of her presidency.

  He remembered the first day of Hamilton’s term, when they had met in this room so rich with history, so ripe with the smell of luxury—freshly polished wood and shampooed carpet. He had watched as Amanda Hamilton ran her hand over the finish of the president’s Resolute desk, made from the timbers of the British frigate HMS Resolute and presented as a gift from Queen Victoria in 1880. There were the busts of Abraham Lincoln and Martin Luther King Jr. flanking the fireplace, the portrait of Washington centered just above it. Kilpatrick had walked to the bookcase and picked up the program from the August 28, 1963, March on Washington when Martin Luther King Jr. gave his “I Have a Dream” speech.

  Watching the president that day, Kilpatrick had felt himself getting caught up in the same sense of history that Amanda must have felt. But those days seemed far away now, a distant memory of a time when governing seemed full of possibilities. The first year of her administration had humbled them both. Her domestic agenda had been thwarted by Republicans in the House. On the international front, ISIS was gaining ground, and Iran was suspected of violating its nuclear deal without remorse. Midterm elections were still seven months away, but the president’s popularity had dipped below 50 percent. History, which showed that presidents accomplished the most during the first eighteen months of their administration, was not on their side.

  Coffees in hand, Kilpatrick and his boss took their respective seats in front of the fireplace. They were studying the printout of the president’s schedule, shuffling events so she could monitor the mission that evening. They would postpone some arm-twisting meetings with senators about judicial appointments. The vice president could take a ceremonial appearance at a local elementary school. They could use that time slot to meet with Democratic party leaders who had been previously scheduled for dinner. And so it went, juggling this event and sliding that event over so that the busiest woman on earth would have nothing on her calendar from 6 p.m., when the men would be parachuting into Yemen, until whatever time the mission was concluded.

  When they finished, Kilpatrick handed the president copies of three speeches. “They’re all short and to the point.”

  “Good,” she said, leafing through them.

  “The top one is for a mission with no American casualties and the successful rescue of both Holloman and Abdulaziz. The second is a successful rescue but with American casualties.”

  Hamilton looked at the speeches as Kilpatrick talked, flipping pages and then setting each one aside. They were no longer than five minutes each with just the facts. For a successful mission, the president’s speechwriter knew there was no point in boasting. Let others do it for you.

  “The third one is our disaster scenario. Americans killed or captured. Holloman and/or Abdulaziz still in prison. As you requested, it goes into Iran’s role in backing the Houthis. Lots of talk about the bravery of our troops, of course. A call to action to get tougher with Iran.” Kilpatrick stopped talking and gave the president a few moments to look it over.

  The signature frown told him everything he needed to know. She looked at her schedule again. “We need to free up another hour. I need to work on this.”

  Kilpatrick rubbed his stubbly gray beard, took off his distance glasses, and looked again at the schedule. He thought about all the political fallout if he canceled or shortened even one more event. He knew the speech wasn’t a masterpiece, but then again, nobody would remember exactly what was said after a disastrous mission. The important thing would be for Amanda to be seen as presidential, which meant proposing strong and decisive action. This speech was perfect for that.

  “What don’t you like about it?” Kilpatrick asked. “Maybe I can work on it this morning and you can look it over first thing this afternoon.”

  In response, Amanda handed the first two speeches back to her chief of staff but kept the third. “I need an hour,” she said in a tone that made it clear there would be no debate. “We’ve got to get this right.”

  The routine was always the same with John Marcano, director of the CIA. Kilpatrick would go to CIA headquarters, pass through the CIA’s metal detectors, and be wanded by the guards. There would be a staffer waiting on the other side of security who would stay at Kilpatrick’s side as they turned around and left the building, climbing into a waiting sedan. Kilpatrick would be ferried to a different spot in the capital each time, dropped off, and pointed toward a park bench and a waiting Marcano. Whether it was snowing, raining, or a hundred degrees, they always met outside, at a place of Marcano’s choosing.

  Today, the director wore a dark suit and a raincoat, his umbrella at the ready. The sky was dark and ominous, the sidewalk wet from the brief showers that had passed through earlier. Kilpatrick had brought his own umbrella; Marcano did not like to share.

  Kilpatrick sat down, keeping some space between himself and Marcano, and crossed his legs. They gave each other their usual stiff greetings, and Marcano didn’t waste any time getting to business.

  Their meeting lasted all of ten minutes. Marcano, as usual, never looked at Kilpatrick when he talked. He kept his voice low and even. Kilpatrick suspected they were being videoed and that Marcano would watch the video later to study Kilpatrick’s facial expressions. At times Marcano covered his mouth with his hand or rubbed his face so that lip-readers would never be able to make out what he said. The man was paranoid in the extreme and one of the few people who made Kilpatrick nervous.

  When the meeting was finished, both men stood and walked to the curb, where a black sedan pulled up. The director shook Kilpatrick’s hand, said, “I’ll see you tonight,” and climbed into the car.

  Instead of hailing a cab, Kilpatrick decided to walk the seven blocks back to the White House. It had started to sprinkle, and he had a thousand things to do, but none of that mattered right now. He needed time to think, and the walk might clear his head.

  As he passed other pedestrians on D.C.’s busy sidewalks, tourists and government workers, students and businessmen and -women, for a brief moment he envied all of them. The normal cares of an average life. What did the boss think of my project? When will I have time to study? What museum will we go to today? He longed for a time when he could finally retire, read the news about the misfortunes of others, and have no more pressing issues to address than choosing a restaurant for dinner. But even as he thought about such things, Philip Kilpatrick knew he would never retire. This was what he hated and what he craved at the same time. The weight of the world on his shoulders. Along the jo
urney, he had sacrificed even his own family for this.

  He was seeing a side of the world that few people knew existed. He felt alive with power and influence. There were politicians and leaders, up-front people who came and went. But there were also strategists behind the scenes, puppet masters who pulled the strings. John Marcano was one of them and, with his quiet and paranoid ways, one of the best. But Philip Kilpatrick was another. And he wasn’t about to let the bookish director of the CIA get the better of him.

  As he walked faster, his thoughts came with more clarity. They all had secrets, things they would do differently—you didn’t get to the top by playing it safe. All he could do now was navigate the way forward. Amanda Hamilton was depending on him. And he was not about to disappoint the president of the United States.

  VIRGINIA BEACH, VIRGINIA

  Paige Chambers had sent two text messages and one e-mail to Patrick Quillen since the last time she had heard from him. In that text message, Patrick had been upbeat and witty, telling her how much he appreciated his taxpayer-funded vacation to the Med. He said he might not be able to contact her for a couple of days and asked her to say a prayer for him. And that was all.

  She called Kristen and received some reassurance. It was not unusual for the boys to go a few days without responding to messages. It was all just part of the drill. “I know Patrick will call on Easter,” Kristen said. “It’s his favorite day of the year.”

  Paige went for a run, took a shower, and began fixing dinner. Since Patrick’s deployment, she had started watching the news again. A year and a half ago, Paige had voted for Amanda Hamilton, optimistic that a former prosecutor would have the guts and wisdom to turn things around in Washington. But Paige had been disappointed when one of the president’s first domestic initiatives was to soften federal sentencing guidelines for first- and second-time drug offenders. There were a couple of missteps abroad as well, in Paige’s opinion, and Paige had pretty much decided to tune the whole thing out. But now, with Patrick overseas, her interest in foreign affairs had been rekindled.

  Mideast tensions were at an all-time high as Holy Week reached its conclusion. There were reports of ISIS attacks on Christians and fighting in the West Bank. Yet that was nothing out of the ordinary, as far as Paige could tell. She finished her dinner and retreated to her study to put in a few more hours on a brief that was due the next day.

  14

  Philip Kilpatrick had been in dozens of meetings in the Situation Room, but there was a different tension in the air tonight. The president arrived just before six, wearing a sweater and jeans, her hair pulled back and her sleeves pushed up. Others stood as she entered, but she briskly signaled for them to sit down.

  Amanda Hamilton prided herself on running informal meetings, and the younger members of the National Security Council took full advantage. Vice President Frazier was in khakis and an untucked button-down shirt. The secretary of state, a forty-two-year-old whiz kid who had worked his way up through the ambassador ranks, sported a golf shirt. But the older men, like Director Marcano, all wore ties or open-neck shirts with sport coats. Roman Simpson, the bulky secretary of defense, was in full uniform, his colorful array of ribbons splattered across his chest.

  Kilpatrick wore a white shirt, red tie, and gray pants. There would be a presidential speech later tonight in one form or another. As White House chief of staff, he would help herd the press, and there would be no time to change before that took place.

  For the first ninety minutes, the president was restless. She spent some time working on her speech in a side room with a fully equipped desk and frosted privacy windows. She popped in and out of the main conference room as the SEALs landed, buried their equipment, and made their way to the prison. She finally settled in, leaning forward with eyes unblinking, as the snipers took their places.

  A large digital display on the wall opposite the president was divided into four separate screens. The first showed Admiral Paul Towers at the command headquarters in Saudi Arabia. The second showed a satellite feed of the prison facility. The third contained an aerial photo of the prison and surrounding area that had been taken in daytime. Flashing markers on this screen represented the SEALs as they moved across the landscape. The fourth screen showed a ground-level view, alternately taken from the helmets of the various team leaders.

  Kilpatrick and the others had a similar array of video feeds on their laptops and could switch feeds whenever they wanted, including some that were not displayed on the wall. The audio from the command net came into the room over the loudspeaker.

  Kilpatrick watched the third screen as the snipers surrounded the prison at a distance of about a hundred meters. He waited for the snipers to open fire and heard the calls as the guards in the towers fell. He found himself holding his breath when it was obvious the last sniper had missed and return fire came from one of the towers. But then the sniper found his mark.

  “All six towers have been secured,” Admiral Towers said over the video screen. “The breachers are up next.”

  All eyes in the Situation Room were glued to the ground-level view on screen four when it became obvious that the mission would not go according to plan. They saw chaos on the ground, the breachers racing toward the prison walls and then scrambling back for cover. They heard Patrick Quillen call for permission to commence Operation Slingshot. They heard the momentary pause before Towers granted permission and then looked at the camera, his eyes boring into the men and women in the Situation Room.

  “I’ve authorized drone strikes,” he said. “This will complicate the mission, but we planned for this contingency.”

  “How long until the drones arrive?” the president asked.

  “Two minutes.”

  “Very well,” said the president, although nobody thought for a moment that Towers had been asking her permission.

  This mission was technically a CIA operation, and for tonight, Towers was reporting to Director John Marcano. America was not at war in Yemen and could not send in its troops without violating international law and the Constitution. But it could send in “civilian” CIA operatives, even if they happened to be expertly trained Special Forces who had been deputized only for the evening. It was the same logic, and the same method, that Obama had employed when sending the SEALs after bin Laden in Pakistan.

  But in reality, given Towers’s ego and battlefield experience, he was the one calling all the shots. Marcano was just window dressing.

  In precisely two minutes, just as Towers had said, the video feeds showed explosions in six guard towers nearly simultaneously, and for a brief moment Kilpatrick allowed himself to bask in the pride of American ingenuity.

  But the feeling was short-lived. The action unfolded so quickly it was hard to keep up. Two of the four screens at the front switched to grainy infrared ground feeds from the helmets of the team leaders, and Kilpatrick’s eyes darted from one to the next. The calls came in on the command net, and Towers provided brusque commentary.

  “Alpha One has breached the compound and secured the front entryway. Alpha Two is securing the stairs. Both teams are engaged.”

  Kilpatrick could see pieces of the chaotic firefight, the dead Houthi guard being thrown into the stairwell, drawing fire, followed by the SEALs. He heard the sounds of gunshots and explosions over the command net. A chilling cry of “Allahu Akbar!” could be heard in the background. The team leaders on the command net were out of breath; a SEAL on Alpha Two had been gunned down in the stairwell.

  General Simpson, normally impassive, had his lips pursed and was slowly shaking his head. Towers was too busy talking with his men to provide commentary for the Situation Room. Kilpatrick stole a quick glance at the president, who had her fist to her mouth.

  A photographer had been allowed in the opposite corner of the Situation Room to capture the historic moment, but the president told him to put the camera down. This was no longer a photo op; it was a life-and-death mission with a serious risk of failure. A sense of help
lessness permeated the room, settling over the hunched shoulders and strained faces of the most powerful people on the planet, who could do nothing but watch.

  The calls came in from the snipers that they were all under fire, followed a few minutes later by the chilling moment when Patrick Quillen called to his command.

  “Alpha One to Hawk.”

  “Hawk here,” Towers said.

  “You need to see this.”

  At first the feed from Quillen’s camera showed the jail cell in the green hues of a night vision camera. Then he switched on his helmet light, illuminating the scene before him.

  They froze around the table. The life-size cardboard cutout of the president filled the video screen. Several in the room gasped. The vice president cursed under his breath. General Simpson sat straight up in his chair and commanded Towers to get the men out. The Houthis obviously had known they were coming. Then, remembering that this was not his mission, Simpson looked at CIA director John Marcano.

  “I agree with General Simpson,” Marcano said to the president, his face expressionless. “We have no choice.”

  “All right,” said the president. “Abort the mission.”

  “The birds are on their way for extraction,” Towers said crisply. “I’m sending in the QRF.”

  Simpson turned to the others in the Situation Room. “The Black Hawks are on their way. We had planned to use them for extraction. They’re about seven minutes out. The QRF is our Quick Response Force. A total of sixty SEALs and Delta Force members.”

  “Can we get these men out without using the QRF?” the president asked, her voice calm but commanding. She was talking to Simpson, but the response came from Admiral Towers on the video screen.