by Oliver North
“If it’s likely or even possible Dr. Cohen is in one of those life rafts, we ought to do it soon. According to what I’ve heard on the radio, Cancun is already closed. Mexico City is closer to the Yucatan than Texas. Depending on the track of the storm, Lucy could shut down all flights into Mexico within the next forty-eight hours. But if we send in our shooters we’re going to need a cover plan.”
Peter nodded and said, “We can deploy the HRU with our Humanitarian/Medical Relief Team that’s packing up now. We’ll just speed up the clock and tell our friends in the Mexican government that due to the severity of the storm, we need to preposition our assets.”
“Whoa,” said Elizabeth. “George is at Narnia with our kids. He’s tagged to head the Med Team on this trip. If he goes out before I get back there, Mom is going to have her hands full.”
Sarah, the only other mother in the room, instantly said, “Why doesn’t Elizabeth fly back to Virginia with Senator Caperton tomorrow?”
“Is that even legal?” asked James.
“Sure,” the senator replied. “Getting Elizabeth to Virginia tomorrow at government expense is essential to carrying out a humanitarian relief mission that is in U.S. national interests. Good idea, Sarah.”
“Wait a minute,” James said. “A few hours ago we decided I had to get out of the country. How do I link up with the HRU if they are heading out now to hunt for Dr. Cohen? And how are we going to communicate if we can’t use our PIDs?”
“I’m working on that. I think we’ll have it all figured out shortly after I get to Washington tomorrow,” said Mack. “Now, I don’t know about the rest of you, but I’m ready for a good night’s sleep.”
Peter, Sarah, and Elizabeth left to clear the table and clean up in the kitchen. Mack and James were given the assignment of picking up the toys and seashells spread over the ocean-side porch, turning out the lights, and locking up.
In the kitchen, Sarah asked Peter, “I know that you, Mack, and Dr. Cohen were roommates at the Naval Academy—and I know what you and Dr. Cohen did after graduation. What did Mack do?”
Peter smiled and said, “I call Mack a swabbie, but when I was in the Marines, he was a Navy SEAL.”
* * * *
After they cleaned up the children’s debris on the porch, Mack sat down in one of the rockers and said, “James, sit down here next to me for a moment, would you please?”
As he did, Caperton said, “When we were still at the table and I was translating the message on my PID, Sarah jumped in at the definition of viz, IR, sat, and UAV. Do you remember that?”
“Yeah, and I was impressed.”
“Right. And do you recall what she said in response to your question?”
“No.”
“She said, ‘I’ve been listening to you talk for ten years. You didn’t think I was listening?’”
“Okay. Why is that so important?”
After a moment’s silence Caperton said, “I am truly sorry we’re not going to have more time together on this trip. Things are happening very fast and we all have a lot on our minds. With all that’s been happening, did you have time to make up those lists we talked about?”
“Yep,” James replied, pulling two sheets of folded paper out of the back pocket of his jeans and handing them to the senator. “Two lists, just like you wanted.”
“Good. Thank you. Now, before I look at these, tell me, did you hear Sarah remind you twice at the table that you have been married for ten years and once that Friday is your anniversary?”
“I recall suggesting she give me foot powder for our anniversary.”
“On the list of your positive qualities did you mention that you are a good listener?”
“Yeah, something like that.”
“And did you list as one of Sarah’s attributes ‘good listener’?”
The two men were standing now. James paused for a moment and said, “No.”
Mack smiled, put his arm around the younger man’s shoulder, and said, “You should have. Tomorrow morning at oh-six-thirty let’s go for a walk on the beach. That will give us a chance to talk about you and Sarah and some other important things before I have to leave here with your sister.”
“Okay.”
It was a good plan. But it didn’t work out.
CHAPTER EIGHT
FATAL ERROR
SITUATION ROOM
THE WHITE HOUSE
WASHINGTON, DC
THURSDAY, 16 SEPTEMBER 2032
0430 HOURS, LOCAL
There is a well-established protocol for contacting the President of the United States after-hours. All calls to POTUS—even from a family member—are routed through the White House Situation Room’s senior watch officer.
Even though he was in his West Wing office, less than fifty yards from where the president was sleeping, General John Smith picked up the secure phone on his desk. It rang once and he heard, “Sir, this is Senior Watch Officer Ferris.”
Smith said into the ancient mouthpiece, “Put me through to the president.”
“Sir, she has given us instructions not to awaken her unless it is a national emergency.”
The National Security Advisor pondered this information for a moment. He knew from the White House physician, an Army major, that she had prescribed a fast-acting inhalant sleep aid for the president—medication apparently being used with increasing frequency on the campaign trail as the president’s poll numbers plummeted. “Put me through to her on the secure line.”
Smith counted seven rings before he heard the receiver pick up and the president’s voice say, “What is it, John.”
She sounded alert enough, so the National Security Advisor continued. “Madam President, I’m sorry to wake you but I have been informed by NSA that the Caliph has dispatched two aircraft en route to Mexico City with the intention of having them arrive before the hurricane makes landfall.”
“You woke me up to tell me this? The Caliph and a couple dozen other heads of state have all pledged humanitarian support for those affected by this hurricane. That was in the evening brief—along with a reminder from our inept Secretary of State that the sixteenth is Mexican Independence Day.”
“Yes, ma’am,” the National Security Advisor replied, surprised she recalled this tiny detail. “But I was just informed there is a sizable military contingent from the Caliphate on at least one of the aircraft.”
“Is there some kind of Independence Day parade in Mexico City?”
“Yes, but there is no contingent of troops from the Caliphate invited to march in the parade.”
“How do you know this information about the troops is true?”
“We don’t know how much of this is true. Global Flight Watch at the UN Air Traffic Control Center in Geneva has confirmed two Caliphate-registered transport aircraft are en route from Jerusalem to Mexico City. The rest—about the commandos and military equipment aboard—is an NSA assessment based on communications intercepts. Some of this information has been verified by our military attaché in Jerusalem and—”
“Then why did you wake me?”
Smith took a deep breath and pressed on. “Madam President, the NSA decrypts indicate the Caliph has personally ordered as many as forty commandos to Mexico. Included in their ‘package’ are mobility assets—vehicles—and perhaps even two small helicopters. You told me to immediately inform you of any developments regarding Dr. Martin Cohen.”
“What else do we know?”
“We know the Caliphate has not informed us or the Mexican government about anything other than a humanitarian shipment—nothing about commandos, military personnel, or equipment. And we know the Caliph’s intelligence service began inquiring about Dr. Cohen with their Hezbollah counterparts in Venezuela and Mexico about twenty-two hundred, our time, tonight.”
“What the devil is the Caliph up to? Does this mean the Caliph was behind the attack in Houston and the kidnapping of our mad scientist, Dr. Cohen? Why else would he be sending military personnel to Mexico?”
&nb
sp; “Let me try to answer those three questions in order. First, we really don’t know what the Caliph is up to. Second, we have no new information on who perpetrated the Houston attacks or who kidnapped Dr. Cohen. As you know, we’re on record saying the attack was carried out by an Anark-cartel conspiracy. Third, as to why the Caliph is sending military personnel to Mexico, it may well have to do with Dr. Cohen’s PERT signal being picked up on the north coast of the Yucatan Peninsula—the second item in my ‘evening brief’ last night.”
There was a moment of silence and then the president said, “Remind me: what’s the latest we have on Cohen?”
Smith touched his computer screen, scrolled through his logs, and replied, “As of twenty-two hundred hours, when I sent the brief to you, we had a confirmed signal on Dr. Cohen’s PERT from a DEA listening site in Merida, Mexico. The PERT GPS coordinates were identical to the location of an EPIRB signal from a lifeboat apparently washed ashore on the north coast of the Yucatan Peninsula . . .”
“All right, enough of the military acronyms, John, I remember now. Is there anything new on this?”
“Only that the EPIRB is still stationary on the beach and Dr. Cohen’s PERT has moved about a mile south—inland. It now appears the Caliph has the same information. NSA believes the decision to dispatch Caliphate commandos to Mexico is directly connected to the Cohen location data.”
“The ‘Caliph’s commandos’—isn’t that a unit we trained and equipped? Don’t we have U.S. advisors with them?”
“Yes, it is U.S. trained and equipped. But no U.S. advisors are on the aircraft from Jerusalem. The Pentagon has been in communication with Colonel Stan MacAskill, our senior advisor to the Caliphate commando unit. He says he was ordered off the base at midnight our time. He promptly sent a message through to CENTCOM, AFRICOM, and Special Operations Command. That’s how we found out about this and started tracking what was going on.”
“How are they flying out of Jerusalem? The new airport isn’t finished, is it? The Caliph promised me he was going to hold off opening it until after our elections. Everybody knows opening the New Jerusalem International Airport is going to infuriate the Jews.”
“Well, Madam President, the airport may not be officially opened but it’s apparently finished enough for two of the Caliph’s Russian-built IL-90s to fly in from Egypt, land at the new Jerusalem airport, and take off for Mexico loaded with commandos and equipment.”
“Dammit, John, why the devil don’t we know about these things? Why do we even have all these so-called intelligence agencies—CIA, NSA, DNI, DIA, and all the rest of this stupid alphabet soup—if they can’t even tell us an airport is open for business?”
Smith reflected for a second on his response and then plunged on. “Madam President, satellite imagery and intercepts can only tell us so much. When we opened our embassy in Jerusalem three years ago, you made an agreement with the Caliph that neither of us would use our diplomatic missions for intelligence collection or covert operations. We have kept our end of the deal. Right now, I’m much more concerned about how the Caliph knows what we know about Dr. Cohen’s possible whereabouts.”
“What are you getting at, John—are you insinuating I told him?”
“No, ma’am. But someone inside our government had to have told him or his minions.”
“Who do you think it is?”
“I don’t know, and I don’t want to speculate. But we need to find out. I’ve talked it over with Admiral Turner at DNI and we want to start intercepting the communications coming into and out of the Caliph’s embassy here in Washington. He also urges you to approve putting some HUMINT collectors on the ground in Jerusalem—probably contractors. He’s preparing a presidential finding to implement these recommendations. I’ll have it for your signature later this morning.”
“What do you mean, contractors? What do we have a CIA for? Isn’t that what they are supposed to do—collect intelligence?”
“Ma’am, I’m not sure we ought to have this discussion at this hour of the morning, because you have a very busy day coming up, but the bottom line is the CIA’s Clandestine Service—what they used to call the Operations Directorate—hasn’t done a job like this for years. They outsource all these kinds of taskings to contractors—but they still require a presidential finding to fund the mission.”
“Fine, fine. Just bring it straight to me and we’ll talk about it, but I don’t want this finding circulated.”
“Yes, ma’am. I’ll also be bringing a DAO directing SOCOM to prepare a unit for covert deployment to Mexico.”
“A what?”
“A Deployment Authorization Order. We haven’t had to do this since you have been president, but you must personally approve, in writing, the dispatch of military forces outside the United States—overtly or covertly—if there is the prospect of armed combat. We need to do this if we’re going to rescue Dr. Cohen.”
“Hold on, John! Have you lost your mind? Do you really think we could pull off a covert deployment of a U.S. military unit? If we send an armed posse into Mexico without the permission of the Mexican government we’ll get nailed for a clear violation of the North American Union Treaty—and I will lose every Hispanic vote in November. Come up with something better in the morning. Do you understand me?”
Smith’s sigh was audible over the secure link, but “Yes, ma’am” was all he said.
The president hung up the phone and grabbed her PID from the nightstand. In the dark she tapped the screen, then spoke into the device: “Muneer: Meet me in the Treaty Room at seven a.m. Bring the Secretary of State with you. No assistants. I have an idea.”
CAIR PARAVEL
ATLANTIC AVENUE
PAWLEYS ISLAND, SC
THURSDAY, 16 SEPTEMBER 2032
0630 HOURS, LOCAL
The senator, garbed in a blue polo shirt and khaki shorts, was already on the walkway to the beach, sipping from a mug of coffee and watching the sunrise, when James bounded off the porch. “Good morning, Mack,” he said as he came up beside the older man.
Caperton smiled and said, “Let’s walk and talk. I need the exercise—and the sound of the surf will ensure no one else can hear what we have to say.”
They kicked off their sandals and headed south on the beach toward the long pier jutting into the Atlantic, the wind to their backs. A gaggle of long-legged Black-bellied Plovers and short, little sanderlings and sandpipers skittered back and forth in front of them along the edge of the surf as the senator continued. “Before we talk about you and Sarah and those lists you made for me, let me fill you in on some new developments. I already talked to your dad about this, but we will only do what we have in mind if you agree.”
“Do you and my father ever sleep?”
“Sometimes, but not much in times like these. I’ve never been much of a believer in those expressions like ‘sleep is a crutch’ or ‘I’ll sleep when I’m dead,’ but what’s happening right now to our country generally and particularly to my dear friends named Cohen and Newman doesn’t lend itself to many restful nights.”
James felt his adrenal cortex react and asked, “What’s new?”
“Last night the Coast Guard informed me the lifeboat EPIRB transmitters they have been tracking in the Gulf of Mexico have come ashore about a mile apart on the northern coast of the Yucatan Peninsula. A short while later, a DEA signals intelligence site in Merida—the capital city of Yucatan state—picked up Dr. Cohen’s PERT in the same vicinity as one of the EPIRBs. As of a few minutes ago his PERT signal was still being received intermittently—and had moved south, inland from the coastline.”
“That’s good news,” said James. “What’s the bad news?”
“Well, as usual, there is some. Apparently the Caliph has dispatched a military unit to Mexico. CENTCOM, AFRICOM, and SOCOM are all aware—as is the White House. Evidently our ‘friend in Jerusalem’—as the president refers to the Caliph—didn’t bother to tell anyone in Washington or Mexico City about this.”
&n
bsp; “Caliphate troops headed to Mexico? What for?”
“Don’t know. It could be the Caliph intends to get Dr. Cohen. Whether that’s to get credit for saving him or to grab him for his fuel cell secrets, I can only guess.”
James probed further. “What do you know about the relationship between the Caliph and our president?”
Caperton shrugged and said, “There are a lot of us who believe the Caliph is funding her reelection campaign. And as I said last night, there are many rumors the Caliph and the president have cut some kind of deal regarding post-election oil purchases in exchange for no Islamic terror attacks. It’s pretty clear to me the Caliph has a source or sources of information at a very high level inside our government—and he is being very well informed about what our government knows about Marty Cohen.”
James shook his head and said, “A few years ago the Caliph was nothing but a disgruntled Egyptian imam in the Muslim Brotherhood. Now he’s a world leader with a military force and funding the election of an American president. So what are we going to do about rescuing Dr. Cohen?”
“By ‘we’ do you mean the U.S. government or CSG?”
“Either or both.”
“My guess is the White House and Pentagon will get all wrapped around the axle of the North American Union Treaty and do nothing militarily. After a few weeks of diplomatic dithering and diddling they may end up sending the FBI HRT out of Quantico—which of course will accomplish nothing because the Yucatan Peninsula is a no-go zone for the Mexican government—and therefore for the FBI.”
“So what do you think we should do?”
“Here’s what your dad and I think we ought to do at this point—and again, much of this depends on your decision, and what the weather permits. We ought to get the CSG Humanitarian Relief Team—including some members of the CSG Hostage Recovery Unit—on the ground in Mexico today.”
“Why the rush? We don’t even know precisely where Marty is or who has him.”
“True. But today is Mexico’s two hundred and twenty-second Independence Day—and the entire country is celebrating, even as they’re about to get hit by a major hurricane. Nobody is going to notice a few extra humanitarian aid workers or containers of relief supplies coming in for at least a few days. By the time everyone sobers up, hopefully Marty Cohen will be on the way home.”
