Out of Crisis
Page 1
For Trisha
When written in Chinese, the word crisis is composed of two characters—one represents danger and one represents opportunity.
John F. Kennedy
It felt like God was making a martini. The first tremor savagely shook the ground, and everything standing on it, for three seconds.
Prologue
Washington, DC
Shortly after the United States obliterated the capital of North Korea and its brutish dictator
Within the bowels of the United States Department of State, a brilliant young analyst rocketed out of the political and administrative morass of the civil service system and into a position of authority and impact.
Near the end of the first quarter of the twenty-first century, the United States was the target of a series of horrific terrorist attacks. These incidents were orchestrated by a fanatical group of Middle Eastern religious extremists who used technical ruses to attribute them to the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea—the DPRK—more commonly known as North Korea. Their objective was to instigate a war between the United States and Pyongyang forces. The plan assumed that such a conflict would expand to include Russia and China, resulting in an all-out nuclear slugfest. Out of the ashes of humanity’s remains would rise a new, global Islamic caliphate and a caliph who would take his place as the rightful ruler of the entire world.
Following the second terrorist attack, the POTUS directed then–Secretary of State Robert “Bulldog” Pitts to develop a plan that would allow the US to engage and destroy the DPRK military infrastructure while minimizing collateral damage and civilian casualties. The action would have to be executed without instigating retaliation from other world powers, a near-impossible feat. The task was punted to David Stakley, a team leader in the Intelligence and Research Division of the State Department.
Leveraging a serendipitous flash of pure genius, David and his team conceived a strategy that brought the rabid dictatorship to its knees. And through the development of the Asian Independent Free Trade Union, AIFTU, it actually bonded the United States, Russia, and China into a partnership the likes of which had never been seen before.
It also endeared him to President Matthew Sheppard. Upon the Bulldog’s resignation due to a massive but nonfatal heart attack, David was nominated and subsequently confirmed as the new secretary of state. At thirty-nine, he was the youngest SecState since the creation of the office in 1789.
David was elated and beamed with justifiable pride throughout the confirmation ceremony. But during the obligatory round of congratulatory handshakes, he couldn’t help noticing the aloof demeanor and cold, almost distasteful expression emanating from the vice president.
Something just wasn’t right.
1
Grand Teton National Park
The day before the day of
Jeremy Richards backed his 1997 Airstream Excella into site 72 at the Colter Bay Village Campground around 4:00 p.m. on June 20.
He turned to his wife. “Judy, hop out and guide me back. I can’t see the electrical hookups in the mirror. I don’t want to start our vacation by explaining to some ranger how I managed to short out the entire park.” He thumbed his twins in the back seat of the extended cab and grinned. “Take those two chimps with you. I’m starting to think that a felony charge wouldn’t be all that bad.”
Judy laughed and jumped out of the cab.
Jeremy, his wife Judy, and their twelve-year-old twin daughters, Ellis and Fiona, had driven eight hours a day for three days to get to the Grand Tetons from their home in Nashville, Tennessee. Jeremy and Judy had more or less shared the driving, while the twins did what twelve-year-old girls do. That mainly consisted of singing along to whatever teen boy band played inside their earbuds. And bitching. They had managed to make whining a team sport. Judy compared traveling with the twins to transporting serial killers from one prison to another.
Jeremy had to admit: without a heavy dose of Dramamine, eight hours was a long time for a kid to sit still. Not that he would ever consider medicating the girls. Himself, maybe. Pop a couple of Xanax or knock back a double Scotch, toss Judy the keys, and wake up somewhere in Wyoming.
Yeah, that would go over like a pork chop on Ramadan.
Colter Bay was part of Jackson Lake, which sat in the middle of Grand Teton National Park in Northwest Wyoming. The park and neighboring Yellowstone contained ostensibly the most beautiful scenery in the United States. The campground was situated almost seven thousand feet above sea level, surrounded by the snowcapped Teton mountains, towering fir trees, and crystal-clear streams feeding an equally pristine lake.
Jeremy was a thirty-eight-year-old professional baseball player trapped inside the body of a Morgan Stanley financial advisor. But that’s the way life went for most folks. He and Judy were born and raised near Murfreesboro, about thirty miles southeast of Nashville. They had grown up together, lived on the same potholed country road, and attended the same grammar and high schools. In fact, Jeremy could not remember a time when Judy wasn’t around.
The year the twins turned ten, Judy bought Jeremy a new, fire-engine-red Ford F-250 and the Airstream camping trailer as an early birthday present. She had been stashing money away each payday ever since she started working full time.
Jeremy was beyond appreciative. In addition to being the most lavish gifts he had ever received, he was in awe of Judy’s quiet determination to purchase them.
From that point forward, he, Judy, and the twins would hitch up the Airstream almost once a month and go camping at one of the state or national parks in Alabama, Georgia, or Tennessee. Anything within a four-hour drive became a weekend getaway. They had also started planning a cross-country road trip and an extended excursion somewhere in the Northwest. They’d decided that Grand Teton National Park in Wyoming would be the perfect destination.
Their timing could not have been worse.
2
Washington, DC; the Foggy Bottom District
Two years before the day of
David Stakley and Mark Littleton, the US ambassador to Mexico, sat across from one another at a small, round conference table in David’s office. David preferred a more informal setting over the traditional “have a seat in the chair across from my desk” approach practiced by many of his counterparts.
David leaned forward. “Mark, you’re aware of the situation in the Yucatán Peninsula. The boss is getting a lot of flack about the increasing violence down there. It used to be a place where twentysomethings could go, smoke a little weed, show a little skin, and raise hell for a week. But in the last six months, there have been four brutal—and I mean brutal—kidnappings. Those are just the ones we know of.”
“Yeah, it’s bad and getting worse,” Mark replied. “We’ve been talking to the federales about the latest incident. There are whispers on the street about an especially brutal beast they’re calling El Choppo. He earned this moniker from the calling card he always sends to his marks: a body part. They haven’t been able to finger the culprits. According to my contact, they suspect some kind of link to an organized crime family on the east coast and, get this, possibly even to the CIA. I was hoping to get additional details before our meeting, but—”
David’s desk phone buzzed. He straightened. That rarely happened. Not while he was in a meeting. His administrative assistant, Trish, was rabidly protective of his time. She would never allow him to be interrupted unless she deemed a call überimportant or from one of the handfuls of top government officials he had on his “straight through” list.
The phone buzzed again. “Excuse me, Mark.” David strode to his desk and reached for the receiver.
“He identified himself as Judson Ballard, and he dialed direct,” Trish added.
David had not given his number to Judson Ballard. He had never even met the man.
He held the receiver to his chest and turned his attention back to his visitor. “Mark, I don’t normally do this, but I have to take this call. If you don’t mind, press the pause button on our discussion, and Trish will rustle up some coffee. But don’t leave. I’ll be with you as soon as I can get off the hot seat.”
Mark stood. “No problem at all, Mr. Secretary. I’m here to serve. Besides, that will give me a little time to compose my response to the kidnappings.” With that, he headed for the reception area.
As Mark closed the office door, David pressed the key for line six. “Good morning, this is David Stakley.”
“Mr. Secretary, I know you are incredibly busy, and I humbly apologize for barging in on you telephonically.” The voice carried a distinctive central Texas twang David recognized from hearing Judson expound his political and social perspectives on television talk shows.
“No problem. What can I do for you?”
“I have to discuss a matter of national importance with you. It will undoubtedly be the most pivotal discussion you have ever had.”
Pivotal? David slid into his chair and leaned forward, focusing on his desktop speakerphone.
“By the way,” Judson continued, “may I call you David? I zealously adhere to etiquette and protocol in any public setting, but sometimes, for the sake of conversational expediency, it makes more sense to skirt formalities.”
“By all means, sir. David is just fine.”
“In that case, why don’t you drop the ‘sir’ and just call me Judson.”
“All right then, Judson. To what do I owe the honor?”
“David, I know you have to be in a semi-important meeting in little more than an hour, and I just interrupted one . . .”
How the hell does he know that?
“. . . so I’ll cut to the chase,” Judson said. “Since you’re familiar with my reputation, I’ll walk a little farther out on the limb and assume that you’re also familiar with an organization I started a few years ago. Envision-2100. I’m currently serving as the president of its board of directors. Does that name ring a bell as well?”
David leaned back in the goatskin chair he had inherited from his predecessor, Bulldog Pitts, and considered his caller. Judson was one of the wealthiest and most politically powerful men in the United States. With a net worth bumping $90 billion, he was reputedly the fifth-wealthiest person on the planet.
“Of course the name rings a bell,” David replied. “I would be a piss-poor excuse for a SecState if I hadn’t at least heard of Envision-2100. I will admit, I only know what I see on the news and on social media. I don’t have any firsthand knowledge. As an organization, Envision-2100 hasn’t bubbled up on any intelligence briefings, but I’m told that it’s teeming with financial heavy hitters. Word around the campfire is that Envision-2100, at least in the past, has intentionally kept a low profile, but that it’s positioning itself to start swinging the bat politically.”
“Well, at least we have some name recognition, and that’s a pretty fair assessment of where the organization stands right now,” Judson said. “As I mentioned, I currently serve as president of the Envision-2100 board. There are four other board members, and we rotate the position of president every twelve months. Envision-2100 is still in its infancy compared to similar organizations, although, in the strictest sense, there aren’t any genuinely similar organizations.
“We officially formed our charter five years ago. Since then, we have grown to several thousand dues-paying members. And, David, the dues are staggering. But as you’ll see, or at least as I hope you’ll see, they are for a cause noble beyond that of any other organization’s in the history of this country. That is not empty rhetoric.
“Enough of the buildup already. I said I would cut to the chase, and here I go, off on a tangent. David, my board wants to make you an offer. Perhaps enlist you in our cause is a better way to phrase it, and even that falls short of what I’m trying to say. But I can’t go any deeper into the weeds at this point. We want to do so over an extended lunch, and time is of the essence. You don’t have anything on your schedule of real importance after eleven next Tuesday. How about I have our copter pick you up at eleven thirty, sharp, at your heliport?”
David’s brow scrunched into a mask of apprehension. Not at what Ballard had told him about Envision-2100—most of that was public knowledge—but at the fact that Ballard had been able to slip by the standard screening process. God only knew what else Ballard had access to. He and Trish needed to talk.
“Judson, I’m flattered that you’ve taken the time to reach out to me personally. But I have to admit, I’m concerned. How in the hell did you get my private number? Only a dozen people in DC—in the country, for that matter—have it. Even more puzzling, and quite frankly alarming, is what you know about my schedule. It appears there is a leak in my front office.
“As for the helicopter, you do realize that Foggy Bottom, and all of DC, is in restricted airspace. And finally, why me? Why are you approaching me with whatever it is you have in mind?”
David swiveled in his chair and gazed out the window. From his fourth-story office in the Harry S. Truman Federal Building, he could see the Theodore Roosevelt Bridge, where I-66 crossed the Potomac River. As usual, the traffic heading into DC this time of day was dismal. Outbound traffic wasn’t much better. Having a Secret Service driver was the best part of this job.
“Valid points all, David,” Judson replied. “I’ll have to defer a full response to a later date and time. Suffice it to say that the Envision-2100 board has an elaborate information and intelligence network. And yes, we are well aware of airspace restrictions and the need to file closely monitored flight plans. We’ve got that covered.
“Most importantly, let me put your mind at rest about a leak. There isn’t one. As I alluded to a moment ago, we have our means. You’ll learn a lot more once you meet the board. Assuming, of course, you accept our offer.
“To your ‘why me’ question, David: we’ve had our eyes on you for a long time. You were on our radar even before past SecState Robert Pitts recommended that POTUS designate you as the interim SecState. We were impressed with the work you did in setting up the AIFTU. We realize the Bulldog sold the concept to the Chinese and Russians, but we also know its architecture was your brainchild. And it was your idea to present it to our Cold War foes before any fireworks could erupt and start World War Three. All of this was behind the scenes. Joe Six-Pack never knew the role you played, David. But we know.
“We—the Envision-2100 board—have been watching you ever since. And we are impressed with the job you’ve done since your confirmation as SecState. David, we have plans for this county and its restoration as a global leader regarding the economy, the environment, and human rights. I said a leader, but I mean the leader. We want you to play an integral role, a leadership role, in those plans. To quote Forrest Gump, ‘That’s all I have to say about that.’ At least for now.
“So what do you say, David? Can we at least take you to lunch?”
“Well, sir—Judson—how could I say no? You’ve piqued my curiosity. I’ll see you at the heliport at eleven thirty, sharp, on Tuesday.”
David spun his chair away from the desk to face a photo of his wife, Kelly. He picked up his cell phone. She’d be as intrigued by Judson’s call as he was. He’d have to make it quick so he could finish his meeting with the ambassador to Mexico. In the past,
the violence had been between rival cartels. Now it was starting to focus on tourists. American tourists. And it was getting medievally brutal.
3
Colter Bay
The day before the day of
From behind the F-250, Judy guided Jeremy as he backed into their campsite. “Turn to the left just a hair, and ease her back about six feet.”
Following Judy’s directions, Jeremy inched the Airstream into place. Then Judy stepped behind the camper, entirely outside of his line of sight. Damn. She forgot again. He pressed down on the brake, hung his head out the window, and shouted over the truck’s engine, “Oh, Mrs. Richards, if you can’t see me, I can’t see you.”
“Sorry, babe. I lost my head. Now straighten up and come on back until you hear me scream.” Judy stepped to her left until Jeremy could see her in the truck’s backup mirrors.
“OK, but try not to get blood on the camper.” Jeremy smiled as he considered for the millionth time where the twins got their sardonic senses of humor.
When the Airstream was just the right distance from the hookups for water, electricity, and sewer, Judy held her palm up. Jeremy stopped the truck and put the transmission in park. Then the entire Richards family began a well-rehearsed choreography of campsite setup tasks. Like most RV campers, Jeremy and his family had developed a division of labor that rivaled any manufacturing company’s. The routine evolved as the twins got older and began taking on more setup responsibilities.
Out of habit, Jeremy checked the bubble in the level mounted on the front of the Airstream. If the left and right sides weren’t level horizontally, life inside the camper would be a lot less comfortable, but campsite number 72 had a concrete pad, so it wasn’t necessary to adjust the leveling.
“Ellis, you’re on deck for sewer hookup duty,” he said.
“Eeeew,” Ellis squealed.