by Carr, Jack
The president looked back to his guest.
“Forgive me, I get caught up in how many decisions impacting twentieth- and twenty-first-century history were made right here. The fates of nations have been decided on these very grounds.”
Reece nodded politely, recognizing that the president was not yet finished.
“Eisenhower put in the golf course that doubles as the helo landing pad. It’s really just a driving range with four tees. The Internet thinks it only has three. Shhh, don’t tell anyone.” He winked. “Khrushchev and Ike actually stayed in this cabin. They watched Westerns together, if you can believe that. JFK and Jackie liked to shoot clays right over there. Obama staged a picture there with a shotgun trying to appeal to gun-owning voters, but it didn’t play well. Brezhnev almost crashed a Lincoln Continental while driving with Nixon around the perimeter one day in ’73. Why Nixon let him drive is anyone’s guess. Maybe his ego got the better of him after opening China in ’72. Gorbachev threw his first horseshoe right here. Thatcher, Yeltsin, Blair, and even Putin have been guests. And now you.”
“It’s an honor, sir,” Reece said, unsure of how to respond.
“The White House is for photo ops and press conferences. The real decisions are made out here. But you didn’t come all this way for a history lesson on Camp David, did you, Commander?”
“I was told only that you requested a meeting, Mr. President.”
The president tilted his head to the left, his eyes focused on Reece as they might read sentences in a book, comparing the man to the information from his files.
“I’d tell you to just call me Alec, but I can’t get anyone to do it. That’s one order they won’t follow.”
The president looked back out on the grounds of the presidential retreat and gestured to a fire pit a stone’s throw away.
“In 1978, Anwar Sadat sat by that fire with Menachem Begin. Jimmy Carter played referee. Over two decades later, President Clinton would sit in those very same chairs with Ehud Barak and Yasser Arafat. Twenty years went by like that.” The president snapped his fingers. “And what did they have to show for it?”
Not waiting for an answer, he continued in a tone that shifted slightly to one tinged with respect.
“This land holds secrets, Commander.” His eyes scanned the tree line. “This cabin is one of the few places where my conversations are not recorded for posterity. Come inside. Can I offer you a drink? Whiskey?”
“No, thank you. I’m fine,” Reece said.
“Hard to find a picture of JFK around here without a drink in hand. Times have changed. Let me fix you some coffee. Honey and cream, right?”
“That’s right, Mr. President.”
“The Secret Service has quite the file on you. As does the Navy, the NSA, the FBI… and the CIA.”
Reece’s eyes narrowed.
“Fascinating reading.”
The president moved to the kitchen and dumped the morning’s coffee.
“Are you surprised the president of the United States can make his own coffee?”
“Ah, well, not that you can, but that you do.”
“Even more surprised it’s in this old Mr. Coffee?” The president chuckled. “I like to do a few things for myself. They won’t let me at the White House, but out here I can get away with it. Reminds me of a morning in September…” The president’s voice trailed off.
“Sir?”
“I made her coffee that morning, you know.”
“Who, sir?”
“My fiancée. Jennifer. Looking back, there were so many mistakes.”
The coffeemaker began to purr.
“I was working in California, and she had a job in New York. I was so invested in my company. I thought we had our entire lives ahead of us.”
He poured Reece a cup and stirred in cream and honey.
“Thank you, sir.”
“Do you believe in the Deep State, Mr. Reece?” the president asked as he made himself a cup, gesturing to a sitting area just off the kitchen.
“Sir?”
“Sit, please. The Deep State, or what people call the Deep State, anyway. Do you believe in it?”
Now it was Reece’s turn to study the man before him. He was shorter than Reece expected. His hair was cut conservatively and was graying beyond the temples. A dark blue polo with the presidential seal was tucked into khaki pants, revealing the physique of a man who still kept in shape, his eyes blue and alert.
“I believe we’ve found common ground, Mr. President.”
“I thought we would, Commander. The Deep State is real, though it’s not what’s portrayed in the movies. The deep state is bureaucracy. Power held by the few. The elite. The intelligentsia. It’s our cultural institutions: academia, big tech, Wall Street, Hollywood, even professional sports. I scare them.” He paused. “I wouldn’t be surprised if I don’t make it through my term. Does that surprise you?”
“Not much surprises me, sir.”
“The Deep State is not a group of men in a bunker issuing orders. It’s a remark, an offhand comment, plausibly deniable suggestions. It’s donors. It’s established media, right, left, and center. It’s regulations and broad, sweeping laws. It’s the power of the IRS, NSA, EPA, FBI, and your very own CIA. That’s the Deep State, Reece.”
“I don’t understand, sir. What are you saying?”
“Are you familiar with William Ramsey’s work on spiritualism?”
“I can’t say that I am.”
“In 1856, he wrote: One of the most striking proofs of the personal existence of Satan is found in the fact, that he has so influenced the minds of multitudes in reference to his existence and doings, as to make them believe that he does not exist. I found his work while studying the conceptual existence of evil after my fiancée was murdered. I was trying to understand and make sense of it all. Those words stuck with me.”
The president put down his coffee and moved to the window, his back to his visitor.
“Can you keep a secret, Commander?”
“I wouldn’t be here if you thought otherwise.”
“True. You know, Ben Franklin had a saying, Three may keep a secret, if two of them are dead.”
“I’m familiar with it. The Agency has an unofficial motto from the Bible, ‘And ye shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free.’ ”
President Alec Christensen made his choice.
“Nine-eleven was not just the work of nineteen hijackers and a man hiding in a cave in Afghanistan. Nor was it any of the wild conspiracy theories you may have heard. Nineteen hijackers. I never believed it.” The president turned. “There were more: facilitators, enablers, financiers right here in the United States. The Deep State, they knew we needed a nice, tidy list to appease the American public. The nineteen hijackers were already dead. The public still needed a face. Someone to blame. Someone far away. Someone who could be eliminated to make them feel safe again. To restore their illusion of safety. Get them back in the malls. There was a hand at play, Mr. Reece, though it’s not who you think.”
The president reached down and picked up a frame that had been leaning against the wall under the window.
“Do you know what this is?” the president asked, throwing it to his visitor.
Reece caught it. He looked at the commander in chief and then down at the document encased in glass.
“Don’t worry, it’s a copy. I had it framed when I ran for my House seat. Read it aloud, would you?”
Reece looked back to the document in his hands.
“Public Law 107–40 107th Congress, Joint Resolution, to authorize the use of United States Armed Forces against those responsible for the recent attacks launched against the United States.”
Reece’s eyes moved back to the president.
“Skip to section one,” he said.
“Section one. This joint resolution may be cited as the ‘Authorization for Use of Military Force.’ Section two. Authorization for use of United States Armed Forces. The Pre
sident is authorized to use all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, or harbored such organizations or persons, in order to prevent any future acts of international terrorism against the United States by such nations, organizations or persons. Consistent with section 8(a)(1) of the War Powers Resolution, the Congress declares that this section is intended to constitute specific statutory authorization within the meaning of section 5(b) of the War Powers Resolution.”
Reece looked up. “That’s it?”
“That’s it. Four days after the attack, President Bush met here at Camp David with a group that would set U.S. foreign policy for the next twenty years. Cheney was already here; this was his much-talked-about ‘secure location.’ Powell, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Rice, Armitage, O’Neill, Ashcroft, and Mueller, along with Tenet and Cofer Black from the CIA; all of them were here. None of the conversations were recorded. National Security Presidential Directive Nine came out of those meetings. It’s now called ‘Defeating the Terrorist Threat to the United States.’ The notification on bin Laden also came out of meetings with Tenet and Black.”
“Notification, sir?”
“The legal authority for our intelligence services to target and kill Osama bin Laden.”
“I always thought the mission was a ‘capture/kill,’ ” Reece said.
“A convenient semi-truth.”
It was all starting to sink in.
“The resolution you just read was passed by Congress the following week, just seven days after 9/11. Two hundred and seventy-five words. It authorized President Bush to take us into Afghanistan and then into Iraq. Those words remain the sole legal justification to commit military forces to the Global War on Terror. It’s been twenty years, Commander. Look at their intent. ISIS didn’t even exist in September 2001. Yet the language in this document justifies U.S. presidents to order invasions of sovereign countries in their pursuit.”
“Mr. President,” Reece said slowly, “what do you want from me?”
Answering a question with a question, the president asked, “What do you think our adversaries have been doing while we’ve been fighting the War on Terror?”
Reece paused; he was in a job interview.
“They’ve been learning, sir. They’ve been adapting. China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea. They watched us destroy Saddam’s military in 1993 when they went head-to-head with us in a conventional conflict. We did it again in 2003. Then they watched those same technological advances rendered ineffective by various factions and splinter groups wielding AKs, RPGs, and IEDs by insurgents whose goal was to run out the clock.”
“That’s right. We need to regroup, Reece. Our main state adversaries know how to fight us and win. We’ve shown them how over the past two decades.”
“Sir, with all due respect. You can have these conversations with any number of policy wonks in the swamp. What am I doing here?”
“True, though only a select few really understand the nature of the conflict in which we are engaged and, more importantly, understand what you just so clearly articulated.” The president stopped and lowered his voice. “The resolution was never fully utilized in accordance with the intent of Congress and the American people.”
“Sir?”
“Read section one again.”
Reece tilted the frame and read: “This joint resolution may be cited as the ‘Authorization for Use of Military Force.’ Section two. Authorization for use of United States Armed Forces. The President is authorized to use all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, or harbored such organizations or persons, in order to prevent any future acts of international terrorism against the United States by such nations, organizations or persons.”
“Read that last part again, Commander.”
“Organizations or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed or aided the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.”
“We’ve gotten so far away from that original intent. Someone’s face had to be plastered on TV and on those targets at gun stores across the nation. The American public needed to give evil a name, so we handed them nineteen dead hijackers and Osama bin Laden. Sure, there was a supporting cast of characters, but they were all overseas living in caves to be rooted out and destroyed by our new heroes in special operations. No one wanted to know the truth.”
“What truth, Mr. President?”
“The truth is that the support network from 9/11 still exists.”
The president reached across the small coffee table that separated them and set down three files.
“Have you heard of File Seventeen, Mr. Reece?”
“Isn’t that the file President Obama declassified a few years ago that pointed to a Saudi connection to 9/11?”
“Yes, though it was more to placate some of the families of victims. It was all circumstantial and relatively benign. Barely registered in the public consciousness.”
“What’s this one?” Reece asked, picking up the next file.
“That’s the twenty-eight redacted pages from the 9/11 Commission report. Also, mostly circumstantial and likely would only have hurt relations with the Saudis in the wake of 9/11, an ally we needed in the region.”
“And this?” Reece asked, holding up the third file.
“That, Commander, is a target package. Open it.”
Reece flipped the page and began to read.
“Take your time.”
When Reece picked his head up, the most powerful man on earth was staring at him with an intensity born in battle.
“The terrorists in that package are still out there. They still live among us. They didn’t fly the planes or slash throats of pilots and flight attendants, but without them, 9/11 would not have happened. Jen would still be alive, as would almost three thousand others, not to mention those killed on both sides in Iraq and Afghanistan. Reece, there was a concerted effort to convince the American people that there were only nineteen hijackers plus Zacarias Moussaoui, the twentieth hijacker. There were more; a network of facilitators. I always knew it. I want you to finish what we started in 2001. The country has lost its appetite. If we bring them to trial now, it’s years of pain and political infighting. That joint resolution you just read gives the president of the United States the ability to bring all those who enabled the 9/11 attacks to justice.”
“I think I’ll take that drink now, Mr. President.”
The president stood and returned with two tumblers.
“On the rocks, no water.”
“Was that in my file, too?”
“No, just a guess.”
“It was a good one.”
“What do you know about Operation Wrath of God, Commander?”
“It was the Israeli response to the Munich Massacre. Eleven Israeli athletes were killed by Black September at the 1972 Olympics. Wrath of God was authorized by Prime Minister Golda Meir. Mossad hit teams deployed worldwide to kill those responsible and to send a message.”
“That’s right. What are your thoughts on targeted assassinations?”
Reece took a sip and looked around the room.
“Don’t worry. Like I said, this is the one place I trust not to be recording my every word. It’s one of the reasons we are meeting here and not in the White House. Plus, visitor logs are almost impossible to doctor these days.”
“Isn’t there an executive order that prohibits assassination?”
“There is, but legally that definition of assassination refers to a head of state. Individuals can be targeted with what’s referred to as a ‘notification,’ just like with bin Laden. Reagan issued a directive in ’83 for the mastermind of the Beirut embassy and Marine barracks bombings. There are new notifications in the back of the file, signed by me.”
&nb
sp; Reece set down his drink.
“Sir, are you asking me or ordering me to kill everyone on this list?”
“Think of this as an exploratory conversation. The seven people on that list were under surveillance for ten years as ‘persons of interest.’ We never put them on the no-fly list. We wanted to watch and observe to find out who else they were in contact with, to continue to gather intelligence to use them to disrupt any possible sleeper cells preparing for another wave of attacks. They never led us anywhere. Surveillance was called off in 2011 after the bin Laden raid.”
“Maybe we were watching the wrong people,” Reece countered.
“Spend some time with that file; we have the right people.”
Reece took a long sip of his drink.
“Reece, do you know that the president of the United States does not even undergo a background investigation?”
Reece shook his head.
“Do you know why that is?”
“My guess is that none of you would pass it.”
“An excellent deduction. And true. A president does not even have a security clearance yet has unfettered access to our nation’s most closely guarded secrets. A president can read anything. He can classify or declassify anything. That’s the power of this seat, Mr. Reece. That’s why I’m here. To find out who made 9/11 possible and bring them to justice.”
“Why me?”
“I think you know the answer.”
Reece swirled the dark, smooth liquid in his glass.
“Because I’ve done it before. If things go south, you can point to me as a renegade CIA asset who went off the reservation. I have a history. This meeting is off the books. It becomes just another crazy conspiracy theory, like the Kennedy assassination. Anything tying me to you is lost in classified files just like Dallas. Those ‘notifications’ in the file disappear. If I’m successful and take them out quietly, it still gets classified in the mountains of files that only a president can access. Maybe I have an ‘accident’ to further muddy the waters in case anyone came looking.”
Reece’s head was spinning. Not long ago, when he thought he was dying, he’d killed on home soil. Some saw his actions as murder, others as justice. Believing he was already dead gave him a freedom to seal the fate of all those who had taken everything from him. That freedom to become an insurgent on home soil allowed him an effectiveness and efficiency through the acceptance of a fast-approaching death. He’d bottled that part of his life up and packed it away in the deepest recesses of his mind; his wife, daughter, and unborn son slaughtered in their home, his troop ambushed in the mountains of the Hindu Kush. It had been orchestrated by a cabal of senior military officers, political leaders, and private sector financiers, all of whom Reece put in the ground.
