“Right. Have you and Palmer discussed that?”
“Yes, sir,” Meredith said. “He’s talking to the president about it right now. The president is not keen on allowing the military to be involved in police activity. You know that once you lift those restrictions, we really have a police state.”
“Let’s crank up this VTC.”
The communications operator in the Middleburg alternate command post pressed some buttons, and a large plasma television screen lit up. Immediately, Meredith could pick out several of the National Security Council members seated at the cherry meeting table in the basement of the White House. She saw Air Force General Shepanski; the current chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; Dave Palmer, the national security adviser; FBI Director Peter Dortsch, Secretary of State Catherine Arends; and Secretary of Defense Stone.
Meredith cringed at Stone’s presence, but knew that she had parlayed her knowledge of his involvement with the Rolling Stones last year into a high-level position in the White House National Security Council. Besides, Stone’s voice had been muted post-Philippines. She moved on, eying the assorted aides situated in a few chairs around the periphery of the small room, noticing all of them had a tense, almost wild-eyed, look about them.
“The president will be down in a couple of minutes,” Palmer said.
“We’re up over here. What’s the agenda?” Hellerman asked.
“We’ve got you loud and clear, Mr. Vice President.” Palmer continued, “General Shepanski has developed a few positions…”
Meredith watched on the VTC as the president entered the Situation Room.
“Gentlemen,” President Davis said.
“Mr. President,” Palmer said after they had all stood and begun to sit down again. “Sir, we’ve got the vice president and his team up on VTC from the alternate command post.”
The president looked strained. “What do we have?”
Hellerman immediately took control. “I would like for General Shepanski to give you a quick status report on what we know about the enemy activity, friendly losses, and then a couple of courses of action.”
“Fine. Shark, go ahead,” Davis said.
Shepanski had replaced Admiral Sewell as the chairman of the Joints Chiefs last summer. Sewell had stepped down in protest after the president had not fired the secretary of defense in the wake of the Philippine action last year. Meredith found it instructive that Davis had turned to Shepanski and not Stone.
Shark was Shepanski’s call sign when he flew F-15s. The general was typical of modern-age Air Force generals. He had been an F-15 fighter pilot most of his career and had logged a hundred combat hours during the Gulf War and Kosovo.
“There have been more attacks. The Texas Capitol has been destroyed, and three more shopping malls have been attacked. Luckily, Atlanta police, with the help of the Georgia National Guard, uncovered a series of bombs set to destroy Lennox Square Mall and Phipps Plaza simultaneously. Two bombs exploded in Phipps Plaza, the less occupied of the two, and claimed at least five hundred lives and still counting. Burlington Mall near Boston and Seattle Mall were destroyed completely by a complex series of command-detonated bombs, killing thousands in each location. We’ve had three apartment buildings destroyed, the first in Seattle and two in Chicago.
“The operation to capture or kill Jacques Ballantine was not a complete failure, but neither was it a success. Our operative got close but was captured. We still do not have control of our operative, and Ballantine has escaped despite the best efforts of some very brave men.”
Meredith felt a twinge of pride knowing that Matt was one of those men.
General Shepanski continued, “We are still getting spot reports on that operation, but we have secured the command post and accompanying equipment. Our intelligence analysts are going through everything as well as talking to two captured Ballantine operatives. Ballantine himself escaped, we know, in his plane. We’ve got radar teams scanning everywhere, but it is an impossibly small aircraft that is quite difficult to pick up on radar, so we’re not optimistic in that regard. Also discovered, thanks to Matt Garrett and Peyton O’Hara, was a Predator UAV terminal. There is no indication of where the actual UAVs are. As you recall, at least two of these ground control stations went missing a few years ago, we believe to the Chinese.”
“Shark, do we know how much contact Boudreaux had with Ballantine?” the president asked.
“No, we do not. But it was apparent that he was in captivity for several hours at a minimum. Boudreaux was last seen alive and is believed to still be in Ballantine’s captivity.”
Meredith watched the men talk, again thinking it odd that they would be discussing a single commando. She logged that part of the conversation away and continued to listen.
“As I was saying, we have found reference to eighteen missing Predator Unmanned Aerial Vehicles. There was a chart in the command center indicating employment in some capacity of multiple UAVs across the nation. The question remains, What would be their purpose? UAVs are primarily reconnaissance platforms. However, this particular technology allows for the transportation of a payload as well. Each UAV has a range of approximately 500 miles from the control station. What we know is that there is one terminal still out there that can control all the missing drones.”
“What kinds of payload?” the president asked.
“Lots of things, sir, but most worrisome is the fact that chemical or biological weapons could be deployed from these vehicles. We know they were used in the Charlotte and Minneapolis attacks. I just received a report from the special operations team searching Moncrief that they have found a cave or old mine. It appears that chemical and biological weapons were being stored and manufactured there.”
“It has to be the missing weapons of mass destruction. Hussein must have smuggled them out before we attacked,” Meredith said.
“Strike fear into the heart of America by hitting the malls, apartment buildings, state capitols, and sports arenas, and then send UAVs with weapons of mass destruction in to high population centers to strike the knockout blow. Is that what we’re dealing with?” Hellerman asked.
“That’s certainly a scenario, sir, which we seem to be two-thirds of the way through.”
“But who is behind it?” Hellerman asked.
“Well, obviously, Ballantine has an elaborate network of operatives across the country. We don’t know if this is al Qaeda or not. We do know that Ballantine is Iraqi. He has to have been planning this for several years, maybe even initially in Iraq. His fishing guide service has been operational for two years, so he has had ample time to hop in and out of the country with his airplane, distributing supplies for the operation.”
“Do you think that Ballantine is acting alone or with the support of the exiled Iraqi government? What is the goal of this operation, General? And how the hell did we miss this guy?” the president asked.
“In my view, this is an act of revenge. Ballantine’s brother was killed in 1991 during the first Gulf War by an American officer. But also, I think this was originally planned by Hussein. So it seems the weapons of mass destruction were in Canada, not Iraq, which affirms our policy of going after Hussein. But now we find ourselves with over half our military committed in remote lands.”
“What were the conditions of the killing of Ballantine’s brother?” Catherine Arends asked.
Meredith watched the secretary of state on the plasma screen, wondering where she could be going with such a question. Whatever direction, it was not a good one. The secretary of state was infamous for continuous efforts to “put the military in its place,” as she was once overheard saying.