Foreign Agent

CHAPTER 26

President Porter nodded and the lights were dimmed. The glowing presidential seal on the monitors was replaced by the black flag of ISIS. There was the sound of wind. Slowly, the flag began to ripple.

Haunting music in Arabic poured from the overhead speakers. A picture of the Secretary of Defense faded up from the black.

Public photos from the last thirty years of Richard Devon’s life began to appear. Each one materialized quicker than the last.

As the pacing of the photos built to a crescendo, so too did the music. Then everything went black.

Everyone in the Situation Room braced for the worst.

But, like a terrifying horror movie, it was a feint — a move meant to keep its viewers off balance.

Secretary Devon’s voice now filled the room. The screens pulsed with digital snow, as if trying to capture some faraway signal. Then the video came into focus.

It was the Secretary’s swearing-in ceremony at the Pentagon. The words were his oath of office, administered by the Vice President.

But the swearing-in video was soon replaced by images of war and carnage. American tanks, troops, and planes were shown intercut with dead and dismembered Middle Eastern men, women, and children. All the while, Secretary Devon could be heard proudly and confidently reciting his oath.

There was applause as the Vice President congratulated Devon and the screens in the Situation Room went black once again. Now the worst would come.

A fraction of a second later, the video roared back to life. The motorcade was under attack. The attackers shouted “Allahu’akbar” as they stepped into the street firing their fully automatic rifles.

The attack was covered from multiple angles. Not only were the terrorists wearing GoPro cameras but there was also footage of the carnage taken from up above. Cameras must have been placed in windows or on rooftops.

It was slick and well produced. It looked like something out of a Hollywood action movie.

It was gut-wrenching to watch.

No one in the Situation Room spoke. They were saddened and sickened by what they were watching play out on the screen.

Everyone knew how it ended, but no one could turn away. They were all mesmerized, prisoners of the violence and barbarity unfolding in front of them.

When the final moment came, and the first car bombs exploded, the video transitioned into slow motion. If there was an Academy Award for evil, ISIS would have taken home an Oscar. It was as if the Devil himself had gotten into the film business.

The video ended with a masked figure standing in the desert, taunting the President. He spoke English like an American. He was different from the Brit and Aussie spokesmen the world had seen before.

“Unite your coalition. Mobilize your armies. Exact your revenge,” he said. “You know where to find us. We’re waiting for you.”

And with that, the video shrank into a single point of light and disappeared — like an old television set being switched off.

The lights in the Situation Room came back up. The members of the President’s National Security Council sat stunned. No one spoke. They were all without words.

Then, as if a starting gun had gone off, they all began speaking at once. Tempers were hot.

President Porter called for quiet and directed CIA Director McGee to bring everyone up to speed on the latest.

“The video you just saw was published by the media arm of ISIS less than two hours ago,” the Director said. “We’re in the process of analyzing it now. In the meantime, I want to update you on the explosion last night in Antalya, Turkey.”

Activating his presentation, he put a slide up on the monitors that showed two pictures. One was the smoking, burned-out hulks of at least fifteen vehicles. The other looked like a huge bomb crater.

“The photo on the left,” the Director narrated, “is a crime scene photo from the car bomb attack on Secretary Devon’s motorcade. The photo on the right is from an explosion, about six-and-a-half kilometers away, that happened several hours later.”

“We’re assuming they’re connected?” the Vice President asked.

McGee nodded. “The FBI had already sent forensics teams to Antalya to gather evidence from Secretary Devon’s attack. When the second explosion happened, a small contingent of FBI technicians agreed to aid Turkish police in their investigation.

“The explosion leveled almost half a city block. It was an industrialized area, mostly warehouses. No word yet on casualties.”

“What’s the connection?”

“The FBI’s preliminary finding is that the explosive signatures match,” McGee replied. “We think ISIS was using one of the warehouses as a bomb factory.”

“And judging by the size of that crater,” the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs stated, “they still had a lot of ingredients left.”

“Which Turkish intelligence assumes was meant for further attacks inside Turkey. They see this as a major escalation. Ismet Bachar, the Chief of the Turkish General Staff, has even canceled his vacation and returned to the capital.”

“Good,” the National Security Advisor chimed in. “If they’d actually been serious about ISIS from the get-go, maybe Secretary Devon would still be alive.”

Maybe, but McGee didn’t want to get into hypotheticals. “At this point, they’re bending over backward to give us everything we need.”

“What about the man in the video?” the Secretary of State interjected. “He sounds American. Do we have any idea who he is?”

“Not yet.”

“How about where they got their intelligence?” the Attorney General asked. “Have we identified a specific leak yet?”

“No. Not yet.”

“What about the three Turks that Secretary Devon’s team plowed down during the attack? Have we learned anything more about them? Anything that might be helpful?”

McGee shook his head and repeated, “No. Nothing yet.”

“Has the NSA had any luck isolating what part of the cloud the attackers uploaded their GoPro footage to?”

The CIA Director shook his head. It was demoralizing for everyone present. A silence fell back over the room.

The Secretary of State decided to take advantage of the lull. “Mr. President, if I may ask. Are you still planning to renounce recognition of the Sykes-Picot boundaries?”

Porter had been expecting the question. “I am,” he replied.

“Have you decided when?”

“No. Why?”

“This is going to unleash unprecedented chaos,” the Secretary of State said. “It’ll make the Arab Spring look like a fifth-grade field trip. Israel is our ally. They deserve more than just a heads-up. They need time to get ready, to dig in. And if we—”

Porter motioned for him to stop. “I told you that I would worry about Israel, and I will. I know they’re our ally. I also know this is going to be difficult for them. But we’re going to make sure they have the biggest stick in the sandbox.”

“I don’t understand.”

“You will,” he said. “In the meantime, I believe the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs has something for us. Are you ready?”

“We are, Mr. President,” he responded.

Porter nodded.

“Anticipating that ISIS was responsible for the attack on Secretary of Defense Devon, and in retaliation for the attack on the CIA’s SAD team in Anbar, the President asked the Pentagon to draw up a response plan.”

Nodding to an aide, the Chairman had a target map uploaded to the monitors as he continued. “Code-named Iron Fury, the attack focuses on the following — known ISIS command and control centers, training facilities, and most importantly, oil infrastructure.”

The Secretary of State studied the map and then asked, “And it will launch when?”

The Chairman looked at the President, who again nodded.

“Right now,” the Chairman replied.

The three-hour attack, code-named Operation Iron Fury, began with two waves of B-2 Spirit stealth bombers, each carrying a payload of eighty 500-pound Mark 82 bombs.

As they destroyed a series of critical oil refineries, volleys of Tomahawk missiles were fired from a U.S. guided missile destroyer in the North Arabian Gulf and a Los Angeles Class attack submarine in the Red Sea.

As those found their targets across Syria and Western Iraq, Reaper drones armed with Hellfire missiles and accompanied by F-22 Raptor fighter aircraft took out hundreds of tanker trucks at multiple points along the Syrian border as they prepared to smuggle oil into Turkey and Iraq.

Not since the last Gulf War had anyone in the Situation Room seen such a massive air assault.

When it was over, and all the pilots were out of Syrian airspace, they sat in silence for several minutes.

Then President Porter told his Chief of Staff to have the Press Secretary ready a statement, and then he declared the meeting over.

As the attendees gathered up their papers and filed out, Porter pointed at the CIA Director and asked him to hang back a moment.

Once they had the room to themselves, he gestured for McGee to take the chair next to him and they sat back down.

“Now,” said the President, “I want to hear for real. Where are you on the leak?”

“Same list of names,” McGee replied. “It hasn’t changed.”

“Yet.”

The CIA Director nodded. “I know it feels like nothing is happening, but we’ve got a lot of wheels in motion. Believe me.”

“I know. I just have a very bad feeling.”

“About the leak?”

“About all of it,” said the President. “I don’t think we’ve seen the worst of it yet. Not by a long shot.”