Primary Target

50

Still dressed in the uniform of an Air Force chief master sergeant, President Cord Macklin approached the office of his chief of staff. The attorney general had called Fraiser Wyman and asked him to remain at the White House until she arrived.

Accompanying the president were Hartwell Prost, Pete Adair, Sandra Hatcher, two Secret Service agents, and two FBI agents. The entourage, like the rest of the nation, was outraged by the terrorist acts that had destroyed the reserve Air Force One and devastated the John F. Kennedy and May-port Naval Station. Although their guns were holstered, the four agents were unusually apprehensive.

Enraged by the growing death toll, including everyone aboard the flying White House, Macklin viciously threw open the door and caught Fraiser on the telephone.

Hearing the whisper of the guillotine, Wyman’s mouth dropped open as he fumbled to place the phone receiver in the cradle. “Mr. President, I thought you were—”

“Don’t say anything,” Macklin threatened in a trembling voice. “A few hours ago, before I left for Andrews, I began thinking about the Dallas crash.”

“Sir, I know—”

“Shut up,” the president said with acid in his voice. “I found it strange that you happened to know that Senator Morgan was aboard the plane long before the passenger list was released.”

Seeking an avenue of escape, Wyman’s deeply set blue eyes darted from person to person. There was no way out.

The veins in Macklin’s neck looked like they were going to explode. “Then I thought about the odds against Tehran knowing exactly when and where one of our recon planes would show up. A very strange coincidence, wouldn’t you say?”

Wyman’s face turned chalky white. “Sir, let me expla—”

“Then,” the president loudly interrupted, “the surprise in the Persian Gulf was just too much of a coincidence.”

Wyman’s eyes looked huge behind his round metal-rimmed glasses.

With pure malice in his voice, Macklin stared into Wyman’s frightened eyes. The president grabbed Wyman by his tie, then savagely yanked him face-to-face. “You’re a despicable piece of trash.”

Shaking and perspiring profusely, Wyman’s mouth opened and shut, but no words came out.

“You already had a fortune,” Macklin said bitterly. “But that wasn’t enough, was it?”

Wyman’s eyes were downcast.

“Was it?” the president yelled at the top of his lungs.

“No,” he whispered.

“Who paid you?”

“Bassam Shakhar,” Wyman said weakly.

“How much did you charge to sell out your country?”

Wyman hesitated, then looked away. “Fourteen million,” he uttered in a hollow, frightened voice.

“Where’s the money?”

“In Argentina — Buenos Aires.”

With all his strength, Macklin shoved Wyman back into his chair. Shaking from rage, the president turned to face the FBI agents. “Get him out of my sight.”

“Yessir,” they said.

Macklin started for the door, then stopped and looked at Wyman. “You treasonous bastard,” the president said in disgust. “May God have mercy on your worthless soul.”

Focusing on the primary sponsors of international terrorism, President Macklin orchestrated a campaign of round-the-clock bombings of military targets and civilian infrastructure. For three weeks, seven days a week, bombs and cruise missiles rained down on airfields, naval installations, radar sites, ammunition dumps, missile sites, command-and-control complexes, military storage facilities, and selected civilian targets that would not cause mass casualties. Nothing was spared, not even military headquarters buildings.

Bassam Shakhar and his closest lieutenants rode out the pounding attacks in an underground home in northern Afghanistan.

After the blistering bombing raids, President Macklin delivered a brief but poignant speech to the perpetrators of terrorism and the sponsors of terrorism. Broadcast on MSNBC, Fox, and CNN, the message was short and straightforward. The United States was at war with terrorists. In the event of another terrorist attack on U.S. citizens, at home or abroad, American bombs and missiles would pulverize all the sponsor state’s major airports, highways, roads, railways, bridges, dams, and power plants. Signing off, President Macklin vowed to make acts of terrorism against the United States too expensive for sponsor states to condone or conduct.