The Bin Laden Plot

12 LANGLEY, VIRGINIA

Christine O’Connor stepped from the elevator on the ground floor of the CIA headquarters in Langley, accompanied by two protective agents as she headed to her awaiting car. After she slid into the back seat and the SUV pulled away, she mulled the stunning news, which had filled the country’s television and radio broadcasts — yesterday’s assassination attempt against Secretary of the Navy Brenda Verbeck.

What the public didn’t know was that the likely perpetrator had been identified. Lonnie Mixell had been spotted on a surveillance camera exiting one of the National Harbor parking garages moments after the assassination attempt. Clearly, the former Navy SEAL had not been killed a few months ago.

Jake Harrison had put three bullets into Mixell that night, the third being a suspected fatal shot that sent Mixell slumping onto the side of his boat before slipping beneath the dark surface of the Potomac River. Although Mixell’s body hadn’t been recovered, that hadn’t been surprising considering the Potomac was the fourth-largest river on the East Coast, with thousands of small bays and coves along its banks as it emptied into the Chesapeake Bay. Painfully obvious this morning, the CIA’s conclusion regarding Mixell’s fate had been overly optimistic.

Her thoughts remained on Mixell, a childhood playmate and one of her two best friends growing up, the other being Jake Harrison, whom she had dated for a decade beginning in high school. As kids, the three of them had been almost inseparable. Even in high school, they had stuck together, with Mixell’s various girlfriends tagging along as fourth wheels.

As Christine’s SUV pulled onto the George Washington Memorial Parkway, her thoughts shifted to the pending White House meeting, where the CIA would most likely assist the FBI’s search for Mixell, due to the agency’s previous success tracking him down and thwarting his attacks on the country’s largest cities and the president himself. She would have egg on her face this morning, though. The CIA’s erroneous conclusion that Mixell had been killed would call into question the veracity of previous and future CIA analyses.

Christine was the last to arrive at the White House for the meeting and stopped outside the Situation Room, where she pulled a laptop computer from her satchel for inspection by security personnel, who verified it had no camera or wireless capability. Once cleared, she entered the conference room and took one of two empty seats at the table, leaving the chair at one end for the president, then connected her laptop to the audiovisual cable on the conference room table.

Once her presentation was ready to display, she took note of the attendance, which included Secretary of Homeland Security Nova Conover, FBI Director Bill Guisewhite, Director of National Intelligence John Rodgaard, and Thom Parham, the president’s national security advisor. Given Mixell’s previous ties to al-Qaeda and its international implications, Secretary of State Marcy Perini was also present.

Hardison contacted the president’s secretary, informing her they were ready for the president, who arrived a moment later. All stood as he entered, returning to their seats after the president settled into his chair.

“What’s the status?” he asked.

Hardison replied, “Director Guisewhite has the lead on the investigation and will brief you on what we know.”

After the president nodded his concurrence, Guisewhite began.

“Good morning, Mr. President. As you’re aware, there was an attempt on Secretary Verbeck’s life yesterday following her keynote speech at the Sea-Air-Space Exposition at National Harbor, with the attempt occurring as she exited the Gaylord convention center. A sniper was positioned in a hotel room across from the Gaylord, but the bullet missed Verbeck, killing one of her protective agents instead. John McNeil was his name, a recently retired Navy SEAL.”

Christine looked up suddenly from her computer. John McNeil had been the commanding officer of the SEAL detachment aboard USS Michigan, a man she had worked with several times. She’d been so focused on the news that Mixell had survived that she hadn’t bothered to ask the name of the slain agent.

“How is Brenda doing?” the president asked.

“She’s at home, recovering from the ordeal,” Guisewhite replied. “She’s quite shaken over the close call and death of her protective agent.”

“Do we have a motive? Why would someone target her?”

“We don’t have anything solid at the moment. However, she’s been pushing aggressive anti-terrorist policies, focused not only on the roles our Navy can fulfill but on methods the military overall can implement in our war against terror. I don’t think it’s any secret that she’d like to be the next secretary of defense, and in that position, she’d be quite influential and could reshape the military’s role, intensifying America’s effort in this area.

“We’ll update you if we identify anything more concrete regarding the motive or those behind the assassination attempt. What we do know, however, is who the likely assassin is: Leonard Mixell, nickname Lonnie, who has gone by multiple aliases in the recent past. I presume you recall the details of his court-martial while a Navy SEAL and subsequent imprisonment, and his assassination of United Nations Ambassador Marshall Hill, followed by his role in the Kazan and Air Force One plots.”

The president nodded. “Of course. I also recall that he is supposedly dead.”

He leveled his gaze at Christine, who leaned back slightly under his scrutiny. She knew the issue would arise this morning. Unfortunately, the criticism was warranted.

Guisewhite continued, thankfully capturing the president’s attention again. “Unlike Mixell’s assassination of Ambassador Hill, we don’t have video of the event. We did, however, capture Mixell on camera shortly afterward.”

The director activated a video clip on his laptop. The display at the front of the Situation Room energized, showing a car pulling up to the automated exit gate in a parking garage. The video zoomed in on Mixell’s face and froze.

“As you can see, Mixell is alive and almost assuredly responsible for the attempt on Secretary Verbeck’s life. Mixell has changed the color of his hair and eyes but has otherwise not altered his appearance. In the past, he used temporary mouth implants to alter his cheek and jaw structure, but Mixell is apparently aware that this no longer fools our facial recognition algorithms.

“As for where Mixell is now or what he’s been up to, all we know is that he was at National Harbor yesterday afternoon. There have been no database hits or sightings of Mixell since he was reported killed several months ago. He’s clearly been lying low while his wounds healed and using an alias or perhaps multiple ones.

“Not only is Mixell alive and well, but it appears he’s employed again. Whether he continues to do the bidding of al-Qaeda under new leadership — we’ve confirmed the death of Ayman al-Zawahiri from our drone strike a few months ago — or is employed by others is unclear.”

“What do we know about al-Qaeda’s new leadership,” the president asked, “now that Zawahiri is dead?”

Guisewhite glanced at Christine, who took over.

She pressed the video switch on the conference table, shifting control of the wall display from Guisewhite’s computer to hers, then pulled up the first slide of her brief, a head-and-shoulder portrait of an Arab man.

“The heir apparent to al-Qaeda was Osama bin Laden’s son Hamza, the only child by Osama’s eldest wife, Khairiah Saber. However, Hamza was killed by a U.S. counterterrorism operation in 2019. That left Zawahiri in charge and al-Qaeda looking for a new successor, for which there are four leading contenders.”

Christine went quickly though the list, one slide per man:

Saif al-Adel: al-Qaeda’s number two, a longtime head of its military council and well respected within the global al-Qaeda network.

Abd al-Rahman al-Maghribi: a shura council member married to one of Zawahiri’s daughters and head of al-Qaeda’s media operations.

Yasin al-Suri: head of al-Qaeda’s organization in Iran, in charge of facilitating the transfer of money and personnel in and out of the country.

Abu Hamza al-Khalidi: a central link between al-Qaeda’s global affiliates and al-Qaeda’s leadership; one of a new generation of leaders being groomed by al-Qaeda and currently the head of al-Qaeda’s military council, having taken over from Saif al-Adel.

“Our assessment is that the new leader of al-Qaeda is likely Saif al-Adel. His relationships with jihadi cells throughout the Middle East put him in a position to solidify the somewhat fractured al-Qaeda organization and pursue additional attacks against the United States, similar to 9/11.”

Christine shifted her eyes to Guisewhite, who picked up where he had left off.

“We don’t have much to go on yet, Mr. President. But since Mixell has resurfaced and due to his recent ties to al-Qaeda, we’ll work with the CIA again to track him down as soon as possible. This concludes my brief.”

The president didn’t immediately respond. Instead, his eyes canvassed each person at the table. This was the second meeting in the White House Situation Room in only a few days, with the attempted assassination coming on the heels of Stethem’s sinking. It had not been a good week for the administration.

Finally, the president spoke. “I want a full-court press on this. Find Mixell before he does any more damage, and figure out who’s pulling the strings.”