True Faith and Allegiance

46

Dan Murray had been on the go almost constantly for the past few days. The attorney general moved among meetings at the White House, the Pentagon, and the J. Edgar Hoover Building. His own office was in the Robert F. Kennedy Building, just across the street from FBI, and yes, he did have meetings there throughout the day as well.

Now he walked through the West Wing for his third meeting there in as many days. But for today’s get-together he was heading back to the Oval, not to the Situation Room, because the meeting this morning was going to be a smaller affair.

SecDef Burgess had just arrived and was sitting down on the sofa where Mary Pat Foley was already seated. The President of the United States leaned forward from his chair facing the two sofas, and he poured coffee for everyone from the service on the table.

He looked up at Murray. “Dan is light cream, no sugar. Same as for the last twenty-five years.”

“Thanks, Jack.” Dan took a seat across from Mary Pat and Bob.

There were three people who worked for President Jack Ryan who felt comfortable enough to call him by his first name in private, and Dan and Mary Pat were two of them. Bob Burgess, on the other hand, was a former Army three-star general, he wasn’t a friend from way back, and he wouldn’t dream of calling the Commander in Chief by his given name, even if Ryan begged him to.

The third person in the “Jack” club was Arnie Van Damm, and he entered with a notepad, shut the door behind him, and took a seat on the couch next to Murray.

Ryan said, “Couple of things to get to this morning. The PDB covered the attacks overnight and this morning around the country. As everyone anticipated, it’s getting worse by the day. Anything new since the daily brief?”

Murray said, “The thing in Vegas is the most recent. We’re blanketing the scene for evidence, but both the perps are dead, so we won’t get anything out of them. Looking at the security cameras of the L.A. attack in Starbucks where the movie star was killed, this appears to be the same couple.”

Ryan replied, “At least al-Matari is going through his killers rapidly.”

“We can’t say yet if his force is shrinking in strength, or growing, at least by proxy, because each day this continues, the risk of copycats increases.”

Jack took that in, then turned to Burgess. “You’ve been working on ways to protect servicepeople here in the U.S. What have you come up with?”

“We are adopting measures to get more security for off-base meetings and conferences.”

“You aren’t canceling some of these meetings?”

Burgess shook his head adamantly. “No way. We will defend against these terrorists, but we won’t cave in to them. We start canceling the daily operations of the U.S. military, and ISIS will play that as a victory. We go on as normal, but with increased security.”

“Okay. What else?”

Burgess took a long breath before saying, “I’d like every serviceman and — woman in the U.S. to have the right to carry a sidearm off base.”

Jack was silent for fifteen seconds. Then he said, “Why the hell not?”

Murray jumped in. “I get it of course, but you are going to get a ton of pushback from New York, New Jersey, California, Illinois, and a few other states.”

Burgess said, “Yeah, states that make millions off of military bases and personnel. Mr. President, it’s not a perfect solution, but it’s the best single option we have. We are also spinning up self-defense and training classes, contracting firearms trainers across the country to give as many classes to servicepeople as they can physically do. The men and women in the military are trained with handguns, but the training isn’t what it should be. This will help, and we won’t encourage anyone to carry who doesn’t want the responsibility.”

“Military weapons?”

“Yes, sir. We aren’t going to force some lance corporal who makes seventeen grand a year to go out and buy a six-hundred-dollar pistol, plus a holster and ammo, to protect himself from terrorists. We can issue Beretta M9s, duty holsters, and ball ammo. Standard weapons they are trained on. There are a few other weapons used by other branches, too, so we’ll issue those, where warranted. Everybody will go with what they know, so they are more proficient.”

Arnie said, “Jack, sorry, but the optics are horrible on this. The opposition in Congress and in the media are going to spin this as you admitting America is a war zone.”

“I’ll take the hit and explain the situation as best I can.”

Arnie then said, “The legal age for handgun carry varies from state to state, but it’s twenty-one or higher in a lot of places.”

Ryan said, “If we can send an eighteen-year-old out with a gun to fight overseas, we can give him a gun to protect himself and his family at home.” He turned to Dan. “I expect you, as AG, to fend off any legal opposition.”

Murray didn’t like it, it was clear, but he said, “Of course. We need to put limits on this, though.”

Ryan said, “Nobody carries a weapon who is drinking. Zero tolerance, and that has to be stressed at every step along the way during implementation.”

Burgess said, “Absolutely.”

Jack said, “I don’t know if it will help, but it will let the terrorists know they aren’t out there shooting fish in a barrel.”

Dan Murray next gave an update on the investigation. There was some progress to report. The DoJ had been looking into flight manifests from the United States to Central America during the time frame of the Language School training in El Salvador. Through this they had so far identified eleven of Musa al-Matari’s potential terrorists. Four of those successfully ID’d were among the dead in Virginia and North Carolina, and all the rest were currently missing from their residences.

Additionally, possible identities of some of the other ISIS assets working in the United States had been discovered by the FBI via the tip lines. A used-car salesman stopped coming to work, a student never dropped out of class but had not attended in the past two months. These and a few other tips were being looked into and they appeared promising, but Murray explained that the FBI was taking these good tips along with thousands of bad ones, and agents and analysts were in the process of working like mad to find out who really was missing and a threat, and who was just playing hooky or happened to be unliked by someone who felt like getting the government to harass them.

Murray said, “Jack, our tip line is exploding. And yes, it’s exploding from jerks who think the Indian who makes their sandwiches at the deli is a Muslim terrorist, that’s definitely happening, but it’s also exploding from Muslim men and women in this country that want nothing to do with any of this bullshit. ISIS has killed a lot of people, and more of them have been Muslim than anyone else.

“We’re hunting two brothers and a sister in Chicago who just fell off the map a few months ago, nobody knows what happened to them. Multiple tips came from Chicago Muslims about these two. A similar thing in Atlanta. A mosque there said one of their more outspoken and radical regulars just stopped coming in and is not answering his phone. Timing is right for this being a Language School student.”

Ryan said, “That’s good to know we are hearing from others inside the Muslim community. It would be a damn ironic thing if all this brought this country a little bit back together.”

Murray said, “I’ve directed everyone in the DoJ to reach out to the community and to make sure they tread carefully, so we don’t do anything to screw up the goodwill we are getting.”

Ryan said, “We have identified men and women who are dead or who are not where they are supposed to be. We are putting their pictures out there, but so far we haven’t caught anyone. We have thousands of agents looking for the perpetrators, but Musa al-Matari could be in some tiny apartment somewhere running this whole thing from his phone, if he is in the U.S. at all. And even if Bob puts a pistol on the belt of every serviceman and — woman in America, the terrorists have bombs and suicide vests, that somehow manage to go off even after they are dead or incapacitated.

“Long term, Dan, you’ll get them, but in the short term they are killing people and creating a lot of propaganda that makes them look powerful and us look weak.”

Murray said, “I don’t disagree with anything you are saying. Look, we could be even more aggressive with some of our tactics, but let’s lay our cards on the table. The objective here is to stop these attacks as soon as possible but, as AG, a close secondary objective for me is to prosecute the criminals.”

Ryan said, “That secondary objective is far less important to me. Putting Musa al-Matari on trial is something I don’t anticipate, and it’s frankly something I’d happily do without.”

Murray said, “I understand that. The tools in my toolbox all revolve around the legal system, and I remain beholden to them. Maybe someone with a different set of rules…” His voice trailed off.

Mary Pat Foley interjected. “Dan, if I am not mistaken, there is an employee at Gerry Hendley’s shop who retains his FBI credentials.”

Murray nodded instantly. Clearly this is what he had been getting at. “In a general sense I know the work Hendley and his team have done, both at home and abroad. Since Dominic Caruso remains on loan from us to their outfit, even if just on paper, I would be happy sharing information between myself and their very effective operation. It can only help in our… investigation.”

Jack said, “Let me think that one over, Dan.” Dom Caruso was President Ryan’s nephew, and his first thought was to keep The Campus out of domestic operations, even though he was well aware they had operated within America’s borders in the past.

AG Murray said, “Fair enough, Mr. President. Just wanted to throw it out there.”

The meeting broke up, but Mary Pat stayed behind. “Any specific concerns you might harbor about bringing The Campus in to help locate Musa al-Matari?”

Ryan looked at her. “Is that a joke? I will always harbor concerns about The Campus’s activities. General and specific.”

Mary Pat said, “They do good work. Good, honest, confidential work.”

“No argument from me on that.”

“And Dominic can handle himself.” She paused. “They all can.”

She was talking about Jack, the President understood. He didn’t like being the one involved in sending his son into harm’s way, but, he recognized, that ship had sailed long ago. Since the day Jack joined the organization, against his father’s wishes or knowledge, he had been in peril.

Mary Pat said, “There is no way John Clark would let Jack Junior be involved in the States in something this high-profile.”

“Yeah, well, if he doesn’t send my kid, he’ll send my nephew, or somebody else’s kid. I have no right to balk at the plan because my son is in the mix.”

“If you didn’t care that your son might go into harm’s way, then you wouldn’t be much of a father, Jack.”

Ryan smiled at the floor, but then his face hardened. “I’ll give Dan the go-ahead to brief Dominic.”

“I’ll call Gerry and give him the heads-up that this is coming. They’ll need time to prepare.”

Ryan nodded. “Al-Matari is averaging three hits a day now, and it won’t be any time at all till the copycats start coming out of the woodwork. Whatever it takes, Mary Pat.”