Weapons of Mass Deception

CHAPTER 6

The briefing room was packed.

Brendan swore to himself. All the briefings were crowded now, ever since the surge troops had started arriving last month, but this was worse than normal. He picked up a briefing packet and stood near the back of the room between an Australian Army captain and a Royal Air Force major. Like the friggin’ United Nations around here. He gave a brusque nod as they brushed elbows.

The cover page told him the CIA briefing today was for the commander of CJSOTF-Arabian Peninsula. Brendan searched the front of the room for General TJ Haskins, an Army one-star who had been running the Combined Joint Special Ops Task Force for the last four months. The general’s icy blue eyes were fixed on the empty podium, his face set in a scowl.

Brendan checked his watch. One minute past the hour. His eyes flicked over to Haskins. If there was one thing the general hated it was tardiness, and he usually made his feelings known in colorful terms. Most of these briefings were painfully dull; this one might prove entertaining.

He checked the podium to see who was briefing today. The CIA guys tended to keep to themselves, but after four months in country and dozens of briefings, you got to know them by reputation. Brendan suppressed a smile; there must be an issue with the projector. Two backsides were facing the audience, one covered in BDUs and the other — wider and softer in appearance — in civilian clothes.

“Lieutenant Mason, we’re three minutes behind schedule. What seems to be the problem?” said General Haskins in a voice that could scratch glass. Chuckles went around the room. Haskins silenced them with a glare.

The uniformed ass became a red-faced head with a blond crewcut. “Sir, we’re still having connection issues with the microphone. I’ll look into another conference room and we can reschedule—”

“The hell you will! I’m not about to waste another second. Tell your CIA friend to use his big-boy voice and project to the back of the room. Do I make myself clear?”

“Yes, sir,” the staffer replied. He bent over the still-kneeling form of the chubby CIA analyst and spoke to him urgently. There was a loud crack as the microphone was disconnected and both men stood up.

Brendan caught his breath. The CIA analyst was Don Riley.

His former plebe made a vain attempt to tuck his shirttail back into his pants. His belly bulged over his belt and strained against the buttons of his dress shirt. Don’s face was red despite the frigid air blasting through the room, and he wiped sweat from his forehead with a bandanna handkerchief that he pulled from his hip pocket.

“Good afternoon. My name is Donald Riley—”

“Louder,” someone called from the back of the room.

Don’s voice strained as he pushed up the volume. “My name is Donald Riley, and I’d like to brief you on a terrorist cell we’ve been tracking for a few months now.”

The room fell silent as Don put up the first slide, a bomb crater at least twenty meters across. Twisted metal, bits of trash, and body parts littered the churned-up earth.

“Amiril, earlier this month. One hundred and fifty-six dead.”

The slide shifted, showing another bomb scene.

“Earlier this week, truck bombing in Kirkuk. Eighty-six people killed.”

The room was silent except for the whirr of the air conditioning.

“What do these two events have in common?”

The next slide showed an Iranian ayatollah — Brendan couldn’t remember which one — and Don’s voice was drowned out by the coughing of the RAF officer next to him.

“We have solid intelligence that Iran, working with Lebanese Hezbollah, is providing materiel and funds to a select Shia militia. The bombings in the north at Kirkuk and Amiril were test cases of the militia, a way to try out their latest tactics using newer and more powerful bombs.”

“Tell us something we don’t already know, G-man,” someone said in a stage whisper. A ripple of laughter ran around the room.

The general ripped off his glasses and tossed them on the briefing book. He rubbed his eyes for a long moment. Brendan held his breath. Haskin’s reputation as a hard-ass was well known, and it looked like Don was about to get a face full of one-star justice.

Haskins adjusted his spectacles on the table so they were square with the edge of the briefing book and laced his finger together. He squinted at Don. “Son, is this your first briefing?”

“Yes, sir.”

The room grew tense, and everyone leaned forward. Brendan closed his eyes.

“Just get in country?”

“Yes, sir, I arrived this morning.”

“Where’s the regular briefer?”

Don gulped. “Sick, sir.”

“So your boss has the shits, the microphone dies on you, and you get me as your first briefing?”

“Yes, sir.”

Brendan cracked open an eyelid.

General Haskins offered Don a grim smile. “You must have really pissed off someone in a former life, Riley. Here’s what I want you to do. Our motto here is Find, Fix, and Finish. I want you to find me some bad guys, fix eyes on them, and I’ll go finish them. Now fast-forward through the history lesson and give me some actionable intelligence — something I can raid, someone I can kill, some fucking building I can blow up that gets me incrementally closer to ending this fucking war. Can you do that for me, son?”

Don nodded. He fast-forwarded through a dozen slides or so, stopping on the grainy image from a Predator drone camera. It showed three buildings arranged inside a high-walled compound. He stepped back and lit the first building with his laser pointer. Don drew in a deep breath and spoke in a loud voice.

“This is a known terrorist cell near the town of Kalar, a few kilometers from the Sirwan River and just over the border from Iran.” The next slide showed a map with Kalar highlighted and the Iran — Iraq border painted in red. “The cell consists of approximately ten members and has been under regular surveillance for the past month. Normally, they are quiet, more bark than bite, but two weeks ago that started to change.”

He shifted to a thermal imagery shot. The number of bodies in the buildings had more than doubled. The next series of slides showed truck deliveries and men off-loading boxes and weapons. Don hit his stride as he rattled off details about the site.

“We have solid HUMINT that this cell is receiving Iranian arms shipments and technical support. We believe this is the right time to raid this site and capture as many as possible for interrogation.”

“Now we’re talking, Riley,” Haskins said, nodding. “Captain, what’s your take?”

Captain Andrews leaned back in his chair and pursed his lips at the screen. As Naval Special Warfare Task Group Commander, his SEALs would lead the raid to take down the insurgents. “I need minimum three hours to prep the raid, sir. Eight would be better.”

“You’ve got four hours.” Haskins twisted in his seat. “Colonel James,” he said to the senior Army intelligence officer. “I want eyes on this site full time. Make sure we know everything they know. Report any change in patterns to Captain Andrews’s team immediately.” He raised his voice. “Where’s my RAF rep?”

The man next to Brendan piped up with a sharp, “Here, sir.”

Haskin’s eyes swept past Brendan, landing on the Royal Air Force major next to him. “Your team has close air support on this operation?”

“Affirmative, sir.”

The general nodded and looked around the room. “Alright, people, our CIA friends have given us what we need, so let’s lock it down and sweep these bastards up. I want to see full mission briefs by 1800.” The general stood, signifying the end of the meeting.

The mass of men began to move toward Brendan’s position near the exit. He angled for the wall and fought against the tide of uniformed bodies toward Don.

When he arrived at the front of the room, Haskins was still talking with Don. Don saw Brendan emerge from the crowd and a look of shock crossed his face. The general must have noted it, because he turned toward Brendan.

Brendan felt his face grow hot. “I’m sorry, sir. I didn’t mean to interrupt. Mr. Riley and I know each other…”

Haskins’s eyes drifted down to Brendan’s name badge. “Really, McHugh? How do you know a CIA analyst?”

“He was my plebe, sir. At the Academy.”

The general’s eyebrows went up, and his skeptical gaze swept over Don’s out-of-shape physique. “I suppose that’s a story for another time.” He held out his hand to Don. “Good briefing, Riley. Rough start, but you got the hang of it. Welcome to the war, son.”

Don wiped his palm on his pants before accepting the general’s hand. “Thank you, sir,” he said, coloring slightly. Brendan stood aside to let the general pass and they were alone in the empty room.

“You’re the last person I expected to see here, Don,” Brendan began. “How did you—” He stopped when Don looked down at the floor, blinking his eyes.

When he finally spoke, his voice was husky. “It wasn’t my fault, Bren. I swear it. It was at the end of youngster year,” he said, using Academy slang for his sophomore year. “I got sick — really sick. Abdominal stuff, you know, and before I knew it I was medically NPQ’d.” Brendan winced at the term for being found “not physically qualified” to continue in the United States Navy.

“It was the worst thing that could have happened to me, and I–I was so ashamed. All I wanted to do was serve my country, and for six months, I couldn’t be more than five minutes from a toilet. It was awful. I just went home and lived like a hermit. Then, one day, the CIA knocked on my front door. Remember at the end of my plebe year I helped Professor Klaus write that paper on organic cryptology? You know, encoding messages in DNA?”

Brendan had no idea what Don was talking about, but he nodded his head anyway.

“Well, somebody at the CIA read it and they called me up. The fucking CIA, Bren! They offered me a full scholarship to MIT. I got my health together and finished in two years. Now I work as an analyst in the National Counterproliferation Center in DC. Pretty cool, huh?” Don was smiling now. This was the Don he remembered.

Brendan punched him lightly in the arm. “Good for you, Riley. You were a shitty plebe anyway. This new gig suits you.”

“Yeah, I guess I was. If it hadn’t been for you and Liz I never would have made it through plebe year. How’s Liz, by the way? Is she here, too?”

It was Brendan’s turn to look at the floor. “I don’t know. I haven’t talked to Liz since the grad party at Marjorie’s.”

When they went their separate ways after graduation, rather than remind himself how much he missed her, it seemed easier to just not talk to Liz. Then the not talking became a habit, and pretty soon Brendan was too embarrassed to call her. At first, Marjorie pestered him to call Liz, but after a while even she stopped.

“Really?” Don’s eyebrows were raised. “After I got kicked out of the Academy, I was too ashamed to keep in touch with anyone, even Marjorie, but I figured you two would always be together.”

Brendan shook his head. “Well, you figured wrong, buddy.” It was strange how talking to Don made him suddenly want to call Liz, like their conversation had triggered some strange need to reconnect with his once best friend. He wondered what she was doing right now.

Brendan’s phone buzzed in his pocket. He pulled it out and saw it was his task unit commander, Lieutenant Commander Radek. “This is Lieutenant McHugh, sir,” he answered.

“Brendan, I need you back at home base on the double. You’re on the mission tonight.”