6 February
The relative quiet on the streets didn’t help the hungry news cycle. Nor did the silencing of the president’s avowed political enemy, Speaker of the House Duke Patrick. Talk radio began to fill the void, first with questions, then with rhetoric, and hours later with rumors of terrorists switching from poison to sniper attacks and the White House close to ordering a suppression of citizen rights. All unconfirmed. All wrong.
The reports migrated to television where talking heads quoted research they’d heard or made up.
“More than a third of Americans agree that in times like this, we must deprive other people their basic liberties,” claimed a first-term North Carolina Congressman who was quickly getting the airtime Patrick turned down.
“No, it’s more like fifty percent,” added a political spokes-liar from Ohio. “And from the polls I’ve seen, two-thirds of the American people agree that law enforcement should be able to indefinitely detain anyone suspected of terrorism. If Gitmo is out, then ship them off to Puerto Rico or Guam.”
“I predict full-scale rioting in America’s cities because the president failed to establish martial law,” added a self-proclaimed expert on such things. The former Arizona sheriff was more than pleased to be back in the limelight. “And if Morgan Taylor doesn’t take control, which he obviously won’t, then it is up to us, as citizens.”
“Are you suggesting, as a former law enforcement officer, that Americans walk their neighborhoods armed?” the anchor asked over the satellite uplink. He tried to make a fair-sounding question, but it was as soft a pitch as imaginable.
“We’re under attack. Thousands have died. But all Taylor does is tell people to stay inside. What kind of America is that? Stay inside. Give me a break. If the president isn’t doing anything, then we must.”
The Oval Office
“The strike force will land at MacDill in four hours, then turn around, fully loaded for the mission,” Sy Gunning stated. “The quiet birds are already at the staging point. If the weather holds, it looks like we’ll drop in on schedule.”
“I’ll take hourly updates, Admiral. J3 will be awake when I’m asleep. Any change in plans, the White House gets them first,” the president stated during the latest briefing.
“Yes sir.”
“And thank you, Sy. We’ll all be in communication throughout. Good luck to you and your men.”
“Thank you, Mr. President. Thank you for your confidence in us.”
The president hung up and segued into a briefing that including Johnson, Secretary Grigoryan, Bob Mulligan, and Jack Evans and SOCOM General Jim Drivas, the officer in charge of the operation.
SOCOM, an acronym for the country’s Special Operations Command is a key component in the U.S. unified central command or USSOUTHCOM. It’s headquartered at MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa, Florida, and is comprised of the best, most carefully selected combatants in the United States military. SOCOM was created in 1987 to execute overt and covert operations, which can be authorized under CIA command and the White House. Each branch of America’s armed forces is represented in SOCOM units. They are also the most elite units which are deployed when the most special of talents are required.
The agenda for the briefing: the timeline for “neutralizing and eliminating” the MS-13 supply lines through Mexico and the domestic assault on the Mara Salvatrucha strongholds. This was to follow on the heels of MERCURY.
“Mr. Hernandez will be informed three minutes before the strikes,” Gunning noted. “What isn’t taken out by the drones will be cleaned by the five SEAL teams already spread out across the supply routes.”
Taylor was satisfied with the oral report. He’d already read and approved the written. Next up, Mulligan’s report on MS-13.
“Based on what we’ve learned from the Houston MS-13 leader about the Maras and the splinter MS-13-30 gangs, we’ve pinpointed targets from Providence to Miami, Chicago down to Dallas, San Francisco to San Diego and dozens of cities in between. This will be the biggest roundup of thugs in American history; enough to keep the gangs’ lawyers busy for years. The FBI is lead dog, with support from ATF, some of whom have been working undercover for years.”
“All in, what can I expect to see?” Taylor asked.
“Forty-three simultaneous strikes. All in the middle of the night. No time for any one cell to prepare. We anticipate some will not go down easily. Others will. We have warrants in hand. We consider computer records as important as human intel.”
“What will be the standard charges?” the vice president asked.
“Conspiracy, sedition, money laundering, murder. Pick a letter in the alphabet and we’ll have a charge that starts with it.”
“And the law of unintended consequences, Bob? There always are,” Taylor noted.
“The night will change the face of organized crime in America. Some other group is likely to move in. But it sure is going to make a lot of junkies shaky and seriously hurt the tattoo business in America,” Mulligan added.
Morgan Taylor also knew it was going to give the news channels and talk show hosts something new to talk about. So much for the president doing nothing.
Ciudad del Este
The
snakebots
crawled closer under D’Angelo’s skillful maneuvering and trained eye. They slithered their way from to tree to tree, mapping the exterior of the mansion, capturing the guards’ routines, and providing actionable information.
High overhead, the CIA’s satellites peered down with amazing clarity and detail. Closer to earth USAF drones sent more real-time images back to MacDill in Florida and the CIA in Langley.
As good as the eyes in the sky, Jack Evans relied heavily on HUMINT, an abbreviation for Human Intelligence. Boots on the ground. In this case, Vinnie D’Angelo. It was his experience that delivered beyond what the high-tech lenses reported. The career CIA officer communicated mission options, personal analysis, and opinion. Because he was there, he could interpret manner, attitude, intent, and the degree of professionalism.
He saw camaraderie rather than authority. Cavalier Latin machismo instead of military discipline. And he saw no leadership. That worried D’Angelo. They’d fire at anything, releasing everything in their magazine, indiscriminately killing instead of looking for hard targets. That kind of enemy had to be dealt with
before
they aimed their weapons and squeezed their triggers. One by one. Stealthily. Efficiently.
Vinnie D’Angelo’s recommendations evolved the more he observed the target. He sent e-mails in short blasts and beyond anyone’s decoding ability.
Guards most lax final 30 min before shift change.
He found their weakness and he would exploit it. The relief team was reliably late, casually strolling in independently, replacing tired and upset sentries.
Target 0233.
As for the country club security gate, he recommended a way to keep the rent-a-cop detail busy.
Create diversion.
He presented the rest of his plan, which the agency bought, SOCOM affirmed, and, after study, ST-6 approved.
D’Angelo also put in a personal request.
Want in.
That appeal went all the way to the POTUS. With the approval came another message that made him smile.
Observer with birds. Top Gun VIP. Known.
D’Angelo smiled. This could mean only one man. A friend with benefits.
Scott Roarke.
MacDill AFB
Tampa, Florida
Roarke and the ST-6 team touched down at MacDill for refueling and an updating briefing. The base was manned by approximately twelve thousand military personnel and thirteen hundred civilians. Nobody except those few who were cleared saw the Navy SEALs. Of the twenty-six assigned to MERCURY, more than half had previously worked together in Indonesia, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. For the newbies there was no hazing, only the strictest insistence on team work and efficiency.
“Gentlemen,” General Drivas began, “we are
go
for a four-phased operation, as planned. Upon insertion, the clock ticks for twenty minutes. That’s the time we calculate you’ll have before first responders arrive. No time to buy postcard. Not that any of you Tweeters would even know how to put a stamp on one.”
The team laughed. But it was entirely true.
“Of course, we’ll be watching those nice live hi-def videos from your helmet cams back here at MacDill and monitoring your vest iPhones and your other doodads. You break ‘em you pay for them,” he joked. “Oh, and the POTUS will be watching, too. And you know he’s Navy. So do him right. Got that?”
In unison, all the military team members shouted, “Yes, sir.”
“Mr. Roarke, where are you?” Drivas asked.
Roarke waved his hand from the third row.
“Stand up, please.”
He complied.
“Take a good look at this man. You’ve been training with him, and for a civilian, he’s not done half bad keeping up. If you’re wondering why the fuck he’s here, Roarke works for the big boss. He’s tagging along to observe and report on a separate channel. You make sure he comes back in one piece.”
Roarke sat down.
“Ah, and Mr. Roarke, even though you’ll be armed, please return the favor. Be damned careful where you aim.”
Roarke tipped two fingers forward just off his forehead in partial salute. “Understood, sir.”
“Okay then, let’s go through the operation. You’re on the C-40s in two hours and we have a lot to review.”
Two Boeing 737-BBJC transports, business and military versions of the commercial 737, were slowly towed out of adjacent hangars at MacDill. One plane would have sufficed, but SOCOM flew two with the SEALs contingent split. No one talked about the
what ifs
, but they were obvious. Command accordingly took the necessary precautions.
The planes, repainted forty-eight hours earlier, rolled out with the corporate identity of Colgreen Jet Charters and a gold CJC company logo on the fuselage. But the crew and the passengers were all red, white, and blue. Colgreen was a faux cover just as the paint jobs were over the U.S. Navy Reserve modified 737s or C-40s.
The SEALs had a long flight ahead. These specially adapted 737s carried twelve fuel tanks, which extended the normal range from 3,500 miles to at least 7,000. Their trip would be 4,137 miles, taking eight hours and thirty-eight minutes from MacDill AFB in Tampa, Florida, to Florianópolis Air Force Base on the coast of Brazil.
The teams rested for the first four hours. About halfway they awoke, hit the head, and got to work, which consisted of studying real-time satellite, air, and ground imagery, running through slight changes in the mission, and reviewing their personal hard targets. It all had to be automatic with the ability to call audibles.
No joking now. The SEALs were in the zone, and Roarke was right there with them. Katie was a world away. She had to be. And Christine Slocum never existed.
Capitol Hill
Duke Patrick showed no remorse at the death of his young speechwriter. This had his staff perplexed. Even more troubling was that he was not getting out in front of the story; using his political capital to get airtime and hammer Taylor.
“Senator Aderly is calling again,” his secretary said.
“Take a message.”
“I’ve done that every time he’s phoned. This is the umpteenth time. And the same for Shultz and Maddow. They’re looking for soundbites, sir.”
“No calls!” the emasculated Speaker of the House shouted. With his career in shambles and the threat of exposure and ruin, the former party stalwart wondered what kind of life, political or otherwise, lay ahead.
His secretary interrupted his depression again. “Mr. Speaker, he absolutely insists on talking to you.”
The overnight assignment editors watched the wires for action. Any action. They got it. The networks and newspapers were conducting their own tests and coming up with a litany of deadly toxins.
“
Yersini Pestis
—stable for weeks or more,” reported Fox News out of Lexington, Kentucky.
“Worse Case Scenario,” was the headline in the
Baltimore Sun
after their analysis in College Park, Maryland, turned up
Bacillus anthracis
spores—active in water for up to two years.
ABC doubled down on the story, interviewing a medical expert who warned that boiling contaminated water with spore-forming
Bacillus subtillis¸
a substitute for anthrax, could result in the release of bacteria particles into the air.
In Milwaukee, an article in the
Journal Sentinel
recalled the massive 1993 outbreak of cryptosporidiosis, the result of
Cryptosporidium
organisms passing undetected through two water treatment plants. It caused an estimated four hundred three thousand illnesses and forty four hundred hospitalizations. Now Wisconsin families were rushing to buy or steal bottled water, treating it as if it were gold. “In a few days,” the paper reported, “the escalating prices might well set a new gold standard.”
But the news got even worse when CNN announced that
Botulinum
toxin had been found in milk processed at a local Poughkeepsie, New York, dairy farm.
The
New York Times
front page asked, “What will be next?”
Ciudad del Este
George Brewer and Nick Segaloff were part of the team that was going to provide it. The Delta Force lieutenants were on the ground, in advance of MERCURY. They each had specific missions, which they performed during the moonless night. Their jobs involved the use of plastic explosives they had smuggled into Paraguay from Brazil across the Friendship Bridge.
Brewer’s two targets required 35 grams of C-4, or about 1.5 ounces. Segaloff carried 2 ounces for his objectives.
They worked separately and undetected. In the morning they would check into local hotels and be ready for any further orders.
Florianópolis Airport
Brazil
The C-40s touched down and taxied without particular notice into two Brazilian Air Force hangars that had been turned over to U.S. operations.
Once inside, the crews deplaned for ninety minutes, enough time for a shower and refueling and weapons check.
Depending on the man and the specific duty, they carried both heavy and light weaponry: standard issue Heckler & Koch MP5 submachine guns; lightweight, air-cooled with 30-round capacity magazines; MK23 Mod 0 handguns with .45 ACP cartridges; and Benelli M4 Super 90 Shotguns with night-visions sights.
Also on their tactical vests—extra magazines, grenades, and multipurpose knives that really had one principal purpose.
They all wore camouflage, boots, watches, personal GPSs and multichannel communications equipment.
Take away all the equipment, the ST-6 remained a lethal force because each of the SEALs stood by the basic special ops truths.
Humans are more important than hardware. Quality is better than quantity. Special Operations Forces cannot be mass produced and Competent Special Ops Forces cannot be created after emergencies occurred.
They were trained and ready. Scott Roarke among them.
Fifty-five minutes later they reboarded for the next leg, a 354-mile hop to Cascavel Airport, northwest of Florianópolis.
Washington, D.C.
“What the hell’s going on, Patrick?” Senator Aderly Shaw complained. “Williamson’s pissed beyond all measure. He says if you don’t get out in front of those cameras, he’ll find someone who will.”
Duke Patrick didn’t respond.
“Are you deaf as well as brain dead? Do you understand English? We will shut down the pipeline. Everything. The PACs, the support. It all goes away. We have a chance to score big here and you’re the go-to face. It’s now or never.”
“We have a problem, Shaw,” Patrick finally admitted to the Missouri senator, his likely running mate for the presidency.
“What? What kind of problem?”
He explained what Taylor had told him, concluding with a volley of direct questions. “Tell me. No lies. Tell me you didn’t know about Slocum’s history? About her connections with God knows whoever? About why you recommended her to me? You, Shaw. You. Sure looks like a set up to me. The truth, Senator. You were using me to get to the White House. What were you going to do when we got there? Shoot me? Or was that Williamson’s job?”
“Oh come on. We recommended the girl to you. That’s all. No conspiracy about it. She’d come off of Lodge’s campaign bus and she looked like she’d be a good loyal addition to your staff. Hell, you wanted to fuck her.”
Aderly paused long enough to switch on some feigned charm.
“Look, Duke, Slocum was a bright enough woman. I’m sorry she’s dead.”
“A dead spy is what she was!”
“You don’t really know that. Taylor’s just trying to throw you off. Remove you from the equation.”
“The way I see it, my future has turned to shit because of you and your buddies.”
“Because of us you had a future. And I suggest if you want to keep it, you do exactly as I say. I’ll get back to you on how to manage this crisis. That’s all it is. A crisis. And we’ll get through it one way or another.”
It was the
or another
that scared Duke Patrick even more than the president’s threats.
Given the hold that terrorists and crime lords had on Ciudad del Este, threats were part of every day life. Tonight, D’Angelo figured it was going to get worse by an almost incalculable violent and political scale. He’d only worry about the violent part. The suits would deal with the politics.
Two hours earlier he had assigned control of the
snakebots
to MacDill. From now until exfiltration he was going to remain on alert in the battle zone. GPS signals, relayed to the airborne team, constantly pinpointed his location. It was imperative that he be viewed as a friendly at all times.
“Quiet and normal,” he reported at 2245.
He updated SOCOM every fifteen from a hollowed-out tree he’d found on his first day of surveillance into the woods between the Paraná River and Haddad’s mansion.
“Quiet and normal,” he continued to broadcast.
Here is where Morgan Taylor’s conversation with Lydia Santiago paid off.
Ten minutes into the forty-two minute flight to Cascavel, the airport plunged into darkness. The official write up? Power surge. But it was a Brazilian officer who cut the circuit.
Operating only on auxiliary power, with General Jim Drivas calling the shots, the tower diverted all incoming traffic back to Florianópolis where the U.S. transports had departed.
While in the air, the SEALs tested their cameras, GPSs, and devices and double-checked the other tools of their trade.
Thirty-minutes later, the big jets landed two minutes apart without the benefit of runway or landing lights. They quickly taxied to the end of the runway, barely fifty yards from three UH-60s, specially equipped Black Hawk helicopters which had made the trip to Cascavel under the cover of darkness the night before.
The teams split up according to plan, quickly boarding the Black Hawks. Five minutes later they were aloft again.
The next eighty-one miles would take two hours and one minute on a southwest course over rural Brazil, to the Brazil/Paraguay border that cut through the Paraná River, and the final two hundred yards to Ibrahim Haddad’s compound. The schedule was all back-timed to precisely 0235.
7 February
Morgan Taylor looked at his watch. 12:35 a.m. He buzzed Louise Swingle who insisted on staying late.
“Yes, Mr. President.”
“Is everyone comfortable and coffee’d-up?”
“Still waiting for a few. The vice president is already in the Situation Room along with the Joint Chiefs, Secretary Huret, and Mr. Grigoryan. Director Evans will be at Langley with his evaluators, and Director Mulligan, Mr. Bernstein, and Attorney General Goldman are due at 1 a.m.”
“Thank you, Louise. I do have one other person to add to the list, but I don’t want you to place the call quite yet.” He gave her the name and when to call.