Chapter 25
At the conclusion of Mike's briefing on the latest engagement with a major terrorist enclave, President Archer looked across his desk at Mike. He was pretty impressed with what Mike had told him. Over the past few weeks, several dozen minor enclaves of terrorists had been taken out. These were hundred acre compounds occupied by a couple hundred armed terrorists. The compounds, like the one in Islamberg New York, usually had major training facilities. Smiling, he said, "I'm pleased with the progress we've had in wiping out the terrorists based here in the United States."
"I'm glad," Mike said thinking that they had a long way to go before it would really be safe. The Islamic Brotherhood had done a very good job in preparing the domestic battlefield.
"I'm thinking about expanding our fight to overseas," President Archer said.
"Not yet. We've still got too many terrorists running around inside the country," Mike said afraid that by turning attention overseas that they would end up never resolving the problem inside the country.
"Maybe you're right. It is just that I'm receiving a lot of shit from our European friends. They want us to close our bases overseas because we keep getting attacked and their citizens get hurt. They won't step up to the problem and take care of the terrorists before they attack us," President Archer said. Shaking his head, he said, "I keep hearing that we are supposed to be putting their interests before what is necessary for our survival. I think that is stupid. What kind of idiot argues against what is in their best interest?"
Mike shrugged his shoulders and answered, "Maybe they think that we should change our view of what is in our best interest."
"I seriously doubt it," President Archer answered.
Mike felt like the meeting was wandering off the subject. Taking advantage of that, he said, "There was something that I wanted to ask you."
"What is it?"
"The memorial wall inside the old CIA building is inaccessible. I'd appreciate it if you'd help get it moved out, decontaminated, and set up in some publicly accessible place. The folks who were killed as a result of the attack should be honored by having a star put on the wall. After all, they did die in defense of this country," Mike said.
President Archer valued the contributions of the intelligence community and felt that it was a reasonable request. He hadn't realized that nothing had been done to honor the men and women who had fallen in the domestic war with terrorism. Irritated at his predecessor, he said, "Consider it done."
"Thanks," Mike said. He knew it would be years before he'd ever see the results of this conversation, but he was keeping promise made at Dale Dawson's funeral.
Mike entered the conference room listening to Larry coughing. It really sounded bad. Shaking his head, he said, "You really need to get that cough checked out."
Larry looked at Mike and then asked, "Didn't you ever wonder why we meet in a hospital?"
"No," Mike answered.
"I'm a patient here," Larry said. He coughed and said, "I've been here for over two years. I'm the subject of an experimental treatment for lung cancer involving a genetically engineered virus that attacks only cancer cells."
"Oh, I didn't know," Mike said feeling stupid.
Larry said, "I'm sorry that we didn't tell you. The doctor in charge of the program told me a couple of months ago that the treatment has stopped working. Although the doctors used all kinds of medical jargon to explain what happened, the upshot of it all is that my cancer cells have become immune to the virus."
"I'm sorry to hear that," Mike said.
Giving a weak grin, Larry said, "When I started the program they told me that I probably had only a few weeks left. Three quarters of one lung and half of the other had turned cancerous. It had actually spread to my bones. I've had two years of life that would have been denied to me."
"Oh," Mike said feeling bad that he hadn't known that.
Shaking his head, Larry said, "I've watched you ever since your wife died and I'm saddened by what I've seen. I've been stuck in this hospital dying of a terminal disease and yet I've had more of a life than you. I find that sad."
"Don't say another word!" Mike said waving a hand. He didn't want to talk about his private life.
Larry looked Mike in the eye and said, "I want you to listen to the words of a dying man. You are alive, but you aren't living. It is time for you to get your life together. The first thing you need to do is to get laid. I'm not talking about a hand job in some massage parlor. I'm talking balls to the wall fucking. Hire a woman if that is required, but get laid."
Mike glared at Larry, but didn't say a word. The comment about hand jobs in a massage parlor struck a little too close to home. He also felt that sleeping with a woman would be cheating on Karen.
Shaking his head, Larry said, "The second thing you need to do is start taking care of yourself. You've quit jogging. I can tell. You're getting fat and out of shape. I bet you can't do twenty pushups and you were a Marine. You better start jogging again. Join a gym and work out twice a week. I suggest Tuesdays and Thursdays."
The comment about being out of shape blindsided Mike. He looked down at his stomach and realized that he had gained a little weight. He couldn't remember when he had last gone jogging. He sat back in his chair and, as if trying to convince himself, said, "It's not that bad."
Larry snorted and said, "Once you get laid and can jog two miles without collapsing, then you can start taking out that little lady from your office. She's not going to wait around for you for much longer. You better take her to dinner and a movie."
"She works for me!" Mike said.
"No, she works for Joe," Larry said with a smile.
"Wait a second. How do you know about her?" Mike asked looking at Larry suspiciously.
Grinning, Larry answered, "I've been watching you."
Mike shrugged and said, "The exercise is probably a good idea, but I'm not ready for the others."
Larry started coughing. He pulled out a small package of tissues, removed one of the tissues, and then spit into it. His sputum was tinged with red. Staring at the red, he knew the end was coming soon. He folded the tissue and said, "Your family is about to lose patience with you. Your mom is worried sick about you. I don't blame them. Even the Admiral is getting tired of watching you drag around. How many women has Sally tried to fix you up with? Three or four? Hell, even Sanjay and his wife have been worried about you."
Wanting to avoid further discussion, Mike glanced down at his watch. It was well after the time when the meeting normally started. Thinking he would change the subject, he asked, "Where are the others?"
"They won't be coming. Tonight is just between you and me," Larry said with a sad smile.
"Why?"
"I'm going to die soon and someone will have to replace my position in the leadership of the Intelligence 100. We didn't want to have to replace me and you at the same time," Larry answered.
"Replace me?" Mike asked getting worried.
"Look, you've got a real good head for this game. You might not realize it, but your team has consistently delivered assessments that have been right on target. You tracked down the missing rail guns. In the process, your team discovered the terrorist supply lines. You identified entire towns that had been taken over by terrorists and used as training facilities. Your team put together a very clear picture of the terrorist infrastructure in this country and you weren't even charged with doing that," Larry said. He started coughing again.
Mike waited for Larry to recover before he said, "I'm just in charge of one small team."
"We've got a hundred teams like yours spread all over this area. They're working out of what used to be Internet Cafés just like you. Your team, Jack's team, and, believe it or not, Sanjay's team are the best we've got. Those three teams are the only ones that have not had a member commit suicide. The attrition rate among analysts has been horrible. We haven't had a new field agent in six months," Larry said.
Mike had known about the suicides, the attrition rate, and the inability to get new people. He hadn't heard anything about how the other teams were performing. He asked, "Just how bad is it?"
"You know that supermarket that you visited?"
"Yes," Mike answered.
"That is the entire middle management of the CIA. The upper management of the CIA is sharing a single floor of an office building in Greenbelt with the upper management of the NSA. That's it. We've got one thousand four hundred and twenty-six employees in the entire CIA," Larry said.
"What about everyone who is working in the New CIA Headquarters Building?" Mike asked.
"The majority of the people working in those buildings are employed by the NSA and FBI," Larry answered.
"Why in the hell are we still working in Internet Cafes?" Mike asked.
Larry snorted and said, "If there is one thing that we learned after that attack is that you don't put all of your eggs in one basket."
"Jesus," Mike said.
"That's right. Now you know why I'm so worried about you. You represent our best hope of success in this war against terror. You've been doing all right with the operational aspects of being in the Intelligence 100, but your mind hasn't been engaged in the bigger picture. If you don't get yourself together, Jack and the others are going to have to replace you," Larry said.
"Oh," Mike said.
Larry was silent for a minute and then said, "I would have liked to have known you better. I think we could have been friends. It is a shame that things worked out this way."
"Yes, it is."
A few days after his meeting with Larry, Mike stood in the control room of a weapons testing area at Sandia Laboratories. The technician was busy preparing the equipment that would measure projectile velocities achieved using the captured rail gun. The chief scientist came over to Mike and said, "It is good to see you again. Your last visit created a bit of excitement around here."
"It's good to be back," Mike said still feeling a bit stiff from his flight out. He had flown there on a military transport rather than a civilian airline on this trip. The civilian airlines were viewed as too dangerous.
"They are about ready to test the new weapon. It is much cruder than the last one."
Nodding his head, Mike said, "It doesn't look very powerful."
"Those aluminum foil and Mylar capacitors can pack a bit of a punch," the scientist said while gesturing to the homemade capacitors. The terrorists had been using the power supply of an arc welder to charge the capacitors.
"How did they manage to penetrate the armor on the APCs?" Mike asked.
The scientist tossed a small projectile to Mike. Mike looked at it rather surprised by the light weight and thin construction of the projectile. Looking up, he asked, "What's this?"
"That is what they were firing at the APCs. It works on the same principle that allows a piece of hay to penetrate through a telephone pole. I'm sure you've seen the demonstration using a straw and a potato. It cuts through a very small circular section of the armor and then pushes the resulting plug into the tank."
"Nasty," Mike said looking it over a little more carefully.
The technician entered the control room and said, "We're ready. I wouldn't be surprised if all we get is one shot with it."
Mike watched as they fired one of the rounds from the rail gun through a piece of tank armor. It was impressive to watch, particularly since the rails blew apart. The technician reported, "Not a very good velocity. It was only twelve hundred meters per second."
Shaking his head, the scientist said, "I'm impressed. That's simple angle iron they're using for rails. They can build a launcher for a hundred dollars. They could set up one power supply and fire twenty or thirty of those. Each one might be a single shot, but it is a lot cheaper than anything we have in our arsenal."
Mike shook his head at the idea of what that plug would do to the inside of a tank or an APC. Not particularly happy with the image, he said, "That's all we need. The terrorists now have a cheap and effective tank killer."
The scientist looked at Mike for a second and then said, "I don't know if you'd be interested in it, but a friend of mine has just finished building a new surveillance platform. I could arrange a little visit to his lab while you're here."
"I'd be very interested," Mike said.
Mike entered what had once been an Internet Café and looked around the room. There were ten rather sullen looking analysts seated at computers typing on their keyboards. The Marine at what had once been the counter snapped to attention and said, "Dr. Mike Bowman is present."
The ten analysts slowly turned to look at Mike. He ignored them and studied the situation board at the front of the room. Half of the screens were off and two of them were carrying news channels. It was obvious they were going through the motions of doing their job. Disgusted, he pulled a sheet of paper out of his pocket and handed it to one of the analysts. While the analyst was studying the paper, the rest of the room was watching him with disinterest. Mike said, "Put the applications on the situation status board as identified on that piece of paper."
The analyst didn't even bother to acknowledge the request. He went to work and set up the situation status board as specified on the sheet of paper. It wasn't until he had finished and looked up at the front of the room that he showed any signs of interest. The other analysts in the room turned from watching Mike to looking at the screens.
Mike walked to the front of the room and said, "What you are looking at is the identified distribution of Islamic terrorists across the country. The yellow dots are locations that are part of a distribution network that provides sanctuary for terrorists traveling across the country. If you were to visit one of those yellow dots, all you would see is a gas station run by a Muslim.
"Those areas in green are places that have a significant concentration of Muslims. They have taken over entire towns. They have major neighborhoods inside large cities. They have minor holdings in the countryside. As you can see, there is a shit load of those bastards in this country. The previous President wanted them to come here. The current President wants them to leave."
His comment provoked the first round of laughter that had been heard in that room in months. Mike smiled and continued, "You will notice that a few of the green areas have black crosses in them. Those black crosses represent what we know are training grounds for various specialties. I'm here to tell you that your job is to study those training areas."
"How?"
Mike smiled and gestured to the Marine at the door. The guard opened the door and admitted five college aged kids wearing blue jeans and tee shirts. Mike said, "I want you to meet the five newest members of the FBI Air Surveillance Team."
"They don't look like FBI agents to me. Where did you get them?"
Mike laughed and said, "I found them in the video arcade at Quantico. Their fathers are Marines, but they haven't decided if they are going to join the service or go to college."
"Jesus, we're really scraping the bottom of the barrel now."
Mike pointed to five empty workstations and said, "Show them what you can do."
The clatter of keys filled the air as the kids went to work. Five of the screens at the front of the room were replaced with aerial views of five different towns. The view on one of the screens zoomed in on men running through a standard obstacle course. Another screen showed a mockup of a school with men entering it with guns. Another screen showed what appeared to be a mockup of an airplane with a group of men standing around.
Mike said, "The images you are looking at are live feeds from some experimental drones that are flying above a couple of training camps."
"Impressive."
"Zoom in on the face of that fellow directing the obstacle course," Mike said. A second later the man's face filled the screen. Mike said, "That man is Mohammed Abdul. He was captured at LAX a couple of years ago and released by a judge."
"Shit, I remember that fiasco," one of the analysts said in disgust.
Mike said, "As you can see, we can get enough detail from the images to identify people. That's what we want you to do. We want to identify everyone going through those training camps. I hate to sound racist, but pay particular attention to Blacks. We believe that the Muslim Brotherhood is preparing a major campaign in which Black Muslims who belong to the terrorist organization Jamaat ul Fuqra will be used because they can blend into the background a little better than someone of Middle Eastern descent."
"This is going to be a lot of work."
Mike heard the comment, but didn't see who said it. He said, "I want all of you to get to know everyone in those camps. You should be able to tell me who is who. You should be able to tell me who is the best one there. You should be able to tell me what kind of missions they are preparing to undertake. If at all possible, I want you to know their names so that we can tattoo it on their asses after we've killed them."
One of the kids looked up and asked, "Are you serious?"
"I'm very serious. This is war and they are the enemy. I want them dead, but I'm going to make sure that they die at a time that is most inconvenient for them. Are there any other questions?" Mike asked.
On leaving, Mike noticed that the faces on the people weren't as sullen as when he had arrived. It seemed that they were beginning to see that their work would have real consequences.
"You look funny with your face all red," Kim Sung said when Mike staggered into the house after his morning run.
Still trying to catch his breath, Mike said, "Tomorrow you run with me."
"No. I am old woman. When I want to go fast, I get a wheel chair and a hill," she replied with a laugh.
Mike paced around the house for a minute recovering. He said, "I'll be home late tonight."
"Why?" Kim asked hoping that Mike was going to say that he had a date.
"I'm going to the gym after work," Mike answered. Larry had died earlier that week. At the funeral, Mike recalled the last discussion that he had with the man and decided that it was time to implement at least a portion of his advice.
Nodding her head, Kim wasn't about to say anything that might make him change his mind. Going to a gym was a good idea. She said, "Your breakfast is ready."
"Thank you," Mike said. He looked at the sliding doors to the backyard seeing that the curtain was still closed. Repeating a question that he asked every morning, he asked, "When I can see the patio?"
"When Sun Yung finishes it," Kim Sung answered giving her standard answer. She swore that old man was the slowest worker she had ever met in her life.
"He's been working on it forever," Mike said. It had actually been three months, but he wasn't exactly keeping track of the time.
Teva looked at Mike and said, "You are looking better. Have you lost some weight?"
"Yes, I did. I've started exercising again," Mike answered. He had dropped close to four pounds since he had started jogging and going to the gym. Those were the easy pounds. The hard ones would come off around his stomach and that was going to take a lot of time.
Teva was smart enough not to ask him when he was going to start dating again. Instead, she said, "Well, it looks to be doing you some good."
"Thanks. I feel better," Mike said. He didn't know if it was the pills he was taking for depression or the exercise program, but he felt a lot happier.
Sanjay came in the house and said, "Ah, you have made it here before me."
"I'm overseeing a shop not too far from here," Mike said. He was now overseeing four Internet Café locations. All but the first one were doing aerial surveillance. His first shop was still trying to make sense out of the high energy weapons programs of the terrorists.
"They gave me a third shop today. It is rather far from here," Sanjay said feeling exhausted from dealing with traffic.
"How are things going for you?" Mike asked.
Sanjay looked at Mike wondering if he wanted the truth. Finally, he answered, "Things are not so good for us."
"People are treating you badly?" Mike asked afraid of what he was going to hear. America was becoming a very xenophobic country. Watching battles on American soil between foreigners and American troops had a tendency to cause people to look at those who were different from them with a lot of suspicion. He was sure that Sanjay understood why, but that wouldn't make it any easier to deal with the problem.
"Yes. The people at work seem to respect me. The neighbors are friendly enough, but they watch everything I do. People at the stores keep a good distance from me," Sanjay answered.
Teva looked at her husband knowing that it was worse for him than her. There were too many Muslims from India that had joined the Jihad. Most Americans couldn't tell the difference between a Pakistani and an Indian. There weren't too many Orientals that were participating in the battle. She said, "It will get better once the violence stops."
"I know, but it hurts. I am an American, not a Jihadist. It is just that to many people I look like a Jihadist," Sanjay said with a sigh.
Wanting to sound upbeat, Mike said, "I think Teva is right. It will get better when the violence drops off."
"Don't worry about me," Sanjay said. Things weren't entirely bad. When he was stopped by the police, his Homeland Security badge changed their attitudes significantly.
"Is there anything I can do?" Mike asked wondering what could be done to make their lives a little better.
Shaking her head, Teva said, "We owe you too much already."
Sanjay bobbled his head in agreement. He smiled and said, "You are a very good friend, Mike. That is all the help that I need from you. I can't wait to go fishing with you when the weather gets warmer."
"I'm looking forward to that," Mike said with a genuine smile. He was afraid that his friendship wouldn't be enough to protect Sanjay from people who were angry at people of foreign birth. He said, "I've been here for ten whole minutes and I haven't seen Karen yet. Where is she?"
"She's taking a nap," Teva answered with a smile. Every time that
Mike came by the house, he made sure to spend some time with the baby.