I minus 72
The President-elect
“Good morning, Mr. President. Congratulations on your election.”
The President-elect greeted the DNI with a handshake, and said, “Good morning, Director. May I call you Bill?” Without waiting for an answer the President-elect continued. “Thanks for scheduling this briefing so early. These are busy times. What do you have for me? Oh, by the way, it’s still Governor or President-elect until after the inauguration.” He sat down in one of the briefing room’s plush leather chairs.
“Yes, Sir,” Barry began, still standing. “For this initial briefing, I have both information and intelligence,”
William C. Barry had been appointed Director of National Intelligence by the previous administration and Ted Mason, the new President-elect, didn’t plan to replace him.
Mason motioned for Barry to sit down. They were in a small, but elegantly appointed briefing room, large enough for more, but today there were only the two of them. The room was in a secure area of the White House, but, even so had earlier been swept for electronic eavesdropping devices by the Secret Service. The room had no windows and was buried in one of the sub-floors.
Barry continued, “With your permission, Mr. President-elect, I’d like to start this briefing with an overview of what intelligence is and how we obtain it. Then we’ll go on to current events you should be aware of."
Mason interrupted, “Look, Bill, can we skip the background today? Maybe we can cover it next week. I want to hear it, but my schedule is so tight that right now isn't the best time. Can we get straight to what’s hot?”
“Of course, sir,” Barry responded. He was used to Presidents changing the agenda. “We do have one major issue we need to deal with immediately.”
“What’s up?” Mason said, leaning back and crossing his legs. As was his habit, he put his elbows on the arms of the big chair and placed his hands together in his lap, intertwining his fingers.
“Sir, within the last two weeks, we’ve lost fourteen assets, all but one were foreign nationals. What makes this even more alarming is that they were all within the same intelligence network. We have to assume someone has targeted that particular network.”
Mason immediately leaned forward and uncrossed his legs. “Did they take out the whole network?” he asked incredulously.
“No, sir, about twenty-five percent,” Barry responded in his usual calm voice.
“We’ve lost a quarter of a spy network in two weeks? How many people were in it?” Mason leaned back in his chair, but his face still registered concern.
“We think there were about sixty informants in total.” Barry continued, “But, there are probably people in the network we don’t know about. Many of our foreign assets were allowed to recruit others and many of those wanted their identity kept completely secret. For some of those we just used code names. But there were usually others who were completely unidentified sources. Then, as now, as long as they fed us useful information,” he shrugged, “we were generally willing to accept it. We’re fairly certain we don’t know about some of those people. The number for the entire network could be as high as eighty.”
“Does the President know?” Mason was leaning forward again.
Barry replied in a controlled voice. “Yes sir. We briefed him thirty minutes ago.” He’d been through a lot of intense briefings in his career, so he didn’t get too excited when talking to high-ranking government officials, including Presidents.
Mason nodded. “If this has been going on for two weeks, why so long in notifying the President?”
Mason’s voice was now calm, but Barry was worried where this might be going. “We didn’t connect the deaths until a day ago. It’s not unusual for assets, both ours and theirs, to miss contact times. But all of these disappearances were within the same network. That’s what caught our attention. It means someone has turned, and Russia, or someone else, is taking these people out. It may be restricted to this one cluster or it may expand. We just don’t know where this is going.”
“Damn!” Mason said, leaning forward and putting both hands on the table. Then, after a slight pause during which the DNI said nothing, he leaned back again and continued, “Okay, what do you need from me?”
“Sir, we believe you are,” the DNI paused, “on the list to ahh . . . eliminate.”
At this, Mason stood up, leaned forward and slapped both hands down hard on the table. “Why the hell would I be on some intelligence network hit list?”
Barry briefly pressed his lips together, but answered calmly. “We don’t really know for sure. One of our sources found a torn piece of paper in the hand of one of the dead informants. The paper had two names on it and a date.” He paused, took a deep breath and continued, “Yours was one of the names and the date was your inauguration.”
Mason’s jaw dropped open. This was not what he expected to hear. He didn’t know exactly what to say, so he said nothing.
The DNI quickly went on to explain, “We currently have no way to verify that this was a hit list, but because of all the other deaths, we have to take the threat seriously. We’ve put a number of actions in place to find out who’s responsible and to tighten security throughout the whole inauguration process. We’re calling the operation ‘I minus 72’.”
Getting no response other than a hard stare from the President-elect who was still leaning over the table, the DNI continued. “You see, we have 72 days until your inauguration.”
Mason finally spoke, “I get it,” he said dryly. He stared at Barry a moment, sat back down and said, “Look, I’m sure I don’t have to tell you, but it would be very bad for a newly elected president to be ‘ahh . . . eliminated’ while taking the oath of office. Anyway, I can’t think of a reason why I would ever make somebody’s hit list, at least from an intelligence viewpoint. I was never in the field and didn’t even understand how intelligence networks worked. Still don’t, but this just can’t be that tough to figure out, right?”
Barry grimaced a little, stood up and began to pace. “It’s actually a lot more difficult than it looks Mr. President-elect. We believe you must have had access to some sort of information that might reveal why this is happening and who is targeting you. Since it was your only intel assignment, we assume it was right after you graduated from Annapolis, when you were with DIA. You can see why it’s so vital that we quickly determine what you might have seen and why it resulted in your name being on the list. That may be the only shot we have at getting to the bottom of this in time.”
“Who set this network up? Someone must have been in charge. Have you talked to him?” Mason leaned back in his chair and rubbed his temples while he watched the DNI pace.
“It’s touchy because this network was set up by an Air Force officer who has since retired.” Barry replied. “You see, in our world, information about who is providing what is closely guarded. At headquarters we don’t necessarily have all the details of the network. The only person that normally has complete visibility is the person who sets it up and controls it.”
“Okay, so, who was it?” Mason asked again, a little impatiently.
“Sir, the originator of this network is a man named Grant Thurmond. You may remember his name from your early days in the Navy. You were the administrative officer for his group in the Defense Intelligence Agency, the DIA.”
“Hmm. I’m not sure. Tell me a little about him.” Mason responded.
Barry sat back down, picked up and opened a folder. “Thurmond was early-selected for the Air Force Academy his junior year in high school. At the academy he majored in Astronautical Engineering, played football and still graduated near the top of his class. He went straight into intelligence training after graduation.”
Mason nodded. “Yeah . . . maybe I do kinda remember him. If it’s the guy I think it was, he’s really sharp, nice enough, all military. But I only worked with him for a short while in an administrative role. I’m not sure I would even recognize him. Can you give me a little more background?.”
Glancing down at a sheet in the folder Barry continued, “He’s about 6’2” tall and at his exit physical when he left the service, he weighed about 200 pounds. His first assignment after graduating from the academy was with the NRO, the National Reconnaissance Office. Being in a headquarters role apparently didn’t sit well with Thurmond, because shortly after he was assigned he called a few people and landed a field assignment with DIA. His first few missions were designed to test his ability to act in nebulous situations. He did great and was given increasingly important roles.
“He went on to establish extremely effective networks in Lebanon, Russia and Eastern Europe. The Eastern European and the associated Russia network are the ones we’re discussing today."
Barry, leaned back in his chair, folded his hands on the table and continued, “I never knew him, but he clearly did a good job because the Air Force promoted him each time he was eligible, up through O6, Colonel. Then about six years ago, the previous administration decided that human field assets were no longer needed. They believed we could obtain all the information we needed through satellites, drones and other electronic means. The President issued an order shutting down most field units, including the one Colonel Thurmond ran. Thurmond was offered a desk job at DIA headquarters. He promptly retired in protest.”
“Where is he now?” the President-elect asked.
“The information we have says he bought a hundred acres or so in West Texas, put up a log cabin and has been living there ever since.” Barry checked the paper again and said, “Says here he lives alone. He was married for a few years while he was in the Air Force, but he’s been divorced for some time now.”
This time it was Mason’s turn to lean back in his chair. “Okay,” he said, “My gut reaction is that we need to bring the Colonel out of retirement to solve this thing. Sounds like he’s the only one with enough information to work on it. What’s it gonna take?”
“Reactivate Colonel Thurmond? We’d need presidential authority. But, sir,” Barry said leaning forward, “I’m not sure that’s a good idea.”
“Why not?” Mason shot him a penetrating look.
Barry paused and took a deep breath before answering, “Well, sir, to be honest, Colonel Thurmond is kind of a maverick. He’s a field agent who never adjusted to the new electronic world of intelligence. We believe this should be an intellectual exercise and that our best chance of finding a solution is to look at the intelligence we have and think it through to a logical conclusion. Colonel Thurmond can provide us valuable background, but because of his age and the amount of time he’s been out of it, I’m not sure about him going back into the field.”
“An intellectual exercise?” Mason exclaimed, clearly frustrated. “Bill, people are dying, I’m targeted for assassination, and you want an intellectual exercise? Get me the paperwork to reactivate Colonel Thurmond and I want it within the hour. I’ll personally take it to the President for signature.”
Barry sighed. “I’ll make it happen, sir,” he said.
Mason got to his feet. Barry stood also. “By the way, who was the other name on that list?” Mason asked as he turned toward the door.
“Colonel Thurmond,” Barry replied.