“What have you got?”
Christine O’Connor was joined at the table in her office by her DDO and Deputy Director for Analysis Tracey McFarland. The president’s order had been clear—eliminate the man responsible for the havoc wrought by Mixell—and Christine and her deputy directors had been searching for a way to track down Zawahiri. They hadn’t even realized he had survived the earlier drone attack, and if tracking down the top man at al-Qaeda was easy, they would have done so repeatedly, eliminating each new al-Qaeda leader. There seemed to have been a breakthrough, however, indicated by the DDO’s request for a meeting this morning.
“We think we’ve found a way to track down Zawahiri,” he began. “We learned from the bin Laden raid that no high-level al-Qaeda communications are transmitted electronically; no computers or phones—it’s all done on paper or verbally, distributed to and from al-Qaeda leadership by couriers. Tracey’s opinion is that Zawahiri wouldn’t have transferred sixty million dollars to Mixell without meeting him first. That means one of Zawahiri’s couriers would have brought Mixell to the meeting.
“Based on the date the funds were transferred into Mixell’s account, that meeting happened while Mixell was in Pakistan. Analysis obtained additional camera footage around the time Mixell landed in Karachi, and he was picked up outside baggage claim by a man we’ve identified as Amir Zahed.” Rolow turned to McFarland.
“After our drone strike on Zawahiri,” she said, “all al-Qaeda couriers were considered compromised and we lost our leads to al-Qaeda leadership. However, based on Zahed meeting Mixell at the airport, we believe Zahed is now a primary courier for Zawahiri. Follow Zahed, and he’ll eventually lead us to Zawahiri.”
“Great work,” Christine said. “So what’s the plan?”
Tracey replied, “We have dedicated drone assets controlled primarily from Creech Air Force Base in Nevada. Let’s put a twenty-four-seven surveillance on Zahed with an armed drone, ready to take out Zawahiri if he pops up.”
Christine provided her concurrence.