116
CAMP DAVID, THURMONT, MARYLAND—MAY 9
Marine One landed at the mountain retreat center just before 9 a.m.
Soon President Andrew Clarke pulled up on a golf cart in front of Laurel Lodge, flanked by his Secret Service detail. When he spotted Marcus and Jenny, the commander in chief gave them each a bear hug and asked how they were doing.
“We’re fine, sir,” Jenny replied. “Thanks for asking.”
“And you, Ryker? You trying to give me an ulcer? It’s always something with you.”
“Yes, sir—I mean no, sir,” Marcus replied.
Clarke slapped him on the back. “How about Agent Curtis? How’s she holding up?”
“She apologizes for not being here,” Marcus said. “She’s going to need a bit more time, but she’ll be back on her feet and giving me grief soon enough.”
“Good,” Clarke said. “Talk to your mom yet?”
“Briefly, by phone.”
“And that girlfriend of yours?”
Marcus was blindsided. “Sir?”
“You know, that one you brought to the correspondents’ dinner—or started to and then bailed. Works for Dayton, right?”
Marcus could see the look in his colleagues’ eyes. They knew none of this, but they were going to have a field day ribbing him the first chance they got.
“Annie,” Marcus said.
“Right, right, Annie Stewart—not bad, Ryker, not bad at all.”
“Uh, thank you, sir, but how did you—?”
Clarke chuckled. “Are you kidding, Ryker? I know everything about you.”
“Apparently—more than my mom.”
“You haven’t told your mom?”
“It was only dinner, sir.”
“Well, for crying out loud, Ryker, what are you waiting for?”
Marcus was dying, but the president was hardly finished. “She’s in the Springs, right?”
“I’m sorry?”
“Your mom—she lives out in Colorado, right, in the Springs?”
“Well, Monument, sir, but close enough.”
“When do you head out there?”
“As soon as we get this thing wrapped up, Mr. President.”
“Are you taking Annie?”
“Sir, really, it was just dinner,” Marcus insisted, in no mood to talk about his private life with the president of the United States or these jokers from the Secret Service. He would never hear the end of it.
Clarke laughed. “You’re a terrible liar, Ryker—I don’t know why we let you do what you do. But very well, let’s get started.”
When the president turned and took Jenny into the conference room, Marcus’s Secret Service buddies erupted in laughter.
“Annie Stewart, huh?” one agent quipped, punching Marcus on the arm. “Nice.”
“Shut up, Tom,” Marcus said, mortified but hardly angry.
With all the agents ribbing him—their way, he knew, of welcoming him home—Marcus headed into the conference room as well. The entire National Security Council was present, and everyone was standing. When the president took his seat at the table, they all took theirs. Marcus spotted Jenny and sat next to her against the wall with several mid-level NSC staffers.
Marcus was not seated for long, however. After the president opened the meeting and introduced their two “special guests,” he asked the director of Central Intelligence to bring them all up to speed. Almost immediately Stephens turned the floor over to Marcus. Marcus stood and walked around the table to a set of large flat-screen monitors mounted on one of the wood-paneled walls. It had been five days since he, Kailea, and Yigal had been rescued. There was no need to recap any of that. Nor did he need to cover the snatching and imprisonment of Hamdi Yaşar. All the principals had been given daily briefings by Stephens and National Security Advisor Bill McDermott.
“Mr. President, Mr. Vice President, General Meyers, ladies and gentlemen, first of all I want to say thank you for everything you did to rescue Agent Curtis and me, and of course the prime minister’s nephew,” Marcus began. “I’ve only been back on American soil for a couple of hours. I landed at Andrews this morning after spending most of the week at Gitmo. But I can’t even begin to express my gratitude, and Kailea’s, to you all. We’re proud to be Americans and proud to have the honor of serving our country.”
The room erupted in applause and then a standing ovation. Marcus blushed for the second time in as many minutes. That was not what he had expected or intended. He just had to start at the beginning.
“We can now say conclusively that the raid on the Israeli border patrol one week ago today was solely the act of the terrorist organization we have come to know as Kairos,” Marcus said when everyone settled down. “Did Hezbollah and the Iranians seize the moment and take advantage of it? Absolutely. But the evidence is overwhelming that this was not a plan hatched by them. It was hatched by this man.”
A grainy black-and-white photo came up on the screen.
“This is Walid Abdel-Shafi,” Marcus explained. “Born in the Gaza Strip in 1936, he is better known to all of you as Abu Nakba—‘Father of the Disaster’—and is the founder and spiritual leader of the terrorist organization we have come to know as Kairos.”
Marcus put another photo on the screen. It was in color, though faded a bit, taken sometime in the late 2000s.
“On the left, you’ll see Abu Nakba again. On the right is Hamdi Yaşar, now thirty-one years old, born and raised in Istanbul, a celebrated producer for the Al-Sawt satellite news network. As you know, we have him in custody. But you may not know that he is in fact Abu Nakba’s closest and most trusted advisor.”