14

Philip Kilpatrick had been in dozens of meetings in the Situation Room, but there was a different tension in the air tonight. The president arrived just before six, wearing a sweater and jeans, her hair pulled back and her sleeves pushed up. Others stood as she entered, but she briskly signaled for them to sit down.

Amanda Hamilton prided herself on running informal meetings, and the younger members of the National Security Council took full advantage. Vice President Frazier was in khakis and an untucked button-down shirt. The secretary of state, a forty-two-year-old whiz kid who had worked his way up through the ambassador ranks, sported a golf shirt. But the older men, like Director Marcano, all wore ties or open-neck shirts with sport coats. Roman Simpson, the bulky secretary of defense, was in full uniform, his colorful array of ribbons splattered across his chest.

Kilpatrick wore a white shirt, red tie, and gray pants. There would be a presidential speech later tonight in one form or another. As White House chief of staff, he would help herd the press, and there would be no time to change before that took place.

For the first ninety minutes, the president was restless. She spent some time working on her speech in a side room with a fully equipped desk and frosted privacy windows. She popped in and out of the main conference room as the SEALs landed, buried their equipment, and made their way to the prison. She finally settled in, leaning forward with eyes unblinking, as the snipers took their places.

A large digital display on the wall opposite the president was divided into four separate screens. The first showed Admiral Paul Towers at the command headquarters in Saudi Arabia. The second showed a satellite feed of the prison facility. The third contained an aerial photo of the prison and surrounding area that had been taken in daytime. Flashing markers on this screen represented the SEALs as they moved across the landscape. The fourth screen showed a ground-level view, alternately taken from the helmets of the various team leaders.

Kilpatrick and the others had a similar array of video feeds on their laptops and could switch feeds whenever they wanted, including some that were not displayed on the wall. The audio from the command net came into the room over the loudspeaker.

Kilpatrick watched the third screen as the snipers surrounded the prison at a distance of about a hundred meters. He waited for the snipers to open fire and heard the calls as the guards in the towers fell. He found himself holding his breath when it was obvious the last sniper had missed and return fire came from one of the towers. But then the sniper found his mark.

“All six towers have been secured,” Admiral Towers said over the video screen. “The breachers are up next.”

All eyes in the Situation Room were glued to the ground-level view on screen four when it became obvious that the mission would not go according to plan. They saw chaos on the ground, the breachers racing toward the prison walls and then scrambling back for cover. They heard Patrick Quillen call for permission to commence Operation Slingshot. They heard the momentary pause before Towers granted permission and then looked at the camera, his eyes boring into the men and women in the Situation Room.

“I’ve authorized drone strikes,” he said. “This will complicate the mission, but we planned for this contingency.”

“How long until the drones arrive?” the president asked.

“Two minutes.”

“Very well,” said the president, although nobody thought for a moment that Towers had been asking her permission.

This mission was technically a CIA operation, and for tonight, Towers was reporting to Director John Marcano. America was not at war in Yemen and could not send in its troops without violating international law and the Constitution. But it could send in “civilian” CIA operatives, even if they happened to be expertly trained Special Forces who had been deputized only for the evening. It was the same logic, and the same method, that Obama had employed when sending the SEALs after bin Laden in Pakistan.

But in reality, given Towers’s ego and battlefield experience, he was the one calling all the shots. Marcano was just window dressing.

In precisely two minutes, just as Towers had said, the video feeds showed explosions in six guard towers nearly simultaneously, and for a brief moment Kilpatrick allowed himself to bask in the pride of American ingenuity.

But the feeling was short-lived. The action unfolded so quickly it was hard to keep up. Two of the four screens at the front switched to grainy infrared ground feeds from the helmets of the team leaders, and Kilpatrick’s eyes darted from one to the next. The calls came in on the command net, and Towers provided brusque commentary.

“Alpha One has breached the compound and secured the front entryway. Alpha Two is securing the stairs. Both teams are engaged.”

Kilpatrick could see pieces of the chaotic firefight, the dead Houthi guard being thrown into the stairwell, drawing fire, followed by the SEALs. He heard the sounds of gunshots and explosions over the command net. A chilling cry of “Allahu Akbar!” could be heard in the background. The team leaders on the command net were out of breath; a SEAL on Alpha Two had been gunned down in the stairwell.

General Simpson, normally impassive, had his lips pursed and was slowly shaking his head. Towers was too busy talking with his men to provide commentary for the Situation Room. Kilpatrick stole a quick glance at the president, who had her fist to her mouth.

A photographer had been allowed in the opposite corner of the Situation Room to capture the historic moment, but the president told him to put the camera down. This was no longer a photo op; it was a life-and-death mission with a serious risk of failure. A sense of helplessness permeated the room, settling over the hunched shoulders and strained faces of the most powerful people on the planet, who could do nothing but watch.

The calls came in from the snipers that they were all under fire, followed a few minutes later by the chilling moment when Patrick Quillen called to his command.

“Alpha One to Hawk.”

“Hawk here,” Towers said.

“You need to see this.”

At first the feed from Quillen’s camera showed the jail cell in the green hues of a night vision camera. Then he switched on his helmet light, illuminating the scene before him.

They froze around the table. The life-size cardboard cutout of the president filled the video screen. Several in the room gasped. The vice president cursed under his breath. General Simpson sat straight up in his chair and commanded Towers to get the men out. The Houthis obviously had known they were coming. Then, remembering that this was not his mission, Simpson looked at CIA director John Marcano.

“I agree with General Simpson,” Marcano said to the president, his face expressionless. “We have no choice.”

“All right,” said the president. “Abort the mission.”

“The birds are on their way for extraction,” Towers said crisply. “I’m sending in the QRF.”

Simpson turned to the others in the Situation Room. “The Black Hawks are on their way. We had planned to use them for extraction. They’re about seven minutes out. The QRF is our Quick Response Force. A total of sixty SEALs and Delta Force members.”

“Can we get these men out without using the QRF?” the president asked, her voice calm but commanding. She was talking to Simpson, but the response came from Admiral Towers on the video screen.

“We don’t want to take any chances,” Towers said.

To Kilpatrick, it sounded dismissive. He watched the president bristle.

“What are the chances that the Black Hawks will be shot down by surface-to-air missiles?” she asked.

“We don’t believe they have that capacity at the prison facility,” Towers said. The man exuded confidence, but he had lost a fair amount of credibility. This mission was crumbling as he spoke, the tension in the room escalating.

Kilpatrick knew that the president had dealt with some tough FBI agents and cops in her days as a prosecutor. He had never known her to back down.

“I hope you’re right,” the president said. “We’ve had enough surprises for one night.”

VIRGINIA BEACH, VIRGINIA

Kristen Anderson was trying to persuade her boys that it was time for bed. They were employing the usual excuses. One more story. Can we call Daddy? I’m not tired. Can Tiny sleep with me tonight? It was always this way the first two weeks after Troy deployed. He was the one who had bedtime responsibilities when he was at home. She had been with them all day; it was the least their father could do. When he deployed, it was hard for the little guys to adjust their routines.

But she took it one night at a time, one excuse at a time. And tonight, after fifteen minutes of arguing, she tucked them in bed and said a prayer for their dad. And then, before she went to bed herself, she crossed off another day on the calendar hanging on the refrigerator.

Paige Chambers shut down her computer for the night and turned on the television. It was eight o’clock, and she was already tired. It seemed like she was twenty-nine going on sixty. In college, she would go to bed at two in the morning, but now she was lucky to stay up until eleven. She curled up on the couch and pulled the blanket over her legs.

She switched mindlessly from one channel to another, her thoughts drifting to Patrick. Maybe she should send another e-mail before she went to bed. But she didn’t want to seem like a stalker. By her count, she had three unanswered text messages and two unanswered e-mails in the queue. She smiled sleepily. She would give him a piece of her mind when he finally answered.