The White House Situation Room
Washington, D.C.
March 23, 2:10 a.m.
President Cohen nodded curtly to the Marine standing watch over the entrance to the WHSR, where her carefully chosen director of national intelligence waited for her. The Marine snapped to an even more rigid stance, staring at the wall beyond her as she pressed her hand onto the glass panel and entered her PIN into the keypad.
He gave her no less courtesy and respect at two a.m. dressed in jeans and a GW sweatshirt than he would have afforded her at ten a.m. in the Oval Office dressed in a pantsuit. Never relaxed, never casual, and always on point, you just have to love a Marine—dedicated, passionate, committed to duty, and, most important, loyal. It was why the short list she had come up with, in consultation with McNab, included the only real choice in her mind, and that man had been a Marine Raider they knew would be fully committed to duty, honor, and country. A Marine would not slip into Castillo’s rogue asset mentality. A Marine could be trusted.
The magnetic lock released and the Marine, who reached over without shifting his eyes away from the nowhere at which they stared from his chiseled, impassive face, opened the door for her.
“Thank you, Gunnery Sergeant,” she said.
“Ma’am, yes, ma’am,” the Marine nearly barked.
Cohen smiled and entered the Situation Room where Fleiss waited for her. Unlike her, Marty Fleiss had found time to pull on dress slacks and a black polo. Unlike her, his hair was perfectly in place. Perhaps he’d never left at all.
He looked up and took his reading glasses off, setting them on the conference table beside him.
“Good evening, Madam President,” he said, his eyes as bright and focused as if it had been noon. She reminded herself that the former SOCOM commander was used to working mostly at night. Special Operators were like vampires.
“Good evening, Marty,” she said, standing beside him at the table, arms across her chest. “That was certainly quick. I assume Castillo’s team has something concrete and that’s why we’re here.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Fleiss said, but his tone suggested he didn’t think she would like what she was about to hear. He gestured with a hand and tapped on the laptop, the image then mirroring onto the large screen on the wall at the head of the table.
Cohen stared carefully at the screen, which showed what appeared to be some sort of industrial compound, with several corrugated metal buildings that could be anything at all, a large central warehouse, and a trailer up on cement blocks, like one might find at any construction site in America.
“What am I looking at, Marty?” she asked, her tone softening though she was still refusing to sit. It wasn’t personal, she just had far too much nervous energy to sit without fidgeting. And a President should never fidget.
“This is a compound along the Nile River in the northern Sudanese city of Kuraymah Barkal, just under two hundred miles north of Khartoum,” he said. “The complex was once a known operations center for the National Islamic Front. It changed hands several times since, then stood empty for nearly a year when a commercial company . . .”
She held her hand up, stopping him. If he didn’t cut to the chase, she was going to explode.
“It’s just you and me here, Marty. We can get into the weeds another time. Is this where Castillo believes Secretary of State Malone is being held?”
“Yes, ma’am,” he said, but didn’t elaborate further.
She sighed and, finally, took a seat. Less than a year in office and she was already exasperated from constantly having to read between the lines.
“And what do you think, Marty?”
Fleiss took a long, slow breath. He wasn’t covering his ass—she knew him far better than that and it wasn’t in his nature. He’d turned her down twice before finally accepting the job as DNI. And that was what she wanted. She needed someone serving the country and her administration, not themselves. He was the reluctant public servant with decades of service and a comfortable retirement waiting for him, maybe a book about a life devoted to military and public service. He didn’t have to be here and maybe didn’t even want to be here. He’d answered the call, period.
“I think the odds are better than fifty-fifty, Madam President,” he said, watching her carefully for her reaction. “But I would be lying if I told you there’s definitive evidence that Malone is here now—or ever has been.”
“That’s not very reassuring, Marty.” She leaned back in her chair as she studied the compound along the river. “Make the case,” she said at last.
She listened as he presented Castillo’s arguments for how and why he believed the secretary of state had come to be in this compound. Links to Sudanese Islamic Front that had been suggested by McCoy and Castillo, but supported strongly by NSA and CIA. Links between the SIF and the compound, including a new piece of evidence from NSA—a facial recognition hit on a man frequently seen in the compound and presumed to be the head of SIF in the region. The link between Khalil and SIF and stealthy visits to the compound in the run-up to the kidnapping. The team’s concerns about Awadiya Khalil, a remarkable woman who, if Cohen could find a way to help make it happen, could be leading a democratic Sudan by this time next year.
Signals intelligence.
Satellite images.
And gut instinct.
She heard enough evidence to begin a surveillance operation and to dig into the life of Irshad Khalil. But a Special Forces hit inside a country with whom they had poor diplomatic relations? Without permission?
“This is part of the job I hate,” she said, tilting her head back to look at the ceiling. After a slow, whistling breath, she lowered her gaze and looked Fleiss in the eyes. “You really think I can justify a combat operation in Sudan on this circumstantial evidence? Flimsy circumstantial evidence, I might add.”
“Extraction operation, and yes, ma’am,” Fleiss replied without hesitation. “When combined with the instincts of a man who has yet to be wrong, I think it’s the right call, yes. These types of things are never open and shut. We make the best call with what we have when the fuse is this short. Honestly, Madam President, assuming he’s there, if we wait much longer, he’ll be dead. Khalil knows that Castillo’s team is on to him. He’ll need to pull the trigger on his long game quickly or else lose the opportunity. That, or kill Malone and bury him in the desert. If they’re wrong and he’s not there, well, then we’ve failed in any case.”
“Perhaps,” Cohen said, “but we’re talking about an unauthorized military incursion into a sovereign country, for God’s sake. If we’re wrong, we’re the devil in the Middle East yet again, violating sovereign territory and killing foreigners on their own soil on a hunch. There is a huge downside risk here, Marty.”
“Not necessarily, ma’am,” Fleiss said. “If we hit this compound and it’s a dry hole, we’ve still hit a major terrorist compound in Sudan, assisting a fledgling democracy to rid itself of terrorist influence ahead of their election. Hell, we give the Sudanese Ministry of Interior credit and say we were there only as advisers, providing assistance. We just fire up the spin machine and let your press secretary do what he does best.”
“The provisional government will know we’re lying . . .”
“And they’ll say nothing, Madam President. They need the win. If we offer them the public relations coup—both within their own country and on the international stage—of conducting a successful counterterror intelligence operation followed by a successful military operation on a terrorist compound to ensure their fair elections, they’ll take it and feel they owe us a favor.”
Cohen smiled. Marty was persuasive. They could move now and rescue the secretary if he was there, and still be winners if they were wrong.
“What does Charley need?”
“I repositioned a Navy SEAL element from Djibouti to the USS America, as we discussed previously, in preparation for this scenario. We can insert that team with almost zero footprint into the desert north of Charley’s team and they can link up for the hit—a staging area with a fuel bladder, medical support, and helos. After the hit, the SEALs and support team will go back to the America while Castillo and his gang escort the secretary to Joint Base Andrews.”
“That’s it?”
Fleiss smiled broadly now. “That’s probably all you really want to know, ma’am.”
She nodded. This was the job. If she’d learned nothing else during her time as secretary of state before running for President, it was that making no decision was usually the worst decision of all. It took guts to make the call—yet, in her experience, indecisiveness coupled with inaction invariably led to a worse outcome than making the wrong call.
“Do it,” she said, rising from her seat.
“Yes, ma’am,” he replied.
“When will it happen?”
“It’s midmorning there,” her DNI answered. “My guess is they kick off in about fourteen hours. But it’s my intention to assign operational autonomy to Castillo and his team.”
“Very well.”
Of course, Castillo was going to take operational autonomy whether they gave it to him or not. Him making the call made sense, since he was on the ground with eyes on. It also gave her political cover if things went to shit.
“Keep me in the loop,” she said, heading for the door.
“Yes, Madam President.”
Castillo would be the scapegoat if this went to hell, but that didn’t change the reality of the situation. The buck stopped with her, and she’d have to deal with the consequences.
Four years might be long enough in this shitty job anyway.