Drone Threat (22 page)

38

WASHINGTON, D.C.

President Lane took his customary seat at the far end of the Situation Room table, his mind clearly occupied. The next hour in this room would determine the fate of the nation. Pearce was on his right.

The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Gordon Onstot, sat at the other end of the long table opposite President Lane. The four-star air force general's barrel chest was loaded with hard-earned combat medals, ribbons, and badges. Mike Pia, the director of national intelligence, sat to the chairman's right. Chandler, Grafton, Eaton, Peguero, Abbott, and Gibson sat in the middle.

“We need to talk about goals and means,” Lane began. “I want to know from each of you what you would do if you were sitting in my chair. Don't try and second-guess me. Just give me your best thoughts in a few sentences. We'll start with goals. Gordon, let's hear you first.”

The JCS chairman cleared his throat. “We need a limited and definable goal that can be achieved rapidly and that addresses the threat at hand. We should mount an immediate air and ground assault on the ISIS Caliphate in Syria and Iraq and its capital city, Raqqa. We should kill or capture all enemy forces, and kill or capture Caliph al-Mahdi and his ruling council as quickly as possible to eliminate the current threat.”

“Doable?” Lane asked.

“No question. A matter of weeks if sufficient force is deployed quickly enough. Maybe less.”

“The CliffsNotes version of the Powell Doctrine,” Garza said.

The press secretary nodded. “A definable objective. I can sell that.”

“The chairman's right,” Chandler said. “Hit them hard and win.”

“Objections?” Lane asked. He glanced around the room. Pearce frowned. “Troy?”

“‘Hit them hard and win' is great. But the minute we leave, they'll be back and we'll have to occupy the territory indefinitely, just like South Korea, where we still have troops more than fifty years after that conflict ended.”

“I take it you have a different goal?” Lane asked.

“Take out al-Mahdi and his troops and you still haven't killed ISIS—they're operating throughout the Middle East, and they have affiliates all over the planet. The only way to truly win a war is to end it, and the only way to end it with ISIS and its affiliates is to hunt every last one of them down and kill them wherever we find them.”

The attorney general scowled. “Aren't you exaggerating the problem? Only a small percentage of Muslims are fanatics.”

“There are one-point-six billion Muslims in the world,” Pia said. “If just ten percent of them are fanatics, that means we're in a war with one hundred sixty million people. If it's just one percent, we're still talking about sixteen million people devoted to destroying us by any means possible.”

“That's a long war, Troy,” Lane said. “A global war. A
total
war.”

“We're already in a long war,” Pearce said. “They launched their campaign against the West in the seventh century. But half a war like General Onstot is proposing promises an even longer one—and denies us victory for the effort. By fighting a limited war against ISIS, we telegraph to our enemies that we're not totally committed to winning. That gives them incentive to wait us out. They will, and we'll quit. We always do.”

“You're just a bag of sunshine and rainbows, aren't you?” Chandler said.

“Troy's right,” Grafton said. Chandler scowled at her. She didn't care. It was time for her to make her move.

“How so, Vicki?” Lane said.

“Even if we could defeat ISIS by only destroying the Caliphate, all
we've done is cleared the field for al-Qaeda to reemerge, or for some other jihadi organization to rise up and take its place. Radical Islam is a hydra with a million heads. Like Troy said, either we make a total military commitment to destroy all of our jihadi enemies over a long war, or we don't make that total commitment, and fight an even longer war and lose to them.”

“Sounds like genocide,” Peguero said. “Like a war against Islam itself. That's not an American idea. That's not who we are.” Her eyes narrowed. “That's not who
you
are, Mr. President.”

“You're right,” Pearce said, looking a Peguero. “Genocide literally means the killing of a type of person. In World War Two we killed fascists. Millions of them. We killed their soldiers in the field and burned their cities to the ground and their civilian populations with them. It was the only way to defeat them. Do you have a problem with us winning World War Two and defeating the fascists?”

“That's a ridiculous question,” Peguero said. “There's no comparison.”

“I agree,” Pearce said. “Germany and Japan were nation-states. ISIS is not, despite the Caliphate. We could invade Germany and Japan and Italy and occupy them and force their leaders to sign treaties that ended the war. There is no one country to invade and occupy, no one person in authority to deal with, no treaty to be signed to end the war with radical Islam. That means we must kill them all, wherever we find them, if we ever want it to end.”

“Religion can't be defeated with guns and violence,” Peguero said. “We need to win the argument against radical Islam by showing the world we are morally superior. Islam is a religion of peace. The fanatical killers aren't really Muslim at all.”

Garza threw up his hands. “Are you nuts? Who are you to say that Muslims who claim to be Muslims aren't really Muslim? ISIS and AQ and Boko Haram and all of the other murdering bastards all swear by the Koran and by Allah and by Muhammad, His Prophet. Only smug, self-righteous Western elites think those people aren't really who they say they are.”

“All I know is that if you wage war against the whole religion, you'll
only increase the number of zealots who want to kill us,” Peguero said. “Bush understood that. So has every other president since him—at least until now.”

“I agree with you,” Pearce said.

Eyebrows raised around the room, including Peguero's. “I'm confused.”

“You can't destroy religion with guns. Religion, like ideology, is software. It's invisible. It's an idea. So you're right, we can't fight radical Islam with guns.” Pearce tapped his skull with his finger. “But we can wreck the hardware that runs it. We put bullet to bone. Turn brain pans into pink mist. That's exactly how Islam spread, isn't it? Muhammad and his successors spread their software by killing Christians and Jews in the wars of Muslim expansion that only ended when the West stopped them by force of arms at places like Tours, Malta, and Vienna.”

“So we have to become barbarians in order to defeat the barbarians?”

“In theory, yes. But I know that we don't have the guts to wage that kind of war. I'm not even sure it's the morally right thing to do. But half a war and half the effort will only make things twice as bad in the long run. Wage total war or don't wage it at all is my point.”

“How can we not wage war against our sworn enemies?” Chandler asked.

“Containment,” Pia said.

“What do you mean exactly?” Lane asked.

“Containment is the Cold War strategy that defeated the Soviet empire without firing a shot in a hot war. It forced the Soviets to live with the internal contradictions of their social and economic system and, of course, it collapsed upon itself.”

“That took over fifty years to accomplish,” Chandler said.

Pia shrugged. “Only because our two-faced European allies propped them up for decades for profit while we spent the money to defend NATO. Otherwise the Soviet Union would have fallen thirty years earlier.”

Grafton frowned with confusion. “So what's your point?”

“The principle of Islamic containment is the same: totally wall off
Islam from the West. It's a civilizational war, isn't it? Let the crazies stay stuck in crazy town. Let the whole Middle East turn into one giant ISIS Caliphate. What do you think would happen? The Muslim world hasn't produced a significant medical or scientific or technological breakthrough in seven hundred years. If they were completely walled off from the West and forced to live according to Sharia law, they'd wind up in a complete dystopia of economic collapse, overpopulation, famine, disease, and ultimately revolution. They'd either completely destroy themselves or reform themselves, and we wouldn't have to fire a shot or shed one drop of blood in a war with them.”

“But how do we ‘wall off' Islam from the West?” Peguero asked.

Pia shrugged. “That's another topic for another day. I'm just suggesting that war isn't the only alternative here.”

Eaton nodded. “Technically, Mr. Pia is right. Containment worked against the Soviets. In theory, it may work again. But we don't have ten years or even ten days to see if it will. The ISIS threat is at our throats right now. We need an immediate solution.”

“So you favor General Onstot's position?”

“I do,” Eaton said. “Even though I also agree that winning this battle against the ISIS Caliphate won't win us the war.”

“There's an even simpler solution,” Garza said.

“What's that?” Lane asked.

“Fly the stupid flag.”

Garza's words sucked the air out of the room.

Pearce watched Lane's jaw clenching in the awkward silence.

“For the record, I was joking,” Garza said.

“That flag will never be flown under any circumstances,” Lane said. “Am I absolutely clear about this?”

The room nodded in agreement.

“Don't raise the issue again, Jim. Not even as a joke.”

Garza nodded, chastised. “Won't happen again.”

“Good.” Lane lightened up. “I wouldn't quit your day job, either.”

Nervous chuckles filtered through the room, breaking the tension.

Garza smiled. “No, sir.”

Lane continued. “To summarize, the three alternatives are a limited engagement, a long engagement, or containment, which is no engagement. The problem is, we're out of time. I agree with Gordon and Melinda. We need a swift and powerful strike to decapitate the ISIS leadership and destroy its forces on the ground in Syria and Iraq right now. That's our best shot at stopping these terror attacks on American soil. So that's our goal. Now it's time we talk about the means of achieving it. Suggestions?”

So far, so good
, Grafton thought.
Lane is one step closer to war.

Chandler leaned forward on the table. “Given our ‘no new boots on the ground' policy, the only viable option for ground forces would be to accept the Russians' offer and use their troops with our air support. They're already in the region and ready to go.”

Pia shook his head. “The Russians have been driving toward the Persian Gulf since Peter the Great. Now's not the time to hand them the keys to the kingdom.”

“I agree with the director,” Onstot said. “In the long run, the Russians are our strategic competitor. Handing them the world's primary oil reserves on top of their own energy resources gives them economic leverage we don't want them to have.”

“It also conveys weakness,” Grafton said.

Chandler shot her another withering look. She ignored him. She knew Lane would never agree to Russian boots. The only chance for war was for Lane to commit American forces. Time to kill the Russian option once and for all.

“How so, Vicki?” Lane asked.

“A Russian alliance communicates to our allies and enemies that we're either too weak or too afraid to take on ISIS by ourselves and that we are no longer the world's preeminent superpower.”

“So you think we should go it alone?” the president asked.

“Yes, sir. I do.” Grafton felt the power in the room shift away from Chandler and toward her. For once she wasn't sitting in the vice president's shadow.

It felt good.

“It's a limited operation with clearly defined objectives. I'm sure our military can handle it.”

Lane turned toward the JCS chairman. “Can we?”

Onstot nodded. “No question. “Twenty thousand troops should do the job, not counting air and naval support. First or Second Marines, 82nd Airborne, 10th Mountain. Any combination of those would work. We can have the lead elements on the ground in twenty-four hours. Just give the word.”

39

General Onstot's confidence in American arms defeating ISIS swiftly and decisively sealed the deal. Grafton was thrilled.

Lane was obviously about to commit when a storm of counterarguments broke out. Options for arming the Iraqis, the Kurds, or moderate Sunnis (if any could be found) were put forward. All of them were shot down.

Garza offered the most original proposal. “Why not let the Turks play the hegemon? They want to revive the Ottoman Empire and the ‘true caliphate.' There hasn't been peace in the region since the sultans and they're not afraid to break a few eggs.”

Chandler countered. “The Russians won't stand for it and the Crimea is already a powder keg.”

What about ISMAT, the big antiterror, Saudi-led Muslim coalition, or NATO? Both options were weak, and both dismissed.

Chandler was concerned. The Russian option was slipping away. He knew Lane was old-fashioned, a man of honor. Time for Chandler to play his trump card.

“Mr. President, if you don't want to violate your promise to the American people about putting our boots on the ground in the Middle East, the Russian alliance is the only way forward.”

The tactic worked. Lane's face tensed, visibly affected by Chandler's appeal.

But Grafton understood Lane better than Chandler. Lane would
never accept a Russian alliance. By appealing to Lane's honor, the president was more likely to not go to war at all.

Grafton glanced furtively at Chandler. He was already pissed off. If she spoke up more against his beloved Russian alliance, he'd fire her before the meeting was over. But she had to get Lane back on track.

“We all agree we're out of time. A coalition with the Russians or anybody simply isn't feasible. Coalitions are notoriously difficult to organize, manage, and lead. By doing this on our own we can act swiftly and in our own best interests. If we want to stop these terror attacks at home, we've got to take the war to them over there, right now, just as General Onstot outlined.”

Pia and Onstot nodded. So did Eaton, the former army general, and finally Garza. The logic was unassailable. “Agreed.”

Grafton turned to Lane. “Mr. President, I guarantee you that the American people want you to defend their lives with decisive action rather than worry about a campaign slogan that no longer applies.”

She turned to Chandler. Time to mend a fence or two. “If necessary, we can always expand the war later. Draw in the Russians or other coalition partners if we need to.”

Chandler's angry mask began to soften. He saw the logic of Grafton's argument. “True.”

Grafton continued. “We can hunt the other global jihadists down and dispatch them anytime we want in the future. But right now we need to destroy the ISIS Caliphate and stop these attacks on our homeland.”

“Attacking Raqqa will only fan the flames,” Peguero said. “They'll use it to recruit more fighters.”

The press secretary shook her head. “We can put the destruction of Raqqa on social media—show how utterly terrible and complete the destruction of ISIS is and futility of resisting our overwhelming force—we might start de-recruiting fighters from ISIS.”

“So we're all agreed, at least, that we need to act militarily,” Chandler offered.

“And immediately,” Grafton added.

Chandler glanced at Pearce. “Everyone except Troy, that is.”

All eyes turned to Pearce.

“Troy?” the president asked.

“I'm against anything short of full mobilization, a declaration of war, a draft, and the pledge to hunt each and every one of those bastards down and kill them, no matter what names they use, no matter where we find them—including on our own soil. Anything less than that is a guarantee of failure.”

“That's the call you'd make if you were sitting in my chair? Even if you knew Congress wouldn't go that far?”

“More likely I'd stay out altogether.”

“How does that solve our problem? If we don't take the war to them, they'll keep attacking us here.”

Pearce heard the edge in Lane's voice but he wouldn't back down. “We stay focused on defending our own territory.”

Lane darkened. “I don't want to go to war. Our boots, their boots. I don't care. I'm sick of all of it. I hate war. I'm tired of the waste and the death and the insanity of it. But war is upon us and I'm running out of options.”

“We wouldn't be discussing any of these military options if we could find the culprits attacking us,” Chandler said. It sounded like an accusation hurled at Pearce.

In fact, it was. And that's how Pearce took it. “Still working on it.”

“Not good enough,” Lane said.

Pearce saw the look on the president's face. He was clearly at the end of his rope. Pearce got it. He would be, too, if he were in Lane's shoes. He thanked the baby Jesus he wasn't. He had to find the terrorists if he wanted to stop the war.

But how?

“Our best shot at stopping a new attack is to predict where the next one will occur. But the DNI reported earlier that our predictive analytics and NSA surveillance sources are all coming up short. But there is a pattern emerging. By attacking the airlines and trucking, it's clear the
threat is economic and it's escalating. So the next target will be even more economically important.”

“The power grid is vulnerable to a drone attack,” Pia said. “Especially the high-voltage transformers. They constitute just three percent of all transformers but they're responsible for upwards of seventy percent of all electrical output. Terrorists could take out the entire U.S. electrical grid by destroying HVTs at just nine locations. They're all custom-built overseas and would take years to replace.”

Eaton frowned. “Our port system is vulnerable, too. Underwater drones could take out ships with explosive cargoes and shut our ports down for days, maybe even weeks, and eighty percent of our foreign trade goes through them.”

“Nuclear plants,” Chandler said. “That scares the living daylights out of me.”

“Could be all the above. Or more. Too much ground to cover,” Pearce said.

“All the more reason for immediate and decisive action by our armed forces against ISIS,” Grafton said.

“All major infrastructure facilities are already on high alert,” Eaton said.

“That might work on a conventional attack,” Pearce said. “So far this man or woman or team has been thinking way out of the box.”

“So you're convinced it's only a small group of people? Maybe even just one person?” Eaton asked.

“Why else the twenty-four-hour delay between attacks?”

“The delay is a brilliant psychological ploy,” Eaton said. “They strike, we react, but then we just sit around for another twenty-three hours waiting for the next catastrophe.”

“A large organization could use the same tactic,” Grafton said.

“The smaller the number, the better the opsec,” Garza said. “One would be best. And the tech deployed so far means it could be just one guy, doesn't it?”

“Possibly,” Pearce said. “But it would take a lot of planning and pre-positioning.”

“One, few, or many, we don't have a single suspect yet. It's time we rattle some cages,” Chandler said. “We know where the bad guys hang out. We know the chat rooms, the university campuses, the mosques. We need to get after them.”

“We don't want to become like the people we're fighting,” Peguero said. “Besides, you'll cause such resentment in the Muslim community that you'll get more terrorists out of the deal than you're trying to round up.”

“So we shouldn't do anything to upset the Muslim community for fear they'll turn into terrorists?” Garza asked. “If angry Muslims are all potential terrorists, then why in the hell do we allow them to immigrate here?”

“That's the kind of racist language our enemies exploit,” Peguero said.

“It isn't racist to tell the truth,” Garza fired back. “And for the record, ‘Muslim' isn't a race, it's a religion. And it wasn't a planeload of Buddhist monks that crashed into the Twin Towers, was it?”

“Even if we wanted to, we don't have the resources to track and monitor that many institutions and individuals. There are approximately thirty-two hundred mosques scattered all around the country now, almost three times as many as existed before 9/11. They're servicing the one-point-six million Muslims we've issued green cards to in that same period,” Peguero said.

“She's right. We need to be damn careful we don't misallocate scarce resources. Gotta keep a close eye on the Amish terror networks,” Garza said.

“What about martial law?” Chandler asked. “If we can't predict what will happen next or we can't target probable suspects, then let's shut the whole thing down until we get a handle on the situation. Just like the French did after the Paris attacks.”

“What would you shut down? The entire country? And for how long?” Eaton asked.

“And we're on the eve of the Asia Security Summit. What kind of message would we be sending about international security if we put the country on lockdown because we couldn't secure our own homeland?” Pia asked.

“And even if you did lock down the whole country, the attacks would resume the day after you lifted it if nobody has been caught,” Pearce said. “You'd ruin the economy for no good reason, and all because you're assuming that the attacks are originating inside of the United States.”

“The terrorists have to be in the country,” Onstot said. “The drones that slammed into those passenger jets were all guided.”

“Not necessarily. Airport runways are numbered according to their magnetic azimuth. Plenty of public websites provide every possible data point you'd need to set up an automated attack at any civilian airport around the country, including live radar tracking of aircraft and live camera and video feeds of airport runways around the world. Attacks could be preprogrammed and automated without a line-of-sight operator.”

Abbott shook her head. “Holy crap. Don't let the media hear that.”

“And the tanker trucks?” Grafton asked.

“All linked by satellite that can be accessed from almost anywhere around the globe, depending on the kind of satellite that was being used and the uplinks the attacker had access to.”

“So you think the attacks came from overseas?” Pia asked.

“Not necessarily. Only that they could've been.”

“Damn it!” Lane slammed his hand on the table. “I don't need another laundry list of possibilities. I need answers. Now.”

Pearce knew Lane wasn't angry with him. He was angry at the situation. The president wanted an answer other than war. The problem was there wasn't one. “I'm working on it.”

“We don't have much time,” Lane said.

Grafton fumed. Lane still wouldn't commit. Pearce still held the reins.

She needed to find a way to get rid of him.