Executive Treason

“
Executive Command
mixes terrorists, politics, drug gangs and technology in nonstop action! Gary Grossman creates a master villain with a horribly plausible plot to attack the United States; one that will take Scott Roarke and Katie Kessler right to the brink and then over the edge. So real it’s scary!”

—
Larry Bond
,
New York Times
bestselling author of
Exit Plan, Cold Choices, Red Dragon Rising

“Moving at break-neck speed,
Executive Command
is nothing short of sensational.Grossman is a master storyteller who sets you up and delivers. Expertly woven and highly researched.
Executive Command
is not just a great book, it’s a riveting experience.”

—
W.G. Griffiths
,
Award Winning, bestselling Author of
Methuselah’s Pillar
,
Malchus, Driven, Takedown, Talons

“
Executive Command
ramps up the excitement from
Executive Actions
and
Executive Treason
. This time, the terrorists’ target is not America’s political institutions, it’s America itself through the nation’s unprotected water supplies. Grossman found the way to make this an even greater thrill ride! I was absolutely riveted! A truly bravura performance from a master of the political thriller!”

—
Dwight Jon Zimmerman
,
New York Times
bestselling co-author of
Lincoln’s Last Days
(with Bill O’Reilly),
Uncommon Valor, First Command

“Grossman combines detailed knowledge with a frightening, realistic plot to create a non-stop, suspense filled roller coaster ride.
Executive Command
is a great read!”

—
Allan Topol
, Bestselling Author,
The China Gambit
,
The Spanish Revenge
,
Conspiracy

“Intricate, taut, and completely mesmerizing, Gary Grossman’s thriller
Executive Treason
is a hit! Grossman expertly blends together globe-spanning locations, well-researched technology, finely crafted narrative, and intriguing characters to create a virtuoso tale. Highly recommended.”

—
Dale Brown
,
New York Times
bestselling Author

“
Executive Treason
is more chilling than science fiction. Gary Grossman shows how the media itself can become a weapon of mass destruction. You’ll never listen to talk radio again without a shiver going down your spine.”

—Gary Goldman
, Executive Producer,
Minority Report;
Screenwriter,
Navy SEALs
&
Total Recall

“
Executive Actions
is the best political thriller I have read in a long, long time. Right up there with the very best of David Baldacci. Gary Grossman has created a masterpiece of suspense; powerfully written and filled with wildly imaginative twists. Get ready to lose yourself in a hell of a story.”

—Michael Palmer
,
New York Times
bestselling Author

“Break out the flashlight, and prepare to stay up all night: Gary Grossman has written a sprawling, captivating political thriller, filled with meticulously researched details and riveting characters. Once you start reading
Executive Actions
you won’t be able to put it down.”

—
Bruce Feirstein
,
James Bond screenwriter, and
Vanity Fair
Contributing Editor

Diversion Books
A Division of Diversion Publishing Corp.
443 Park Avenue South, Suite 1008
New York, NY 10016
www.DiversionBooks.com

Copyright © 2012 by Gary Grossman

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever.

For more information, email [email protected].

First Diversion Books edition January 2012.

ISBN: 978-09839885-9-5

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, businesses, or incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or persons living or dead is entirely coincidental.

Reported in the American press September 5, 2004

BESLAN, RUSSIA—Attackers who seized more than 1,000 hostages in a provincial school may have smuggled in a large cache of weapons, possibly disguised as construction equipment, in the weeks before the takeover.

Reported in the American press September 3, 2004

WASHINGTON—Despite its fervent denials, Israel secretly maintains a large and active intelligence-gathering operation in the United States, which for a long time, has been designed to recruit U.S. officials as spies and to procure classified documents, U.S. government officials said. FBI and other counterespionage agents have covertly followed, videotaped and bugged Israeli diplomats, intelligence officers and others in Washington, New York and elsewhere. “There is a huge, aggressive, ongoing set of Israeli activities directed against the United States,” said a former intelligence official, familiar with the latest FBI probe, and who recently left government. “Anybody who worked in counterintelligence in a professional capacity will tell you the Israelis are among the most aggressive and active countries targeting the United States.”

Australia Radio interview with Air Force Brigadier General John W. Rosa, Jr., Deputy Director for Current Operations, the Joint Staff, about terrorists hiding in islands of Indonesia March 20, 2002

“I don’t want to be specific and tell you how or what we found but as you might expect, that is a vast, vast array of islands. Are there easy places to hide there? You bet ya.”

Reported Maluku, Indonesia press report July 2000

The Indonesian Navy Chief Admiral warned against those trying to smuggle weapons to warring groups in riot-torn Maluku. He told his staff to take stern action against intended arms smugglers. So far, the Navy had already detained 17 vessels in waters surrounding Maluku, confiscating weapons. Tensions in Maluku have been fueled by the arrival of 2,000 hard-line Muslim fighters from Java island, who have vowed a holy war against Christians. More than 3,000 people have been killed to date.

Reported in the American press September 17, 2001

A high-tech Littleton, MA company, Viisage Technology, Inc. has offered the FBI free use of its face-recognition technology to aid in the apprehension or identification of the persons responsible for terrorist activities in the U.S.

Reported in the American press October 6, 2004

Representatives of Congress heard testimony today in special House Subcommittee Hearings on the Constitution that The Presidential Succession Act of 1947 remains the single most dangerous statute in the United States Code. Testimony termed the present rules of succession a “disastrous statute” and “an accident waiting to happen.” Witnesses called for the repeal of the existing law, and the formation of a new operational model that would insure an orderly transition in the face of catastrophic events.

Washington

Henry Lamden, President of the United States

Morgan Taylor, Vice President of the United States

Lynn Meyerson, White House administrative assistant

Scott Roarke, Secret Service agent

Billy Gilmore, President’s Chief of Staff

Bernie “Bernsie” Bernstein, President’s Chief of Staff

Robert Mulligan, Director FBI

Jack Evans, Director National Intelligence

Louise Swingle, secretary to Vice President

Roy Bessolo, FBI supervisor

Beth Thomas, FBI agent

Presley Friedman, Head of Secret Service

Congressman Duke Patrick, Speaker of the House

General Robert Woodley Bridgeman, U.S. Marine Corps, ret.

Dan Shikar, FBI agent

Shannon Davis, FBI agent

Kelvin Lambert, journalist

Leopold Browning, Chief Justice, U.S. Supreme Court

Brad Rutberg, White House counsel

Mike Gimbrone, FBI agent

Malcolm Quenzel, Secret Service agent

Admiral Erwin “Skip” Gaston, U.S. Navy General

Reed Heath, U.S. Air Force

Captain Penny Walker, U.S. Army

General Jonas Jackson Johnson

The CIA

Vinne D’Angelo, CIA agent

Faruk Jassim, CIA analyst

Backus, CIA analyst

Carr, CIA analyst

Dixon, CIA analyst

Bauman, CIA analyst

Boston

Katie Kessler, attorney

Donald Witherspoon, attorney

Paul Erskine, Starbucks employee

Australia

Mick O’Gara, electrician

Randolph Tyler, SAS

Commander David Foss, Prime Minister

Ricky Morris, SASR Tactical Commandeer

Chris Wordlow, Defense Chief

Los Angeles

Roger Ellsworth, LAPD Homicide Detective

Chicago

Luis Gonzales, Argentinean art dealer

Roger Alley, a driver

New York

Michael O’Connell, writer, The New York Times

Andrea Weaver, news editor, The New York Times

Tel Aviv

Ira Wurlin, aide to Mossad chief

Jacob Schecter, Director of the Mossad

Andrews Air Force Base

Lieutenant Eric Ross

Colonel Peter Lewis, Air Force One pilot

Captain Bernard Agins, Air Force One co-pilot

Shawnee Mission, Kansas

Charles Corbett

Indonesia

Commander Umar Komari

Musah Atef, soldier

Amrozi al-Faruq, soldier

Colonel Nyuan Huang

Russia

Aleksandr Dubroff, retired Politburo member, ex-KGB

Yuri Ranchenkov, FSB Sergei Ryabov, FSB

South Pacific

Admiral Clemson Zimmer, Commander, 7th Fleet

Adm. Erwin “Skip” Gatson

Lt. James Nolt, Navy SEAL

Cpl. Derek Shaughnessy, Navy SEAL

Sgt. Mario Pintar, Navy SEAL

Julio Lopez, Navy SEAL

Harold Chaskes, Navy SEAL

Todd Roberts, Navy SEAL

Mark Polonsky, Navy SEAL

Brian Showalter, Navy SEAL

West Chester Township, Ohio

Bill and Gloria Cooper, retired couple

Ramelan Djali, President, Indonesia

Damascus, Syria

Jamil Laham, a retiree

Rateb Samin, a visitor

Kansas

Elliott Strong, talk radio host

Darice Strong, radio producer

Paris, France

Robby Pearlman, Canadian businessman

Sydney, Australia
Monday, 18 June
4:20 A.M.

It was the blinking LED that caught the electrician’s attention.

“What’s that?” Mick O’Gara muttered to himself.

If it hadn’t been for the intermittent flicker, visible only because it cut through the darkness, it would have gone undetected. The light had flashed a moment after O’Gara killed the fluorescents in a storage room on the basement level of the new 38-story Ville St. George Hotel.

“Now where did you come from?” O’Gara turned the overhead lights back on and looked around the crowded 14-by-20-foot room. He waited about a minute.
Nothing
, he thought. The hotel electrician shrugged his shoulders. He was about to leave when he decided to give it one more moment, now with the lights off. Ten seconds went by, and he saw a red flash—dim and off to the right. He waited for it to repeat or cycle again. His patience was rewarded thirty seconds later, though he couldn’t quite pinpoint the location. A half-minute more—“There you are! Up in the crawl space.” The light appeared diffused, indirect. “You’re bouncing off something.”

Mick O’Gara was one of the last hires in the electrical department at Sydney’s newest harbor-side luxury hotel. It overlooked both the famed Harbor Bridge and the stunning Opera House. As a result, the slim, 41-year-old man with a bushy moustache and long sideburns pulled the dreaded graveyard shift. He had been poking around the basement, tracing a conduit containing fiber optic wires. Guests on the thirty-third floor complained that their high-speed Internet connection was out. It wasn’t his specialty, but no one else was around, and he had the time to troubleshoot until his shift change.

Unfortunately and for no good reason, the conduit continued above the ceiling in the small room, but the schematic dead-ended. Another damned design flaw. “Why can’t they ever get it right?” Following it was going to be exhausting. After nearly an hour, O’Gara decided to leave the problem where he found it. That’s when he noticed the red flash.

He trained his flashlight on the area in the far end of the room. The crawl space was a good three feet higher than his head. O’Gara, only 5′7″, looked around the room and spotted a wooden cable spool, large enough to stand on. He dragged it over to the wall, stepped up, and peered into total darkness. O’Gara hit the void with the beam.

There, sandwiched deep into the opening, was a rectangular box, at first hard to see because it was either painted black or completely covered with black duct tape. He aimed the light at the top and then to the sides. It was wedged into an area no taller than eighteen inches. He figured it to be about two-and-half-feet long.

O’Gara tapped it lightly with his finger. “Tape, not paint on metal,” he said aloud. Curiosity was definitely getting the better of him now. The LED flashed again, illuminating the crawl space on each side for a fraction of a second.

The box wasn’t connected to any outside wires. “Okay, you’re not part of the phone system. And you’re not connected to the electrical plant. But you’ve got something making you tick. So what in bloody hell are you?” He reached his right hand in about two feet, aiming his light at the back of the box. O’Gara searched for openings or identifying marks. There were none.

Just as his hand was tiring from stretching so far, the beam reflected back. He saw what looked like a small wire antenna, no more than three inches long, protruding from the back of the box. His arm ached, and he pulled it back. Once again, the LED flickered. “You’re talking to someone, aren’t you? A transmitter?”

O’Gara heard the sound of one of the elevator’s pulleys engage directly above him. He looked up, then back to the box just as it emitted another red flash. “You’re not talking. You’re listening. Son of a bitch.” His pulse quickened. The elevator moved again. He was amazed how loud it now sounded—right on top of him. Then he caught the sound of the gears working on another elevator to the left. A moment later, another to his right. He closed his eyes and remembered that in total there were eight banks, four on each side of a central artery inside the hotel.

He pointed his flashlight into the crawl space one more time. Now the details of it became more apparent. The box looked crudely homemade. The antennae was stuck out of the back but bent toward the front. The light blinked every thirty seconds. Exactly. The regular frequency of the flashes told him it was either self-charging or scanning. He heard an elevator start above and across from him. It became more evident that he was under a critical focal point, a hollow shaft—the most vulnerable part of a large building. “Holy mother of God!” he exclaimed.

Mick O’Gara stepped down slowly. Very slowly. His green work clothes were dusty and drenched with sweat. He unholstered his Boost Mobile walkie-talkie cell phone from his belt. He was about to key the microphone when he suddenly stopped. “No, wait. The signal!” He didn’t want to make a call, for the same reason passengers are instructed not to use cell phones on airplanes. The radio could interfere or interact with other electronics. In this case, it could set off the device.

The electrician slowly backed away and snapped the telephone onto his belt. He left the room, closing the door gently. It wasn’t until he was upstairs that he punched in a number.

“Security,” the voice answered.

“O’Gara. Listen carefully.” He slowly explained what he had found.

The security officer swallowed hard and called the hotel manager, who didn’t really know what to do. He phoned the CEO of the consortium that owned the Ville St. George, waking him from his sleep in the hotel penthouse. The CEO bolted upright in his bed as he followed the account.

“Are you sure?”

“Here, I’ll conference in O’Gara.” The security officer on duty connected him to O’Gara’s cell. He heard the electrician’s story firsthand.

Not knowing O’Gara but not wanting to take any blame, the CEO phoned his regular Wednesday night poker partner, who happened to be the Sydney chief of police.

This is when it got more serious. The chief didn’t hesitate waking the Australian Federal Police Commissioner. His must-attend seminars on terrorist threats had heightened his senses. The federal officer ordered the immediate evacuation of the hotel while he cradled the phone on his shoulder and pulled on his boxers.

All of this within eighteen minutes of Mick O’Gara’s find.

The Sydney police and national authorities had trained for such a contingency after concerns about terrorist attacks during the 2000 Summer Olympics. The country’s defense command realized Australia could be an easy target for al-Qaeda and even easy pickings for insurgent groups operating out of Indonesia and Malaysia. As a result, they developed an operational plan code-named Exercise New Deal.

In years past, terrorists struck symbolic targets, causing indiscriminate deaths. Al-Qaeda changed the rules of engagement. 9/11 demonstrated their willingness to inflict heavy casualties on civilians and register greater fear and uncertainly as a strategic end.

Western nations now had a true understanding of the terrorists’ objectives, even if they couldn’t identify the enemy. Their ultimate goals were to devalue democratic institutions, weaken infrastructure, and supplant existing governments with moderate or fundamental Islamic rule. They attacked people, and they targeted buildings. They couldn’t win conventional wars but took their holy fight to the new unconventional battlegrounds—civilian centers. Among the various landmarks identified as potential targets in Australia were the Sydney Opera House and the lavish hotels along the bay, including the towering cement, brick, and steel St. George.

An elite tactical unit was dispatched to the hotel.

Thirty-three minutes out.

They were backed up by the SASR—Australia’s Special Air Service Regiment—which arrived by helicopter atop the St. George.

Fifty minutes.

By then, the night assignment editor at Sydney’s Sky Television News had detected the surge of emergency chatter on the police frequencies.

Sixty-one minutes. The first of many microwave broadcast vans arrived at the hastily set-up police barricade a long block away.

Seventy-four minutes. Sky went live with a report carried cross-country.

“This is Sky Television News, approximately 200 meters from the recently completed Ville St. George Hotel, where a mandatory evacuation is now underway,” the young reporter began. “Though we can’t see it from our vantage point, our bureau, monitoring the police frequencies, reports an emergency of undetermined origin.”

At seventy-nine minutes since O’Gara’s find, the CNN night desk noted the coverage. With a special reciprocal arrangement with Sky, an editor patched the signal to his uplink and alerted Atlanta of the events that were unfolding half a world away.

Eighty-three minutes. A hot quick lead was typed into the teleprompter, and the Atlanta anchor read what was put before her.

“Breaking news from Sydney, Australia, where it is five forty-three A.M. Approximately 1,100 guests and staff of the new 535-room Ville St. George Hotel are being evacuated. There are unconfirmed reports of an electrical fire or the failure of an elevator. For details, we join Sky Television News with live coverage.”

Far across the International Dateline, an overnight CIA officer at Langley, Virginia, monitored the news channels. Silvia Brownlee noted that CNN interrupted its domestic news for a story from Sydney. Using her remote, the fifteen-year veteran turned up the volume and jotted down the details.

Ville St. George. Sydney. Evacuation.

Brownlee added equal signs between the key words and then wrote a large question mark. She swiveled her chair to her computer and typed in the hotel name. Then she clicked on a password-protected file. As she suspected, one floor of the St. George had been designed and built to White House specifications.

Brownlee called upstairs. Her boss needed to know there was an alert at a Rip Van Winkle House. Although she didn’t know it, it was the most important phone call she ever made.

Los Angeles, California
Sunday, 17 June
the same time

He wondered if anyone had stopped to think about the absurdity.

There it was, just on the other side of the chain-link fence: Rancho Golf Course. The home of the annual Los Angeles Police/Celebrity Golf Tournament.

Every spring the LAPD takes over the tees for a fundraiser that supports the Police Memorial Foundation. But Rancho Golf Course was also where O.J. Simpson used to play. That was the irony.

Simpson was on the greens as the jury deliberated his civil trial for the deaths of his ex-wife and her boyfriend. The case Simpson lost. He was also playing the day a single-engine plane crashed on the course just a few hundred yards away. One of the first things the two injured men heard as they were pulled out of their badly damaged plane was that O.J. was “over there.”

Nat Olsen almost laughed at the thought. The police and one of L.A.’s most notorious citizens sharing the same $18-a-day public course. But he didn’t laugh. That wasn’t part of his character…not as the jogger today or the man he might become tomorrow. He was focused and waiting at the Cheviot Hills Recreation Park that bordered the Rancho Golf Course.

Olsen wore loose-fitting black sweats and gray running shoes that he’d picked up weeks ago from a secondhand clothing store on La Brea. The only thing that distinguished him from any other jogger was a pair of thin leather gloves. They weren’t quite de rigeur for running, but they were definitely necessary for his particular line of work.

Affixed horizontally inside the zip-up top, at the small of the back, was a 4″-by-l” heavy duty, all-weather Velcro strip. It could self-adhere, but he’d sewn it into the fabric for extra reinforcement. Another strip of the hook and loop tape was stuck to his Sog Specialty FSA-98 Flash II serrated knife. The $39 switchblade is lightning quick. It opens with a simple press of a thumb. The blade is less than four inches and generally rated as a defensive slash-and-retreat weapon. But not in the hands of someone more experienced. Not in his hands.

Olsen certainly wouldn’t have used such a simple over-the-counter purchase for something more difficult, perhaps on a worthier target. But this was going to a simple matter, reflected by a smaller fee than he’d recently been earning. Fifty thousand.

His quote was normally much higher but so were the risks. Today’s job required very little planning, though he always did more than required. Where others screwed up, he never did. The sloppy ones forgot that it wasn’t just the kill, it was the exit that counted. He’d be as discreet in his departure as he was in his job.

To the normal passersby, he looked like a struggling and winded mid-to-late-forties jogger. He was neither struggling nor over thirty-five. If he chose, he could run for miles. But not today. With black hair extensions added to his closely cropped cut, dyed eyebrows, and a foam rubber gut that put on an additional forty-five pounds under his sweats, he easily passed as another middle-aged man trying to beat back the years.

He carried a Dallas license to prove he was Nat Olsen. He also created a convincing legend he’d share with anyone who stopped to talk. Nat Olsen was a nice guy, a Fidelity mutual fund trader relocating to Los Angeles. He was scouting a home for his family. There was nothing unusual about him—not a gesture or mannerism that would ever raise suspicion. He would pant, stop and start, double over, grab his sides, and shake his head and wish he were in better condition, just like so many others.

In reality, he barely taxed himself. Everything was completely planned out, rehearsed, carefully considered. Surprise would be on his side. However, he clearly understood that a daylight hit brought its own extra risks.

He had any number of ways to escape. Bicycles hidden both north and south of his intercept point. A car parked along a side lot off Motor Avenue. The Pico Boulevard bus. And his preferred method: simply joining a pack of other early evening joggers and going out inconspicuously.

He figured he had an hour more to kill.
Funny how that sounds
, he thought. Maybe he’d watch the golfers on the other side of the fence. He’d take his time and stay near his initial contact point. He’d politely nod to runners faster than him and stay behind anyone slower—like his target, who should be along well before dusk.