The Point Of A Gun: Thriller Read online

Moose looked at the President, got a nod.

  “We are certain nobody at NCSC is either involved or knows about this problem,” Moose said. “Part of my job will be to brief the DNI on the activities of this effort daily. We decided to contain knowledge of our activities to only the thirteen of us. If NCSC gets wind of our activities here, the DNI will receive a report immediately and we will know we were wrong about that.”

  “This whole thing doesn’t sound like a problem to me, Moose,” said Linda Simmons, head of the CIA’s counter-terrorism division. “It sounds like an opportunity. Why would we look a gift horse in the mouth?”

  “Well,” Moose said, “whereas you and I, Linda, might have a spirited discussion about the pros and cons of vigilantes and bounty hunters, I think we will all unanimously agree that it would be a good idea to find out how these people, whoever they are, have access to all of the agencies’ classified, secret information on domestic terrorists. Including your information at the Agency.”

  He looked at the agency heads.

  “Tell us a little bit more about the location of these assassinations and the nature of the top secret Intel,” the National Security Adviser said.

  “Sure. That’s easy. The assassinations have been carried out throughout the entire country. These appear to be killers not tied down to any particular location. They’re mobile and they’re really, really good. Clearly ex-military. At least they’d better be ex- anyway.”

  “No pattern?”, asked the head of the FBI. “We sure it’s random?”

  “We had tech big data specialists analyze it for patterns while hiding our intentions. It came back random. No patterns or timing tracks at all.”

  “Killers?”, asked Nancy Moffett, head of the FBI’s counter-terrorism division. “More than one? We know how many?” She slid two MM peanuts out of one of her ever-present yellow bags. A red one and a blue one as it turned out. Popped them into her mouth.

  “Can’t just be one person,” Moose said. “It’s too well organized and the MO’s are too different. In answer to the earlier question, the classified information on the about to be deceased terrorists has come from each of your agencies. Sometimes one, sometimes another. In short, you each have been hacked at various times by these killers. Or somehow compromised.”

  “And there is no evidence of hacking left behind,” the President said.

  “To cut to the chase,” Moose said, “in other words, we think this is an inside job.”

  That was met with total silence.

  “So,” the JSOC Commander eventually asked into the silence, “somebody in one of the security agencies has been pulling in the intelligence on domestic terrorists from all of us, centralizing it, and using it to kill suspected terrorists?”

  “Well,” Moose replied, “the hell of it is that these aren’t so much suspected terrorists, as they are people who were on the verge of committing actual terrorist acts.”

  “We were close to making arrests in some of the cases,” the President said. “Some of the victims were killed almost within sight of your agents.”

  “About to make arrests?”, asked Colonel Tom Edwards, chief of the JSOC Operational Studies Group.

  “No,” Moose replied. “In every case the agents had not yet been authorized to make arrests. Some were close, but none of the instances had yet been officially considered actionable.”

  “Then your insider is a very senior official,” the CIA Director said.

  “Why do you say that?” Moffett asked.

  “No junior IT guy or group of junior IT guys could collect that information and monitor it on a timely basis. Only a very senior person, or group of senior people, could get the access and monitor the Intel so effectively.”

  “Not to mention execute complex assassinations,” Moose said. “These killers aren’t agency bureaucrats. They are comfortable with weapons. Very comfortable. These vigilantes have certainly had military training.”

  Samms begrudgingly agreed that they had done their homework. They’re better at this than we thought.

  “Which brings us to the five of you,” the President said, looking at each of the anti-terrorism division heads in turn.

  *

  “Yes?” Samms said into Cheese’s ear.

  “Cheese won’t shoot without your say so,” Tom said.

  “Cheese?”

  “One of the targets is a beautiful young woman, Samms.”

  “So am I, Cheese. You thought all your targets were going to be skanky old jihadists?”

  “She doesn’t look as tough as she does in the pictures I had. I want your personal authorization or I don’t shoot.”

  “Is the guy she’s with your other target? From the Mexican drug cartel?”

  “Yes. No doubt about it.”

  “Could the woman be the one we ID’d running the child sex rings into Phoenix? Look closely, Cheese.”

  Cheese did. “You’re right. It’s her. Our pictures don’t do her justice is all.”

  “Kill them both, Cheese. Now.”

  He could tell that she stayed on the line. He could hear her soft breathing.

  He exhaled, pulled on the trigger. Inhaled. Then exhaled and took the second shot.

  Heard her breath respond twice, once to the sound of each shot.

  Then silence.

  “Both dead. I’m coming home.”

  He heard the click that indicated Samms had disconnected.

  “So my word isn’t good enough for you anymore, Cheese?” Tom asked.

  “I’ll see you tomorrow, Tom. You’ll be okay. I’ll give you a big wet kiss at the meeting. In front of everyone.”

  *

  Five hours later, Nancy Moffett, FBI, and Colonel Tom Edwards were drinking at their normal D.C. watering hole, the Gibson. Edwards’ was in his fourth tour of duty at JSOC. He was in charge of all JSOC domestic U.S. counter-terrorism activity, innocuously titled the “Operational Studies” Group.

  The two forty-three year olds had been like brother and sister since high school in El Paso, Texas. Nancy had been valedictorian of their class. Tom always told friends that he had just been happy to get the diploma. But the reality was that they both were consistently at the top of their class both academically and in marksmanship throughout their undergraduate, ROTC, and Army careers.

  Their friendship was so close that they had even approved of each other’s marriages and had been commissioned into the Army together on the same day.

  Well, they had been like brother and sister except for that one time when Nancy had suggested a beach weekend and they discovered that an actual physical romance wasn’t in the cards between them.

  Since those two nights, they’d been just friends.

  The knowledge of their close friendship had created heartburn with many government officials when she left the Army to join the FBI and he had moved up the ranks in special ops, but each time the two of them had successfully skated through the concern over potential conflicts. The information about them and their actual personal relationship had become an accepted part of the Washington security community’s environment.

  “You go first,” Nancy said. “I’ll tell you the truth if you show me yours first.”

  She laughed.

  He didn’t.

  “Let’s take a big step backwards,” he said. “They…”

  “Who’s they?”

  “They. The government. The President. Your Director. My Commander. They.” He sipped his cocktail. “They suspect Linda, you, or me of being Samms, of directing a top secret nation-wide official unofficial vigilante operation.”

  “Do you think they really ever suspected either of the White House or DHS bozos they put in with the three of us today?” She reached down for her bag of peanut MM’s.

  “If they did,” he said, “whoever put together the list is pretty sloppy. As you and Linda quickly pointed out to the two of them, neither of them had the knowledge, training, or logistical ability to pull off covert anti-terrorist operations
. Either professionally or personally.”

  “Let alone murder people.”

  “Well, there’s that. Maybe the President, Moose, and the Directors thought they were both cracker-jack investigators?”

  She made a dismissive gesture. “More likely they felt strongly it was one of the three of us and they just put them in purely to cover up their actual suspicion.”

  “I vote for sloppy.”

  “Why just one of us, why not two or all three?” She took a sip of her martini. “And I thought we were the government.”

  “We were, and we might be again if the true culprits are found not to be you and me. If they suspect it might be more than one of us, then they sure as hell suspect you and me. No way any of the other nine people looking at the President in that meeting would ever work together on something like this unless it were the heads of the agencies, and then not without Presidential approval or oversight.”

  “Hoover did this kind of shit all the time without Presidential approval.”

  “But not without Presidential knowledge,” he said, indicating she could challenge if she wanted.

  She looked thoughtful, but let it go.

  “Is there any chance these murders start at the President,” she said. “And they’re setting the three of us up to work on it as cover?”

  “No,” he shook his head.

  “You think there’s any chance they don’t really suspect us and that this is just a typical bureaucratic ass covering delegation down to the three of us?”

  “Small. First of all, they wouldn’t need the President for that. And second, they didn’t come up with the three of us off the top of their heads. If they didn’t actually suspect it’s one of us, they would have included INS. No TSA or NSA presence suggests there’s at least some thought behind their choices.”

  “Nobody at TSA or NSA is good enough to pull something like this off.”

  “They don’t have the access or the military training, and they certainly couldn’t keep it secret.”

  Their usual waiter interrupted to make sure they wanted another round. They had never bothered to dissuade him of his understandable belief that they were a nice married couple of Washington bureaucrats. They both waved him off with a nod and a two fingered gesture.

  “Okay,” Nancy said, “I can see why the President, the DNI, the Commander, the Directors, and the National Security Adviser came up with the two of us. Combat veterans with continuous training and mission experience, now with the highest level access to anti-terrorist Intel. We’re senior enough with a long relationship that is now cross-agency. Makes sense. We’re the most likely suspects if it’s an inside job involving two or more. And, of course, if you ignore my well known reputation for job dedication.”

  He flipped her the finger.

  “Once they suspected us,” she said, “it was a logical step to look at the same level at the Agency. Linda has the same pedigree and the three of us have attended specialized Intel and ops training programs together for years. On the other hand, maybe it goes the other way around. Maybe it’s Linda they suspected in the first place and they’re looking for us to find her out.”

  “Putting both of us on the Task Force makes sense if they suspect either one of us,” he said. “But if they actually suspect Linda, that doesn’t mean they had to put both you and me on the Task Force.”

  Her martini and his Jack and Ginger came,

  “What are we to make of the series of Samms business cards?” Nancy asked.

  “She wants to be caught?”

  “Or he.”

  “Of course, it could be an intentional fake gender identification,” he said. “Or even be more than one person.”

  “Correct. I doubt they want to get caught. Deep down they may know it’s likely or inevitable, but I doubt they want to be caught.”

  “Then why the cards and now the initials?” Tom asked.

  “I think whoever it is, is taunting the government. Catch us if you can? Something like that.”

  “And the initials on the back?”

  “I have no idea. Moose said they have computers trying to find a connection. So far, no luck.”

  “Maybe Samms is trying to leave clues as to how we can more successfully stop terrorist attacks?”

  “I don’t think so,” she said. “We all know how to do that. Declare martial law or otherwise deprive prospective terrorists of due process and full protection under the law.”

  “Then what are the initials on the card all about?”

  “I have no idea, but I seriously doubt they will lead to the identity of Samms.”

  “I must say that it’s a helluva of an interesting assignment,” Tom said as the waiter drifted over. He waved him off. “But I think they suspect you and me.”

  She smiled. Sucked on her straw. “As the five of us discussed ad nauseum, each of us knows the probability for themselves is either a hundred percent or zero. If it’s zero percent, then he/she suspects the others. If it’s a hundred percent, then they know the others are innocent.”

  “Unless one of the others is their partner,” he said. “Then the two of them know who’s who.”

  Nancy laughed. “Maybe Linda’s right. Maybe we should play Clue over drinks until we know the guilty party. Or parties.”

  “I’m much better at poker.”

  “Which only helps us if you aren’t one of the vigilantes.”

  “Which brings us to us, Nan.”

  “Us?”

  “If you and I are innocent, then we each know that.”

  She nodded.

  “But if I know it’s not me,” he said, “I don’t know it’s not you.”

  She nodded, “And vice versa.”

  She reached for the check, pointed a finger at him, and said, “I, Colonel Edwards, on the other hand, know it’s not you only if it is me.”

  *

  After she paid, they left the Gibson and headed over to the Palm for their previously scheduled dinner with Tom’s deputy.

  The deputy had served with both Nancy and Tom in the Army. Their work and training together spanned over two decades of military training, military ops, and graduate courses in intelligence operations together at locations too numerous for any one of them to successfully list. Most recently at West Point’s Combating Terrorism Center.

  If Tom had told Nancy that he was planning to keep this operation from his deputy, she would not have believed him.

  The two of them briefed him on their current assignment over dinner.

  “And the President isn’t going to object to me being the fourteenth person on the planet to know all this, right?”

  “Our clearances are identical,” Tom said, hitting his deputy along the side of his head. “Such niceties have never stopped any of us before now. Also, the President isn’t so naïve as to believe his own histrionics.”

  “And there’s no way,” Nancy said, “that your boss isn’t keeping his boss or the Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman, briefed on these suspicions.”

  “Agreed,” Tom said. “No way.”

  “How many senior people in the sieve that is the FBI know by now?”, the deputy asked.

  “Let alone by tomorrow night,” Tom said.

  “No comment,” Nancy said.

  “How about if you each start by telling me it’s not you,” the deputy said.

  “Seriously?” Nancy said. “You’re seriously asking us this? Both at the same time? What else are we each going to say other than, ‘Of course it’s not me’?”

  She looked over at Tom, who laughed in agreement, putting his arm around his deputy.

  He frowned in feigned seriousness at the deputy and said, “Of course, it’s not me, dear.”

  Getting the expected punch in return.

  The deputy looked at Tom, then at Nancy. Clearly serious now, he said, “I actually only care if it turns out to be both of you. I’d be fully supportive if it was either of you acting alone, but not if it’s both.”

  �
�Why is that?” Nancy asked him.

  “Now that I know about these vigilantes, my initial instincts are that I think they’re doing the country a great service. They’re on the side of the angels, guys. I don’t need to be reminded that you two are diligent and hardworking and care about bringing terrorists to justice. But, as we’ve discussed a thousand times, you’re sitting, frustrated, at the top of two parts of a process where several bureaucracies hamstring your best efforts to act quickly enough to fully protect the American people. Despite your best work, successful terrorist attacks are increasing. People are dying out there, now at the rate of several attacks a month. And it feels like we, despite our best intentions, increasingly can’t prevent it.”

  All three sat back at this unexpected speech.

  “If either one of the two of you had asked me to join your group of vigilantes,” he said, “I would have joined in a minute.”

  “Whew,” Tom exhaled. “Thanks for the confidence.”

  “I’m certainly confident in the two of you. This isn’t a test about my respect or confidence in you two. This is about the realities on the ground. We all know we can’t stop a hundred percent of the lone wolves. But between the white supremacists, the Eastern European hackers, the drug lords in the southwest, and, of course, the Muslim jihadists and ISIS, the country is simply failing in its primary duty to protect its citizens.”

  “At an increasing rate,” Nancy said.

  “Let me take this moment to remind the two of you,” Tom said, “actually, the three of us, that the President of the United States specifically forbade us to talk to anyone about this. This conversation simply isn’t happening.”

  “That’s absolutely correct,” Nancy said. “But he should know that the sentiments he just voiced were roundly echoed around the table at the White House today. We get it that the terrorists are increasingly succeeding. We’re all aware of this. Of our own failures. And we recognize that these vigilantes are doing us all a great service. We all discussed that.”

  “In the meeting that didn’t happen this afternoon,” Tom said. “During the discussion that never happened and has nothing to do with my deputy.”

  “Right,” Nancy said, turning to the deputy. “But you didn’t answer the question I was asking you. I was asking why you hope it’s not both of us, the two of us working together.”