Chapter Nine
Secure telephones began to ring off their
holders at 1700 hours that terrible day. Agents had to be brought into the main
offices of the FBI, the CIA, and the ODNI to handle the calls from vetted
officers, diplomates, White House staffer, the DOD, and the DOJ. Calls from the
public, news organizations, or other individuals or organizations lacking
clearance for the “Beelzebub Case” were triaged to the round file (discarded
after a polite digital “Thank you, and we will get back to you as soon as the
volume of communication permits.”)
President Willets ordered an emergency meeting
in the Situation Room for 1730 hours with mandatory attendance by the VPOTUS,
DCIA, DDCIA, DFBI, DDFBI, DNI, DDNI, the attorney general, cabinet secretaries
[limited to Secretaries of State, Justice, Defense, Treasury, and Homeland
Security], the entire JCOS, the director and deputy director of DARPA, Chief (and director) CH/CSS/DIRNSA [Central
Security Service/ National Security Agency (DIRNSA), who also serves as
(DirUSCYBERCOM) [Commander of the United States Cyber Command], DDNSA Cyber
Command, and heads and deputy directors of every one of the seventeen
intelligence services—including such little known agencies serving the
intelligence community as the coast guard, the (NGA) [National
Geospatial-Intelligence Agency], INR [United States Department of State Bureau of Intelligence and Research , and the
TFI [United States Department of the Treasury Office of Terrorism and Financial
Intelligence].
There were hawks and doves, diplomats and
militarists, intelligence officers and analysts, all vying for the president’s
attention.
“You will all get your chance, but we are here
to learn what information is available at this point about the Beelzebub person
or entity, why he, she, or it, has done such terrible things to our world, and
what we can do about it. I can tell you from my conversations with the Russians
and Chinese, the Israelis and the Islamists, and the ideologues all over this
country pressing for one blood letting or another, that the world sits on the
brink of a war that could dwarf even World War II. Right now, in this room, and
with the cooperation of uncooperative foreign powers, we can either prevent war
or achieve an uneasy truce. How long that can hold is unknown and
controversial. I have been listening to you throughout the day and have every
respect for your opinions. I tell you—for the sake of civilization and
humanity—we will come up with a new idea in this meeting, or we will be witness
to annihilation. The DCIA has been on this since the day the first Beelzebub
letter was sent to the LA Times; so, I want to hear from her first. Sybil, you
have the floor.”
“I won’t waste your time. This is my take—my
hunch, if you will. The attacks, terrible and costly as they have been, are
phonies—contrived for the benefit of some individual or organization to achieve
a nefarious purpose. I do not believe that we have seen bona fide military
strikes by any country against another, or any ideology against another one. I
do not have the authority to require any or all of you to step back and
watch—to do anything other than to prepare for the worst. But, that is what I
ask of you. Give the assembled intelligence services, working in conjunction
with our real allies, the British, Israelis, and select Europeans, a chance to
scour the earth for information, for evidence, and to be able to come up with a
plan. I have some ideas I want to pursue.
“I fully recognize the gravity of the
situation we face and how limited the time is. Do any of you remember the old
Kingston Trio song, They’re rioting in
Africa?”
Several of the very grey heads nodded and
smiled.
“The pertinent lyrics are:
…The whole world is
festering with unhappy souls,
The French hate the Germans; the Germans hate Poles.
Italians hate the Yugoslavs; South Africans hate the Dutch.
…And I don’t like anybody very much.
But we can be tranquil and thankful and proud
That man’s been endowed with a mushroom-shaped cloud,
And we know for certain that some lovely day,
Someone will set the spark off,
And we will all be blown away.”
“I might add, apropos of
today, that it is not at all certain that the next 24 to 48 hours will determine
if the Kingston Trio’s lovely day will come in one of the next two. I will go
to Moscow tonight to track down some likely suspects. My main agent is in
Beijing as we speak. Our colleagues in the FBI are in the air and headed to the
Philippines and to Riyadh. Other agents are already in New Martinsville, West
Virginia and in Jamaica Plains, the Bronx, New York City. The investigation
service of the State Department has volunteered to visit the Vatican, the Gaza
Strip, and the Syrian Idlib governate. We can’t get to all the haters, but
those will be a good start.
“I have to say that some
serious and well-placed somebody somewhere has a severe axe to grind. We have
to find him or her.
“Finally, the DOJ and
Homeland Security have their own lists of haters to chat with. The DOD is busy
preparing for Armageddon. That should keep us all busy for the next day or so.
Does anyone else have a nonpartisan suggestion about where there is a stone to
turn over?”
Not surprisingly, the
democrats in the room suggested hotbed cities of the alt-right or high voter
turn-out for the republicans—Mesa, Arizona and Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. The
Republicans targeted San Francisco and Boulder, Colorado.
POTUS ordered everyone to
keep away from reporters of any stripe and to report back to the White House as
the information clearing center.
His final exhortation was,
“Go with God my friends. We have a world and a civilization to save.”
VPOTUS stood beside President Willets and put
both hands in the air with V for Victory signs.
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