I nodded and made a note to talk to Tommy Thompson. He would need to alert the Centers for Disease Control about possible health hazards from all that shit.
"When do they expect President Bush to be rescued?", asked Cheney.
I eyed him for speaking out of turn, but then looked at Brown. "It's the next question. Any ideas, Mr. Brown?"
He simply shook his head. "I'm sorry, but that seems like it is going to be a real long shot. So far none of the people who have gotten out or been found were from above the plane strikes. They are still looking, of course, but ... sir, there's just nothing left!"
"Thank you, Mister Brown. I appreciate how difficult that is to say." To the group I stated, "Last night I met with the leadership of the House and the Senate. John Boehner and Harry Reid volunteered to go to New York to report back to Congress on the rescue and recovery operations." To Brown I said, "Make sure that you do what you can to help them. Do we have any idea what the count is yet? How many people were in there?"
He shook his head. "No. A lot of people managed to escape, at least from the lower levels, but nobody was running a head count. We probably won't know for days, maybe weeks." He thought for a second, and then added, "It will be in the thousands."
There were a few gasps at that. There had been wild speculation on the television stations yesterday, but this sounded ominously official.
I muttered something rude under my breath and then nodded. "I'm going to need to see this for myself. This afternoon, I should be able to get over to the Pentagon. Tomorrow, I can fly to New York." I looked around and caught the eye of one of the Secret Service agents on the periphery. "Did you catch that? I'll take Air Force Two. Please set that up, along with a drive over to the Pentagon later today."
"Yes, sir." He departed the room.
To the others I added. "The original Air Force One is still in New York, and I loaned the second to the President's father." I turned to Colin Powell. "Are we still at DEFCON Three?"
"Yes, sir, but nothing seems to be happening. I think we should downgrade to Four.", he replied.
"That is much too preliminary!", argued Cheney. "We need to maintain this readiness state. We'll be making a response to this as soon as President Bush is returned to office."
"When we make a response, then we can worry about the readiness state at that time. Until then, maintaining a Level Three readiness state puts excessive wear and tear on both the troops and the equipment, and costs us an excessive amount of money for a level of protection not currently warranted.", responded Powell.
I looked at Powell. "Are we locked down overseas, too?"
"Yes, sir." He gave us a quick outline of what DEFCON Three involved, including increased patrolling with planes, readying vessels for sea and increasing naval patrols, and locking down on overseas bases.
I listened for a bit, and when he was finished, I said, "Okay, after we are done here, take us down to Four, but keep the overseas bases tight, and keep some planes flying. We're going to need to begin taking security a bit more seriously."
"Sir, that's a call for President Bush to make.", interjected Cheney.
Time to handle this; the man just would not take a hint! I kept focused on Cheney, but raised my voice a bit, and said, "Mister Attorney General, is there anything in Article Four of the 25th Amendment specifying that the powers of the Acting President are not those of the President?"
I could feel all the eyes in the room on me. Ashcroft answered, quickly, "No sir, there is no restriction as compared to the President. As Acting President you have the full powers of the President."
I kept looking at Dick. "Very, good, sir. So, Secretary Cheney, do you have anything to add to that?"
Cheney was working his jaw, but simply said, "No, sir."
"Thank you." I looked back at Powell. "You have my orders. Any questions?"
"None. I will probably modify a few items based on intelligence, but I understand your intent."
"Good enough." I turned back to the table and looked up and down. "Okay, now for the fun part. Yesterday was the biggest intelligence failure this country has seen since the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor! Would somebody please tell me what the hell happened yesterday morning?" I pointed at Paul Wolfowitz, head of the CIA. "You first."
Wolfowitz looked confident as he responded, and I was surprised by the level of information he had available. How much he had known before the attacks and simply ignored, that I wasn't sure of. Basically, he had several dozen members of a terrorist group called Al Qaeda who had managed to travel to the U.S., in some cases months ago, and Al Qaeda was now making public statements that they were the ones responsible. He then pronounced that Al Qaeda was taking orders from Iraq.
I made a few noncommittal grunts and then pointed at Louis Freeh, head of the FBI. He was on his way out, so to speak, a holdover from the Clinton days, and unpopular in the Administration. Originally he was supposed to have left right after the Inauguration, but for some reason Bush held on to him as a sop to the Democrats. Nobody expected him to last through the year."Louis, anything you guys have figured out?"
His report was similar, though he had less information. He didn't know how many people were involved, or what weapons they had, or where they had been living, or where they had managed to learn to fly airliners. However, he promised that all that would be figured out, since every agent was being pulled off every other case to look into this. It was a remarkably unsatisfying response. Even though it had only been a day, I had expected more.
I turned to Brian Stafford of the Secret Service. "Who do you have working on this?"
He turned and pointed at a man behind him, who stood up. "Deputy Director William Basham, sir.", he said.
"Pleased to meet you. I'm sure we'll be talking. Who's the guy running this on the FBI side?"
"That would be Executive Assistant Director Collins Barnwell.", answered Basham.
"Is he here?", I asked, looking around. Nobody was jumping up, so I turned to Freeh and gave him a raised eyebrow.
"You only specified my deputy, sir.", he said lamely.
I muttered under my breath something else rude, and then finalized the decision I had been considering since last night. I simply nodded to myself for a moment, and then looked down the table to the Director of the FBI. "Well, that settles something for me." I looked around the table. "It's time for a frank discussion, folks. I met with Congress last night. One of the things that was mentioned was that the American people will be looking for some answers, and Congress will be holding hearings. They are going to want to know what happened, and they are going to be looking for a few heads to roll. People will be held accountable. We might as well get started."
I opened my clipboard cover and pulled out a sheet of White House stationery. I slid it down the table to Freeh. "Mister Freeh, I am sorry to hear that you have decided to resign your position as Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Your many years of service will always be remembered. Just write 'I quit' on there and sign it and date it. That should be good enough."
You could have heard a pin drop, and everybody stared. I was firing somebody? That just wasn't done! The usual Washington response would be that the President would admit to various unspecified lapses in judgment and take the blame for everybody. Nobody would be hurt and life would go on, business as usual. Screw that! Time for some people to get a wakeup call!
Louis Freeh just stared at me. I snapped my fingers at him and pointed at the paper. "Mr. Director, your performance a few minutes ago was totally unsatisfying. I have no doubt that when this finally gets figured out, the files of the FBI will have the names, ranks, and serial numbers of everybody involved. Do like I said. Write 'I quit' and sign and date it." Stunned, he did as he was told. He passed it back, and I said, "Thank you. When you leave this room, turn over any identification, keys, etc. to somebody outside. Then, go home. You are no longer in the employ of the United States of America."