“They fear you, Morgan, and they fear the people who can bring them down.”
Prime Minister Foss gently flicked the ashes from his half-smoked cigar into a crystal ashtray. “But, of course you’re right. It’s the reality of the 21st century. We’re allied with sprawling third-world countries that are spread out over thousands and thousands of square kilometers of ocean. The leaders can barely hold on to their own power base let alone keep their enemies in check. In many places, the growth of Islam is outpacing Christianity. Muslim majorities are finally gaining political power. In any given year, Japan may have more terrorist groups than baseball teams, South Korea has its maniac neighbor to the north, and you tell me how much help Pakistan is?”
“They sign everything and do nothing, David.”
“So what do you propose? Another American land grab? I don’t think you’re about to follow Bush.”
President Taylor took his last puff of the night and crushed out his cigar. He leaned across the small table that separated the two men and said, barely above a whisper, “Supply and demand, David. We cut off the supply line that’s arming the terrorists.”
The prime minister frowned. He wasn’t certain what Morgan Taylor was suggesting.
“We’re in a war on terrorism. Who the hell are we fighting? The bin Ladens? Some rogue governments? I don’t know from day to day and I’m the President of the United States with all the military power imaginable. I can order a strike anywhere in the world. But what are my targets?”
“That is the nature of things today.”
“Come on, David. These guys are armed to the teeth. So we cut off their supply.”
“Where?” Foss asked.
“Everywhere. From the source,” Taylor said.
“You’re not planning on bombing gun manufacturers.”
“Bombing them? No. Examining their books, yes. If that’s not possible, then we look at other options.” He didn’t explain the point further. “So, yes, we do go after the mass producers of arms, but also the arms dealers who traffic in them, the governments that help them, the corporations that shelter them.”
Foss was clearly surprised by the proposal. “Morgan, they’ll kill you in your own country. You’re a hunter yourself. I’m even versed on your 2nd Amendment debate-the right to bear arms. They’ll impeach you.”
“Hell, they’re already looking for ways, David. But this isn’t about me. That’s why this needs to be our initiative, agreed upon by our allies.”
Taylor pressed closer. “We destroy cocaine fields in Venezuela. We target planes and ships transporting contraband. Hell, you saw the pictures of Indonesia. I can call the NSA right now and get you another fifty hard targets where weapons are stored in the South Pacific: places where there are enough weapons to wipe out Sydney tomorrow. And I’m not counting the dirty bombs. I have no idea where they’re hidden. Think about it. We’ll really make war on terrorism if we go after the weapons. We out the countries that don’t do it themselves. We give them fair warning. If they don’t solve the problem, we’ll do it for them.”
“WMDs all over again? You don’t want another Iraq.”
“Doesn’t have to be. And I won’t be drawn into that kind of quagmire. We don’t invent a search. We seek, we evaluate, we confirm, we share our discovery with the host government, and then we destroy. Every action is a front-page victory.”
“A Taylor Doctrine?” Foss concluded.
“Absolutely not! It can’t be. It has to come out of our talks. It’s the balls.”
“How do you explain it to the doves in your own party? And what about collateral damage? Civilians will be killed.”
“Yes,” Taylor lowered his eyes. “That will happen. But after every strike, we show what the enemy had in store for us. This is war, David. How many innocent civilians would have died if that C-4 had gone off at the St. George?”
“Hundreds. Probably a thousand or more.”
“And the reaction from Hezbollah or JI?”
“Celebration,” the prime minister admitted.
“So to answer your question about how I’ll do back home? First of all, I’m not calling for individuals to disarm. I’m not shutting down Remington, Colt, or Heckler & Koch. And we’re certainly not planning on bombing Walther in Germany, or Beretta over in Italy. Hell, Beretta is the army standard in the U.S. We’d be shooting ourselves in the foot.”
“Or my Glock factories?” Foss noted.
“Or Glock. Our principal targets are the hiding places. We crash the arms deals, we cut off the money supply worth billions, and most importantly, we take out the stores. We do it with the authority of the agreement forged here and subsequent alliances in Europe, Africa — even the Middle East.”
“We’ll be labeled one-worlders. It’ll play into every conspiracy theorist’s wet dreams,” the prime minister added.
“They’re already calling me every name in the book. But if we’re ever going to succeed at this so-called war, we have to fight it — for better or worse. I don’t know if we can make it better, but I can promise you, if we don’t put some bite into this session, things will definitely get worse. Not temporarily worse. Worse forever.”
The night was coming to an end. Foss extinguished his cigar. He noticed that they’d both finished their drinks. “Another before we call it a night, Morgan?”
“No thanks,” Taylor replied.
Foss rose and started for the door. “May they never claim that two old drunken warhorses concocted this plan. How about we sleep on this a bit? Let’s get together a half hour before the first session and see how it looks in the morning.”
Foss offered his hand to his friend. Morgan Taylor took it and repeated the overarching truth. “David, remember, this can’t be termed ‘the Taylor Doctrine.’ It has to be bigger than that.”
Chapter 63
The outrageous bid for an inexpensive 1957 Bowman baseball card looked like a teenager’s prank. The anonymous person who posted the card responded accordingly.
Bidder 34423
You express serious offers now. Others will not be considered. EBay was filled with ludicrous offers. This was not one of them. 2,500,000 euros were already transferred from one account to another. This e-mail confirmed the terms of the transaction.
Before clicking off, the Air Force mechanic re-read the message. The answer was contained in simple code on the second line.
You express serious offers now.
Years of training, preparation, and waiting came down to one message: Y-e-s o-n.
Luis Gonzales made the transfer without a concern for the amount. Some of it was his money, most of it came from long-held accounts funded by special interests in Saudi Arabia and Syria. He’d earned good interest on it. Now it belonged to a highly skilled mechanic.
Amazing. Gonzales thought about the fortuitous turn of events. Lamden’s illness returns the presidency to Taylor. There’s no vice president. Things were better than he planned. It was the perfect political storm, and it would build to Category 5 in a matter of days. He would achieve so much at once — revenge and chaos. All of this was for his wife and daughter, killed by the Israelis because of the Americans. Both nations would be punished, and as a result, a true Palestinian state would rise and the Zionists would fall.
Gonzales admitted this would still take a few years. The American public needed more conditioning. A new president would help propagate the paradigm shift. Then, the map would be redrawn. Money destined for Israel would go to Palestine.