“Okay, you’re not here to listen to me brag about my brilliant ambassadorship nominations. What’s up?”
She told him about the shipload of equipment heading to Chongju, and the fact it was likely the last major component necessary before the refinery became operational.
Ryan listened carefully. His first question did not surprise her in the least. “This comes from our new source at the mine?”
“Partially, yes.” Mary Pat didn’t mention that the President’s own son had provided crucial bits of intel.
Jack looked long and hard at his director of national intelligence, trying to read her thoughts. He noted the ambiguity in her answer, and he was used to it. His people shielded him from things. He didn’t much like it, but he understood it.
His mind switched from Mary Pat to the issue at hand. The UN Sanctions Committee refused to vote on increasing the economic sanctions against North Korea that Ryan knew were crucial to choking off the Hermit Kingdom’s access to the hard currency it was using to obtain nuclear missile technology. Ryan had been thinking about what steps he was prepared to take unilaterally. He’d not yet come to a conclusion, but he’d now run out of time to mull it over.
He had to act.
“Mary Pat, from what we’ve learned in the past month, the evidence is clear, and it all points to the fact this Chongju facility is serving as a funding vehicle for North Korea’s nuclear weapons program. I am going to go to the National Security Council and authorize a Presidential Directive stating the Chongju mineral mine and processing facility in North Korea represents a clear and present danger to the security of the United States, and I will direct that our military, intelligence, and diplomatic efforts be engaged in keeping that facility from going into full production.”
He added, “I’m not going to attack it, that would just send North Korean artillery and missiles raining down on Seoul, but I am damn well going to do everything short of that.”
Mary Pat had rarely seen her President more resolute. “Yes, sir. Please be aware, though, that if you want the Navy to interdict that ship, they will have to do it within twenty-four hours, or it will be in North Korean waters.”
Ryan nodded. “I understand. I’m going to call Burgess right now and tell him about the directive. By the time he gets forces in position to stop that boat, the paper will be signed.” Ryan rubbed his nose under his eyeglasses. “We’ll take heat for it, but it needs to happen.”
Mary Pat left the Oval minutes later. She had work to do. Perhaps less than the National Security Council, because they had just hours to draw up a Presidential Directive for POTUS to sign. But once this was done, Mary Pat knew the gloves were off. A Presidential Directive carried the full force and effect of law, and with it in place she and her counterparts in the Defense Department and the State Department would be directed to do whatever they could to see that the Chongju mine earned no more money for the North Korean nuclear weapons program.
And even though the battle would be fought in a coordinated fashion by the combined power of the entire United States government, the director of national intelligence was keenly aware that at the very tip of the spear in this endeavor was a young man in North Korea who was as alone as anyone could possibly be.
52
Dale Herbers of the U.S. Secret Service was a week into his advance in Mexico City before he drove the presidential motorcade route from the airport to the Palacio Nacional. This was by design. He could have run the route earlier in his workup, but he felt his other responsibilities — securing the locations of the various static events of the President’s trip to the city — were better taken care of first, and the motorcade route saved for closer to the actual day of. Things changed on the streets more than they changed in museums, restaurants, government buildings, and other attractions, and Herbers, like most advance-team shift leaders, wanted a game-time feel to the route the President would travel.
The forty-seven-year-old lead special agent and his senior staff of a dozen special agents, as well as several counterparts from various Mexican law enforcement agencies who were working the motorcade, all left Benito Juárez airport just after noon, the exact time of the President’s scheduled arrival in two days. They drove together in a convoy of vehicles on the westerly route toward the Plaza de la Constitución, the massive central square where the palace stood and the President’s motorcade from the airport would terminate.
One of the most important parts of the advance team’s work was identifying the choke points and crowd gathering locations, the places where the motorcade would need to slow down to negotiate turns. Today his role was to assign American and Mexican law enforcement to these key portions of the motorcade, and to identify any other potential threats so as to deal with them now, before the President arrived.
In all the official events SWORDSMAN would attend here in Mexico, even those open to the public, every spectator and participant would be subjected to screening. This meant they would either pass through metal detectors or be wanded. And all bags would, of course, be searched. But it was impossible to secure the route, every window, rooftop, alleyway, every pocket of every civilian on every sidewalk, and every car on every side street.
Motorcades were a mess, but the Secret Service was accustomed to dealing with them. The President would be ushered along the way in “the bubble,” a Secret Service term meaning a protective cocoon of close protection agents, a large counterassault team that rode just behind him, and an array of static Secret Service men on rooftops and barricade positions along the route.
There were more than two hundred agents here in Mexico City for the visit, and virtually every last one of them had a role in the motorcade from the airport. And that was just the first line of defense. Mexican Federal Police would have another six hundred officers involved in roadblocks, motorcycle escorts, traffic control, and crowd overwatch.
And Herbers had one more thing going in his favor.
The Beast.
The presidential limousine was a highly modified and customized Cadillac DTS and had acquired the name “the Beast” because of its size and weight. But bulletproof glass and thick armor plating were just two of the vehicle’s features. Run-flat tires, night-vision equipment, an internal oxygen supply, and secure communications also made up the vehicle’s security measures, and another, identical vehicle always ran in the motorcade so the President would have a backup if his primary broke down.
Herbers had been informed that SWORDSMAN had been asked to stay in the Beast for the duration of the drive by his lead protection agent, Andrea Price O’Day. This wasn’t likely to be an issue; some Presidents liked to get out and glad-hand the crowd, but that wasn’t really Ryan’s style. While Herbers thought him to be a kind and approachable man, Ryan didn’t possess the politician gene of so many of the other people he’d worked around in his twenty-three years on the service. Ryan didn’t go out of his way to meet people unless it was necessary to win an election.
The convoy of advance-team men and women stopped many times along the route, and all of them would then climb out of their vehicles. Herbers would see a group of open windows that bothered him, or a troublesome building with balconies or other potential aggressor overwatch positions, or even just narrow side streets that ran close to his route that he wanted to look over to see if he felt it necessary to block them off.
This was an experienced group, and despite all the stops, they accomplished the first half of the route in good time. But then they traveled through the high-crime neighborhood of Tepito, and this part of the city required extra care.