The Emir’s dress and appearance were identical to that in the first message. The consensus was that both messages had been recorded at the same time. An analysis of the background lighting, and the nature and quality of shifting light and shadow, appeared to confirm this. The message contained the same salutations to the young martyrs for the jihad. It contained the same condemnations of the Great Satan, and, of course, the Lesser Satan. It contained the same exhortation to faithful Muslims, asking them to strike at America and Israel anywhere and everywhere in the world. Then came the part that made the President and his war council nervous.
…the soldiers of Allah, peace be upon them, are in place. The weapons of Allah are positioned. The means of delivering those weapons has been secured. Within 21 days the great terror will strike, somewhere in North America, in a manner that will make all previous attacks seem insignificant in comparison. The holy jihad will make a mighty strike upon the Great Satan. Praise be to Allah, and to Mohammed, His prophet. Within 21 days this great day of terror will come. It will come. It cannot be stopped.
Discussion raged throughout the Intelligence Community. Was the Emir threatening a nuclear attack? Had he somehow acquired a nuclear weapon? Could four or five tons of Semtex level a city? Was it a radiologically dirty bomb? There were more questions than answers. The prevailing wisdom was that it probably was not the Semtex. Most thought that it would be nuclear. It had to be. It was the consensus at Langley, Fort Meade, the White House, and within most of the Intelligence Community. Four or five tons of high explosives was a lot, but it could not possibly do the damage the Emir was promising.
The anxiety was generated chiefly, once again, by that very promise that a strike would take place. If such a promise were made, and then there was no such strike, the Emir would lose face and power. But if he promised it, if he gave America ample warning, and still pulled it off, his stature would become mythic. He would accomplish what all the terrorist leaders had attempted, but failed to do. He would become the new Sword of Islam. He would be unstoppable.
The President had received the report from Tel Aviv a few hours earlier. He had met with his press secretary and his Chief of Staff about how to use this information to its maximum advantage. The report was lurid and clinically detailed. It had incredible shock value. He thought that he could use it politically. It would take the focus off his country’s blunder. Maybe cool some of the heat that had been generated by the Haramosh Star incident. And why not? The information contained in the report was shocking. A gang of thugs had tortured an American agent to death, and then mocked America by placing his dismembered remains in front of the American Embassy in Islamabad. This was a true atrocity. It was an outrage. This was not the sort of sophomoric behavior that had come out of Abu Ghraib — flushing the Koran down the toilet, or letting a dog into an interrogation room. This was vicious, calculated torture that ended in a terrible death… something of a different class altogether.
“I’m going public with it,” he said to his inner circle. “I’ll call a press conference. We are going to deal with this issue, and this issue alone. I will answer questions about Zak Goldberg, and how he died, and who we think killed him, and what we’re going to do about it. It will draw the media’s attention away from the Haramosh Star business. We are going to expose these people for the monsters they are. No one does this to one of our guys and gets away with it.”
He had spoken to Zak’s parents a few hours earlier, and had extended to them his personal condolences. He had asked their permission to make a public statement as to the manner of their son’s death. It was a measure of the complexity of the President, a matter often overlooked by the media. He could have bombed the entire Middle East back into the Stone Age were he so inclined, and yet he felt compelled to ask the permission of two ordinary retired folk before announcing to the world what had happened to their son.
“How sure are we that this was actually Zak Goldberg?” asked the Chief of Staff. “After all, it was, grisly as it may sound, a collection of body parts. And there was no head, so facial recognition is out of the question.”
“We’ve got a perfect match on the fingerprints,” said the President. “I don’t know what better proof you can have.”
“Well, DNA maybe?” replied the Chief of Staff doubtfully.
“Takes too long,” replied the President. “The guys who prepared the report said it would take at least two days to get a reliable DNA fingerprint. I want to air this immediately. I want to take a bit of the steam out of this rotten Haramosh Star thing. We need this now. Plus we have the ID of the ring by that other character… his brother?”
“Richard Lawrence. His best friend.”
“Right. As far as I’m concerned, we don’t need anything more than what we have. A terrible crime has been committed against an American, and the world needs to know about it. We do this now.” The President was resolute, and his position reasonable. Fingerprints were conclusive ID in any courtroom.
The following morning, his press secretary also tried to talk him out of it, for more public reasons. While the President had considerable intelligence and skill, he could appear wooden before the media. He could, and had on many previous occasions, forgotten or mispronounced words, much to the glee of the media and detractors. But the President would not be dissuaded, and he started the day by appearing in person before the media of the world.
“Good morning everyone,” he began. “This morning I am going to tell you how a courageous and highly skilled American CIA agent was murdered. The name of this individual was Zachariah Goldberg, one of our own — a man who had served his country with dedication in many positions for nearly three decades. You might even say that this man was born into the position.”
A murmur drifted through the crowd. This was unusual. They had expected to see the press secretary, or, these days, even the assistant press secretary. Yet here was the man himself, making a death announcement. It had never been done before, by any president. With thousands of American soldiers having been killed in Afghanistan and Iraq, and with the tidal waves generated by the Haramosh Star incident not yet subsided, this had to be special.
“Agent Goldberg was working undercover, in an area of Afghanistan near Kabul and Jalalabad. He had been working undercover there for almost four years, seeking to penetrate the al-Qaeda organization. Our Intelligence Community believes that the senior leaders of this terrorist group are holed up somewhere in the mountains in that region.
“We believe that Zak Goldberg found out precisely where those leaders were located, and that he was attempting to provide us with that information when he was apprehended. Yes, he was an agent in the field, in the midst of a dangerous mission. But when the United States of America finds an enemy agent in its midst, say for instance an agent who wants to smash mighty buildings into powder and murder thousands of civilians, we incarcerate him. We give him rights, lawyers, and courtrooms. And if we convict him, we put him in jail, where we give him three square meals a day, medical assistance, exercise facilities, and television. Sometimes we even let him have a pet.
“I want you to keep that in mind when I tell you what these people did to Zak Goldberg when they discovered him. I am going to read to you the conclusions of some of the top forensic pathologists on the planet, in both Tel Aviv and Washington.”