He told Hamilton about a prisoner’s suicide, but without informing him of al-Rimi’s true identity. Gray intended to take that secret to his grave. “However, I think we’re making progress, sir,” he added.
Hamilton snapped, “How the hell do you figure that, Gray?” He held up an Islamic newspaper. “You read Arabic, don’t you?”
Gray translated the headline out loud: “They Are Finally Paying for Their Sins.”
Hamilton picked up another paper. “This one says, ‘Maybe Islam Can Turn the Other Cheek.’ That ran in a major Italian daily. And now, while our president is God knows where, the international press is intimating that this is somehow our fault.” He held up a long slip of paper. “In the last twenty minutes I’ve been informed that a Muslim cabdriver was pulled out of his vehicle in broad daylight in New York City and beaten to death. And you know what? He’d served six years in the army. Our army! And two Halliburton executives were snatched out of their hotel in Riyadh; their gutted bodies were found in an alley a half mile away with ‘Death to America’ written across their naked bodies. And that’s just the latest in about a dozen such incidents I’ve gotten today. The Pentagon’s waiting for me to tell them to nuke somebody and my intelligence folks are anything but intelligent it seems. We don’t have one damn lead as to where Jim Brennan is.” He stared at Gray, obviously itching to hear the man’s feeble response so he could pounce.
Ben Hamilton had seemingly aged four years in the brief time since the kidnapping. Gray had never known a president to come into the White House with dark hair and leave with anything less than gray. This was the most impossible occupation in history and, in the strange way the world worked, the most coveted.
Gray said, “Regardless of how this happened, and what the international media is saying about it, dogs don’t change their spots. When the inevitable happens, we’ll have the opening we need.”
Hamilton slammed his fist down on his desk. “I want Jim Brennan back alive! Your previous work for this country means squat to me. This happened on your watch, and I hold you fully accountable for it. The United States has been humiliated by a bunch of damn Arabs. Unless the president is returned safe and sound, you will no longer head this country’s intelligence community. Are we perfectly clear on that?”
“Absolutely,” Gray replied impassively. He knew this to be baseless rhetoric. There was no possible way the acting president could afford to fire his intelligence chief during such a crisis. “But let me point out that there is not one demand of the kidnappers that this country can seriously consider, given our current foreign policies. And we can’t wait one week for his release, not that I believe they will release him. The American people will not tolerate that. And the violence is only going to become worse in the meantime.”
Hamilton snapped, “Well, then I guess you’ll just have to find him on your own.”
Gray studied the man keenly. He sensed exactly what his adversary was thinking; politicians were all too transparent. Ben Hamilton had wanted this job more than anything. He had patiently paid his dues, waiting for Brennan to serve his two terms before it was his turn to wear the American Crown. Now he had the throne, yet could he do the job? In Gray’s mind it wasn’t even a close call. Ben Hamilton didn’t make even a worthy vice president.
The chief of staff suddenly burst into the room with a Secret Service agent hard on her heels. “Sir,” she exclaimed. “This is just in from Al Jazeera. The kidnappers have disclosed the location where the president will be released.”
“Where?” Gray snapped.
“Medina.”
Hamilton exclaimed, “Medina! How in the hell did they get Brennan out of the country and to Saudi Arabia?”
“Private plane and private airport,” Gray answered. “Not that difficult.”
Hamilton’s face flushed. “We spend billions on airport and border security, and they manage to sneak the damn president of the United States to the Middle East.” He stared at Gray as though he meant to fire him right that instant.
Gray spoke quickly. “It makes sense. Medina is the second holiest city in the Muslim world behind Mecca.”
Hamilton looked at his chief of staff. “Get in touch with the Saudis and tell them that Medina is going to be annexed by this country until we get Brennan back.” He eyed Gray. “I want every military and intelligence resource we have in the area focused there.”
“I’m on it, sir,” Gray said, rising from his chair. He wanted to get out of the room as fast as he could.
I serve at your pleasure, Gray thought as he fled the Oval Office.
CHAPTER
61
CAPTAIN JACK SAT BACK IN HIS chair and smiled with excellent reason. He had in his hand the password he needed to set his final plan into motion. Their captive had endured far more torture than had been anticipated, although his North Korean colleagues were very skilled at such exercises. Yet the man had finally broken; they all did eventually. Captain Jack read the Arabic words and smiled.
From a cloned phone that was not traceable to him he made one call. Speaking in fluent Arabic with well-honed inflections, he said what he needed to say and then used the precious password. This authenticated the source of Captain Jack’s statement to the party on the other line, and it would be immediately relayed to the world.
Captain Jack clicked off the phone and used his lighter to burn the piece of paper. If Tom Hemingway thought he had stunned the world, wait until it heard what his old friend had to say.
Secretary of Defense Joe Decker stared across the desk at Acting President Hamilton. They had just been informed of the latest statement issued through Al Jazeera. And they were furious.
“It’s our only choice, sir,” Decker said. “We simply don’t have the troops to deploy there, and frankly, even if we did, it might quickly turn into another Iraq. We have to avoid that at all costs. We can’t afford it.”
Andrea Mayes, the secretary of state, who’d been hovering in the back of the Oval Office, came forward. She was a tall, large-boned woman with graying hair. “What Secretary Decker is proposing is a direct violation of the Nonproliferation Treaty, sir. We can’t do it.”
“Yes, we can,” Decker insisted.
“How?” Hamilton asked sternly.
“This country has made it clear that any use against it of weapons of mass destruction, biological, chemical or nuclear, would void the terms of the Nonproliferation Treaty with regard to the offending country.”
“But Syria hasn’t attacked us,” Mayes exclaimed.
“The Sharia Group has just now claimed responsibility for kidnapping President Brennan. Sharia is based in and financed by Syria. Under the foreign policies outlined previously by this country, that means Syria has attacked us through the Sharia Group, and they used some chemical agent to abduct the president. And we have evidence that Syria has recently started up a WMD program. Now, even though Syria hasn’t used WMDs against us yet, the U.S. has no obligation to simply sit here and be attacked. Coupled with the fact that they’ve kidnapped our president and are now throwing that fact in our faces more than justifies our position.”