"Either way, they'll be tough to track," noted the FBI director. "And tough to stop," added the Homeland Security secretary. "We can deploy more forces to the borders. But who are we looking for? We've got an extensive database of Middle East terrorists, suspected terrorists, and peo ple with ties to terrorist individuals, groups, or states. But everyone we know about is already on our watch lists. What I worry about is the threat from people we don't know about."
"How will they get explosives into the country?" asked Deputy Secretary of State Cavanaugh.
"It wouldn't be hard, I'm afraid," said Scott Harris. "It's a two-thousand-mile border. We've got a quarter of a million people coming into the U.S. from Canada every single day. And those are the legal ones, the ones we know about. Heck, we've got five thousand trucks coming southbound through De troit alone every single day. Along the Mexican border, down in Laredo, for example, we've got more than four thousand trucks coming northbound into the U.S. We've done an awful lot to toughen our border defenses. You guys know all that. You authorized the money. But look, no matter how much we've done to tighten things up, getting weapons or explosives into the coun-try by truck or container ship is a whole lot easier than trying to get a bomb or a box cutter onto a plane at JFK or O'Hare or LAX."
The Israelis were intercepting between forty and fifty Palestinian suicide bombers a month. They were keeping the toll of casualties quite low, given the constant threats they were facing. But they had decades of experience and a country smaller than New Jersey. How would the U.S. do, thought Bennett, trying to protect a continent? "Why now?" the president asked Jack Mitchell.
"Retaliation after Iraq, the peace process, an attempt to finish their attack on you — there could be any number of reasons why they'd try to strike now." "Marsha, what do you make of all this?"
"Well, sir, assuming the story we're piecing together here is accurate, my first instinct is that it's unlikely the attacks will be against major Washington or political targets. It would likely be more random. That would certainly follow the history of the attacks in Israel — random, devastating violence designed to terrify the population and paralyze the economy." "McDonald's, Pizza Huts, that kind of thing?" the president asked. "Exactly — and grocery stores, Wai-Marts, schools, hospitals, malls, churches, synagogues, you name it," the National Security advisor continued. "It's hard to say precisely where they'll hit. There's no real pattern in Israel, except that it's not airplanes or military installations. Nothing secure. Nothing that's hardened."
"In other words, it's open season?" asked the president.
"It may be," said Kirkpatrick. "We're an open society, and a big target."
Nadir Sarukhi Hashemi was late.
It was almost nine o'clock at night, Pacific Time. He was supposed to have crossed the Mexican border into the United States nine hours earlier. Instead, he'd gotten drunk on pina coladas and tequilas at the hotel the night before. If he wanted to enjoy his last days on earth, why shouldn't he? But now he cursed himself. He was Muslim. He was committed to jihad. He had to stay focused. He couldn't succumb to temptation. It wouldn't happen again. At least he was now in his Ford Taurus, heading north.
Nadir inched his way forward through the Tijuana, Mexico, border crossing, perhaps the world's busiest. His destination: San Ysidro, California, then twenty more miles or so to San Diego. He would switch cars, stock up on food and bottled water, and race cross-country, eastward, for Atlanta and Savannah. There he'd get his weapons and more instructions.
The trip was almost 2,400 miles. It'd take forty hours of driving, not counting refueling stops, food, and rest. And that was if he took the most direct route, but that didn't seem safe. It would keep him too close to the border with Mexico, and right through El Paso, swarming with federal agents — Border Guards, INS, customs, DEA, ATF, the FBI, and on and on and on. It was far too risky when instead he could simply work his way through the interior of the country and cross the Midwest. It would take a little longer. But he was pretty sure he could still make it in time.
The president again turned to his National Security advisor.
"Where do we start first?"
"Step one is to take the entire country to Threat Level Red. Step two, we seal up the borders. Nobody comes in. Nobody goes out. No international flights in or out of the country for at least the next seventy-two to ninety-six hours, though we can take it day by day. I'd recommend we mobilize the National Guard — a massive call-up — get them on the front lines. We put the guard positioned at every border crossing. Every international airport. Train stations. Bus stations. At the same time, we mobilize the coast guard immediately. Cancel all leaves. Move coast guard patrol vessels into the major harbors, and co ordinate closely with the air force and navy. That'll take some time, Mr. President, and it will cost a lot. But I don't see that we've got a choice."
"Lee, would you concur on all that?" the president asked his Homeland Security secretary, Lee Alexander.
"I do, Mr. President. I'd further recommend that we split functions here.
My team can coordinate defensive homeland security operations through my office. We've got the war room set up at the NAC," the secretary said, referring to the Nebraska Area Complex, a former navy administrative head-quarters in Washington, D.C., where the Department of Homeland Security was centralized. "That's defense, trying to keep the bad guys out, or off balance. The FBI should handle the offense — proactively going after the bad guys. Rounding up potential suspects. Shaking down sources. Coordinating a massive manhunt as new details come in of who we're looking for. Director Harris can speak to that in specifics. But that's what we've been war gaming in recent weeks, trying to make sure that what happened to you, Mr. President, doesn't happen again." The president turned to his FBI director. "That work for you, Scott?"
"It does, Mr. President. We've vacuumed up an enormous amount of information just in the last few weeks. I can put my team into motion the minute you say go." Corsetti now took the floor.
"Mr. President, we still need a decision on what you'll say to the Israelis." "Yes, I'm getting to that," the president responded. "But let's nail this thing down first. We are now at Threat Level Red. Lee, Scott, I'd suggest you get moving on this stuff right now. Get your teams into crisis mode, Send out bulletins to all state and local law enforcement. Chuck, page the White House press corps. Get them back in here. Have your team alert the networks and the newspapers. I want you to do a briefing in the next half hour, once we figure out what and how much we can and should say. But I want to make sure lots of information gets in the East Coast papers and that's going to be tough. Many of them are on or past deadline, right?" 'That's right, sir," the press secretary confirmed.
"Scott, Lee, I want you two to do live briefings here at the White House within the next forty-five minutes. Coordinate with Bob and Chuck, OK?" "Yes, Mr. President."
"OK, go to it. The rest of us will shift our attention back to the situation in Israel. Let me know what else you need from me."
Nadir Sarukhi Hashemi tried to stay calm.
A U.S. federal agent approached and asked for his passport, asked a few questions, then went back to her guard station to run a computer check. Nadir thought about his five and a half months at the training camp, the brothers he'd met — Syrians, lots of Saudis, some Jordanians, a few Chechn-yans, but mostly Palestinians.
They'd all been trained in light arms, how to hijack airplanes, and how to use explosives — C4 and TNT — to attack a country's infrastructure. Military bases, nuclear plants, electric plants, gas storage facilities, airports, railroads, large corporations, public buses and trains. They'd been taught how to carry out operations in cities, how to block roads, how to assault buildings, elementary schools, and various strategies for evasion and escape. What they hadn't been taught — or taught well, Nadir suddenly realized — was how to fight the urge to bolt the minute it looked like their cover might be blown.