“And we’re sure that it’s not Russia?”
“Our man in Prague seems convinced that it’s not. At least his contact in Russia was adamant that the Russian government is not behind this, although it could be someone else in Russia who is.”
“I imagine the list of other countries that want to attack us this way is fairly long.” Alasdair commented.
“Undoubtedly,” Patrick agreed. “Any country that doesn’t like us or sees us as a threat to their ambitions could want to make use of so many agents already here and waiting to strike.”
“Have you alerted our contacts in the intelligence community?”
Patrick nodded. “I alerted our contacts in the FBI, CIA, Homeland Security, and the military less than an hour ago. I’ll coordinate our efforts with them, and we promised to keep each other informed.”
Alasdair nodded. “The Order is spread thin, working on the human trafficking initiative. Do we have enough resources to take on this kind of intelligence work?”
“We have to,” Patrick replied. “So we’ll find the resources somehow. The risk to the country is too great to give this anything less than our full attention.”
Alasdair nodded. “The members of the Grand Magistry should be here in the next twenty minutes. I’ll need you to provide them with this information and let them know how you’re planning to proceed.”
“Yes, your Excellency.”
In addition to the members of the Grand Magistry, several other members of the Order were present in the Grand Magistry conference room. Tom Anderson, Emily McCafferty Anderson, and Ralph Gardner, though retired from their previous roles in the Order, were still special advisors to the Grand Master and attended most meetings of the Grand Magistry. There were also three other individuals present at the meeting: Paul Sellers, the new Chief Intervention Officer and Intervention Analysis Committee Chairman, who took over the position from Maxwell Preston when Max became the Lt. Grand Master; Monroe Patterson, the Chief Training Officer and Training Committee Chairman; and Terri Ogilvy, the Chief Surveillance Training Officer.
Patrick presented his findings about the sleeper agents to the members assembled in the conference room. He also relayed the results of his conversations with his contacts in the intelligence community and his plans for identifying the sleepers, their targets, the people trying to activate them, and their motives.
After the meeting, Alasdair met with Max, Tom, Emily, Ralph, Paul, Monroe, and Terri in the Grand Master’s office.
“Things seem so calm in the world,” Max noted. “If tensions with another country were escalating right now, I could see them activating sleepers to create a disruption, but there are no major conflicts going on. It makes me even more worried about what someone is up to. If they’re going to follow up on whatever the sleepers are going to do with a military strike somewhere, wouldn’t we see some kind of escalation?”
“You’d think so,” Patrick agreed, “but so far we haven’t identified any nation making preparations like that. It doesn’t mean that they’re not making preparations; it just means that we haven’t spotted it yet.”
“What do you want us to do?” Terri asked.
“Dust off our surveillance training programs and adapt them specifically to counter-terrorism and counter-espionage activities,” Alasdair replied. “It might be a good idea to have updated training ready quickly for the Commanderies involved in this initiative.”
“Yes, your Excellency,” Terri responded.
“As for the rest of you, if you have any ideas that could help Patrick figure out who’s behind the sleepers, pass that directly to him. There’s no reason for it to go through me first.”
“Yes, your Excellency.”
Tom and Emily drove home from the Commandery in silence. Finally, Emily spoke up.
“Are you all right”
Tom smiled. “Of course. Why do you ask?”
“Well, this is the first major initiative that the Order has undertaken without you being in charge,” Emily replied. “How does it feel to be sitting on the sidelines while Alasdair handles everything?”
“A little strange,” Tom admitted. “But I stepped down because Alasdair was ready to be Grand Master, and he seems to have the situation under control.”
Emily nodded. “I guess it’s a little like how we felt when Jamie moved out and stood on her own two feet without us there to catch her if she fell.”
“Similar,” Tom agreed, “but about ten thousand times more intense. After all, the Order is a global force for good. Jamie is just our daughter.”
“Our awesome, talented, fierce, kick-ass daughter,” Emily corrected him.
“You forgot engaged daughter.”
“I didn’t forget. It’s just taking some getting used to.”
Tom chuckled. “I know exactly how you feel.”
The Counter-Terrorism Command Center in Washington, D.C. was filled to capacity that night. Representatives from the FBI, the CIA, Homeland Security, as well as all branches of the United States military were present in the council chamber to review the intel regarding Russia’s sleeper agents. The intelligence community liaisons with the Order were careful to make it look like the intel came through normal channels so the Order wouldn’t be exposed.
“And these are Russian sleeper agents, right?” the U.S. Counter-Terrorism Committee Chairman asked after the intel was presented.
“Yes, sir,” responded the presenter, who was also one of the Order’s intelligence community liaisons.
“But we don’t think the Russians are behind this?”
“Too soon to tell. The Russians appear to be in a panic over this, and they’re doing everything they can to keep anyone from discovering the breach. Our assets in Russia don’t believe that anyone inside the Russian government is responsible, although they do concede that someone else inside Russia may be responsible. They just don’t know.”
The Chairman nodded and flipped through the report again. “So it could be the Russians pretending that it’s not really them to keep us from blaming them; or it could be someone trying to trick us into taking action against Russia; or it could be someone who just wants access to the agents that are already in our country to keep from having to infiltrate our borders with their own agents; or it could be a combination of these scenarios. Is that about right?”
“It appears so.”
“We need to deploy all domestic counter-terrorism units immediately,” the Director of the FBI interjected. “We can’t wait until after the sleepers are activated to start looking for them.”
“I agree,” the CIA Director echoed. “All units need to be put on high alert now so they’ll be ready at a moment’s notice once we have something actionable.”
“Many of the units are filled with inexperienced operatives,” the general in command of the army’s counter-terrorism units stated. “We haven’t had to deploy them in a long time, and their training is out of date. All of our counter-terrorism units need refresher courses in advanced surveillance and target acquisition.”
“And we need that training as quickly as possible,” the Director of Homeland Security added.
The Chairman stood. “I’ll start working on getting the training we need. You start working every intelligence angle you can to identify who these sleepers are, what their mission is, and who is trying to activate them. If we can’t identify that, no amount of training in the world will help us stop whatever