“Mr. President, ladies and gentlemen. As you can probably guess, what you see here is the aftermath of the attack on Secretary Fitzgerald’s motorcade. These digital photographs were taken less than twenty minutes ago. For those of you who’ve never been to Pakistan, Airport Road is several miles north of Chaklala Air Base, approximately halfway between Islamabad and Rawalpindi. It’s a fairly common route between the presidential palace and the air base. The agent who took these shots was part of the twelve-man reserve team that responded to the distress call. As most of you know, the signal is automatically broadcast once a tagged vehicle in the motorcade is incapacitated. In this case, the secretary of state’s detail leader, Mike Petrina, had time to relay an additional request for assistance. Unfortunately, the reserve team was unable to respond in time. Special Agent Petrina was killed before he could get the secretary of state clear of the area, along with six other members of the protective detail.”
Andrews paused and cleared his throat. “I’m afraid that’s not the worst of it. It’s my unhappy duty to report that Ambassador Patterson did not survive the attack. He was killed by a single gunshot wound to the head, which, according to eyewitnesses, was inflicted at point-blank range. These same witnesses saw armed men leaving the scene with a woman matching Secretary Fitzgerald’s description. That was about two minutes before the first police units responded. She has not been accounted for, and at this point, I think we can safely assume that she has been kidnapped.”
The room was completely silent. Everyone knew what had taken place, but until this moment, it hadn’t really sunk in. Not for most of them, and nothing made it hit home like hearing the words aloud. Harper was slightly surprised that Gavin Dowd hadn’t been asked to provide the initial assessment—it was his bureau, after all, that was responsible for losing Fitzgerald—but that was probably the exact reason Brenneman had settled on Andrews: he wanted a concise, unbiased account. It was Bale, the director of National Intelligence, who finally broke the silence.
“Do we have any idea how the secretary’s route was compromised?”
“Not at this time,” Andrews said simply.
“I take it, we’re still waiting on a claim of responsibility,” Chavis said.
“That’s correct,” the DCI replied. “We can probably expect a claim to be made within the hour. That will give us a better picture of who we’re dealing with, as well as what kind of demands they’ll eventually make.”
“But won’t we get the demands when the claim is made? Isn’t that the way it usually works?”
“Not necessarily,” Harry Judd put in. He looked over at Stan Chavis, who had posed the question. “In the case of a kidnapping, it’s not unusual for days or even weeks to go by before a ransom demand is made.”
“I understand that,” the chief of staff said dryly. “But then again, this is not a typical abduction. Time is not on their side, Harry. Whoever is responsible for this must know that we will bring the full weight of the government to bear in tracking them down.”
“With all due respect, Stan, you couldn’t be more wrong.” Ignoring the cold look his words earned him, Andrews went on. “Let me clarify. We will do everything we can to get the secretary back, but they—whoever ‘they’ are—have the clear advantage here. They have all the time in the world. Pakistan is their turf, not ours. With enough money and the right support network, the people who carried this off can hide indefinitely. They don’t have to reveal themselves, and if they’re patient and careful, they won’t make the mistakes that get most people caught.”
“On that note, what’s happening right now?” Brenneman asked. He looked down the length of the table. “Gavin, what are you hearing from your people on the ground?”
“Sir, I spoke with the head of the reserve team less than fifteen minutes ago,” Dowd said. His voice was shaky, but he seemed to be in control. “They arrived shortly after the Pakistani police, and so far, they seem to be getting all the cooperation they need. They’ve secured the scene, but it’s still unclear exactly what’s going to happen with the evidence. By that, I mean it’s unclear where it will be taken, including the vehicles that were damaged and destroyed in the attack. Wherever it goes, though, our people will have access. I’ve been assured of that by the head of Inter-Services Intelligence, and I think we can take him at his word.”
Dowd paused to check his notes. “When the incident occurred, there were a number of checkpoints already set up in the area, owing to heightened security for Secretary Fitzgerald’s visit. Since her disappearance was verified, my people have been working with the Pakistanis to firm up the perimeter. Additionally, they’ve—”
“Firm up the perimeter?” Emily Susskind shot an angry look down the length of the table. “That’s crap, Gavin. There’s no way to secure that kind of urban area, especially not with an hour’s notice. It’s dense, highly populated, and there are roads all over the place. Hundreds of roads…too many to set up blocks on all of them.”
“Look, I’m just telling you what I know,” Dowd replied defensively. Normally, he would have taken offense to the challenge, particularly one made by the head of another agency. Given the circumstances, though, it was hard for him to sound anything other than defeated. “They’ve already expanded the perimeter twice, based on the amount of time that’s elapsed. In all honesty, it’s not enough, but it’s hard to get things accomplished when something like this takes place on foreign soil.” He pushed out a short, shaky breath, then ran a weary hand over his face. “Look, we’re dealing with a number of serious problems here, and that’s besides the obvious. The Pakistanis are not on good terms with us at the moment, and—”
“Stop right there,” Brenneman said from the head of the table. His expression was hard to read, but the anger was plain in his quietly menacing voice. “Gavin, are you suggesting that my position with regard to the dispute over Kashmir—the fact that I won’t interfere in the Israeli arms sale to India—is somehow related to Secretary Fitzgerald’s abduction? That it somehow precipitated this event?”
“Sir, not at all,” Dowd said hurriedly, his round face going very pale. “That is not what I meant. I’m merely pointing out that we have to take the current tensions between their government and ours into account. We can’t afford not to. The Pakistanis may not move as fast as we would like them to, and chances are, they won’t be as accommodating when it comes to giving our people access.”
“Actually, that’s a valid point, sir,” Susskind put in, her voice returning to a more reasonable level. She shifted her steely blue gaze toward the commander in chief. “I mean, look at what’s been happening over the past few weeks. They’ve completely stonewalled us with respect to our missing tourists. We’re talking about twelve law-abiding Americans, people with valid visas who just disappeared into thin air, and they still haven’t let us put a team on the ground.”
“To make matters worse, we’ve just lost the single most important diplomat in the U.S. government, so breaking the ice is only going to get harder,” Harper weighed in. “And our ambassador is dead, so he’s no good to us, either. Those losses are only going to make it harder to establish a working relationship. At this point, we have to act fast, but we also have to tread carefully if we’re going to get anything done. That’s what diplomacy is all about, and we can’t afford to forget that. We’ll do more harm than good if we storm in there and start making demands.”
With this contribution out of the way, the focus shifted toward the next speaker, but Harper felt the president’s lingering attention. He knew he’d been blunt, and he couldn’t help but wonder if he’d overstepped his bounds.
“Sir, if I could make a suggestion…?”
Harper looked at the man who’d addressed the president.