True Faith and Allegiance

On top of all this, the first copycat attack had taken place just outside Detroit the evening before, where a sergeant in the Michigan Air National Guard was shot dead while sitting in a fast-food restaurant. The local police cornered the assailant minutes later in the public library, and the young man of Somali origin fell to his death as he tried to escape out a third-floor window.

Al-Matari was especially proud that some brave mujahideen had joined in the fight, and he decided he would make sure the Detroit killing was reported in the next ISIS social media blast as having been conducted by someone outside the official cell of warriors under direct Islamic State control. He thought by promoting this unknown man’s martyrdom, it would bring out more of the self-radicalized and serve as an important force multiplier in the fight.

The Yemeni had to admit his operation was not without its problems. American law enforcement was already responding to the new threats, getting to the scenes faster and with more force. And American citizens were fighting back with their own personal weapons, something he hadn’t seen when he’d orchestrated bombings and shootings in Turkey or India or Malaysia, or when others from his organization executed attacks in Belgium and France and Germany.

But all in all, the men and women of the Language School had caused significant damage and an impressive amount of noise and fear in America. He had only to keep up the carnage to draw in new members, and soon this match he had lit in the past week would turn into a raging fire.

46

Dan Murray had been on the go almost constantly for the past few days. The attorney general moved among meetings at the White House, the Pentagon, and the J. Edgar Hoover Building. His own office was in the Robert F. Kennedy Building, just across the street from FBI, and yes, he did have meetings there throughout the day as well.

Now he walked through the West Wing for his third meeting there in as many days. But for today’s get-together he was heading back to the Oval, not to the Situation Room, because the meeting this morning was going to be a smaller affair.

SecDef Burgess had just arrived and was sitting down on the sofa where Mary Pat Foley was already seated. The President of the United States leaned forward from his chair facing the two sofas, and he poured coffee for everyone from the service on the table.

He looked up at Murray. “Dan is light cream, no sugar. Same as for the last twenty-five years.”

“Thanks, Jack.” Dan took a seat across from Mary Pat and Bob.

There were three people who worked for President Jack Ryan who felt comfortable enough to call him by his first name in private, and Dan and Mary Pat were two of them. Bob Burgess, on the other hand, was a former Army three-star general, he wasn’t a friend from way back, and he wouldn’t dream of calling the Commander in Chief by his given name, even if Ryan begged him to.

The third person in the “Jack” club was Arnie Van Damm, and he entered with a notepad, shut the door behind him, and took a seat on the couch next to Murray.

Ryan said, “Couple of things to get to this morning. The PDB covered the attacks overnight and this morning around the country. As everyone anticipated, it’s getting worse by the day. Anything new since the daily brief?”

Murray said, “The thing in Vegas is the most recent. We’re blanketing the scene for evidence, but both the perps are dead, so we won’t get anything out of them. Looking at the security cameras of the L.A. attack in Starbucks where the movie star was killed, this appears to be the same couple.”

Ryan replied, “At least al-Matari is going through his killers rapidly.”

“We can’t say yet if his force is shrinking in strength, or growing, at least by proxy, because each day this continues, the risk of copycats increases.”

Jack took that in, then turned to Burgess. “You’ve been working on ways to protect servicepeople here in the U.S. What have you come up with?”

“We are adopting measures to get more security for off-base meetings and conferences.”

“You aren’t canceling some of these meetings?”

Burgess shook his head adamantly. “No way. We will defend against these terrorists, but we won’t cave in to them. We start canceling the daily operations of the U.S. military, and ISIS will play that as a victory. We go on as normal, but with increased security.”

“Okay. What else?”

Burgess took a long breath before saying, “I’d like every serviceman and — woman in the U.S. to have the right to carry a sidearm off base.”

Jack was silent for fifteen seconds. Then he said, “Why the hell not?”

Murray jumped in. “I get it of course, but you are going to get a ton of pushback from New York, New Jersey, California, Illinois, and a few other states.”