True Faith and Allegiance

Burgess said, “Yeah, states that make millions off of military bases and personnel. Mr. President, it’s not a perfect solution, but it’s the best single option we have. We are also spinning up self-defense and training classes, contracting firearms trainers across the country to give as many classes to servicepeople as they can physically do. The men and women in the military are trained with handguns, but the training isn’t what it should be. This will help, and we won’t encourage anyone to carry who doesn’t want the responsibility.”

“Military weapons?”

“Yes, sir. We aren’t going to force some lance corporal who makes seventeen grand a year to go out and buy a six-hundred-dollar pistol, plus a holster and ammo, to protect himself from terrorists. We can issue Beretta M9s, duty holsters, and ball ammo. Standard weapons they are trained on. There are a few other weapons used by other branches, too, so we’ll issue those, where warranted. Everybody will go with what they know, so they are more proficient.”

Arnie said, “Jack, sorry, but the optics are horrible on this. The opposition in Congress and in the media are going to spin this as you admitting America is a war zone.”

“I’ll take the hit and explain the situation as best I can.”

Arnie then said, “The legal age for handgun carry varies from state to state, but it’s twenty-one or higher in a lot of places.”

Ryan said, “If we can send an eighteen-year-old out with a gun to fight overseas, we can give him a gun to protect himself and his family at home.” He turned to Dan. “I expect you, as AG, to fend off any legal opposition.”

Murray didn’t like it, it was clear, but he said, “Of course. We need to put limits on this, though.”

Ryan said, “Nobody carries a weapon who is drinking. Zero tolerance, and that has to be stressed at every step along the way during implementation.”

Burgess said, “Absolutely.”

Jack said, “I don’t know if it will help, but it will let the terrorists know they aren’t out there shooting fish in a barrel.”

Dan Murray next gave an update on the investigation. There was some progress to report. The DoJ had been looking into flight manifests from the United States to Central America during the time frame of the Language School training in El Salvador. Through this they had so far identified eleven of Musa al-Matari’s potential terrorists. Four of those successfully ID’d were among the dead in Virginia and North Carolina, and all the rest were currently missing from their residences.

Additionally, possible identities of some of the other ISIS assets working in the United States had been discovered by the FBI via the tip lines. A used-car salesman stopped coming to work, a student never dropped out of class but had not attended in the past two months. These and a few other tips were being looked into and they appeared promising, but Murray explained that the FBI was taking these good tips along with thousands of bad ones, and agents and analysts were in the process of working like mad to find out who really was missing and a threat, and who was just playing hooky or happened to be unliked by someone who felt like getting the government to harass them.

Murray said, “Jack, our tip line is exploding. And yes, it’s exploding from jerks who think the Indian who makes their sandwiches at the deli is a Muslim terrorist, that’s definitely happening, but it’s also exploding from Muslim men and women in this country that want nothing to do with any of this bullshit. ISIS has killed a lot of people, and more of them have been Muslim than anyone else.

“We’re hunting two brothers and a sister in Chicago who just fell off the map a few months ago, nobody knows what happened to them. Multiple tips came from Chicago Muslims about these two. A similar thing in Atlanta. A mosque there said one of their more outspoken and radical regulars just stopped coming in and is not answering his phone. Timing is right for this being a Language School student.”

Ryan said, “That’s good to know we are hearing from others inside the Muslim community. It would be a damn ironic thing if all this brought this country a little bit back together.”

Murray said, “I’ve directed everyone in the DoJ to reach out to the community and to make sure they tread carefully, so we don’t do anything to screw up the goodwill we are getting.”

Ryan said, “We have identified men and women who are dead or who are not where they are supposed to be. We are putting their pictures out there, but so far we haven’t caught anyone. We have thousands of agents looking for the perpetrators, but Musa al-Matari could be in some tiny apartment somewhere running this whole thing from his phone, if he is in the U.S. at all. And even if Bob puts a pistol on the belt of every serviceman and — woman in America, the terrorists have bombs and suicide vests, that somehow manage to go off even after they are dead or incapacitated.