True Faith and Allegiance

“Long term, Dan, you’ll get them, but in the short term they are killing people and creating a lot of propaganda that makes them look powerful and us look weak.”

Murray said, “I don’t disagree with anything you are saying. Look, we could be even more aggressive with some of our tactics, but let’s lay our cards on the table. The objective here is to stop these attacks as soon as possible but, as AG, a close secondary objective for me is to prosecute the criminals.”

Ryan said, “That secondary objective is far less important to me. Putting Musa al-Matari on trial is something I don’t anticipate, and it’s frankly something I’d happily do without.”

Murray said, “I understand that. The tools in my toolbox all revolve around the legal system, and I remain beholden to them. Maybe someone with a different set of rules…” His voice trailed off.

Mary Pat Foley interjected. “Dan, if I am not mistaken, there is an employee at Gerry Hendley’s shop who retains his FBI credentials.”

Murray nodded instantly. Clearly this is what he had been getting at. “In a general sense I know the work Hendley and his team have done, both at home and abroad. Since Dominic Caruso remains on loan from us to their outfit, even if just on paper, I would be happy sharing information between myself and their very effective operation. It can only help in our… investigation.”

Jack said, “Let me think that one over, Dan.” Dom Caruso was President Ryan’s nephew, and his first thought was to keep The Campus out of domestic operations, even though he was well aware they had operated within America’s borders in the past.

AG Murray said, “Fair enough, Mr. President. Just wanted to throw it out there.”

* * *

The meeting broke up, but Mary Pat stayed behind. “Any specific concerns you might harbor about bringing The Campus in to help locate Musa al-Matari?”

Ryan looked at her. “Is that a joke? I will always harbor concerns about The Campus’s activities. General and specific.”

Mary Pat said, “They do good work. Good, honest, confidential work.”

“No argument from me on that.”

“And Dominic can handle himself.” She paused. “They all can.”

She was talking about Jack, the President understood. He didn’t like being the one involved in sending his son into harm’s way, but, he recognized, that ship had sailed long ago. Since the day Jack joined the organization, against his father’s wishes or knowledge, he had been in peril.

Mary Pat said, “There is no way John Clark would let Jack Junior be involved in the States in something this high-profile.”

“Yeah, well, if he doesn’t send my kid, he’ll send my nephew, or somebody else’s kid. I have no right to balk at the plan because my son is in the mix.”

“If you didn’t care that your son might go into harm’s way, then you wouldn’t be much of a father, Jack.”

Ryan smiled at the floor, but then his face hardened. “I’ll give Dan the go-ahead to brief Dominic.”

“I’ll call Gerry and give him the heads-up that this is coming. They’ll need time to prepare.”

Ryan nodded. “Al-Matari is averaging three hits a day now, and it won’t be any time at all till the copycats start coming out of the woodwork. Whatever it takes, Mary Pat.”

47

By eight Jack was already sitting in the conference room holding his third cup of coffee of the morning and leaning over a computer, his workspace all but covered with handwritten notes, printed sheets, and books, and his one laptop had turned into three.

Jack had been spending night and day studying the attacks in America, one by one, trying to find out how his unknown adversary put all the pieces of the puzzles together from the Office of Personnel Management records and open-source intelligence.

For Jack it had become nothing less than an obsession. At the office all day with Gavin sitting across from him, then home, a beer on his coffee table as he sat on the floor with his laptop in front of him. He dug through books on OSINT methods, marveling at what was out there, lamenting the fact most average people couldn’t imagine how much of their lives was available to anyone who wanted to investigate.

For many of the recent attacks he’d had to look no further than the business networking website LinkedIn to determine how the identity intelligence expert working on behalf of the Islamic State had been able to connect the OPM data to current intelligence community employees. Their names and often their pictures were listed, along with their education and work history, identifying themselves as workers in the intelligence field at CENTCOM or Fort Bragg or for public and private organizations in the D.C. area. So far three of the victims and one more intended victim had a profile that made it obvious they were involved with human intelligence and targeting operations in the Middle East, and Jack had no doubt in his mind several of America’s best and brightest minds in this field were now dead because of their decision to network on LinkedIn.