somewhere, there will be far more people planning how to stop us. They are excellent at what they do, so we have to be better than excellent. We have to be perfect.” He paused, making eye contact with each of them. “One mistake along the chain brings the whole thing crashing down. This is understood?”
All the men nodded in silent agreement.
Captain Jack went over the ceremony details again. The army of Secret Service and local police would have voluminous notebooks containing all the prep work for the president’s visit. Captain Jack and his team could afford no such luxury. One page lost could have catastrophic results. Thus, all details had to be memorized. To be absolutely clear, Captain Jack changed from Arabic to English and back again, depending on the subtlety of what he was trying to communicate.
“Before the president ever sets foot here, a Secret Service advance team will arrive in Brennan to begin their planning for the event along with the most elaborate and secure motorcade in the world. Typically, the motorcade consists of twenty-seven vehicles including local police escorts, a ‘Road Runner’ communications van, a press vehicle, VIP van, an ambulance, a SWAT vehicle carrying a counterassault team inside, and two ‘Beasts.’ One will carry the president and in the other, Secret Service agents. All roads leading from the airport to the dedication grounds in Brennan will be thoroughly checked and, on the day of the visit, sealed off.
“At the dedication grounds the president will enter from the right of the stage and exit in the same direction. When he’s speaking, he will be behind a bulletproof and bombproof glass podium known as the Blue Goose. Countersnipers will be positioned all along the perimeter tree line. When the president moves, he will be surrounded at all times by a wall of agents, hip and flank. Wherever the man is, is known as the kill zone, and the Secret Service takes that concept very, very seriously. The crowd will be very large, thus magnetometers will be set up at all pedestrian entrance points to the dedication grounds. We have the exact same magnetometers that will be used by the Secret Service and have tested them on the highest detection level.” He paused and added, “Shooters, you can pass through these points without fear.
“You must keep in mind that the Service will key on personal demeanors — namely, persons not fitting in, not participating in the ceremony, and those not relating to others in the crowd. Because you are Middle Eastern, they will give you extra scrutiny. They have an entire database on assassins that takes profiling down to the most insignificant detail. As you know, your photos are no longer on file with the Americans, and your appearances have been greatly altered, so risk of identification is very low. But that is no reason to be careless. Thus, your dress and behavior at the ceremony will be dictated to you, and you will adhere to every single detail, without exception. When you enter those grounds, you will look like doctors, lawyers, teachers, tradesmen, shopkeepers, respectable citizens in your adopted country.” Captain Jack paused and eyed each man.
“The video I’m about to show you will illustrate quite vividly how seriously the Secret Service takes its mission.”
He hit a button on the remote he was holding, and the screen jumped to life. Tom Hemingway had provided his colleague with a publicly available video on the Secret Service and their general protection techniques, rare footage of assassination attempts and, rarer still, a video of Secret Service agents training at their Beltsville, Maryland, facility. Beltsville was where agents learned to do J-turns with their cars, nail targets with their guns, and also practiced protection techniques over and over until fragile thought was taken out of the process and resolute muscle memory took its place.
The men watched mesmerized as footage was shown of attempts on the lives of Gerald Ford and Ronald Reagan. The assassination of John Kennedy was not included on the DVD. Presidents no longer rode around in open cars. And every mistake that had been made in Dallas that day by the Secret Service and overzealous politicians had been long since corrected.
“You see,” Captain Jack commented, “that the agent’s actions are the same in each instance. The president is completely shielded and almost bodily carried away from the scene with the utmost speed. In Reagan’s case he’s shoved into the presidential limo and is gone within seconds. On 9/11 when it seemed a plane was heading for the White House, the Secret Service evacuated the vice president from his office there; it is said his feet never touched the ground until he was safely away. Speed. Keep that in mind. It is built into their training and thus their psyches. Acting in practiced routines without wasting time thinking. Nothing can override that impulse. And the most important impulse they have is to save the president’s life. They will sacrifice anything for that, including their own lives. We can count on that with certainty. We cannot possibly match them in firepower, manpower, training or technology. But we
He went through this part of the video again, breaking it down like game film, frame by frame, as his men committed all of this to memory. Questions were numerous, which the American always took as a good sign.
Next up on the screen was a diagram of the ceremonial grounds. Captain Jack, using a laser pointer, went grid by grid, pointing out general strategic items, entry and exit points and the positions of the Beast and other pertinent vehicles in the motorcade. “Note that the presidential limo is always parked at a spot with a completely unobstructed exit point. That is critical to our plans.”
He then assigned numbers to each of his men who would be on the ceremonial grounds that day and pointed out corresponding numbers on the screen that indicated each man’s position there. Next he pointed out the ambulance. “Above all, this vehicle must be disabled. All you men who are responsible for this, you must ensure that it is done.”
The next frame showed a slender white-haired man wearing glasses. Captain Jack said, “The president travels with his personal physician, this man here, Dr. Edward Bellamy. He will be on the podium with the president. He must be taken out first. He must be, without fail.”
The next frame showed a simulation of the rope line.
Captain Jack put his finger on the screen, using it to trace the rope very slowly and carefully, as though he were a surgeon making a precise incision into flesh. “This is the Secret Service’s worst nightmare. If it were up to them, they would never allow it, but it’s the lifeblood of a politician to shake hands and kiss babies,” Captain Jack explained. “It’s here, on the rope line, where he is most vulnerable. Yet it’s also a double-edged sword, because it is precisely here where the bodyguards are at their absolute highest alert.”
The next image on the screen was that of the ex-National Guardsman who had been given a new hand by Captain Jack’s men. He was in full-dress uniform. It was a slightly older photo and thus showed him with two hooks where his hands should have been.
Captain Jack said, “We will have no electronic communications capability at the dedication grounds because the Service will crisscross the area with jammers and interceptors. Thus, everything will be done the old-fashioned way, through eyes and ears.” He pointed to the man on the screen. “This is the person who you will key off. He will be wearing this exact uniform. But there will be others there with uniforms on, so you must not make a mistake. Each of you will receive a copy of this DVD and a portable DVD player. You must study it for four hours each day so that you can memorize his every feature and every other detail I am showing you tonight. However, this man you must spot early and never lose sight of where he is. The organizers of the event have arranged that all disabled American soldiers will be up front on the rope line as a way to honor them. It is very good of the town fathers to do this. And it certainly aids our plan.”
He looked at the engineer and chemist in the group who’d supplied the ex-National Guardsman with his new hand. “It has been confirmed that the desired effect will take less than two minutes.” The men nodded and Captain Jack continued. “When that happens, the pattern becomes immediately this.” He snapped his fingers as he talked. “Shooter sequence 1. Then fedayeen A and B. Then shooter sequence 2, followed by fedayeen C and D. Then shooter sequence 3. Then the final
He stopped and scrutinized each of them again, something he planned to do constantly tonight. One by one they nodded at him. He repeated the attack sequence again and again and then had each man repeat it to him exactly, also confirming what sequence they were in.
“Because of the limited range of your weapons, you’ll see on the position grid that each shooter is located no more than two rows back from the rope line, and in most cases only one row back. You will arrive at the event in assigned shifts and early enough to make your way to those spots.”
