management after her mission in Paris went south.'
Kip deployed one of his darkest, most skeptical glares to let his chief of staff know he was not impressed with the rhetorical footwork. It only seemed to inspire Culver to come right back at him.
'Okay. Am I impressed with her? Yes, dammit. I am. I didn't have a lot of time to read the deep background on the woman. London only told us about her mission, which was effectively freelance, about two hours ago. But yes, what little I've been able to find out about her does impress me. For one thing, she came this close to nailing the rat bastard who's been giving us so much grief on Manhattan and who, I might point out, came very close to taking your life and mine, before going on to cause us thousands of casualties. Frankly, Kip, if I knew we had the option of turning someone like her on this fucking tinpot mad mullah and saving ourselves all of the blood and sadness we've had to suck up the last few days, I would not have hesitated to recommend doing so.'
Kip knew that Culver was getting deadly serious whenever he dropped the honorifics. He was tempted to launch into a little speech about how his administration could not sanction murder, but it felt hollow with so many lives already lost in New York. Unlike Jed, he could not find it within himself to admire somebody who made her living from killing in the shadows. He had to acknowledge that Monroe had done them a great service in confirming the theory that the recently arrived jihadi fighters were playing an entirely different game from that of the pirate gangs scavenging the eastern seaboard. But he just could not see himself allowing any government of which he was the leader to remain in the business of state-sponsored murder. And that was what Monroe was. Not a soldier. Not like Mike Ralls or Colonel Kinninmore or that poor, poor woman he had visited in the hospital. She was a publicly funded serial killer.
'For now, I am willing to let her out on a long leash,' said Kip. 'But don't get any ideas about coming back to me in the future with plans to bring Agent Monroe home so you can call on her services for any other outstanding issues. And you know what I'm talking about, who I'm talking about.'
Culver shook his head. 'Caitlin Monroe was very happily settled down on her farm in Wiltshire before Bilal Baumer tried to reach out and fuck with her. She could have come home, but she didn't. I think she understood she wouldn't be welcome.'
Kipper began moving toward the door, steering his chief of staff toward the exit with him. He couldn't fail to recognize the tone of disapproval in Culver's voice, just as he noted that Jed had not answered him directly, deftly sidestepping the issue of Agent Monroe's future. 'I am sorry, Mister President,' General Franks said on the screen back in the main room of the improvised combat center. 'We do have stockpiles of weapons, but they're dispersed all over the country, often in places we haven't even surveyed yet. Funding for those survey teams is tight at the best of times, which draws out our lead time to exploit and recover ordnance, weapons, parts, and the like from any given site.'
Kipper rubbed the palms of his hands deep into his eye sockets. Painkillers had no effect on his headache, which had started well before he spoke to Caitlin Monroe and now gripped his head like an iron glove. His stomach quivered as the room threatened to begin spinning around him.
'Everyone assured me that we had more than enough firepower,' he said. 'Not enough men but plenty of firepower.'
'On paper we do, Mister President,' Franks said.
'On paper doesn't count, General. On paper. In our dreams. Somewhere in never-never land. It's all bullshit,' Kip said, raising his voice as his anger got away from him.
'What's done is done,' Culver said off to his side. 'What's your read of the situation in New York, General Franks? What do we need to do now?'
'The blocking force is in place in Upper Manhattan,' Franks explained. 'Even if the assault force in Lower Manhattan is unable to reach all of their final objectives, we should still see appreciable results from the second phase.'
'What's the problem with your assault force, General?' Kipper asked. 'Is it that they don't have enough ammo or support or whatever?'
Franks shook his head. 'No, sir, or not entirely, no. We have significant elements of the First Cavalry and Schimmel's militia held up with resistance in the New York Public Library. Found a real nest of vipers in there, Mister President. Hundreds of them. So our advance there is behind schedule. First Infantry's two brigade combat teams are continuing to push up the West Side, with lead elements entering the Javits Convention Center an hour ago. The expected resistance along that axis has melted away. The Serbs and Russians are smarter than the average pirate, I guess. They saw us coming and just bugged out. Advance teams from Marine Regimental Combat Team One are securing the west end of Manhattan from the convention center to the Metropolitan Opera House. Lastly, we did manage to effect a resupply of the firebases on Governors Island,' said Franks. 'If the Marines continue to move east toward Broadway, I think we can relieve pressure on 1/7 Cavalry and make up for lost time.'
It sort of made sense to Kipper if he thought about it in the same way as cleaning his basement. The units were like his push broom, shoving dirty water, or in this case the enemy's fighters, toward the drain. They would sweep the pirates and their jihadi allies toward the heaviest concentration of his forces, the Seventh Cavalry Regiment.
'Okay. Keep pushing, Tommy,' Kipper said. 'Keep pushing. And my apologies for losing my temper. I shouldn't have.'
'That's perfectly understandable, sir,' Franks said, before signing off.
Kipper wondered whether he could take another couple of Advils for his head. He was already feeling nauseous from them. At least another dozen officers from all the branches of the military were standing behind him, all waiting for a moment of his attention. He decided to skip the painkillers, instead seeking out his aide, Colonel Ralls, who was standing behind Jed.
'Mike, can you get me somebody from the air force to talk me through their plans for this bombing run? How much longer do we have before they're ready to go?'
Ralls consulted with a USAF general who was standing nearby clutching a manila folder full of documents.
'Mister President,' the air force man answered. 'General Wisnewski, sir. The units you're asking about will be over the city in twelve hours on present projections.'
Kipper nodded, quietly admonishing himself. They'd already told him that not half an hour ago. He was having serious trouble holding it all in his head.
Something else was bugging him. Something he had forgotten…
'Jed,' he asked when the memory came to him. 'Agent Monroe. She does understand that she's working to this timetable, doesn't she?'
'Yes, Mister President. She knows she is on the clock. If she is still in the AOR when times runs out, there's very little we can do for her.'
Jed paused, favoring him with a worried look.
'It's why she was reluctant to commit to rendition, sir. She simply does not have time.'
'No,' Kip sighed. 'I guess she doesn't.'
45
New York The loadmaster leaned over and checked Caitlin's rig, pronouncing himself happy with a brusque nod. The roar of the MC-130H in flight, the military free-fall helmet she wore, and the oxygen masks they both needed at thirty thousand feet in an unpressurized cabin rendered any kind of verbal communication impossible. She ran through a final check of her loadout and tried to center her thoughts. She had not expected the call from James Kipper, and it had thrown her completely, especially the last-minute attempt to redefine her mission. What the fuck did he think he was doing? There was no way she had the resources to grab al Banna and throw him over her shoulder. Especially not with the countdown she was now working to. The more she thought about it, the more pissed off she became. She made a conscious effort to let go of her frustration and annoyance, to focus instead on what lay immediately ahead of her: a high-altitude high-opening parachute drop into the middle of a city being fought over by multiple factions, warlords, nut jobs, and the remnants of what had been the most powerful military force in the world.
She had settled on a relatively light weapons and ammo package. A sawed-off Mossberg 500 shotgun. An M4
